813: Clinton Condign

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 17:08

The transcript shows IMF officials fretting that despite public claims eurozoneleaders wanted to move quickly to agree debt relief '-- which has long been an IMF demand, since Mr Thomsen believes Greece cannot survive economically with a large-scale restructuring '-- a decision will probably be delayed until July, when Greece is faced with its next big debt payment.

"What is going to bring it all to a decision point? In the past there has been only one time when the decision has been made and then that was when they were about to run out of money seriously and to default," Mr Thomsen is quoted as saying. "And possibly this is what is going to happen again. In that case, it drags on until July."

But Mr Thomsen notes that in addition to causing instability in Greece, a drawn-out deliberation on debt relief is politically dangerous for the EU because it will coincide with strife prompted by the refugee crisis and play out at the same time as Britain's June 23 referendum on EU membership.

"Clearly the Europeans are not going to have any discussion a month before the Brexit [vote] and so, at some stage, they will want to take a break and then want to start again after the European referendum," Mr Thomsen says.

Olga Gerovasili, a Greek government spokesman, said the statement showed MrThomsen was pushing for a Greek default before the British referendum in June.

\"The Greek government asks the IMF for explanations whether pursuing the creation of bankruptcy conditions in Greece, just before the British referendum, is the Fund's official position," Ms Gerovasili said.

A spokesman for Ms Merkel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Although much of the transcript reiterates well-known IMF positions on Greece, it lays out in clear detail the profound differences between Mr Thomsen and the European Commission, and highlights the IMF's belief that Brussels no longer has any credibility in judging Greece's fiscal and economic performance. The IMF and the commission are the bailout's two leading monitors and have clashed for months over how to proceed with the programme.

Delia Velculescu, who oversees the Greek programme for the IMF, is quoted showing frustration with the European Commission's backsliding on reforms required by Athens and says eurozone finance ministers should be forced to decide whether to accept the IMF's pessimistic view of the bailout's likelihood of success or a more optimistic view from Brussels.

"They need to take a stand on whether they believe our projections or the commission's projections," Ms Velculescu says.

Despite Greek anger over the disclosure, the transcript also shows the IMF arguing on Greece's behalf, saying it wants to ease off tough budget surplus targets and grant Athens significant debt relief '-- both policies Mr Tsipras has long asked for.

"I hope for the sake of the Greeks we are going to find a solution soon," MrThomsen says.

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 18:30

Marcel Lazar Lehel, 40, is escorted by masked policemen in Bucharest, after being arrested in Arad, 550 km (337 miles) west of Bucharest January 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mediafax/Silviu MateiMore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Romanian hacker known as "Guccifer" who posted unofficial emails sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Internet was extradited from Romania and made his first court appearance in the United States on Friday.

Marcel Lehel, 44, is charged in a nine-count indictment that includes three counts of gaining unauthorized access to protected computers, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.

According to the indictment, Lehel "hacked into the email and social media accounts of high-profile victims, including a family member of two former U.S. presidents, a former U.S. Cabinet member, a former member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former presidential advisor," the statement said.

It did not name the victims, but in 2013 news websites published hacked emails sent to Clinton by her former adviser Sidney Blumenthal, offering the first public clues about Clinton's unconventional email arrangements and attributing the hack to Guccifer.

Clinton, the front-runner in the race for the Democratic 2016 presidential nomination, has apologized for using a private email server for official business while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. The FBI is conducting an inquiry into the arrangement.

Guccifer shot to fame in 2013 after he claimed responsibility for hacking into George W. Bush's family emails and posted artwork by the former U.S. president, including self-portraits in the bathtub.

He also distributed emails exchanged by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Corina Cretu, a Romanian member of the European Parliament, prompting Powell to deny the two had had an affair.

Lehel, a cab driver by trade, was arrested in Bucharest in January 2014. He was serving a combined seven-year sentence in Romania, including a four-year term handed down in 2014 for illegally accessing email accounts of public figures.

Last month, a source with Romania's DIICOT anti-organized crime and terrorism unit told Reuters that the country's top court had "approved an 18-month temporary extradition to America for the hacker."

According to the U.S. indictment, Lehel "publicly released his victims' private email correspondence, medical and financial information and personal photographs," the Justice Department statement said.

Lehel appeared in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The other charges in the indictment are three counts of wire fraud, and one count each of aggravated identity theft, cyberstalking and obstruction of justice, it said. The statement did not say what punishment the charges carried.

(Reporting by Washington Newsroom; Editing by Alistair Bell)

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 20:18

For years, environmental activists have been pushing for divestment from fossil fuels, asking large pension funds and educational institutions to drop oil and gas companies from their big investment portfolios. The implication is obvious: Money related to fossil fuel companies, like the products of those companies that are causing climate change, is dirty.

That implication has another resonance in politics. Bernie Sanders has made campaign contributions a focus of his campaign, repeatedly calling campaign finance corrupt and suggesting that elected officials are beholden to their funders. On Thursday afternoon, Sanders's push to cut campaign funding collided with environmental opposition to money from Big Oil at a Hillary Clinton event in New York.

An activist from Greenpeace approached Clinton to ask if the candidate would "reject fossil-fuel money in the future" in her campaign. Clinton, incensed, replied that her contributions came from employees of oil companies -- not the companies themselves -- and that she was "so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me."

Responding to a question from an activist from Greenpeace USA, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton appeared to get mad, jabbing a finger at the questioner and saying she was "sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me." (350 Action)

Clinton's campaign followed up with a statement noting that the "campaign has not taken a dollar from oil and gas industry PACs or corporations."

The Center for Responsive Politics compiles data on the money given to candidates by industry, and Clinton and the PACs supporting her have raised more from that industry than has Sanders. Both totals, though, are far less than has been given to Republicans -- especially Republicans from the oil-rich states of Texas and Louisiana.

But note: Both Democrats have received money from "the oil and gas industry." The total for Clinton's campaign is about $308,000; for Sanders's, it's about $54,000. As Clinton noted in the moment, the Center for Responsive Politics mostly aggregates contributions by employer. If a guy who runs the commissary at Chevron in California gives $27 to Bernie Sanders, that's counted as "oil and gas industry" money.

As a percentage of all the money campaigns have raised, both Clinton and Sanders have only raised a fraction of their totals from that industry.

'‹If you're looking for influence from the industry, you're probably looking for something more like Bobby Jindal's totals than the Democrats'.'‹ About 0.15 percent of Clinton's campaign and outside PAC money is from the "oil and gas industry." Only about 0.04 percent of Sanders's is.

So let's unpack the question from that Greenpeace activist. The suggestion appears to be that this 0.15 percent of all Clinton fundraising -- a percentage that, again, consists of contributions from employees of oil and gas companies regardless of job title -- somehow influences Clinton's behavior. The activist didn't connect the dots, but the implication is that this 0.15 percent makes Clinton more susceptible to the lures of the oil industry than does Sanders's 0.04 percent.

Where the attack against Clinton lands more firmly, though, is not in considering these contributions from people who run BP franchises but in considering the lobbyists that back Clinton.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, no candidate has received more money from lobbyists -- or, again, those who work for lobbyists -- than Clinton, to the tune of some $860,000. Those lobbyists also help fundraise for Clinton, bundling contributions from sources to her benefit. (This isn't unique to Clinton, of course. Bundling contributions is common in most campaigns.) Some of those bundlers are lobbyists who represent oil and gas companies.

In response to a question from an activist at a rally in Harlem, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton said she is "so sick of of the Sanders campaign lying." Here's some background on that incident. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

To 350 Action, a prominent environmental activist group, this bundled money was a "gray area" in terms of the pledge to not take money from the fossil fuel industry, according to a report from FactCheck late last year. Regardless, 350's Jamie Henn said that, at the time, Clinton was "probably in accordance" with the pledge.

Those lobbyists, though, are a much stronger representative of the way money influences politics than are campaign contributions. It is literally a lobbyist's job to build relationships with elected officials that can then be leveraged by clients to influence policy. It's relationships, not money, that drive politics in Washington. Yes, money helps build relationships, which is why the lobbyists are bundling. But they aren't just doing so for Chevron, Exxon, et al. The link is murkier than that. The system is often ugly and frequently questionable, but it's usually not as ugly and obvious as quid pro quo.

Greenpeace's understanding of money, oil and the presidential race was simplistic -- as if nuance played any real role in presidential politics. Clinton was justified in being annoyed. A narrower focus on Clinton's fundraising from lobbyists would be much harder to brush off.

Philip Bump writes about politics for The Fix. He is based in New York City.

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 21:25

Looking deep into your conversation partner's eyes isn't just for lovers '-- it has a place in the conference room, too.

That's according to new research, which found that people are more likely to trust others with dilated pupils.

In the study, led by Mariska Kret, Ph.D. of Leiden University, 69 students at the University of Amsterdam played an investment game in which they watched short video clips of their "partner." It was actually a manipulated image of a pair of eyes, which showed pupils that dilated, constricted, or stayed the same over four seconds.

Next, the participants had to decide whether to give five Euros or zero Euros to their partner. Researchers told participants that their investment would be tripled, and their partner would choose how much of that sum to give back to the participant. (The researchers were really the ones determining the partners' choices, since the partner was just a computerized image of eyes.)

Results showed that participants gave more money to partners whose pupils dilated, especially when the eyes looked happy. The researchers interpreted these findings to mean that participants were more likely to trust people with dilated pupils.

In a release, Kret said it's impossible to voluntarily dilate or constrict your pupils. Yet other recent research suggests that simply thinking about a dark room can make your pupils dilate to take in more light.

That could be a useful trick when you sense that someone doesn't trust you '-- imagine yourself in darkness and hope that your partner notices the change in your eyes.

Interestingly, the study also found that most participants mirrored their partners' pupils, either dilating or constricting their own. When they mimicked dilation, they were more likely to invest money, unless the partner looked Asian as opposed to Western European.

Your browser does not support the video tag. Association for Psychological Science

That means that you might be able to tell if someone trusts you by looking closely at their eyes.

"Possibly, when humans unconsciously mimic the dilations of another's pupil, they come to feel reflections of that person's inner state, which signals mutual interest and liking," the researchers write. "This process could facilitate calibrated and fast decisions in interactions with strangers.''

This research does not imply that you should focus all your attention on your eyes instead of on what you're actually saying. But this study is just one more piece of evidence that much of interpersonal communication doesn't involve language at all.

Whether you're trying to convince someone to invest in your company or choose you as a job candidate, it helps to be aware that your words aren't the only factor involved in their decision.

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Sun, 03 Apr 2016 05:36

Use the adjective condign to describe a fair and fitting punishment, like the condign clean-up work assigned to a group of students after they made a big mess.

There are two ways to correctly pronounce condign: "CON-dine" or "con-DINE." The word comes from Latin: con- means "together, altogether" and dignus means "worthy." So, something that is condign is deserved or appropriate. It especially applies a punishment that is severe but just, meaning the punishment is appropriate for the crime.

Definitions of condign

1

adj fitting or appropriate and deserved; used especially of punishment''condign censure''

Synonyms:deserved, meritedproperly deserved

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Source: American Renaissance

Sun, 03 Apr 2016 12:04

Donald Trump deserves to be president. More than any of the current candidates'--although not to their exclusion''he is the best choice to lead this nation.

This is not an easy position to hold in DC. Having already lost friends of multiple years and having been subjected to practically every hysterical insult you expect people to stop using at the age of 15, I think it's safe to say that the social pressure so many #NeverTrump people want to bring to bear on Trump supporters has materialized.

{snip}

However, I owe those railing against me an answer to this question: ''Why?''

{snip}

No one has marshaled philosophical, practical, and principled arguments in defense of the idea that thinking people who care about such things should, without any compromise of their own critical faculties, decide that Trump is the man to lead America.

Make no mistake, it is not an easy case to make, not because there are no arguments for it, but because you can't meaningfully separate Trump from the numerous other cultural and historical phenomena that gave rise to his candidacy, many of which are far from obvious without being exposited. However, at its most basic, that case will advance three arguments:

That Trump, alone among the candidates, is forcing conservatives to defend the people left behind by liberalism, however unfashionable they may be, and however culturally alien they may have once been to our movement.That Trump's candidacy is about more than one man becoming president: it is symbolic of a national cultural Zeitgeist, and speaks to the modern political moment, in ways that no other candidate has been willing or able to do.That Trump's candidacy is the only tonic that can cure the conservative movement of its many ills, by forcing it to reckon both with the many ways in which the country has left it behind, and with the damning ways in which it has betrayed itself: in short, that Trump is chemotherapy for the soul of the Right.{snip}

{snip} I'm going to start this piece by answering a very uncomfortable question: Why do white nationalists support Trump, if he isn't one himself?

I'm no white nationalist (in fact, being Jewish, I'm pretty sure I'm disqualified), and I regard the ideology with just as much disgust as I do every other form of radical identity politics. That being said, I do have a fairly unique ability to answer this question, and with apologies to Lloyd Bentsen, it can be summed up this way: I know white nationalism. A white nationalist was a friend of mine. Trump is no white nationalist.

If he's president, there might well be fewer of them. Why? Well, if you'll indulge me in just a little more autobiographical navel-gazing, you'll find out.

The Girl in the Brown Skirt

''Oh God! To hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.'' '--''A Christmas Carol,'' Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits

I once met a young woman whom I will call Sylvia, after her favorite poet, Sylvia Plath. At the time, Sylvia had been raised as a member of an infamous white nationalist organization. And I do mean ''infamous.'' These weren't the comparatively well-mannered sorts that attend conferences led by Richard Spencer. These were the sorts of people who probably get raided by the FBI.

Where I met her was probably the last place you might expect to find white nationalists, closeted or otherwise. Now since I am, as already established, Jewish, this obviously made me initially regard the girl with something less than charity. I was almost afraid to speak to her.

That is, until I actually did speak to her, in the company of another friend, who had made it his personal mission to deconvert her from her ideology, a task with which I agreed to help, mostly out of morbid intellectual curiosity. When we first spoke to her, Sylvia was fairly careful with her words, and obviously seemed to realize she wasn't among company who'd take kindly to open admiration of Adolf Hitler. She was, however, more than happy to enthuse about Pat Buchanan, VDare, and restricting immigration.

Now, at the time, I was fresh off having argued for the Gang of Eight bill until I was proverbially blue in the face, so when Sylvia started talking about immigration, I obviously pounced on this as a first opportunity to break down her worldview. I'm fairly certain that all I managed to do was scare her, though she did actually put up a far better fight than any white nationalist has a right to, probably because, despite her sheltered upbringing, she was off-the-charts brilliant. This instantly registered with me, and was later confirmed when she later revealed she'd learned a new language in only two weeks.

Over the coming weeks, I continued to send out feelers and message and speak with her online, keeping my ethnic heritage a secret at first so I could probe her ideology without sending up alarm bells. After a while, she got used to me, and we bonded over our mutual love of H.P. Lovecraft and dark internet humor. As a result, she began to open up about her more risqu(C) beliefs. So, this time with more gentle prodding, I started to make her doubt what she'd been taught.

Of course, at some point I had to reveal that I am a Jew. Needless to say, this shocked her, not least of all because apparently her people train their children to recognize Jewish heritage in someone's features, yet I had registered as pure Aryan. The realization that ''they can look like us,'' to use her words, set off something of a minor existential crisis for her, but I'm pleased to report that she got over it, and that my ethnic revelation actually made her open up more to me rather than less.

When Two Worlds Collide

That's because what shocked her even more than my Jewishness was that I'd known she was a white nationalist and still willingly engaged with her like a human being and an equal. From someone who belonged to a group that she'd assumed held nothing but contempt and malice for people like her, this was the last thing she expected. The feeling was mutual on my end.

{snip} To make a very long story short, she came away understanding that my people weren't intentionally hurting her people, and I came away with an appreciation for how much, and how unfairly, her people really were hurting.

{snip}

This brings me to the first and, arguably, the most important lesson that Sylvia taught me about what drives people into the arms of white nationalism: that urge comes not from economic dispossession, nor spiritual dispossession, but cultural dispossession.

No, I don't mean the sort of ''where has my country gone'' ignorance that I and my fellow coastal cosmopolitans like to mock over cocktails. I mean the sorts of people who are attracted to white nationalism are people whose own communities have been hollowed out by economic and cultural forces beyond their control, and who are now adrift in a society they perceive to be universally hostile to their heritage for no good reason.

That heritage, as white nationalists in America see it, is the heritage of Western civilization. If you wonder what that means (which is reasonable), let me spell it out: It means historically Western European cultural norms. Specifically, norms like respect for agents of the law, aspirational pride in work, willingness to accept the consequences of one's actions, disdain for laziness and welfarism, and reproductive responsibility (i.e., not having children you can't afford to keep).

{snip}

Where this otherwise perfectly respectable, conservative pride in Western culture atrophies into white nationalism when the person holding it comes to believe that respect for liberal Western civilization is inextricably tied to one's race. One particularly irreverent white nationalist YouTube songster sums this attitude up in a video mocking libertarians: ''It's not that freedom is bad/But only whites think it's rad.''

Moreover, and this cannot be stated enough: these people genuinely believe that to be proud of the history of Western European accomplishment, and one's own descent from the people responsible, is taboo in modern America. If you look at what cultural studies departments, much of modern media, left-wing college students, and the crazy wing of the Democratic Party says, this is probably at least partially accurate. Unfortunately, however, it's not just leftists who are responsible for the rise of white nationalism in communities like Sylvia's. We conservatives bear some blame too, though in this case, largely because of misunderstandings of how our own behavior is perceived.

The Right Has Also Failed

The biggest problem we have is that many conservatives are, understandably, reluctant to engage with the sort of leftist, victim-culture-spouting loons who regard Western civilization as unrepentantly evil. This is not because we have no good arguments against them; we do. But to argue with them, we think, makes them look more serious and relevant than they are. If you live in the rarefied world of Washington policy debates, this approach probably makes sense and even seems obvious.

But if you're a blue-collar worker in Appalachia being screamed at by leftist protesters that you have ''white privilege'' and all you hear from the official Right is stony silence, you come to a wildly different conclusion: you assume conservatives are either ashamed to express our disagreement, or don't disagree.

Add to this the fact that so much of the official Right's response to left-wing attacks about diversity involves not denying their premise, but instead pointing to how many token members of each ethnic group are Republicans, or the fact that we'll throw accusations like ''racist'' around over issues like immigration, and it gets harder and harder for otherwise conservative people to deny the idea that ''conservatism'' doesn't want to conserve them, or the Western values and norms that made conservatism and constitutionalism possible, at all. The only people who do seem to want to man those barricades, from their perspective, are white nationalists.

This is not ground we should be ceding to extremists. Yet, so far, only one candidate has refused to do such a thing: Donald Trump.

Trump, whatever else he might be, is unabashedly pro-Western. What's more, he understands the essentially cultural and even spiritual nature of the vacuum white nationalism fills. Unlike so many so-called ''reformocons,'' who wax poetic about the need to empathize with blue-collar workers' economic concerns, yet are only willing to throw ''family-friendly'' tax credits at them like table scraps to starving dogs, Trump understands that however besieged people like Sylvia feel by economic woes, they feel even more besieged by attacks on their pride and dignity.

Unlike the white nationalists, Trump has defended that pride and dignity without once mentioning race, but instead with reference to the historical reality and promise of uniquely American greatness. His pitch is nationalist, yes, but it is not racist, and so immediately understandable that you can even put it on a baseball cap.

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Donald Trump, Race and Politics, White Racial Consciousness

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Source: teleSURtv.net

Sun, 03 Apr 2016 12:20

Hillary Clintons claims she did nothing wrong by using her personal email for official business as secretary of state.

The FBI has stepped in to a halt a U.S. State Department internal probe into the question of whether Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information in her use of a personal email server during her time as secretary of state.

RELATED: Hillary Clinton Implicated in Honduras Coup, Emails Reveal

Clinton has apologized for using her private email for state business, but maintains she did nothing wrong by doing so while in office from 2009 to 2013, arguing that other former secretaries of state had also used personal email accounts.

Amid the controversy, which arose over a year ago, the State Department changed the classification on 22 of Clinton's emails to top secret at the end of January, based on requests by U.S. intelligence to do so. The top secret documents will be excluded from the bulk release of her emails.

The State Department had planned to look into whether the emails were also classified when Clinton sent or received them through her private account, rather than the official email server. But the FBI has blocked the probe from moving forward.

The FBI told the State Department that ''standard practice'' would be to suspend the internal review pending an investigation by law enforcement agents. The FBI is conducting an inquiry.

The U.S. government requires all classified information to be communicated through state-controlled means.

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Sun, 03 Apr 2016 12:36

WASHINGTON (AP) '-- The State Department has suspended its internal review into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or her top aides mishandled emails containing information now deemed 'top secret."

Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said Friday the department had paused the review to avoid interfering with an ongoing FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private server while she was America's top diplomat. She said the decision was made after the department sought the FBI's advice on how to proceed with the review and received word that it should follow its standard practice. Trudeau said the department's standard practice is to place internal reviews "on hold while there is an ongoing law enforcement investigation underway."

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.

"Of course, we do not want our internal review to complicate or impede the progress of their ongoing law enforcement investigation," Trudeau told reporters. "Therefore, the State Department at this time is not moving forward with our internal review." Trudeau said the department would "reassess next steps" in the internal review process once the FBI completes its probe.

The department began the internal review in January when it announced that it had classified 22 emails that Clinton sent or received as "top secret" and would not be releasing them. None of the emails was marked classified at the time it was sent.

One aspect of the internal review, which was being conducted by the bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research, was to investigate whether any of the information in the emails was classified at the time of transmission. If and when it is completed, the review could result in counseling, warnings or other action against employees if it finds the information was mishandled.

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 19:22

A planned speech by the controversial Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan descended into violence and chaos Thursday, with one journalist physically removed from the event site by Turkish security personnel, another kicked by a guard, and a third '-- a woman '-- thrown to the sidewalk in front of a Washington think tank where he was to speak.

A small group of protesters gathered across the street from the Brookings Institute near Dupont Circle in Washington, with one holding a large sign reading ''Erdogan: War Criminal On The Loose,'' while another used a megaphone to chant that he was a ''baby-killer.''

When the protesters tried to cross the street, Washington police officers blocked traffic and physically separated them from Turkish personnel. A Secret Service agent standing nearby told a colleague that ''the situation is a bit out of control.''

Later, a shoving match between what appeared to be a Brookings Institute worker and Turkish security broke out. ''I am in charge of this building,'' the apparent Brookings employee shouted as the two tangled. A Foreign Policy reporter and others holding cameras outside the event were also scolded by Turkish security. One cameraman was chased across the street by Turkish guards.

Local Washington D.C. police officers were forced time and again to get between Erdogan's security forces and journalists and protesters. At one point, an officer placed himself between one of Erdogan's security guards and a cameraman he was moving to confront, while another angrily confronted several Turkish security guards in the middle of the street, telling them, ''you're part of the problem, you guys need to control yourselves and let these people protest.'' Another Turkish security official pulled his colleague away after he began arguing with the officer. Other members of Ergodan's team stood in front of the Brookings building, motioning for the protesters to come closer, and making obscene gestures.

There were also confrontations between Turkish security and D.C. police. The Turkish officials wanted police to remove protesters, and the cops refused.

In a statement late Thursday, Brooking's spokesperson Gail Chalef said that the think tank did its ''best to ensure that journalists and other guests who had registered in advance for the event were able to enter.'' She added that she believes all journalists who registered were able to attend.

At one point, just before Erdogan arrived, the protest briefly turned violent.

As he arrived, law enforcement arranged a wall of large vehicles in front of Brookings, presumably to block anti-Erdogan protesters across the street.

This post has been updated.

Photo credit: YOCHI DREAZEN

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Sun, 03 Apr 2016 12:21

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Fri, 01 Apr 2016 19:18

Fri Apr 1, 2016 | 2:40 PM EDT

By Roberta Rampton and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama urged world leaders on Friday to do more to safeguard nuclear facilities to prevent ''madmen'' from groups like Islamic State from getting their hands on a nuclear weapon or a radioactive ''dirty bomb.''

Speaking at a nuclear security summit in Washington, Obama said there was a persistent and evolving threat of nuclear terrorism despite progress in reducing such risks. But he insisted: ''We cannot be complacent.''

Obama said no group had succeeded in obtaining bomb material but that al Qaeda had long sought them and cited actions by Islamic State militants behind recent attacks in Paris and Brussels that raised similar concerns.

''There is no doubt that if these madmen ever got their hands on a nuclear bomb or nuclear material, they would certainly use it to kill as many innocent people as possible,'' he said. ''It would change our world.''

Obama was hosting more than 50 world leaders for his fourth and final summit focused on efforts to lock down vulnerable atomic materials to prevent nuclear terrorism. North Korea's nuclear defiance was also high on the agenda.

He has less than 10 months left in office to follow through on one of his signature foreign policy initiatives. While gains have been made, many arms-control advocates say the diplomatic process '' which Obama conceived and championed - has lost momentum and could slow even further once he leaves the White House in January.

A boycott by Russian President Vladimir Putin, unwilling to join in a U.S.-dominated gathering at a time of increased tensions between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine and Syria, adds to doubts that the meeting will yield any major decisions.

Deadly bomb attacks in Brussels last month have fueled concern that Islamic State could eventually target nuclear plants, steal material and develop radioactive ''dirty bombs''. Militants were found to have secretly videotaped the daily routine of a senior manager of a Belgian nuclear plant, Obama said.

Obama said the required 102 countries had now ratified an amendment to a nuclear security treaty that would tighten protections against nuclear theft and smuggling.

''Our nations have made it harder for terrorists to get their hands on nuclear materials. We have measurably reduced the risks,'' Obama said.

But he acknowledged that with roughly 2,000 tons of nuclear material stored around the word, ''not all of this is properly secured.''

FOCUS ON IRAN, NORTH KOREA

The United States and Japan also announced they had completed the long-promised task of removing all highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium fuels from a Japanese research project. Japan is an avowedly anti-nuclear-weapons state as the only country ever to have suffered a nuclear attack.

Despite significant strides by Obama in persuading dozens of countries to rid themselves of bomb-making materials or reduce and safeguard stockpiles, much of the world's plutonium and enriched uranium remains vulnerable to theft.

Earlier on Friday, Obama convened a separate meeting of the world powers that negotiated a landmark nuclear pact with Iran last July, a critical component of his nuclear disarmament agenda and a major piece of his foreign policy legacy.

He said efforts to implement the deal, which required Tehran to curb its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, had shown ''real progress'' but it would take time for Iran to reintegrate into the global economy.

Obama inaugurated the first Nuclear Security Summit nearly six years ago, after a landmark speech in Prague in 2009 laying out the lofty goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

After Obama leaves office there is no guarantee his successor, who will be elected in November, will keep the issue a high priority.

For now, however, U.S. experts are less concerned about militants obtaining nuclear weapon components than about thefts of ingredients for a low-tech dirty bomb that would use conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material and sow panic.

U.S. officials said they had no doubt that Islamic State, which controls swaths of Syria and Iraq, was interested in obtaining such materials, but authorities had no explicit evidence that the group had tried to do so.

Also looming over the summit was continuing concern about nuclear-defiant North Korea. Obama joined South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday in vowing to ramp up pressure on Pyongyang in response to its recent nuclear and missile tests.

But So Se Pyong, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told Reuters on Friday that Pyongyang will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile program in defiance of the United States and its allies, saying there is now a state of "semi-war" on the divided peninsula.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom, Doina Chiacu, Patricia Zengerle, Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 18:03

Security officials fear Islamic State is plotting to use drones to spray deadly nuclear waste over British cities.

The threat is considered so real that David Cameron and Barack Obama last night held a 'war game' session on how to respond to such an attack '' which could kill thousands and leave a target town or city uninhabitable for years.

Aides said the drones could be purchased easily on websites such as Amazon and there was already evidence of IS trying to use them.

The Prime Minister said: 'We know the terrorists we face today would like to kill as many people as they possibly could, using whatever materials they can get their hands on.'

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Fears have been raised that ISIS could use drones to spray nuclear waste over British cities (file picture)

President Obama and David Cameron discussed a response to such an attack at a nuclear summit in Washington, US, pictured

At a nuclear terror summit in Washington, world leaders held a planning session, complete with TV footage of fictitious news broadcasts, to prepare for a drone attack.

In the scenario, terrorists managed to steal nuclear material from a health facility and smuggle it into Britain and other Western countries. Some was detected by the intelligence agencies but other consignments got through.

The toxic material was purchased by jihadists on the highly encrypted 'dark web' after being stolen from the health site.

Security officials are said to believe this is an increasing possibility. Drones '' such as those used to dust crops '' were then used to spread the lethal material.

A UK official said: 'We have already seen Daesh [IS] trying to look at [the question] can they get their hands on low-level crop-using-type drones.'

Speaking before war-gaming what was dubbed a 'doomsday scenario', Mr Cameron told the Mail: 'So many summits are about dealing with things that have already gone wrong and we are trying to put right.

'This is a summit about something we are trying to prevent.

Surrounded by world leaders, President Barack Obama gave the peace sign at the end of a nuclear security summit today

The US President is pictured with fellow world leaders including Mr Cameron and French President Francois Hollande at a meeting during the nuclear summit

'The issue of nuclear security and the security of nuclear materials, particularly when it comes to the problems of international terrorism, the concept of terrorists and nuclear materials coming together '' which is obviously a very chilling prospect '' and something in the light of the Belgian attacks, we know is a threat that is only too real.'

The warning comes a day after the PM announced hundreds of extra armed police will patrol regional cities amid fears of a Paris-style mass-casualty gun attack taking place outside London.

Officials are planning how best to respond to an attack in which fanatics target separate sites at the same time, as in Paris in November when more than 100 people died.

Security sources said that, while seven mass casualty attacks had been stopped in the past year, it was inevitable that one would get through.

World leaders 'war-gamed a doomsday scenario' at the summit in Washington DC in the US, pictured

President Obama, left, speaks to Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, right, as Mr Cameron, centre listens in on the conversation

The two terrorist attacks which have claimed lives in the UK over the past 11 years have both been in the capital '' the 7/7 bombings and the murder of Lee Rigby.

But major terror plots have been uncovered in other cities.

In a sign of how seriously the threat of a nuclear plot is being taken, it last night emerged that American commando units have been trained to seize and disable nuclear or radioactive bombs.

The Pentagon rarely discusses publicly its plans to use commandos if terrorists obtain a nuclear weapon or build a 'dirty bomb' from radioactive material.

Yesterday, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon announced £40million will be spent on a new cyber security operations centre to protect the Ministry of Defence.

Last week's attacks in Brussels have raised fresh concerns about the prospect of nuclear terrorism.

Two of the suicide bombers in the attacks, brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, had video footage of the home of a senior official at a Flanders nuclear waste facility.

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 20:38

A makeshift camp for refugees in the port of Piraeus. Greece is to begin deportations on Monday. Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA

The European Union's plan to send refugees fleeing Syria's civil war back to Turkey en masse could be illegal, a top UN official has said, as concerns mounted that Greece lacks the infrastructure needed for the deal to take effect on Monday.

Peter Sutherland, the UN secretary general's special representative for international migration and development, said that deporting migrants and refugees without considering their asylum applications first would break international law.

In light of claims by an NGO that Turkey had already been pushing Syrians back over the border to their home country, he said none could be deported from Europe without guarantees that their rights would be protected.

Sutherland spoke as Greece prepares to begin deporting migrants and refugees on Monday. Greek immigration officials have already said they need more staff to implement the plan.

Asked during an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme whether Europe's scheme could be illegal, Sutherland replied: ''Absolutely, and there are two fundamental reasons for this.

''First of all, collective deportations without having regard to the individual rights of those who claim to be refugees are illegal. Now, we don't know what is going to happen next week, but if there is any question of collective deportations without individuals being given the right to claim asylum that is illegal.

''Secondly, their rights have to be absolutely protected where they are deported to, in other words Turkey. There has to be adequate assurances they can't be sent back from Turkey to Syria, for example if they are Syrian refugees, or Afghanistan or wherever.''

European and Turkish leaders are set to implement a deal on Monday that will result in almost all asylum seekers being deported back to Turkey. In exchange for each person sent back, the EU has agreed to accept a refugee who has not tried to enter Europe illegally.

The success of the deal rests on both Greece's ability to process thousands of people in a short space of time, and Turkey's ability to prove itself a safe country for refugees.

In theory, only those refugees who fail to claim asylum in Greece '' usually because they are seeking to settle elsewhere in the EU '' or whose claims are rejected will be deported. The most senior Greek asylum official, Maria Stavropoulou, said on Friday that she would need a 20-fold increase in personnel to handle expected claims.

Unrest has already erupted among refugees and migrants in Greece in anticipation of the deal being implemented. On the Greek island of Chios, hundreds of people tore down a razor wire fence that had kept them imprisoned in a camp and fled.

One told the BBC: ''Deportation is a big mistake because we have risked a lot to come here especially during our crossing from Turkey to Greece. We were smuggled here from Turkey. We cannot go back.

''We will repeat our trip again and again if needs be, because we are running away in order to save our lives.''

Amnesty International alleged that unaccompanied children were among hundreds of Syrians to have been illegally expelled from Turkey since January. John Dalhuisen, Amnesty's Europe and central Asia director, said: ''In their desperation to seal their borders, EU leaders have wilfully ignored the simplest of facts: Turkey is not a safe country for Syrian refugees and is getting less safe by the day.''

The Turkish interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment, but the country's embassy in the Netherlands later denied Amnesty's allegations, stating that ''no Syrian was ever forced to return to Syria nor were they ever advised or forced to voluntarily return to Syria''.

Fears of an expected influx of refugees fleeing regions of the Middle East and Asia riven by war has reached fever pitch in western Europe. In an interview with the Telegraph on Friday, Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, said that Britain ''cannot possibly absorb'' the number of migrants expected to arrive from Europe in the next two decades.

''We have a whole bloc of people now arriving in Europe who will inevitably in the end get permission to stay, and will be free to come here as well, and we have the magnet of the English language,'' he said.

''It is very, very hard to me to see any way in which the substantial flows of migration will not continue.''

Grayling, a prominent voice in the campaign to leave the EU, also said that terrorists would pose as refugees to enter the bloc, posing a potential threat to Britain's national security.

''There has already been some evidence militants are using refugee flows as a conduit to get into Europe,'' he claimed. ''We should be concerned. As time goes by and those people are given permission to stay in Europe that poses a threat to us as well.''

The first 500 people to be returned under the deal are set to be deported next week. ''On Monday it will begin,'' Nikos Xydakis, Greece's Europe minister, confirmed by phone from parliament. ''Not the whole procedure, but the first step.''

Anyone who has applied for asylum in Greece will not be deported until their claims have been processed in the next two weeks, Xydakis said. Deportations in the immediate future will be limited to those have agreed voluntarily to return to Turkey.

Sutherland said that whatever the outcome of the EU-Turkey deal, more needed to be done, not just in Europe but around the world, to tackle the refugee crisis.

''What has been happening has been a gradual pushing back and back and back, by building fences right up through the Balkans, stopping them leaving from Greece and now pushing them back from Greece into Turkey. And, some argue, although this is denied by Turkey, pushing them from Turkey into Syria in some instances,'' he said.

''This is an unsustainable position. We have a global responsibility here, a global responsibility to people in desperate circumstances, who are prepared to risk their lives trying to get across the Mediterranean.''

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Source: American Renaissance

Sun, 03 Apr 2016 12:10

Rising tensions in France, especially in Paris following a series of Islamist terrorist attacks in 2015, have spurred an exodus of its super-wealthy citizens, a new report on migration trends of millionaires and high-net worth individuals across the world reveals. The report warns that other European countries, including the UK, Belgium, Germany and Sweden ''where religious tensions are starting to emerge'', will also see similar trends.

{snip}

The report was compiled by New World Wealth, an agency that gives information on the global wealth sector. The report was based on data collected from investor visa programme statistics of each country; annual interviews with around 800 global high net worth individuals and with intermediaries like migration experts, second citizenship platforms, wealth managers and property agents; data from property registers and property sales statistics in each country; and by tracking millionaire movements in the media.

Millionaire outflow

According to the report, Millionaire migration in 2015, France topped the list of countries with maximum millionaire outflows as it lost 10,000 millionaires, or 3% of its millionaire population. Among the cities that saw maximum millionaire outflow, Paris, was at the top''losing about 6% of its millionaire population or 7,000 millionaires in 2015 to the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and Israel.

''The large outflow of millionaires from France is notable''France is being heavily impacted by rising religious tensions between Christians and Muslims, especially in urban areas. We expect that millionaire migration away from France will accelerate over the next decade as these tensions escalate,'' the report warns.

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Europe, France, Islam in Europe/Asia

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 17:32

Perhaps Google should have run its April Fool's Day plan past AlphaGo, the firm's artificial intelligence system that employed sophisticated predictive functions to beat the world's best player in the world's most complicated board game.

AlphaGo, tweaked slightly from its Go-playing focus to address a proposal to put a prank button next to Gmail's ''reply'' button, would likely have run through possible outcomes and recommended a next move: ''DON'T DO IT!''

For Google's Gmail joke was not funny to a number of people onto whose professional lives the April foolishness fell, reports suggest (unless the claims, too, were pranks).

The joke concept was fairly simple: a ''mic drop'' button next to the ''reply'' button would send the email message, with a short clip of an animated character dropping a mic, and any replies to the sender would not go through. The two buttons, however, were close together, and some people said they intended to send serious messages but hit the wrong button.

''Thanks to Mic Drop I just lost my job,'' a poster identifying as Allan Pashby claimed on an official Gmail help forum. ''I am a writer and had a deadline to meet. I sent my articles to my boss and never heard back from her. There were corrections that needed to be made on my articles and I never received her replies. My boss took offense to the Mic Drop animation and assumed that I didn't reply to her because I thought her input was petty (hence the Mic Drop). I just woke up to a very angry voicemail from her which is how I found out about this 'hilarious' prank.''

Another person, identifying as Justin Boxill, posted on Google's product forum that he'd just sent an email to the first person who had wanted to interview him in months. ''I clicked the wrong button and sent it with the mic drop,'' the post said. ''Well, I guess I'm not getting that job. Words cannot describe how pissed off I am right now. I'm actually shaking. One click, ONE CLICK and I lost the job. Goddamnit. Not funny, google. I'm going to go cry now.''

Google had hyped the prank on Twitter, saying, ''Get the last word with Gmail Mic Drop.'' But the company later shut down the prank function and had to add some last words of its own: ''Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year,'' said a company blog post. ''Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We're truly sorry.''

Photo: The Google logo (KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

Tags:April Fool's Day, GIF, Gmail, Google, joke, mic drop, prank

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Sun, 03 Apr 2016 04:58

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Demography of the United States - Wikipedia, the free ...https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Demography_of_the_United_StatesWhites constitute the majority of the U.S. population, with a total of about ...... 16% today to 30% by 2050, the Black percentage barely rising from 12.9% to 13.1% ...Race and ethnicity in the United States - Wikipedia, the free ...https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United...The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as "Hispanic or Latino" and ... Black American or African American: those having origins in any of the ..... (which is the largest percentage of the multiracial population), is as follows :.UNITED STATES QuickFacts from the US Census Bureauquickfacts.census.gov/United States Census Bureau

Frequently requested statistics for UNITED STATES. ... United States Census Bureau ...... i Black or African American alone, percent, July 1, 2014, (V2014) (a).Census: White majority in U.S. gone by 2043 - U.S. Newsusnews.nbcnews.com/_.../18934111-census-white-majority-in...Jun 13, 2013 - Non-Hispanic whites make up 63 percent of the U.S.; Hispanics, 17 percent; blacks, 12.3 percent; Asians, 5 percent; and multiracial Americans, ...Population of the United States by Race and Hispanic ...www.infoplease.com 'º ... 'º Race & Ethnicity 'º Population/DemographicsPopulation of the United States by Race and Hispanic/Latino Origin, Census 2000 and 2010 ... Black or African American, 37,685,848, 12.2, 34,658,190, 12.3 ... NOTE: Percentages do not add up to 100% due to rounding and because ...Population Distribution by Race/Ethnicity | The Henry J ...kff.org/other/state.../distribution-by-raceethnici...Data View: Percent ... Location, White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian/ Alaska Native, Two Or ... United States, 62%, 12%, 18%, 6%, 1%, 2%, 100%.My AccountSearchMapsYouTubePlayNewsGmailDriveCalendarGoogle+TranslatePhotosMoreShoppingWalletFinanceDocsBooksBloggerContactsHangoutsEven more from Google

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Source: American Renaissance

Sun, 03 Apr 2016 12:12

Southwestern University in Texas has canceled its annual production of ''The Vagina Monologues'' because its author, Eve Ensler, is white''and featuring a performance written by a white lady would just not be inclusive to women of other races.

Instead, the school will host a performance of ''We are Women,'' which promises to ''address similar experiences while emphasizing women of color,'' according an article in the Megaphone, the school's official newspaper.

''I felt that limiting women to only Eve Ensler's work was doing a disservice to both the women performing and to the audience at large,'' Rachel Arco, the sophomore who organized the performance, told the Megaphone.

{snip}

Cancelling performances of ''The Vagina Monologues'' has become a bit of a trend on college campuses these days. For example, just last year, all-women's Mount Holyoke College canceled its own performance on the grounds that the production was not ''inclusive'' enough to people who identify as women but do not have actual vaginas.

Original Article

Topics: Race and Universities, Racial Sensitivity

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Source: American Renaissance

Sun, 03 Apr 2016 12:15

Here's some good news for all you black folks complaining about racism in America.

You don't know how good you have it.

At least that's the message I heard during one of the strangest conversations I've ever had about race. I was talking about the concept of white privilege''the belief that being white comes with unearned advantages and everyday perks that its recipients are often unaware of. I asked a white retiree if he believed in the existence of white privilege. He said no, but there was another type of privilege he wanted to talk about:

''Black privilege.''

Confused by his answer, I asked him to give me an example of a perk that I enjoyed as a black man that he couldn't. His answer: ''Black History Month.''

''In America you can't even talk about whiteness,'' said Drew Domalick, who lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin. ''If you try to embrace being white, you are portrayed as being a racist. If we had a White History Month, that would be viewed as a racist holiday.''

Domalick isn't the only one who believes in black privilege. The term is being deployed in conservative circles as a rhetorical counterattack to the growing use of the term ''white privilege.'' It's part of a larger transformation: White is becoming the new black.

Google the phrase ''black privilege,'' and one steps into a universe where whites struggle daily against the indignities heaped upon them because of their skin color. In books and articles such as ''Black Skin Privilege and the American Dream,'' and ''It's Past Time to Acknowledge Black Privilege,'' white commentators describe how blackness has become such a ''tremendous asset'' that some whites are now trying to ''pass'' as black.

If you're a skeptic, there's even a ''Black Privilege Checklist'' listing some of the perks blacks enjoy that whites cannot.

A sample:

Blacks can belong to clubs and organizations that cater specifically to their race, but there's no National Association for the Advancement of White People because such a group would be deemed racist. Blacks can call white people ''honky'' and ''cracker,'' but whites cannot use the N-word.

{snip}

Over the years, that sentiment bubbled to the surface at various times as debates over ''reverse racism'' and affirmative action erupted. Yet something new is now happening. More whites have begun talking about themselves as a racially oppressed majority. In a widely publicized 2011 survey, white Americans said they suffer from racial discrimination more than blacks.

{snip}

David Horowitz, author of the book, ''Black Skin Privilege and the American Dream,'' says blacks are still more privileged, though they lag behind other racial groups in varying categories. It's not white privilege that's preventing them from doing better, he says; it's their behavior, such as their inability to build more intact families.

''The fact that white people are better off is not a privilege; it's earned,'' says Horowitz, founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a think tank in Los Angeles created to combat ''the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values.''

Not all racial disparities are inherently racist, he says.

''If racial disparities prove discrimination, then the National Basketball Association is racist,'' Horowitz says. ''Probably 90 percent of its players are black.''

{snip}

Arguments for black privilege may face a hostile audience as acceptance of the idea of white privilege grows.

The white rapper Macklemore recently released a song titled ''White Privilege.'' The term ''check your privilege,'' a reference to white privilege, has gone mainstream.

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Racial Preferences in Education, Racial Preferences in Hiring

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 19:33

Israeli and Turkish officials refused to comment Tuesday on a report by Britain's Sky TV that the Islamic State group planned to attack Jewish school children in Turkey.

The report came after Israel advised its citizens on Monday to leave Turkey "as soon as possible," citing the potential for jihadist attacks, and mere days after the Turkish police issued a warning on Saturday night, according to which ISIS was planning to attack synagogues and churches during the Christian holiday of Easter.

"Terrorists from the so-called Islamic State have advanced plans to murder Jewish children in Turkey, targeting kindergartens, schools and youth centers," Sky reported.

"The most likely target of an attack is Istanbul's synagogue in Beyoglu, which also has a community centre and a school attached to it."

Asked by AFP to comment, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office and Israel and Turkey's foreign ministries refused.

Three Israelis were among four people killed in a March 19 suicide bombing in Istanbul.

An Iranian national was also killed and 39 people wounded when a terrorist blew himself up on a shopping street in the heart of the city.

The Turkish government said the bomber had links to ISIS.

The group has been blamed for four bombings that have rocked Turkey in the past eight months, including a massacre at a peace rally in the capital Ankara in October that claimed 103 lives.

Sky reported on its website that unidentified "intelligence officials" said that a fresh attack was imminent, based on information from six ISIS operatives arrested in southern Turkey.

AFP contributed to this report.

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 17:15

Wendi Deng and Vladimir PutinBen Gabbe/Getty Images; Sasha Mordovets/Getty ImagesHow's this for a new couple alert? The rumor circulating around the corridors of power '-- from Washington, D.C., to Europe and Asia '-- is that Vladimir Putin and Wendi Deng, Rupert Murdoch's ex-wife, are dating. See more photos of Wendi here.

Reports of the pair have been floating around for years, ever since their respective divorces in 2014 and 2013.

One insider close to the powerful leader tells Us Weekly the relationship is ''serious.''

PHOTOS: Unlikely Celebrity CouplesThe controversial Russian president, 63, was previously married to Lyudmila Putina for 30 years, with whom he shares daughters Maria, 30, and Yekaterina, 29. The Kremlin confirmed their divorce in April 2014. The politician rarely discusses his children, but during an annual news conference in December 2015, he boasted about his daughters to thousands of reporters, before shutting down more personal questions.

''They studied only at Russian universities. I am proud of them. They continue to study and work. My daughters speak three European languages fluently. One of them can even speak one or two Oriental languages. They are making their first steps and are successful,'' he told the crowd during the rare moment, before stating: ''I never discuss questions related to my family. They are not involved in business or politics. They are not pushing for this.''

Following Lyudmila and Putin's split, the president was rumored to be dating Russian gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Putin was often featured in European gossip sites after Kabaeva stepped out in early 2015 looking ''fuller,'' igniting pregnancy rumors. Swiss newspaper Bild then reported that Putin had missed appearances because he had traveled to Switzerland to be by Kabaeva's side, where she allegedly gave birth to their child at a Swiss hospital in March 2015.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the rumors.

PHOTOS: Stars Who Played the President''Information that a child has been born to Vladimir Putin is not true,'' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Forbes Russia in March 2015. He went on to joke, ''I am planning to appeal to people who have money to organize a competition for best journalistic hoax.''

Deng has yet to be spotted looking romantic with the Russian leader, but was seen boarding her pal Roman Abramovich's yacht in St. Bart's on Monday, March 28. Abramovich also happens to be friends with Putin. (According to the Daily Mail, the billionaire Chelsea Football Club owner reportedly gifted the president with a $35 million yacht in January.)

Murdoch, 85, filed for divorce from Deng, 47, after 14 years of marriage in June 2013 after he reportedly grew suspicious of her relationship with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. (A spokesperson for Blair denied the affair to The Hollywood Reporter in July 2013.) The businesswoman famously made headlines in 2011 when she jumped to Murdoch's defense and slapped a protestor's face after he tried to pie her husband during a meeting with parliament.

PHOTOS: Can You Believe These Couples' Age Differences?The billionaire News Corp. chairman and CEO '-- who was previously married to Patricia Booker for 11 years and Anna Torv for 32 years '-- has also moved on, and is now married to famed supermodel Jerry Hall.

The media mogul tied the knot in March with the actress, who was previously in a long-term relationship with Mick Jagger. ''Feel like the luckiest and happiest man in the world,'' Murdoch tweeted after their union.

Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics, and more delivered straight to your inbox!

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Fri, 01 Apr 2016 22:22

1/23 Bring broken smartphone back to life - as a robotDo you have an old broken smartphone lying around the house somewhere? Then why not turn it into a robot? That's exactly what YouTuber Mehdi Sadaghdar did in a recent video, after his efforts to bring a destroyed phone back to life disastrously failed. Using the phone's vibrator, a coin battery, a simple switch, a few wires and the bristly part of a toothbrush, he managed to make a simple little toy that can skitter around a tabletop as long as the battery last

2/23 Detachable plane cabinA Ukrainian inventor has proposed building airliners with detachable passenger cabins that could separate from the rest of the plane and parachute safely to the ground in the event of an emergency

3/23 FA announces it will host the Emirates FA Cup video game tournamentThe FA has announced that for the first time ever it will host the inaugural Emirates FA Cup gaming tournament, with video game fans from across the world invited to compete for glory at Wembley Stadium connected by EE. Early rounds will take place in iconic locations in the stadium such as The Royal Box, the changing rooms and the players' tunnel, with the two finalists set to play the virtual final using Wembley Stadium's 82 foot screens as they sit in the centre circle. Gamers of varying ability will descend upon Wembley Stadium as the home of football transforms into an epic gaming colosseum set to turn heads and sweat palms in equal measure

4/23 Oculus Rift release dateOculus has said that it is about to open pre-orders for its Rift virtual reality headset. Some have claimed that the hardware will be the device that will bring virtual reality into the mainstream. And it will start being available from 6 January 2016, the company has said. The company hasn't said when the headsets will actually start arriving, or how much they will cost. It isn't clear whether the company intends to announce more details before pre-orders begin

5/23 iPhone stock apps can be removed by just putting them into special folderA new trick shows a quick way of getting rid of the stock apps that might be cluttering up your iPhone screen '-- at least for a while. The iPhone comes with a range of apps that are stuck on the phone, and can't be deleted like others. While some are key to the phone '-- like the Phone app itself '-- others like Stocks are less well-regarded. But the new trick shows how you can hide those unused stock apps with just a quick trick using some folders

6/23 CES 2016: Four big things set to be revealedThe CES 2016 gadget show is about to kick off, and nearly the entire technology industry has descended on Las Vegas to try and show off the future. Every year, companies and technologists attempt to show that they have seen what's coming and that they will be there to offer it. Every year, a lot of people get it wrong. This year's expectations are as big as ever. Every year, CES unofficially gets a big theme that everything's supposed to be about '-- this year that's virtual reality. There is also future for cars, smart home and wearables

7/23 Terrorists could use drones to attack planes and spread propagandaA government counter-terrorism adviser has warned that terrorists could use commercially available drones to attack passenger planes. Detective Chief Inspector Colin Smith, a security expert and adviser to the Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology, warned that small quadcopter drones could easily be used by terrorists for attacks and propaganda purposes

8/23 Goggle-Eyed Lemurs watch TV as part of their reintroduction to the wildPort Lympne Reserve in Kent, UK, has installed Sony Bravia 4K TVs into its lemur and langur enclosures to show life-like footage to its primates as part of its 'Back to the Wild' programme. The charity will trial TV watching on Sony's 4K TVs as part of this programme in a bid to make langurs more familiar with the new environment

9/23 UberPoolUber has added a lift-sharing feature to its app in London, allowing people to share their taxi with a stranger in return for a reduced fair. Users will be given 25 per cent off their journey if they say they will let up to two other passengers share their car. Drivers will then receive a message telling them that they'll be picking up more than one fare, and can plan their route accordingly. London is the second European country to get the feature, after Paris. It was first launched in San Francisco and now most people who use the app do so with the feature

10/23 Attempt to build world's biggest Rubik's cube ends in disasterAn attempt to build the world's biggest Rubik's cube ended in disaster when the puzzle exploded as it was turned for the first time. One of the masterminds behind Coren Puzzle, a YouTube channel dedicated to custom puzzles, live-streamed the final assembly of the 22x22 cube. The video was the culmination of seven months of construction, which included a month of deliberation on how to build the mechanism at the centre of the device

11/23 New battery chip could let phones charge in minutesThe maker of a new chip claims that it could reduce the charging times of phones to a few minutes, and could prevent dangerous explosions. The tiny chip could be embedded into batteries of all sizes and monitor how healthy and charged they are. That in turn would mean that the batteries would become much safer and quicker to charge, according to the scientist that developed it. Unhealthy lithium-ion batteries can be at risk of exploding or catching fire, as well as gradually losing their capacity so that they run out more quickly. Those problems may become even more important as people move towards electric cars or other vehicles

12/23 Facebook on iPhone gets new fast-loading Instant ArticlesIf you've noticed articles on Facebook loading a little quicker recently, that's because the new Instant Articles have been launched to all iPhone users. Instant Articles load up to 10 times quicker than a regular article, and have some enriched features - such as unobtrusive autoplay videos, zoomable high-definition images and interactive maps

13/23 Halo 5 patchGamers looking forward to playing Halo 5: Guardians on its release on 27 October 2015 will have to wait to download a 9GB day one patch before the game's multiplayer mode can run properly. Those without the patch won't even be able to play multiplayer at all until it's downloaded, in yet another case of a blockbuster game needing a patch on the day of launch

14/23 New HTC Desire 626 handset launchHTC has launched its latest Desire 626 handset with the Sense 7 software which automatically detects whether you're at work, at home or on-the-go and alters its theme to suit your location. This advanced technology intelligently analyses your favourite photos to modify the look and feel of your apps, allowing you to modify the colour scheme and backgrounds '' the ultimate in personalisation

15/23 Nasa confirms Mars water discoveryNasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae '-- or dark patches '-- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts.

16/23 Customers wait in line at the Apple Store in Paris to get their hands on the iPhone 6sSeveral hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive ''3D Touch'' display

17/23 Bloodhound SSC: The most powerful ever made is shown off to the publicThe car is displayed at Downing Street, when the team visited David Cameron to demonstrate the project

18/23 Lunar eclipse threatens Nasa technologyArtist's rendering of Nasa's LRO spacecraft, which will have to withstand a rapid drop in temperature during an upcoming lunar eclipse that could lead to it shutting down

19/23 Mobile phone bills could rocket up after Ofcom announced that the fees it charges to phone operators will be trebledThe regulator will now charge far more to phone companies for using the mobile spectrum '-- and though it says that fee will not be passed on to customers, experts have said that prices are likely to go up

20/23 New iPhone 6s rose goldApple has released a bright pink new iPhone 6s '-- likely the only way that you'll be able to tell that someone has the new handset. The company released the new phone with much fanfare, but almost all of the changes '-- a new camera and pressure-sensitive display '-- were on the inside. The only new noticeable addition to the phone's look is the very pink rose gold colour, and a tiny ''S'' on the back. The new handsets will be released on September 25

21/23 iPad ProApple has launched a huge new iPad, which it hopes can bring the tablet to offices and designers. But it unveiled it with an Apple-designed stylus '-- an idea that was famously mocked by late Apple founder Steve Jobs

22/23 Apple TVApple has introduced the new Apple TV

23/23 Apple PencilApple has introduced the new Apple Pencil

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 18:26

Published: 23 hours ago.

The Obama administration used its unofficial gag order on referring to Islamic terrorism as pretext to censor video of French President Francois Hollande.

Audio and video of Hollande speaking at the president's final nuclear security summit on Friday were edited from a White House file to remove the term ''Islamist terrorism,'' media watchdog MRC reported. Only the official text remained on the WhiteHouse.gov page.

Petition Congress to ''halt Muslim immigration now''

''We are also making sure that between Europe and the United States there can be a very high level coordination,'' Hollande said while speaking at a Washington press conference. ''But we're also well aware that the roots of terrorism, Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq. We therefore have to act both in Syria and in Iraq, and this is what we're doing within the framework of the coalition. And we note that Daesh is losing ground thanks to the strikes we've been able to launch with the coalition.''

What do YOU think? Sound off on Obama censoring the French president on 'Islamist terror'

Audio of Hollande mentioning ''Islamist terrorism'' was the only portion of the video where edits were made.

''Once again I feel as if someone needs to tell high majesty the Obama that George Orwell wrote '1984' as a warning '... not an instruction manual,'' an MRC reader named Joe commented.

''The Ministry of Truth has arrived in full force,'' said another user in reference to Orwell's novel.

President Obama listens as French President Francois Hollande discusses Islamic terrorism (Photo: YouTube, White House)

Hollande is not shy about referring to Islamic terrorism in part because France has struggled with radicals for decades.

Middle East foreign policy expert Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, has regularly covered the French government's 751 Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones, which the state does not fully control, WND reported Jan. 20, 2015.

The French zones were first identified by the government in 1996.

''These are not full-fledged no-go zones,'' Pipes has explained, WND reported, ''but, as the French nomenclature accurately indicates, 'sensitive urban zones.' In normal times, they are unthreatening, routine places. But they do unpredictably erupt, with car burnings, attacks on representatives of the state (including police), and riots.''

Fox News actually issued an on-air apology in January 2015 after Islam expert Steve Emerson spoke on the subject of no-go zones with host Jeanine Pirro.

''To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion,'' said ''Fox Report'' host Julie Banderas on Jan. 17, 2015.

Robert Spencer, editor of Jihad Watch, told WND at that time that while Emerson did make some factual errors (which Emerson apologized for), the underlying premise about ''sensitive urban zones'' was sound.

France has also suffered two high-profile terrorist attacks in recent years.

Islamic terrorists responsible for the Jan. 7, 2015, massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo killed 17 people over the course of three days.Islamic terrorists killed 130 people across Paris on Nov. 13, 2015. They killed 89 individuals inside Bataclan theater alone.French Minister Patrick Kanner said earlier this week that France has at least 100 neighborhoods that rival Molenbeek, Belgium, in terms of Islamic radicalism. Brussels' Molenbeek was the planning hub for the city's March 22 terror attack, which killed 35 people and wounded 340 others.

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''We know that there are today around a hundred neighborhoods in France which have potential similarities to what has happened in Molenbeek,'' Kanner said during a recent radio interview, the Daily Mail reported Monday.

European authorities are still hunting for eight individuals connected to November's terror attack in Paris and this month's massacre in Brussels, the newspaper reported.

The White House altered video of French President Francois Hollande discussing ISIS. The term ''Islamist terrorism'' was censored. The official text remains on the WhiteHouse.gov website (Photo: WhiteHouse.gov)

Update:

The White House blamed ''a technical issue with the audio during the recording'' for the muted section of Hollande's video late Friday.

MRC replied with following questions:

If the audio was, indeed, lost (for just that comment) during recording, how did they resurrect it?If there were two versions of the video, why did they originally pull the glitch-free version, then post the one with the audio missing, in the first place?In the version in which the translator's audio is lost for the ''Islamist terror'' comment, why is Hollande speaking in French still audible '' except for when he mouths the words, ''Islamist terrorism''?Why is audio of Hollande audible for the entire comment, except the words ''Islamist terrorism''?Why is the version of the video with the glitch still on the White House website, right next to the acknowledgement that it has an error?RELATED:

Yes, there ARE 'no-go' zones in Europe

'60 Minutes' releases video of migrants attacking crew

'Christian' Obama at mosque: 'Muslim-Americans keep us safe'

Media icons: Why 'Christian' Obama so captivated by Muslims?

'Christian' Obama at mosque: 'Muslim-Americans keep us safe'

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Fri, 01 Apr 2016 22:33

Michael Bachelard -Apr 1, 2016

The Ahsani family: Saman, Cyrus and Ata.

The headquarters of the Monaco-based oil company Unaoil and the homes of its executives have been raided by police in the wake of revelations in recent days that it has systematically corrupted the global oil industry.

In a statement, the Monaco government said it was helping British authorities investigate the "vast corruption scandal" revealed in recent days by Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post.

Police moved after Fairfax Media broke the story late on Wednesday that Unaoil and its owners, the Ahsani family, used multi-million dollar commissions to bribe corrupt governments in oil rich states to win contracts for large western firms such as Rolls-Royce, Halliburton and Australia's Leighton Offshore.

The statement from the Monaco government said that several of the company's senior executives had been questioned over the past few days and their homes and headquarters searched following an urgent request from Britain's Serious Fraud Office.

"Monaco authorities conducted searches of the homes of the leaders of the company Unaoil and at its headquarters in the Principality," the statement said.

"The leaders of this company were also interviewed on 29 and 30 March 2016. These searches and interviews were conducted in the presence of British officers, in connection with a case of vast corruption with international ramifications that involves many foreign companies active in the petroleum sector.

"The items collected during the search will be now be used by the British authorities in their investigations."

Fairfax Media revealed on Thursday that the British police had teamed up with the Australian Federal Police, the US Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate the vast cache of emails on which our stories have been based.

The Monaco government said it would not release further details at this stage in case it compromised the investigation.

A spokeswoman for Unaoil told Associated Press the company "has no comment at this time". The Serious Fraud Office also declined to comment.

In Australia, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the revelations were "tremendously alarming".

>>"I'm grateful for the lid being ripped off some of those carryings on of multinational companies engaging in global bribery," Mr Shorten said on Friday.

"When it comes to anti-corruption, Mr Turnbull's always out there bashing the unions, but he's been disappointingly silent on the conduct of Australian multinationals engaged in global bribery.

"Mr Turnbull needs to be tough on multinationals as much as he's willing to be tough on schools and hospitals. So we take it very seriously, the revelations are deeply disturbing and we won't let this issue go."

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Fri, 01 Apr 2016 22:10

A female Aedes aegypti mosquito takes flight after a blood meal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gathered more than 300 local, state, and federal authorities and experts at its Atlanta headquarters Friday to prepare for clusters of mosquito-transmitted Zika infections on the US mainland.

''The mosquitoes that carry Zika virus are already active in US territories, hundreds of travelers with Zika have already returned to the continental US, and we could well see clusters of Zika virus in the continental US in the coming months,'' CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a statement prior to today's meeting. ''Urgent action is needed, especially to minimize the risk of exposure during pregnancy.''

Zika, a virus that has been tearing across Central and South America since last year, is mostly transmitted by mosquito, but it can also be spread through sexual contact. Generally the virus only causes mild illness, with symptoms including fever, rash, pink eye, and aches. But in the recent outbreaks, Zika has been linked to rare cases of paralyzing auto-immune disease, called Guillain-Barr(C) syndrome. Of most concern, it's also linked to devastating birth defects, including microcephaly, in which babies are born with small, malformed heads and brains.

While researchers are still studying the link between Zika and microcephaly, health experts fear that microcephaly is just one of the potential problems for the unborn. ''Perhaps one of the most important unknowns is what is the range of fetal abnormalities in addition to microcephaly,'' Frieden said in a press conference during the summit. Microcephaly may just be the extreme, he and others noted. Babies exposed to the virus in utero may also suffer from less obvious developmental and cognitive problems, he speculated.

The fear is bolstered by recent data that has only strengthened the tie between the virus and the birth defect, with some studies finding the virus killing off developing brain cells. In a study released this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report tracking the development of a fetus whose mother was infected with the virus during a trip to Central America while she was three months pregnant.

With blood tests and magnetic resonance images (MRI), researchers watched as the baby's brain essentially turned to liquid in the course of nine weeks. The woman aborted the fetus at week 21.

Friday's one-day summit covered such breaking scientific data on the virus and provided training to authorities on how to prevent, treat, and talk with the public (particularly pregnant women) about Zika and its health effects. Experts also focused on coordinating efforts to stamp down mosquito populations.

Enlarge/ Estimated range of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus in the United States, 2016.There's a hodge-podge of practices in various communities for tackling mosquito control, and many of them are very effective, according to Amy Pope, a White House deputy homeland security advisor and deputy assistant to the president who spoke at the press conference. ''The goal of today's summit is to bring all of those practices together in one place, give folks sort of the menu of options, so that they can develop a comprehensive plan well in advance of when we see mosquitoes biting around the continental United States,'' she said.

Though health experts don't foresee extensive mosquito-borne outbreaks of Zika in the US, there's reason to expect small clusters of transmission. Zika is transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, particularly Aedes aegypti and to a lesser extent Aedes albopictus. These mosquitoes, which are present in some areas of the US, can also transmit yellow fever, dengue, and chikungunya viruses. Small outbreaks of chikungunya and dengue pop up in certain areas each year, particularly in Texas and Florida. Health experts suspect that Zika may behave similarly.

Enlarge/ A representation of the surface of the Zika virus with protruding envelope glycoproteins (red) shown.Frieden stressed the difficulty of knocking back Aedes populations, which are day-biters that can breed in very small amounts of standing water. Coordinated, sustained, and well-funded efforts are needed to control these populations, he said.

So far, there is no vaccine or specific treatment for Zika. However, in another scientific report in the journal Science this week, researchers report getting the first detailed, 3D image of the virus using cryo-electron microscopy. While the viral close-up looks unsurprisingly similar to that of dengue'--a related virus'--there are minor differences. Those findings could provide clues to how researchers might defeat the virus with a vaccine.

New England Journal of Medicine, 2015. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1601824 (About DOIs).

Science, 2015. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf5316

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Source: American Renaissance

Sun, 03 Apr 2016 12:11

We welcome comments that add information or perspective, and we encourage polite debate. If you log in with a social media account, your comment should appear immediately. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you may comment as a guest, using a name and an e-mail address of convenience. Your comment will be moderated.

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Sun, 03 Apr 2016 05:35

See more in the cross-post on the NewsBusters blog.

Despite reports trickling out about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal and one about Clinton soon being interviewed by the bureau, the ''big three'' networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC again saw no reason to keep their viewers abreast of this scandal on Thursday night with only 16 seconds spent all week on the evening newscasts.

In contrast, FNC's Special Report with Bret Baier devoted one of its two panel segments to the matter with senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano ruling that Clinton can be found ''currently at the vortex of a perfect storm of legal misery.''

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 20:35

Greece is preparing to start deporting migrants back to Turkey despite mounting concerns about how they will be treated once returned.

It comes after MPs in Athens voted to back draft legislation, fast-tracked through parliament, to allow the returns to start as soon as Monday.

The controversial operation will apply to those who arrived on Greek islands after 20 March.

:: UN Expresses Concern Over EU Migrant Plan

Several Greek officials said deportations are likely to start from the island of Lesbos, using buses to take people from camps to chartered vessels.

Play video "EU Migration Deal Explained"Video:EU Migration Deal ExplainedThey are also to take place with a heavy security escort - with one police minder for every migrant.

The imminent deportations, backed by the European Union following its recent agreement with Turkey, triggered violence at detention camps in the country.

Authorities on the island of Chios said several hundred people forced their way out of an overcrowded camp and staged a protest in the island's main town.

It followed overnight clashes between Syrian and Afghan detainees that left five people injured.

The United Nations has urged Greece and Turkey to provide further safeguards for asylum seekers before the returns begin.

It said that conditions are worsening by the day for more than 4,000 people being held on Greek islands.

It comes as residents in the Turkish town of Dikili also staged protests against setting up registration desks and building refugee camps in their town for those sent back to the country from Europe.

Human rights group Amnesty International, which has strongly opposed the EU-Turkey agreement , said in a report it had evidence of Turkish authorities rounding up Syrians and sending them back across the border to their conflict-torn country.

The group said Turkey has been expelling around 100 men, women and children nearly daily since mid-January.

Greek officials did not respond to the criticism directly, but insisted the rights of detained asylum seekers were being protected.

The clashes on Chios were the latest in a series of violent clashes at shelters and gathering points across Greece, where more than 52,000 migrants and refugees are stranded following EU-backed Balkan border closures.

More than 11,000 of those stranded remain camped out at the Greek-Macedonian border, ignoring calls by the government to move voluntarily to organised shelters.

Many say they have heard conditions in other camps are worse, and they fear what they might find if they are forced to move.

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 19:21

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Washington is off to a tense start. Anti-Erdogan protesters gathered outside the Brookings Institution and chanted as they waited for his arrival Thursday, March 31. (AP)

Visiting Washington this week to attend the Nuclear Security Summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived at the Brookings Institution on Thursday morning to deliver a highly anticipated speech. His country sits at the intersection of some of the thorniest security challenges facing the world: from the ravages of the Syrian war next door to the terrorist violence of the Islamic State to the humanitarian crisis posed by Syrian refugees.

But the event was seemingly upstaged by proceedings outside the venue, where protesters appeared to clash with Erdogan supporters, as well as the controversial Turkish leader's security detail.

A host of journalists in attendance '-- WorldViews was not '-- observed the events first-hand:

An editor at Foreign Policy magazine filmed the disturbances and then went on to tweet how D.C. police were being compelled to separate protesters from Erdogan's bodyguards:

Another journalist at the magazine reported scuffles between Turkish guards and Brookings staff members. They had a more detailed account here.

Some Turkish reporters considered to be critics of Erdogan and the ruling government's policies were kept out by Turkish security guards. Amberin Zaman, a leading Turkish journalist who reported for the Economist for a decade and a half, was turned away and accused of being a sympathizer of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, an outlawed Kurdish separatist group that both Turkey and the United States consider a terrorist organization.

A journalist with the pro-government Daily Sabah pointed to protesters cornering an Erdogan supporter:

A researcher at Brookings filmed the altercations from above:

The mayhem extended into the venue.

Turkish President Erdogan's staff tried to eject certain Turkish journalists before Erdogan's talk at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., on March 31. (Twitter/Ilhan Tanir)

A statement from the National Press Club expressed alarm at the incidents. "Turkey's leader and his security team are guests in the United States," said Thomas Burr, the club's president. "They have no right to lay their hands on reporters or protesters or anyone else for that matter, when the people they are apparently roughing up seemed to be merely doing their jobs or exercising the rights they have in this country."

During his remarks inside, Erdogan appeared to dismiss his opponents outside.

"People shouting in the streets don't know what's going on in Turkey," he said.

The Turkish president used the occasion to hammer home some of his now rather familiar talking points. He began by citing Thursday's bombing in the insurgency-hit city of Diyarbakir, which killed at least six people '-- all believed to be security personnel. No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, though Kurdish militant groups are suspected.

Erdogan once more called out the Western refusal to see the militancy of secular Kurdish groups in the same light as the terrorism of the Islamic State. As WorldViews has discussed in the past, a constellation of Kurdish factions in Syria and Iraq '-- some with ties to the PKK in Turkey '-- receive backing from the West.

"The international community doesn't even label terrorists 'terrorists' these days," Erdogan lamented, aiming his ire particularly at the Syrian YPG, a Kurdish militia that has made significant territorial advances on the other side of the border with Turkey.

Erdogan also described the tremendous burden Turkey has assumed in coping with an exodus of Syrian refugees '-- some 2.7 million arrivals in the space of six years. "Turkey is the country that feels the pain of the crisis in Syria at the closest of all distances," he said.

He lambasted Europe's seeming indifference to the plight of refugees.

"The people fleeing Syria are trying to get away from terror," he said, and insisted that the only solution to both the refugee crisis and the problem of the Islamic State lies in stabilizing Syria and removing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

And Erdogan gestured at growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe and the U.S.. "Xenophobia and racism are on the rise, and they are obstacles to the development of human values," he said.

In a brief Q&A session with former diplomat Marin Indyk, Erdogan was challenged on questions of press freedom. Dozens of journalists and critics of the Turkish president have been arrested under various charges. A newspaper linked to the Gulenists, a religious movement at odds with the president, was recently taken over by Turkish authorities.

Erdogan largely skirted the question, instead highlighting the many supposed successes of his long tenure, including significant economic reforms and the defanging of the country's long-meddling military. He also pointed to the majorities won both by him and his ruling Justice and Development Party in recent elections.

"Criticism I have no problem with," Erdogan said, "but insult is something different."

President Obama was not expected to meet Erdogan on this trip, a snub some had interpreted as a sign of tensions between Washington and Ankara. (A meeting was arranged between the two leaders later on Thursday evening.)

"I don't know the precise circumstances of what took place at Brookings," said deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes in a briefing Thursday. "But obviously our position on this matter, whether it's here in the United States obviously, but also in Turkey, it is that we respect and support the right for there to be independent journalism."

This post has been updated.

Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor at TIME, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 19:13

A new trove of documents, obtained by an RT Documentary crew who recently uncovered details of illicit ISIS oil business with Turkey, sheds light on jihadists' lucrative trade of looted antiquities along their well-established oil and weapons transit routes.

There is no official accounting that would illustrate the true scale of looting being undertaken in Syria, a land once rich with cultural treasures. However, there is no doubt that since radical Islamists established a foothold in the region under raging civil war, pieces of the world's global heritage have ended up in the hands of terrorists.

READ MORE: 'Pearl of the desert': RT visits liberated ancient ruins of Palmyra (DRONE FOOTAGE)

Along with oil smuggling, a lucrative trade in antiquities has become ISIS's source of income to support its devastating operations, many of which leveled unique historic sites such as Palmyra. Artifacts, some worth thousands of dollars apiece, have been turning up in antique markets from eastern Europe to the US.

Read more

Following the exposure of the details of the ISIS oil business, RT has exclusively obtained additional evidence that sheds light on the jihadists' black market of plundered treasures and its transit routes via Turkey.

According to a document that the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) turned over to an RT Documentary crew, the so-called Ministry of Natural Resources established by ISIS to hold grip of the oil operations has a separate ''Department of Artifacts.''

''One of the new documents is a note that has the same letterhead of ISIS's Ministry of Natural Resources as the oil bills of sale, which we discussed last time,'' a reporter, whose name and face have been obscured for security reasons, explained. The letterhead, similar to those found on oil invoices that Kurdish soldiers seized from what used to be the homes of IS fighters, is visible in the upper-right corner of the newly obtained document.

The note, apparently addressed to checkpoint sentries, asks ''brothers at the border'' to allow a Turkish antiquity seller into Syria for the purposes of mutual profit. It reads:

''To the brother responsible for the border, Please assist the passage of brother Hussein Hania Sarira through your post along with the man from Turkey '' the artifacts trader, for the purpose of working with us in the department of artifacts in the Ministry of Natural Resources. May Allah bless you, Loving brother Abu Uafa At-Tunisi.''

While filming in the town of Shaddadi, located in the Syrian province Hasakah, RT reporters came across archaeological pieces, fragments of various ceramic pots. Abandoned in a tunnel, which ISIS fighters fled through, they were discovered by the Kurdish YPG troops after they liberated Shaddadi from jihadists in the February 2016.

No one knows where those objects originally came from, but Kurdish fighters also found an old map in French, which could date as far back as colonial times. It indicates the excavation grounds.

Besides providing revealing insight into ISIS money-making, the note supports the previous suppositions that ISIS is selling artifacts via the same trade route, which, according to what RT's crew was told, it used to bring across weapons and supplies, right under Ankara's nose.

The fact of Turkey's lax control and inaction has been recalled by a young fighter in an operational video that RT also obtained from the YPG. He was filmed after being captured by Kurdish troops at the border town of Tel Abyad, which was formerly a trade corridor between Turkey and ISIS.

''They sent me to serve in Tel Abyad on the Turkish border. Sometimes we even crossed the Turkish border and served there. We saw the Turkish army passing by, but there was never any kind of conflict between us,'' militant Abu Ayub al-Ansari said.

'Kurdish advance cut ISIS communication lines with Turkish security services'The captured terrorist admitted that losing Tel Abyad had dealt a severe blow to Islamic State activities and its trade routes, as well as direct commutation lines with representatives of Turkish security services.

''When the Kurdish militia took over Tel Abyad, the connection was lost and foreign fighters could not get in,'' the Islamist fighter testified. ''The communication with the Turkish security services was broken, we could only communicate via civilians or spies.''

The terror group was also hit financially, suffering a serious blow to one of its major businesses '' the oil smuggling.

''The goods that came from Turkey have also disappeared because the Kurdish YPG fighters have blocked the road through Tel Abyad. Also, the tankers can't drive through the area. That has put the organization in a complicated financial situation,'' the apprehended militant told the YPG fighters.

'We, Daesh, financially depend on oil'The jihadi files showed that IS has kept very professional records of their oil business, including the name of the driver, the vehicle type driven, and the weight of the truck, both full and empty, as well as the agreed upon price and invoice number.

As local residents who had been forced to work in the IS oil industry told RT earlier, ''the extracted oil was delivered to an oil refinery, where it was converted into gasoline, gas and other petroleum products. Then the refined product was sold.''

''Then intermediaries from Raqqa and Allepo arrived to pick up the oil and often mentioned Turkey,'' they said.

The operational video of the Kurdish-captured Islamic State militant revealed more details of oil-related work inside ISIS, including the salaries terrorists were paid.

''We, Daesh, know that we financially depend on oil. Earlier it was said we only sold to civilian buyers, but there's no way they could buy so much. Our wages are from $50 to $100, depending on whether you are married or not. I am married and have a baby, so I was paid $135. When the oil supply across Tel Abyad was cut-off, the problems started,'' he said.

Since RT made its revelations last week, a stream of questions poured on Turkey with experts and high-profile politicians demanding from Ankara explanations to the ''very convincing'' report that exposed its alleged links to terrorists.

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 18:06

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Sat, 02 Apr 2016 17:54

A family from the Netherlands moved to Pilot Point to start Texas' first tulip field. And the TV show 'Dallas' may be a big reason why. (Published Friday, March 18, 2016)

The popular saying, "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could," certainly applies to a family from the Netherlands now making North Texas more colorful.

"When we were young, we were always watching the television program about the Ewings, so it was always on my mind," said Cora Koeman. "It was a combination of the country and the city '' the oil and the land, the farming land, the horses, but also the big city."

Three years ago, with the catchy theme song of the TV show Dallas stuck in her head, Koeman and her mom left their home in the Netherlands for a family vacation to Southfork Ranch.

"We had a rental car, and as farmers do, we were looking for good soil and just driving around and that brought us to Pilot Point," Koeman added. "Then I said to my mom, if you want to do something else with the tulips and have contact with the final customer, then I think this is the place."

And that's how Pilot Point's "Texas Tulips" was founded.

It's the only tulip field in the Lone Star State.

The kaleidoscope of color leaves visitors in awe.

"The flowers are just gorgeous," said customer Constance Stanton.

Moving their business from the Netherlands to North Texas wasn't easy, but it's paying off.

"It's one of the biggest decisions you make in your life. We had a company for almost 40 years, so it was a very hard decision," Koeman said. "I like Texas so much, I wish I was born here."

Published at 6:26 PM CDT on Mar 18, 2016

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Source: Washington Free Beacon

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 20:16

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Source: newest submissions : inthemorning

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 20:16

The White House website has censored a video of French Pres. Francois Hollande saying that ''Islamist terrorism'' is at the ''roots of terrorism.''

The White House briefly pulled video of a press event on terrorism with Pres. Obama, and when it reappeared on the WhiteHouse.gov website and YouTube, the audio of Hollande's translator goes silent, beginning with the words ''Islamist terrorism,'' then begins again at the end of his sentence.

Even the audio of Hollande saying the words ''Islamist terrorism'' in French have, apparently, been edited from the video.

According to the official White House transcript of Hollande's remarks, Hollande refers to ''Islamist terrorism.'' The audio of the bold text in brackets is missing from the video '' the only point in the video were the audio is absent:

''We are also making sure that between Europe and the United States there can be a very high level coordination.

Watch the video of Hollande's censored comment:

Pres. Obama has come under fire from Republicans for his refusal to say ''radical Islam'' when discussing terrorism and, again yesterday, he declined to do so.

Obama made three vague mentions of terrorism, citing the ''hands of terrorism,'' the ''scourge of terrorism,'' and ''counterterrorism'' in Thursday's press event.

A screen shot of the White House transcript of Hollande's "Islamist terrorism" comment is below:

An archived screen shot of the White House website saying the video had been removed follows:

Editor's Note: MRCTV Staff Writers Ben Graham and Ashley Rae Goldenberg contributed to this report.

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Source: The Intercept

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 20:12

A GREENPEACE ACTIVIST confronted Hillary Clinton during a campaign stop Thursday: ''Thank you for tackling climate change. Will you act on your words and reject fossil fuel money in the future from your campaign?''

Clinton replied angrily: ''I have money from people who have worked for fossil fuel companies. I have never '... I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I am sick of it.''

The Clinton camp later issued an explanatory statement, concluding that the ''simple truth is that this campaign has not taken a dollar from oil and gas industry PACs or corporations.''

The Bernie Sanders campaign countered by pointing to a Greenpeace tally that says she has collected ''$1,259,280 in bundled and direct donations from lobbyists currently registered as lobbying for the fossil fuel industry.''

Additionally, Greenpeace found ''$3,250,000 in donations from large donors connected to the fossil fuel industry to Priorities Action USA,'' the main Super PAC backing Clinton's campaign.

Sanders, by contrast, has signed a pledge to reject fossil fuel dollars.

It's important to distinguish here between the different ways the candidates (their affiliated Super PACs aside) can accept money from fossil fuel interests, however.

Neither campaign accepts money directly from fossil fuel companies (that wouldn't be legal).Neither campaign takes money from fossil fuel-affiliated SuperPACs funded by individuals in the industry.At the same time, neither campaign rejects contributions from workers in the fossil fuel industry.And neither campaign rejects money from lobbyists who represent the industry.The central dispute between the two camps, then, appears to be about the volume of money Clinton gets from or through fossil fuel lobbyists.

But Sanders, too, is apparently accepting money from the fossil fuel lobby. According to an Intercept examination of online records of lobbyist disclosure of political contributions, the Sanders campaign took in $24 from Nathen Causman, a lobbyist for the LNE Group, whose clients include American Municipal Power Inc.

The Sanders campaign had no comment.

''I'm entitled to have personal beliefs as well as career I think, right?'' Causman said in an interview with The Intercept on Friday. ''I don't directly work with [American Municipal Power] at all. I'm sure that they're with our company so I'm registered with them just in case, if so, I could be helpful if I needed to be.''

He added: ''I think that my personal political campaign donations are completely separate from anything that my company does. That's in no way a statement of support from the company I work for or the clients that we represent.''

Why give to Sanders? ''I personally trust his character,'' Causman said. ''I think he's been on the right side of history throughout his political career, and I generally align with all of his policy proposals. And I have aligned with them ever since I started paying attention to politics in the first place. The firm that I work for is nonpartisan so we don't particularly take any side.''

There's a difference in scale between the amount that individuals who work in the energy sector have contributed to each candidate, as well. People in the fossil fuel industry have contributed $930,983 to Clinton's campaign, compared to $203,885 to Sanders's campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Clinton has repeatedly argued that money from corporate interests does not influence her policymaking. ''You will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation that I ever received,'' she said during a February Democratic debate.

But she has yet to offer a concrete plan to control carbon emissions, the main cause of man-made global warming. Her campaign touts neither the cap-and-trade model favored by the Obama administration nor the carbon tax favored by Sanders. When asked about fracking at a recent debate, Clinton hedged, talking about vague regulations. Her opponent, Sanders, answered that he was flatly against it.

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THEY SPLICED AND DICED THE VIDEO!The mainstream media went into overdrive today reporting that Donald Trump said to register all Muslims in the United States during a campaign stop in Iowa.

CNN ran this clip (transcribed):

Reporter: '... Should there be database system that tracks Muslims in this country?

Donald Trump: There should be a lot of systems beyond a database. We should have a lot of systems and today you can do it.

Reporter: But is it something your White House would'...

Donald Trump: Well, I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.

Reporter: '...How would you actually get them registered in that?

Donald Trump: It would be just good management.

Of course, the left is comparing his comments to the Nazi regime.

Here is the video clip:

But as Rush Limbaugh pointed out, the video from Iowa was edited by the liberal media. They cut out half of the conversation to change the narrative!

RUSH: Now, I don't know if you have seen it yet today. There are stories all over the Drive-By Media '-- the Associated Press, Yahoo News, I mean, it's everywhere '-- that Donald Trump supposedly is calling for the registration of all Muslims in America. Trump is demanding that they all be registered and that a massive database be collected. CNN is all over reporting this. Even the Wall Street Journal has picked up on it. There's a problem, though: Trump didn't say it. I'm gonna tell you what happened. At a recent public appearance Trump's coming off the stage after one of his usual one hour to 90-minute appearances.

He's probably worn out and spent, and there's the usual crowd of autograph seekers and supporters and fans, and amongst them is a Drive-By Media reporter who says to Trump, ''Should there be a database system that tracks the Muslims that are in this country?'' Trump says, ''There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems, and today you can do it. But right now we have to have a border. We have to have strength, we have to have a wall, and we cannot let what's happening to this country happen again.'' Reporter: ''Is that something your White House would like to implement?''

There's no specificity there. The question is just, ''Is that something your White House would like to implement?'' Trump has given a multifaceted answer. He says, ''Is that something,'' without specifying what he's asking about. Trump said, ''Oh, I would certainly implement that, absolutely,'' and that's how they report that Trump ''demands a database and registration for all Muslims,'' when he didn't say it! He never said it. It's a Journalism 101 trick. It's right out of the manual they teach you at the first year of journalism school in how to destroy political opponents or powerful people you don't like. It's that common a technique.

What a surprise.The entire segment was edited.

I didn't suggest a database-a reporter did. We must defeat Islamic terrorism & have surveillance, including a watch list, to protect America

'-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2015

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Thu, 31 Mar 2016 22:20

That display of intolerance for dissent followed reports this week that Turkey's foreign ministry had summoned Germany's ambassador to complain about a satirical music video mocking Erdogan that was broadcast recently on German television. ''We demanded,'' a Turkish diplomat told Agence France-Presse, that the show ''be removed from the air.''

The Germany foreign ministry confirmed the encounter on Tuesday.

A German diplomatic source told AFP that Ambassador Martin Erdmann rejected the request, explaining that ''in Germany, political satire is covered by the freedom of the press and of expression, and the government has neither the need for, nor the option of, taking action.''

The music video that prompted the diplomatic crisis was a parody of a 1980s song by the German pop star Nena, ''Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann,'' (''Anyway, Anywhere, Anytime''). The satirical remix plays on the fact that the German word for ''anytime'' sounds like the Turkish president's last name. The new version of the song, ''Erdowie, Erdowo, Erdogan,'' broadcast March 17 on NDR, a public television channel, pokes fun at the autocratic president in part by mixing footage of him looking ridiculous with criticism of his egotism and intolerance of dissent.

In response to the Turkish demand that the video be censored, the show that produced it, Extra 3, instead added English and Turkish subtitles to the video.

Over the next 24 hours, the video was viewed nearly three million times more on YouTube, including more than a quarter of a million views of the new Turkish version.

The song's revised lyrics explicitly cite Erdogan's attack on press freedom. ''When a journalist writes a piece that Erdogan doesn't like,'' the singer notes, ''he quickly ends up in jail.''

As the German magazine Spiegel reported on Monday when it first revealed Turkey's attempt to have the German government censor the video, Erdogan's government has been incensed about European diplomats openly opposing its crackdown on the media.

Germany's ambassador is one of several European diplomats to attend the trial of two senior journalists, Can D¼ndar, the editor-in-chief of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, and Erdem G¼l, the paper's Ankara bureau chief. The two men face life in prison on espionage charges for reporting last year that weapons seized at the country's border with Syria in 2014 were part of a covert operation by Turkey's intelligence service to supply Islamist rebels.

''This is a tug of war between Turkish democrats and autocrats,'' Dundar told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. ''The Western world has been supporting Erdogan for years and we were telling them that this was the wrong decision, not only for Turkey, but also for the Western world.''

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Thu, 31 Mar 2016 22:19

Hush, young Bernie Sanders supporters. Shhh.

Hillary Clinton's campaign wants you to change your tone. And when you've changed it, tone it down.

I don't mind you making noise. But Clinton's advisers don't like it, and they talk as if you're still in those pajamas with the feet. The message?

Be still. Good night. Hush. Go to sleep.

And there's Hillary herself in that comfy chair in the dark, right out of "Goodnight Moon," that family bedtime story by Margaret Wise Brown that you may remember from childhood.

You know the room, that big green room with the red balloon. The picture of the cow jumping over the moon. And the comb and the brush and the bowlful of mush.

And the old lady whispering, "hush."

So why would Hillary whisper "hush" to young people feeling the Bern?

Because she wants to be president of the United States and rule the world, and fulfill her destiny as queen of the new American political establishment.

And she doesn't need Sanders supporters ruining things.

Which is why her campaign has been working so hard to get Sanders voters to simmer down.

Sanders is the candidate with the momentum on the Democratic side. His voters believe that he believes in something. And I think he does. I disagree with his views, but he does stand for something.

And Hillary Clinton? What does she stand for? What does she believe in?

Herself. Power. That's about it.

She's like Frank Underwood in pantsuits.

She'll play the gender card, she'll pander to race, she'll force you to parse her sentences. These are tactics, not core principles.

But she is the candidate with establishment support, with her Wall Street friends and those neoconservative war hawks leaving the Republicans and rushing up to her for great big hugs.

And though Sanders wants to debate her in New York, the Clinton campaign has explained the rules of silence.

"Sen. Sanders doesn't get to decide when we debate, particularly when he's running a very negative campaign against us," complained chief strategist Joel Benenson on CNN. "Let's see if he goes back to the kind of tone he said he was going to set early on. If he does that, then we'll talk about debates."

She's apparently agreed to a debate. We'll see. But whether there's another debate or not, you can learn about a candidate from the demands of her campaign.

And if she's this way now when she needs votes, what will she be like when she's queen of the world? Will you be as quiet as a bowlful of mush?

For weeks now, liberal pundits and Democratic senators have been telling Sanders voters to hush, to give up Bernie, just close your eyes, roll over and join Team Hillary.

They whisper in the voice of reason in the dark '-- the way all establishment whispers begin '-- saying that for the sake of party unity, just dump Bernie. Then you may curl up in Hillary's lap for a bedtime story.

It's exactly the same tone that Republican establishment leaders and their mouthpieces offered to GOP conservatives years ago. It's all about how unity is strength, and only when we're unified can we hope to defeat those terrible enemies just waiting to take away our precious things.

What you may come to realize is that establishment Democrats and establishment Republicans are quite similar. They're the two horns on the head of the same goat. But don't think about this now. You'll never get to sleep.

There is something that may make you shut your eyes. It's that monster hiding under your bed: Donald Trump.

Trump is the bogeyman now. And if you insist on staying awake, Hillary would like you to focus on The Donald.

Trump says crazy things, so crazy lately that I wonder if he really wants to be president, or if the pressure has finally gotten to him. He allows stupidity to whoosh past his lips almost daily now. Perhaps he just wants out of the campaign.

Trump's latest crazy thing was saying that if abortions are banned, women who have abortions will be punished. And that drove everyone else insane '-- Bernie, Hillary, conservative Ted Cruz, journalists, opinionators, everyone.

Trump later backed off on his statement. And, of course, it won't happen. Abortion is not going to be outlawed. America has become used to it now. It's not changing.

So worrying about an impending abortion ban and Trump's punishment is as realistic as worrying about Raul Castro sending his armies to occupy Wall Street.

But a bipartisan public freakout over a crazy man saying crazy things is sometimes entertaining, and Trump's nonsense helps us forget the monster hiding under Clinton's own bed:

The FBI.

Her top aides from her time as secretary of state may soon be questioned by FBI agents investigating how top secret and other classified documents came to be kept on her private server. And after they're questioned, it will be her turn.

There's no assurance that her private server wasn't hacked by foreign intelligence. At issue was whether she was merely negligent or willful, and either puts her in real legal and political jeopardy.

And so what she needs is for Democrats to have nightmares about Trump, the better to ignore whether their leading candidate may very well be implicated in a criminal probe. And with so much stress on her, we might as well put Hillary back on the comfy chair in the quiet room:

"Goodnight comb and goodnight brush. Goodnight nobody. Goodnight mush.

"And goodnight to the old lady whispering, 'hush.'"

"The Chicago Way" with John Kass and Jeff Carlin: Radio-free Chicago in podcast form.www.wgnplus.com/category/thechicagoway.

jskass@tribpub.com

Twitter @John_Kass

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Thu, 31 Mar 2016 22:08

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