Dr. Patrick Slattery’s News Roundup
A service of DavidDuke.com
From The Independent
Facebook posts becoming less personal as site looks to encourage people to post about their lives
From Ynet News
Israel to deploy extra troops around Temple Mount ahead of Passover
The defense establishment has been taking steps to lower tensions and reduce incitement; PM Benjamin Netanyahu has called on Jewish and Arab leaders to calm their respective communities Israel will deploy reinforcements around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City leading up to Passover in an effort to stop rioting and prevent terror attacks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday.
Tensions have been on the rise among Palestinians over the Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa mosque. These tensions are a result of the upcoming week-long Jewish holiday of Passover, starting April 22, which is expected to significantly increase the number of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount area, particularly to the Western Wall where the traditional priestly blessing is attended by thousands. This is coupled with the reports that Jordan will soon install cameras throughout the holy site’s complex and the significant spike in social media incitement centered around the al-Aqsa mosque after months of relative calm.
From Ynet News
Netanyahu to meet with Putin in Russia next week
Following the Russian withdrawal from Syria and the transfer of S-300 missiles to Iran, the two leaders are scheduled to meet on Thursday; they’ll also discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Moscow on Thursday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The meeting will be held about a month after Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited the Kremlin
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
More than 90 percent of the House urges Obama to reject biased UN moves on Israel
WASHINGTON (JTA) — An overwhelming majority of the U.S. House of Representatives signed a letter urging President Barack Obama to reject any actions by the United Nations that are biased against Israel.
The letter undersigned by 394 House Republicans and Democrats — more than 90 percent of the 435 representatives — was sent to Obama Thursday amid reports that the Palestinian Authority might revive a draft resolution against Israel’s policies in the West Bank, similar to the one vetoed in 2011 at the Security Council by the United States.
Rival pro-Israel groups praised the letter, with the older lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, emphasizing the letter’s placing much of the burden of returning to negotiations on Palestinians, and J Street, a liberal group, noting that the letter does not appear to preclude U.S.-led bids to revive the talks.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
In NY debate, Bernie and Hillary spar over the meaning of ‘pro-Israel’
Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., debating during the CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate at the Duggal Greenhouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York, April 14, 2016. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Bernie Sanders accused Hillary Clinton of neglecting the Palestinians, and Clinton said her rival was more prone to criticizing than solving problems when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Independent senator from Vermont and the former secretary of state had a lengthy and heated exchange on Israel and the Palestinians during their debate in Brooklyn Tuesday evening, just days ahead of the New York state primary.
Sanders took issue especially with Clinton’s speech last month to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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From PressTV
30,000 Syrians flee skirmishes between Daesh, Takfiri militants: HRW
Human Rights Watch says at least 30,000 civilians have fled the latest bout of skirmishes between the Takfiri Daesh terrorists and rival militant groups in northern Syria over the past 48 hours.
On Friday, the New York-based watchdog also criticized Turkish border guards for opening fire on a number of Syrians approaching the Syrian-Turkish border in the wake of violence in Syria’s strategic northwestern province of Aleppo, calling on Ankara to open its border to them.
“As civilians flee IS (Daesh) group militants, Turkey is responding with live ammunition instead of compassion,” HRW researcher Gerry Simpson said.
He added, “The whole world is talking about fighting IS group, and yet those most at risk of becoming victims of its horrific abuses are trapped on the wrong side of a concrete wall.”
The HRW official said many of those who have fled the bloody fighting between Daesh and Takfiri militants are actually residents of emergency camps set up along the border that have headed for other camps or nearby towns in search of security.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimates that about 23,000 people have fled the latest Daesh offensive in northern Syria.
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From Russia Today
US could have shot down Russian jet flying near destroyer, Kerry says
Published time: 15 Apr, 2016 18:46
An U.S. Navy picture shows what appears to be a Russian Sukhoi SU-24 attack aircraft flying over the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea in this picture taken April 12, 2016 and released April 13, 2016. © US Navy / Reuters
A Russian military jet that flew near a US destroyer could have been shot down under US rules of engagement, Secretary of State John Kerry said, calling the jet’s proximity “reckless” and “provocative.”
The Russian Su-24 jet flew 30 feet (nine meters) above the USS Donald Cook during a training exercise on Tuesday, according to the US military’s European Command, which referred to the incident as a “simulated attack profile.”
Secretary of State John Kerry expressed Washington’s anger at the incident on Friday, telling CNN Español that the US “condemn this kind of behavior. It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement that could have been a shoot-down.”
“People need to understand that this is serious business and the United States is not going to be intimidated on the high seas…we are communicating to the Russians how dangerous this is and our hope is that this will never be repeated,” he added.
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From Russia Today
Sanders protests US paying 75% of NATO spending, Clinton argues it helps deter ‘Russian aggression’
Published time: 15 Apr, 2016 18:39
US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (L) and U.S. Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (R) © Reuters
European countries like Germany, the UK and France should pick up more of the burden for their defense in NATO, Sen. Bernie Sanders said during the Democratic debate in Brooklyn, adding that the US alone spends “about 75% of the entire cost of the military aspect of NATO.”
Sanders, 74 and Hillary Clinton, 68, held their ninth presidential debate in Brooklyn, and the US senator from Vermont asked to react to a statement he made in 1997 when he said that the US should stop “wasting tens of billions of dollars helping to defend Europe.”
“If my memory is correct here, we spend about 75 percent of the entire cost of the military aspect of NATO,” Sanders said. “Given the fact that France has a very good health care system and free public education, college education for their people, the UK has a good National Health Service and they also provide fairly reasonable higher education, you know what, yeah, I do believe that the countries of Europe should pick up more of the burden for their defense,” he stated, noting that “with a huge deficit, with 47 million people living in poverty, with our inner cities collapsing, yeah, I do think countries like Germany and UK and France and European countries whose economy, or at least its standard of living and health care and education, they’re doing pretty well.”
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From Russia Today
EU refugee redistribution plan is ‘dead’ – Poland’s EU minister
Published time: 14 Apr, 2016 19:53
© Antonio Parrinello / Reuters
Poland will not be able to take in some 7,000 asylum-seekers it previously promised to accept and believes the whole EU refugee redistribution plan has fallen flat and is “dead,” Poland’s minister for EU affairs said.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Bernie Sanders stops by Vatican to take economic message global
Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane leaving after a conference of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in Vatican City, Vatican, April 16, 2016. (Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images)
VATICAN CITY (JTA) – Bernie Sanders denounced capitalist excess, called for a global “moral economy” and praised Pope Francis’ leadership in a speech here.
The Jewish senator spoke for 10 minutes Friday at the Roman Catholic Church’s Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences just hours after making some similar points in a testy Democratic presidential debate in New York ahead of the state’s Tuesday primary.
The Vatican conference marked the 25th anniversary of Centesimus Annus, an encyclical on the economy and social justice after the fall of communism promulgated by the late Pope John Paul II.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Oracle buys army vets’ big-data firm in $550M Israel shopping spree
(JTA) — Less than two months after buying an Israeli cloud-services firm for approximately half a billion dollars, the American technology giant Oracle purchased another Israeli big-data firm Crosswise for a reported $50 million.
Oracle, owned by Jewish entrepreneur Larry Ellison, announced the acquisition Thursday. Specific details of the deal were not released, but a source close to the company told The Times of Israel that the deal was in the “range of $50 million.”
Oracle said in a statement Thursday that it will integrate Crosswise’s technology into its data cloud, which it explained “ingests third-party data, extracts value, and activates the data to drive insights and harness this knowledge for targeting” to aid advertisers.
The Tel Aviv-based Crosswise specializes in cross-device marketing. It goes through over a petabyte (a million gigabytes) of data from billions of devices every month and identifies patterns in the way people use technology. Two of the company’s three co-founders, Jonathan Seidner and Ron Reiter, served in the Israeli army’s 8200 communications intelligence unit, acquiring skills they later implemented at Crosswire, according to their firm.
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From PressTV
Turkey, Saudi partnership not genuine: Ex-NATO official
A former Turkish ambassador to NATO says an emerging Turkish-Saudi alliance is based on sheer expedience and will not last long.
Recent visits between leaders of the two countries have been conducted with a fanfare but Yalim Eralp says Turkey and Saudi Arabia are ideologically at loggerheads.
“This Turkish-Saudi coming together cannot be long term. It is simply a practical move to deal with some short-term issues,” he told Middle East Eye, an online news portal.
The portal itself, which has been used as a reference by the likes of BBC News, The Huffington Post and The Guardian, said the fanfare “may be partially a consequence of the vacuous nature of the bond.”
According to Eralp, on an ideological level the Saudi Arabia and Turkey have long been at odds.
Middle East Eye touched on their divisions over how to react to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere.
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From PressTV
EU criticizes Israel over new phase of separation wall
The European Union has criticized Israel for the resumption of construction activities at the site of a controversial wall south of the occupied West Bank, saying the move will seriously affect the life of Palestinians.
The EU said in a Friday statement that it was “deeply concerned at the relaunch of works for the construction of the separation barrier in the Cremisan valley.”
Fences were erected last week in the area which is located near the Palestinian town of Beit Jala after Israelis said they had obtained legal permission for the construction to be resumed.
Residents of Beit Jala have strongly opposed the move, saying Israel aims to connect two illegal settlements south of the occupied al-Quds (Jerusalem), namely Gilo and Har Gilo, through erecting the wall.
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From Russia Today
‘Multiculturalism kills’: Right-wing extremists storm play performed by refugee actors in Vienna
Published time: 15 Apr, 2016 19:14
© facebook.com
Austrian police have launched an investigation after several right-wing extremists stormed a play featuring refugees as actors, spraying fake blood on the audience.
The group took over the stage shortly after the opening of the play, titled ‘Die Schutzbefohlenen’ (The Protected). The play, staged at the University of Vienna, featured actors from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
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From Russia Today
Disasters waiting to happen: 8 most dangerous nuclear plants near earthquake fault lines
Published time: 15 Apr, 2016 18:21
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)’s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s (L to R) No.4, No.3 No.2 and No.1 reactor buildings are seen in Fukushima prefecture. © Yomiuri Shimbun / Reuters
The Japanese government says there won’t be any catastrophic damage, this time, at its nuclear facilities following Thursday night’s devastating earthquake and subsequent aftershocks.
Nine people are confirmed dead and more than 1,000 others injured after a 6.5-magnitude quake hit east of the city of Kumamoto.
The disaster revived terrifying memories of the Fukushima disaster, when a 15-meter post-quake tsunami caused a nuclear meltdown that polluted a sizeable portion of the country for decades.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga confirmed that there were no abnormalities at any nuclear facilities in the area, the Japan Times reported.
Despite the ‘all clear’, dozens of potential atomic bombs operate along seismic fault lines. Here are eight of the most deadly, including one that may never be built because of Fukushima.
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