From The Independent
Donald Trump brings his UK trip forward to day before the EU referendum
Republican candidate has previously said he supports Brexit because immigration has been ‘a horrible thing for Europe’
Donald Trump has brought his plans to visit the UK forward to the day before the EU referendum.
The presumptive Republican nominee will travel to Scotland on 22 June to celebrate the reopening of his Trump Turnberry hotel.
Mr Trump had originally announced he would visit the UK on 24 June, the same day as the result of the EU referendum is announced.
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Google removes anti-Semitic app used to target Jews online
A Nazi flag (Hugh Rooney/Eye Ubiquitous/UIG via Getty Images)
(JTA) — Google has removed an app that allowed users to surreptitiously identify Jews online after a tech website brought the tool to widespread media attention and spurred a backlash.
Coincidence Detector, the innocuous name of the Google Chrome internet browser extension created by a user identified as “altrightmedia,” enclosed names that its algorithm deemed Jewish in triple parentheses. The symbol — called an “(((echo)))” — allows white nationalists and neo-Nazis to more easily aim their anti-Semitic vitriol.
The extension was exposed Thursday in an article on the tech website Mic by two reporters who had been targets of anti-Semitic harassment online. Google confirmed that evening that it had removed the extension from the Chrome Web Store, citing violation of its hate speech policy, which forbids “promotions of hate or incitement of violence.”
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From Russia Today
Refugee background checks ‘unaffordable’ – German police union chief
Published time: 3 Jun, 2016 18:00
A Syrian woman gets her fingerprints taken at a registration centre in Herford, western Germany © Wolfgang Rattay / Reuters
Screening all refugees before their arrival in Germany would be “unaffordable” and calls for this measure have come too late, the country’s police trade union chief has said.
Germany remains on alert following the arrest of three Syrians with alleged links to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) this week on charges they were planning suicide terror attacks in Duesseldorf.
Checking the backgrounds of all refugees already in Germany would be impossible because of ongoing budget cuts in the public sector, while demands to carry out this measure are wise but too late, Rainer Wendt, chief of the police trade union, told news show SWRinfo on Friday.
“It would have been useful in the second half of last year to create conditions for background checks on all people who came to us, in fact, before they traveled [to Germany]. But that is past history now, as we cannot afford it.”
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From The Times of Israel
In Ottoman holdover, Israel doubles down on marriage restrictions
Knesset upholds 2-year jail term for Jewish couples who don’t choose an approved rabbi to conduct their weddings
June 2, 2016, 3:58 pm
There are criminals sitting in the Israeli Knesset: legislators who have either performed weddings outside the state’s religious authority, or who have personally been married in such ceremonies.
The Jewish state is one of the few places in the world where it is illegal — with a potential jail term of two years — for Jewish couples to marry as they wish.
This was confirmed on Wednesday when a proposed law amendment which would decriminalize marriages performed outside the auspices of the Israeli chief rabbinate was shot down in a 32-25 vote in the Knesset.
Calling the existing law “scandalous,” Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie, who proposed the amendment, said it “opens a door so that tomorrow the state can jail anyone who won’t go to the mikveh [ritual bath], or who won’t have their sons undergo a brit milah [circumcision].”
Lavie’s proposed law would maintain the criminal aspect of weddings performed without registering the marriage. However, instead of a jail term, the couples — and those who perform their weddings — would face a fine.
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From The Independent
After the Chilcot report, we’ll hear the New Testament – the gospel according to Saint Tony
It may not be a written text, more a collection of stories handed down by apostles, generation after generation, only later formed into a codex
- Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, pictured addressing British troops in October 2001 Getty
From Russia Today
Torture, intimidation, secret jails: UN reveals Ukraine’s ‘grim’ human rights record
Published time: 3 Jun, 2016 14:45
© Mikhail Voskresenskiy / Sputnik
Ukraine’s secret service, the SBU, systematically uses torture, ill-treatment and intimidation, also running secret detention centers, the UN human rights body says. It describes spiraling violence and abuse on either side of the two-year conflict.
The UN has documented “hundreds of cases” of illegal detention, torture, summary executions and ill-treatment of captives both by Ukrainian government and pro-Russian armed groups in the east, Ivan Simonovic, UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, told the Times in an interview on Friday.
He said the UN documents for the first time expose the “scale and brutality” of Ukraine’s government-run torture program as well as existence of five secret detention centers.
In one case, Simonovic said, a suspect was picked up by “masked men” believed to be SBU agents. He was then repeatedly shot in the head with a Taser pistol and had his left hand, head, back and knee smashed with a hammer.
“He was forced to confess to being an armed group member on camera. Then his captors took him to the state security services where he was arrested,” the official went on.
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From The Times of Israel
Germany recognizes Armenian genocide, prompts Turkish ire
Ankara recalls its ambassador in protest after Berlin vote on death of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I
June 2, 2016, 3:26 pm
BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — German lawmakers passed a resolution Thursday recognizing the World War I massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide, drawing a furious rebuke from Turkey which called it a “historic mistake.”
Ankara later recalled its ambassador to Germany in protest at the resolution.
Only one MP voted against and another abstained, as parliament approved overwhelmingly by a show of hands the resolution titled “Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916.”
In the public gallery of the Bundestag, people held up banners saying “thank you” as the parliamentary speaker announced the result of the vote to applause.
Armenia Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian praised the decision as “Germany’s valuable contribution not only to the international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, but also to the universal fight for the prevention of genocides, crimes against humanity.”
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From PressTV
Russian jets target 4 Daesh-held oil plants in Syria’s Raqqah
Russian fighter jets have targeted four oil facilities held by the Daesh terror group near the Syrian city of Raqqah amid reports of fresh army offensives aimed at liberating the northern city.
In a Friday statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said Moscow’s “air force jets destroyed four targets of illegal oil extraction, located to the northwest of Raqqah and controlled by Daesh militants.”
According to the report, Russian Su-34 strike fighters have conducted a series of aerial raids against oil operations of the foreign-backed terrorist group in Syria within the past week, taking out one Daesh-held oil facility in Hasakah Province.
The statement further added that similar air strikes on Tuesday, also targeted oil installations near Raqqah, which serves as the main Daesh stronghold in Syria near the Turkish border.
It has been widely reported that the terrorist group partially finances its terror operations in Syria and neighboring Iraq by illegal production and shipment of oil mainly to Turkey, known as a staunch supporter of anti-Damascus militants.
Moscow has repeatedly said it has evidence showing Turkey was involved in the smuggling of oil from areas held by Daesh in Iraq and Syria. Ankara has strongly rejected the allegation.
The development comes amid reports that the Syrian armed forces have launched a new major offensive to regain control of Raqqah.
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From PressTV
Syria says Security Council politicizing humanitarian situation
The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations says the sole goal of some Security Council members to raise the issue of humanitarian situation in Syria is to put pressure on Damascus and weaken its position before the next round of peace talks.
“Some members of the Security Council want to violate Syrian sovereignty and deny the role the Syrian government plays” in the fight against Daesh and in delivering aid to civilians trapped in militant-held areas, Bashar al-Ja’afari said in a statement following a Security Council session on Friday, the official SANA news agency reported.
Those Security Council member states want to “politicize the humanitarian situation in Syria, instead of stopping the terrorist tide,” he added.
The Syrian envoy further rejected claims by some members that Damascus is hindering the delivery of aid to besieged areas under terrorists’ control, adding that the Syrian government has pledged full cooperation with the UN and the Red Cross to deliver aid to all civilians “without any discrimination,” including those in hard-to-reach areas.
He went on to say that dealing with the humanitarian situation in Syria must be carried out through the Syrian government, and expressed his regret that some influential members of the council are playing a pivotal role in worsening the humanitarian situation in the Middle Eastern country.
“If it were up to some Security Council members, they would have liked to airdrop weapons, not food or humanitarian aid,” Ja’afari added.
His comments came after the council agreed in a closed-door session to formally request the Damascus government to allow airdropping food to terrorist-held areas.
“Airdrops are costly, complex and risky, but we all agree now that they are the last resort,” British Ambassador to the UN Matthew Rycroft said after the Friday session.
Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says Syria has agreed to allow access for ground convoys to deliver aid to 12 besieged areas during the holy month of Ramadan later this month.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of some 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.
A ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia went into effect on February 27 in Syria, but it does not apply to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group and al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front terrorists.
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From PressTV
Syria army advances toward Raqqah Province border: Report
Fri Jun 3, 2016 2:22PM
The Syrian army advanced further toward the border of Raqqah Province Friday with government forces currently positioned about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) away, a report says.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government troops are supported by Russian airstrikes in the new offensive which ultimately seeks to liberate the provincial capital, Raqqah, from the control of the Takfiri Daesh terrorists.
Raqqah City has been the de facto capital of the terrorist group over the past few years. It is located about 455 kilometers (283 miles) northeast of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The Russian airstrikes targeted positions held by Daesh in the eastern areas of Hama Province near the provincial boundary with Raqqah. Moscow has been engaged in airstrikes on Daesh positions since late September 2015 upon a request from Damascus.
The Syrian army announced the new offensive Thursday. The operation began with a move for the Athriya area of Hama.
The Syrian army is entering “the race for Raqqah” with the new offensive, according to Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.
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From The Independent
Ken Livingstone says Hitler comments are ‘factual’ as ‘1+1=2’
The former London Mayor blamed ’embittered MPs’ for branding him a Nazi apologist
- Ken Livingstone has been suspended from the Labour Party after being accused of antisemitism Getty Images
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Man’s alleged rape of relatives’ daughters seen denting insularity of Jerusalem’s haredim
(JTA) — A court in Jerusalem extended the remand of a haredi Orthodox school supervisor from Jerusalem whose indictment for the alleged rape of two girls from his own family is reportedly eroding taboos on reporting sex crimes within his community.
The Jerusalem District Court’s decision Thursday on Naftali Maklev, 50, came two weeks after his May 18 indictment, the news site Kikar HaShabbat reported. According to Haaretz, the affair is leading to unusual developments within highly insular haredi Orthodox communities, including increased reporting of molestation and warnings to haredi schoolchildren to be wary even of adults known to them.
Maklev’s lawyer, Yehuda Fried, told Kikar his client was innocent and that a “detailed examination of the evidence will show the accusations and alleged evidence are made up.” Maklev is not accused of molesting pupils at the Jerusalem religious school for boys where he worked.
The 17-page indictment, obtained by JTA, accuses Maklev of raping his alleged victims — sisters now aged 23 and 27 — hundreds of times since they were 6 and 7, sodomizing them, performing obscene acts on them and assaulting them while telling them that the sexual contact was required by religious law, or halacha. He also is charged with attempting to perform and performing an indecent act under deceitful pretenses on a third sister, now 29, when she was 19.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Separate swim periods for women pit New York Times against city’s Orthodox
The New York Times newspaper being delivered to newsstands and all night deli’s starting at 5 a.m. on May, 2008, in New York City. ( Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images)
(JTA) — An only-in-New-York story about a public swimming pool that offered women-only swim periods for the area’s Orthodox community turned into a full-blown media firestorm when the New York Times weighed in on the subject.
The pool, located in the heavily Orthodox Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, had been offering women-only hours since the 1990s to accommodate those whose religious sensitivities forbid women and men from swimming together.
Last week, the Parks Department cancelled the women-only swim periods after an anonymous complaint was made to the city’s Commission on Human Rights, only to reverse itself following objections by Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox politician representing the nearby Borough Park and Midwood neighborhoods.
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From The Times of Israel
Hitler quote makes it into Maine yearbook
High school issues callback for books after student references Nazi leader’s statement on sterilization
June 3, 2016, 4:05 am
BANGOR, Maine — A high school in Maine is asking students to return yearbooks so a sticker can be affixed over a quote from Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Bangor High School Principal Paul Butler says no one caught the offensive quote that accompanied a senior’s photo before the yearbook was printed. The student’s quote referred to one attributed to Hitler: that “anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized.”
Butler called the quote “regrettable.” He said all non-distributed books were affixed with a sticker.
Last week in Pennsylvania, a school district apologized after quotes from Hitler, communist leader Joseph Stalin and an Islamic State group leader were printed in a high school yearbook.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.
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