Good to know that if it were the real thing, civilians would evacuate themselves instead of waiting around to be attacked, I suppose. Also, why did the tablet do that?
[EXPRESS.CO.UK] The blast was caused by a computer tablet exploding in the cramped carriage.
The device injured its owner, believed to be a woman who was carrying it in her bag, and at least five more people sitting nearby.
And more had to be assisted by paramedics for smoke inhalation, according to El Mundo.
The explosion happened on a Line 9 train travelling towards Paco de Lucia at Principe de Vergara tube station in the Spanish capital.
Police and paramedics rushed to the scene to assist the casualties.
A spokeswoman for Emergencies Madrid said members of the staff were helping 17 passengers deal with the shock.
According to El Mundo, Spain's second-largest newspaper, the explosion sparked panic across the train, with commuters afraid of being the target of a terrorist act.
Nine people were assisted by doctors after suffering from panic attacks, the newspaper added.
Gonzalo Casatejada, 33, told Spanish daily El Pais: "People started running, they said there was a backpack with smoke.
"We opened the door manually, we had been standing for several minutes, but people got scared and everybody started to run.
"We were afraid that it would be an attack."
People inside the carriages activated the emergency brake to leave the train, walking in the darkness along the track for approximately 100 metres, where they found the platform.
Following the blast, the underground service was immediately halted between Sainz de Baranda and Avenida de America to investigate into what caused the explosion - but it was later restored.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/18/2018 00:00 ||
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[Breitbart] Andrej Babiš has refused to bow to pressure demanding the Czech Republic resettle "war orphans" living in Greek camps, insisting that his responsibility as Prime Minister was to Czech orphans.
In an interview with Právo on Saturday, the Slovak-born businessman restated his position that the nation would not accept a single so-called refugee, nor 50 Syrian orphans as demanded by opposition politicians and MEPs, who spent last week campaigning to bring unaccompanied minors over from Greece to the Czech Republic.
"Since 2015 we have sent 2.5 billion koruna (87 million GBP) in development aid to countries helping refugees, sent physicians and experts to Syria and have treated 2,500 patients in Czech hospitals including a number of Syrian children since the migrant crisis," he said.
"Why should we accept them? We also have orphans in the Czech Republic who we must be preparing for life," he told the daily newspaper, stating "I went into politics mainly to look after Czech citizens. Why should we be caring for Syrian orphans?"
#1
Right-wing values. To the Left, these values look like fascism. Everything other than their own values looks like fascism. It makes other values easier to dismiss when you call them fascism.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
09/18/2018 1:19 Comments ||
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#2
It's up to Czech charities to fund non-citizens.
The state should only spend money on citizens, not virtue signalling opportunities for politicians.
[AlAhram] Belgian police shot and seriously maimed a man who they said attacked them with a knife after they found him sleeping rough near a centre for asylum seekers in Brussels on Monday.
Prosecutors dismissed any terrorist motive on the part of the man, who a local refugee organization said was an Egyptian asylum-seeker, and opened investigations into both the knife attack and the coppers' use of a firearm.
Shortly after 9 a.m. in an area dominated by government offices, two coppers used a baton and pepper spray on the man when he pulled the knife after they woke him and asked him to move on. When he slashed one in the face, the other officer shot the man in the chest and leg. A third shot missed.
The prosecutors office said the officer was only slightly hurt. The man was taken to hospital in a critical condition.
Mehdi Kassou, a front man for the Citizens Platform for Refugee Support in Belgium, said the man was aged about 40 and had been sleeping rough in the area for several months.
The incident took place in Parc Maximilien, an area known as a gathering point for mainly North African immigrants colonists hoping to head on to Britannia, police spokeswoman Ilse Van Der Keere said.
h/t Instapundit
On last night's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, I reported on the media's reaction to the Chinese-Canadians expressing outrage over the murder of a teenage girl in their community by one of Trudeau's Syrian "refugees".
Mainstream media outlets pushed a pro-migrant narrative and shared videos promoting a Syrian led vigil for the murdered girl. But when the vigil failed to materialize ‐ and they were instead met by crowds of Chinese-Canadians demanding an answer from Trudeau ‐ the media didn't know how to respond.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Mass grave containing human remains of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... leaders has been found, northwest of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , a security source from Nineveh police said on Monday.
Speaking to BasNews website, Col. Thamer Khedr said "security forces ran into a mass grave containing human remains of ten bodies of Islamic State members."
The members, according to Thamer, were killed by the bully boy group likely due to their reluctance during liberation battles, northwest of Mosul.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/18/2018 00:00 ||
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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Dozens of displaced Iraqis have returned home from a refugee camp in neighboring Syria, the Iraqi Migration and Displacement Ministry declared on Monday.
The ministry said it received 376 Iraqis returning from al-Houl refugee camp in Syria’s Hassaka province.
Shafaq News website quoted ministry official Ali Abbas Jahakir saying that those were sheltered at Jaddaa camp, south of Iraq’s Nineveh province.
Thousands of Iraqis in Nineveh had fled to the Syrian camp after Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... Death Eaters swept a third of Iraqi territories in 2014 to establish a self-proclaimed "caliphate".
Iraq’s war to drive Islamic State Death Eaters out had forced nearly five million to flee homes to areas both inside and outside Iraq. The United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... said recently that displacement numbers had dropped to two million people
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09/18/2018 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] To mark 30 years since its first orbital launch, Defense Ministry publishes images from its newest spy satellite, showing Syrian tanks, an airfield... and Bashir al-Assad’s home
The warning came Monday morning. Monday night the information was used for targetting. A useful lesson for all involved.
Israel on Monday released photographs taken by its newest spy satellite of sites located deep inside Syria, including Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad’s palace, in an apparent threat to the regime.
The images, taken by the Ofek 11 spy satellite, were released by the Defense Ministry to mark 30 years since Israel’s first orbital launch on September 19, 1988.
The three photographs released by the ministry showed the Syrian Presidential Palace, also known as the Palace of the People; tanks on a Syrian military base; and the Damascus international airport, which was reportedly targeted by an Israeli missile strike on Saturday night.
The publication of the images could be seen as both a show of strength and a tacit threat to Syria, where Israel has routinely conducted air raids against Iranian targets ‐ over 200 of them since 2017, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
The Saturday night strike reportedly targeted an Iranian plane at the Damascus international airport that was delivering weapons to pro-regime forces and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps units fighting in Syria’s civil war, as well as several weapons storage facilities at the airport itself.
THE OFEK 11
The Ofek 11 spy satellite was launched on September 13, 2016, using a Shavit rocket, the same basic model that Israel used to launch the first Ofek satellite 30 years before.
Shortly after takeoff, the team operating the satellite discovered it was not functioning properly. Teams of engineers on the ground worked to stabilize the Ofek 11 and get its systems running.
Israel’s Ofek-11 spy satellite takes off from Palmachim air base in central Israel on September 13, 2016. (Ministry of Defense Space Administration)
Nine days later, the satellite beamed back its first images, dispelling fears that it was a total operational loss.
"The Ofek 11 satellite will provide operational outputs," the Defense Ministry said at the time.
The Ofek 11 was an upgrade from the Ofek 10 satellite launched by Israel in April 2014.
The Ofek 11 joined approximately 10 other satellites, including the Ofek 10, Ofek 9, Ofek 7 and Ofek 5, that feed intelligence to Israel’s security forces.
"Israel’s independent capabilities in the field of satellites represents a significant advantage in its efforts to stand up to various security threats. The quality of the images and photographs that are produced by our different satellites is incredible and provide us with valuable intelligence, and prove that the sky is not the limit," Amnon Harari, the head of the Defense Ministry’s space program, said on Monday.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/18/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
My Patience is ended when you want to host the Alien Iran's war plans on your own Airstrip.
I AM going to continue to hit everything from Iran and you Assad is this continues.
The Golan is Mine, and your staging and weapons proliferation and to Whom makes great concern. And you are hitting last straw, Assad.
I AM aware, more than anyone of the ramifications.
[IsraelTimes] After severing of ties following deadly Gazoo border festivities in May, Jerusalem and Ankara now see vital shared interests in keeping Iran from dominating Syria.
Israel and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... are holding backchannel talks in a bid to restore the all-but-severed diplomatic relations between the two nations.
After the violent protests on the Gazoo border in May in which over 60 Paleostinians, most of them members of Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, and other terror groups, were killed, Ottoman Turkish leader Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... placed the blame for the deaths squarely on Israel, calling it a "terrorist state" that commits "genocide." Turkey recalled its ambassador and expelled Israel’s ambassador, Eitan Na’eh, and consul in Istanbul.
Israel responded at the time by expelling Turkey’s consul-general in Jerusalem and summoning the country’s deputy ambassador in Tel Aviv for a dressing down.
According to a report Monday in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth, if the latest talks bear fruit, both governments expect to return their respective ambassadors after the Jewish holiday season, or roughly in early October, some five months after the spat ‐ the latest in a series of diplomatic crisis spanning years.
Two private jets, one Israeli and one Ottoman Turkish, left their respective countries for Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday morning, flying via Amman, the report said. The flights are believed to be connected to the ongoing talks, but neither government has confirmed their purpose.
Turkey already returned its economic attache to Israel in recent weeks.
While Ankara under the leadership of Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has positioned itself as a supporter of Hamas and other staunchly anti-Israel forces since coming to power in 2003, the two nations now find themselves sharing vital interests on several fronts, especially Syria.
As the Syrian civil war grinds to an end with the final regime offensive underway in Idlib, Sunni Turkey is fearful of Shiite Iran’s domination of its southern neighbor, a concern shared by Israel.
Observers have noted in recent weeks that Turkey, usually the first in line to lambaste Israel, has remained silent over purported Israeli Arclight airstrikes against Hezbollah and Iranian weapons shipments and military installations in Syria.
Turkey also faces an economic crisis and a collapsing currency amid a diplomatic falling out and trade dispute with the United States over Ankara’s detention of an American pastor in the country on espionage charges.
Even at the height of the latest diplomatic crisis in May, Israeli officials took pains to clarify that relations were not beyond repair.
"Turkey is an important state in the region, and even though its leader made very grave remarks against Israel’s leadership and its actions, I think we repaid him in a similar vein," Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said at the time. "We said that a dictator like him who spills blood and behaves in such a cruel manner cannot lecture us."
Israeli officials responded to Erdogan’s accusations at the time in kind, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Erdogan "well understands terrorism and slaughter" and should not preach to Israel about military ethics.
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09/18/2018 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] An official in the Gazoo health ministry has appeared to walk back assertions made by Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", that a 12-year-old who died over the weekend in the coastal enclave had been shot by IDF troops.
"The boy died of a head injury," the anonymous source told Rooters, declining to give additional information and avoiding blaming the Israeli army for the child’s death.
The IDF has said its own evidence showed that the 12-year-old was hit by a rock thrown by protesters, and Gazoo rights groups reported he died after being struck "with a solid object," the AP reported earlier this week.
The Hamas-run Gazoo Health Ministry, by contrast, claimed Shady Abdel-al was killed by Israeli fire east of Jabalia in the northern part of the Strip.
[AnNahar] A new batch of displaced Syrians returned to their homeland Monday from the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... Lebanese General Security agents escorted the buses that carried the refugees to Syria, the National News Agency said.
The agents also "oversaw the registration of the names and the organized the safe return," NNA added.
A number of returnees expressed their gratitude for Leb's government and people and thanked General Security for offering assistance.
"General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim's instructions are clear on offering all the necessary help to all returnees," a front man for General Security said.
"This should motivate the remaining displaced Syrians to voluntarily return to their homeland Syria and measures have been carefully taken to secure a safe return," the front man added.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/18/2018 00:00 ||
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[AlMasdar] Hezbollah has emerged stronger after participating in the Syrian War for the last five years, the Soufan Group said in a new report on Monday.
"While the so-called ’Party of God’ has suffered significant casualties in Syria, losing nearly 2,000 fighters throughout the course of the war, it has gained valuable combat experience, and improved its interoperability and exposure to new weapons systems," the report said.
"During its deployment to Syria, Hezbollah gained invaluable experience fighting across a range of terrains, from urban redoubts to austere rural environments. Hezbollah also gained valuable experience fighting against adversaries other than Israel, its most familiar foe. In Syria, Hezbollah clashed with other non-state actors, including highly capable groups like the so-called Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....."
"Hezbollah will benefit from training with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and Russian special operations troops‐experience sure to enhance its interoperability, improve command and control, and provide training on a range of new weapons systems, including emerging technologies like unmanned aerial systems," the report highlighted.
The report also discussed Hezbollah’s expanded role in the region, including their ties with groups like the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... forces and their opposition to the Kingdom of Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... .
[AlMasdar] Over 1,000 members of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) terrorist group are still fighting inside the al-Safa region of southern Syria, a military source told al-Masdar News.
According to the source, a captured Islamic State krazed killer admitted to the Syrian military that there were still 1,500 holy warriors in the al-Safa region; however, the army believed those numbers were hyperbolized.
The source said that the Syrian military estimates that there are between 1,000-1,200 Islamic State holy warriors that are still active in southern Syria.
These estimates are most likely true, given that the Islamic State has managed to fend off several Syrian Army attacks at the northeastern and southwestern axes of the al-Safa region.
ISIS is still in control of several points inside the al-Safa region, including one last water source in the Qabr Sheikh Hussein area.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/18/2018 00:00 ||
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[AlMasdar] The faceless myrmidons in the Syrian Idlib province are likely to be moved to the Jisr al-Shughur
...in 2015 the city was captured by an alliance of Salafist insurgents, including al-Qaeda's al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and the Turkistan Islamic Party. The city has become a stronghold of the TIP, and reportedly 3,500 Uyghurs have since settled there. By July 2017, the city was under joint control of Al Nusra/Tahrir al-Sham and the Turkistan Islamic Party...
in order to reduce casualties among the civilians, representative of Astana opposition platform Mahmoud Afandi told Sputnik Monday.
"Most likely, all faceless myrmidons will be moved to one area ‐ Jisr al-Shughur. This place already now has almost no civilians," Afandi said.
The opposition member noted that the main issue would be how to remove faceless myrmidons from the city of Idlib.
"The main question now is how to remove Nusra* from the city of Idlib... For civilians, corridors will be opened," he added.
While the Syrian government has eliminated faceless myrmidons in vast territories of the country, Idlib is still occupied by the bully boys. Since late August, tensions have escalated in the region, with Russia claiming that faceless myrmidons were preparing a false-flag chemical attack there, set to provoke a western retaliatory strike.
The West, meanwhile, tends to believe that it is Damascus that plans to carry out an attack against civilians.
According to the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... , Idlib is the base for approximately 10,000 members of the Nusra Front and Al Qaeda* terrorist groups. The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire.... Influences Opposition Groups in Idlib to Separate From Terrorists
TURKEY INFLUENCES OPPOSITION GROUPS IN IDLIB TO SEPARATE FROM TERRORISTS
The opposition representative also noted that Ankara was trying to make moderate opposition fight against faceless myrmidons in the region.
"Erdogan has the intention of reconciliation. Already now Turkey is actively influencing gangs on the ground in Idlib to make them reconcile and agree to fight against Nusra faceless myrmidons with the government, having Russia as the guarantor of their survival," Afandi said.
He expressed hope that the situation in the province would be the same as it was in Daraa.
"Russian military police would monitor Idlib and guarantee that the government does not attack the military groups who decided to surrender, while these military groups take the side of the fight against terrorism. The situation will be similar to that of Daraa," Afandi added.
The Idlib de-escalation zone in Syria is under the responsibility of Turkey as a guarantor state, and Russia expects Ankara to facilitate the difficult process of separating moderate opposition groups from faceless myrmidons in the area, Russian special presidential envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev announced last week in Geneva after the guarantors’ meeting.
"Armed opposition groups in Idlib have only one condition ‐ to prevent any Iranian presence in Idlib. This condition will be voiced by Erdogan to Putin," Afandi said in the wake of the meeting between Russian and Ottoman Turkish presidents in Sochi.
Last week, Lavrentyev said that terrorists’ surrender would be the best option for solving the situation in the Idlib province, in order to prevent casualties among civilians.
[IsraelTimes] Leaders of Russia, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... announce deep demilitarized zone around last rebel-held region, where fears of a devastating assault by regime forces were running high
Moscow said Monday that there would be no assault on Syria’s Idlib as the leaders of Russia and Turkey agreed to create a demilitarized zone around the Syrian rebel-held province.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... and his Ottoman Turkish counterpart Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... ‐ who are on opposite sides in the deadly seven-year conflict in Syria ‐ met for over four hours in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi to decide the fate of Idlib, home to three million people.
"We will prevent a humanitarian tragedy which could happen as a result of military action," Erdogan said after the talks.
Putin said the two leaders agreed to create a 15-20 kilometer-wide demilitarized zone along the line of contact between rebels and regime troops by October 15.
This would entail a "withdrawal of all radical fighters" from Idlib including the al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front, he added.
Brilliant idea. It will be subsequently revealed that they’ll probably be sent on their own Trail of Tears to the city of Jisr al-Shughur, elsewhere in Idlib province.
Putin and Erdogan also agreed on the withdrawal of "heavy weaponry from this zone," including tanks, multiple launch rocket systems, and rocket launchers belonging to all gangs, the Russian leader added.
The demilitarized zone will be secured with the help of "mobile patrol groups of Ottoman Turkish contingents and contingents of Russian military police," Putin said.
By the end of the year, transportation routes between the key port of Latakia and Aleppo as well as Latakia and the major city of Hama must be restored, he added.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the agreement between Putin and Erdogan meant that no military action would be taken against Idlib, Russian news agencies reported.
Russia-backed forces of the Syrian regime have massed around Idlib province in recent weeks, sparking fears of an imminent air and ground attack to retake the last major opposition bastion.
Erdogan and Putin met previously on September 7 in Tehran for a three-way summit with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. At that summit the Russian and Ottoman Turkish leaders openly disagreed over how to deal with the rebel stronghold, which borders Turkey.
MASS EXODUS FEARS
Turkey’s military has reportedly sent reinforcements to Idlib in recent weeks. Tanks and other hardware, with a convoy of 50 military vehicles, were sent over the border Sunday, according to the Hurriyet daily.
Turkey backs opposition fighters seeking the ouster of the Syrian leader. It has said a large-scale offensive against the rebels could trigger a mass exodus towards its border.
Russian and Syrian air strikes, artillery fire and barrel kabooms have killed more than 30 civilians across the province in the past month, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The bombardment has slowed over the past week, however, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that the Syrian regime is not preparing a major offensive against Idlib, adding that Moscow will do everything to protect civilians.
The Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, when the Assad regime launched a crackdown on pro-democracy protests. The crackdown evolved into a complex conflict involving jihadists and world powers.
It has killed an estimated 360,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes.
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09/18/2018 00:00 ||
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[AlMasdar] NATO is building up its naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean as the United States, Britain and France prepare to carry out new strikes against Syria under the pretext of an unlikely Syrian government chemical weapons attack in Idlib province.
Warships from NATO’s 2nd Standing Maritime Group are patrolling Eastern Mediterranean waters, moving closer and closer to the Syrian coast, media reports said, citing Western websites monitoring naval activity in the region.
The NATO flotilla cruising off the Syrian coast reportedly consists of a Dutch frigate, the De Ruyter, a Canadian frigate, the Ville de Quebec, and a Greek cruiser, the Elli.This information was confirmed by the captain of the Dutch frigate in his microblog.
According to earlier reports, a Los Angeles-Class US submarine, the USS Newport News, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has entered the Mediterranean Sea to join a US naval task force consisting of two nuclear submarines with cruise missiles on board and two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, the USS Carney and the USS Ross.
Recently, the Russian military said that the militants are preparing to use chemical weapons in Syria, and the US could use this as a reason for a new attack on Syrian state facilities.
[Free Beacon] International businesses across the United States and Europe are making a beeline to exit the Iranian marketplace ahead of the reimposition of harsh U.S. sanctions that Trump administration officials have been warning will target any company that defies America's call to cut ties with the Islamic Republic, according to multiple U.S. officials briefed on closed-door meetings held over the past months.
U.S. diplomats have been holding a series of meetings with top international business and banking leaders to spell out the Trump administration's new sanctions policy, which will come into full force in early November.
Since the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal, 31 European and Asian firms in the Global 500 have announced their intention to exit the Iranian market. Those companies include "France’s Total, Airbus, and PSA/Peugeot, Denmark’s Maersk, Germany’s Allianz and Siemens, Italy’s Eni, Japan’s Mazda and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, and BP from the United Kingdom," according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Multiple insiders familiar with these discussions told the Washington Free Beacon the Trump administration has been making clear that if anyone sides with Iran‐and a handful of European nations are angling to keep ties with Iran open‐they will be smacked with some of the harshest sanctions in recent memory.
Major banks and corporations had been plotting with some European allies to skirt the new restrictions prohibiting business with Iran, but are said to have ceased these efforts in recent weeks after tough warnings from top U.S. diplomats, sources said.
The meetings are being held as former Obama administration officials and their allies hold a series of counter meetings aimed at helping European nations and top companies skirt Trump's new sanctions. This rogue diplomacy‐including that of former Secretary of State John Kerry, who has held a series of meetings with top Iranian diplomats‐is being met with indignation by the Trump administration, which has accused the former administration and its allies of running a shadow diplomacy campaign aimed at undermining Trump.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
09/18/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Good. Trump means what he says.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/18/2018 0:41 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The Iranian banking sector is being strangled:
Wednesday, June 07, 2017:5 Foreign Banks Licensed by Iran
The Central Bank of Iran has released the names of 40 registered banks and credit institutions active in the country, which include the names of five foreign banks mostly based in Tehran and Kish Free Trade Zone. The only five foreign lenders licensed to operate in Iran are the Hamburg-based Iranian-European Bank, Standard Chartered PLC, Iran-Venezuela Bi-National Bank, Islamic Cooperation Investment Bank...
[Ynet] Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at least 28 pro-regime Syrian fighters were killed in Israeli attacks on war-torn country since April.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday 113 Iranian and militias members identified with the Islamic Theocratic Republic were killed during the two past months in Israeli Arclight airstrikes in Syria.
According to the Observatory, Iranian officers, and at least 28 pro-regime Syrian fighters were killed in the kabooms of the arms depots and warehouses that were attacked since April and which Syria attributed to Israel.
Among the Iranian targets in Syria that were struck are the al-Nayrab military airbase near Aleppo, Mezzeh military airport on the western edge Damascus, several locations in the Quneitra province that were repeatedly attacked, Dabaa military airfield in the Syrian province of Homs near the Syrian-Lebanese border, T-4 military airfield, locations in south west Syria, Aleppo International Airport, and the military airport in Hama.
In addition, according to the Syrian opposition head, Israel has attacked in recent months weapons depots near the Damascus International Airport and the coastal city of Baniyas, the town of Masyaf, Hama and other suburbs of the Syrian capital.
Following the attack on the Damascus International Airport Saturday which Syria also attributed to Israel, Syrian state news agency SANA reported the country's defense systems were activated and several Israeli missiles were intercepted.
"Our air defense systems thwarted an Israeli missile aggression on Damascus International Airport," the news agency SANA cited a military source as saying.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said Israel does not comment on foreign reports.
According to the Arab media outlets, the attack was directed against advanced weapons depots containing new arms delivery. They added severe damage was caused, but no casualties were reported.
Two weeks earlier, Syria said a series of kabooms took place in at the Mezzeh military airport in Damascus. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... the Al Jazeera news network reported the attack targeted the scientific research center in the Jamraya area on the outskirts of Damascus.
Furthermore, it is estimated that since the beginning of Syria's civil war, 8,004 non-local fighters have been killed, most of them Shi'ite operating under the auspices of the Revolutionary Guards, and 1665 Hezbollah activists.
The Observatory added that 32,000 imported muscle took part in the fighting in the war-torn country over the past seven years.
[IsraelTimes] Number allowed in could be lower; resettlement agencies say of the 3 million refugees admitted since 1975, none tossed in the slammer You have the right to remain silent... for carrying out a lethal terror attack on US soil
How many died while carrying out a lethal terror attack, on US soil or elsewhere, and therefore could not be arrested? How many were caught in the planning stage? How many went elsewhere to commit jihad? How many were connected to jihadis or were even their parents? How many refugees or their chldren were merely criminals? So many questions the journalist did not ask here.
The US will slash the number of refugees it will accept for a second straight year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday, insisting amid criticism from human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... groups that the country is still committed to providing sanctuary to people fleeing the world’s danger zones.
Up to 30,000 refugees will be allowed into the country next year, down from a cap of 45,000 this year. It will be the lowest ceiling on admissions since the program began in 1980. The announcement comes despite calls from global humanitarian groups that this year’s cap of 45,000 was too low.
Pompeo sought to head off potential criticism of the reduction by noting that the US would process more than 280,000 asylum claims in addition to more than 800,000 already inside the country who are awaiting a resolution of their claims.
"These expansive figures continue the United States’ long-standing record as the most generous nation in the world when it comes to protection-based immigration and assistance," he said.
The 30,000 cap is the maximum number of refugees the US will admit during the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The actual number allowed in could be lower. So far this year, the US has only admitted 20,918 refugees for the fiscal year set to end in two weeks, according to State Department records.
President Barack Obama I inhaled. That was the point... raised the ceiling to 110,000 in 2017, but the pace slowed dramatically after President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... took office and issued an executive order addressing refugees. In 2016, the last full year of the B.O. regime, the US welcomed nearly 85,000 refugees.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[AlAhram] Belgian police shot and seriously 
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Mass grave containing human remains of 
[IsraelTimes] To mark 30 years since its first orbital launch, Defense Ministry publishes images from its newest spy satellite, showing Syrian tanks, an airfield... and Bashir al-Assad’s home
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
[IsraelTimes] An official in the 
[AlMasdar] The 
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
[Free Beacon] International businesses across the United States and Europe are making a beeline to exit the Iranian marketplace ahead of the reimposition of harsh U.S. sanctions that Trump administration officials have been warning will target any company that defies America's call to cut ties with the Islamic Republic, according to multiple U.S. officials briefed on closed-door meetings held over the past months.
Up to 30,000 refugees will be allowed into the country next year, down from a cap of 45,000 this year. It will be the lowest ceiling on admissions since the program began in 1980. The announcement comes despite calls from global humanitarian groups that this year’s cap of 45,000 was too low.
