Dr. Patrick Slattery’s News Roundup
A service of DavidDuke.com
From Russia Today
‘Rule of law crushed’ in Libya as rival governments vie for power, ISIS spreads – HRW
Published time: 27 Jan, 2016 21:08
Crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed by all sides of the Libyan conflict last year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its World Report 2016. While rival governments compete for legitimacy, Islamic State is making gains in the country.
“Civilians in Libya are bearing the brunt of armed conflicts and a failed political transition that have crushed any semblance of the rule of law,” Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, told the watchdog’s website.
The battle for power between two rival governments in al-Bayda and Tripoli has led to 400,000 people being displaced, an increase in kidnappings for ransom, and enforced disappearances, as well as the rise of radical groups, including Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), HRW said in the report.
The country has also become a transit point for “tens of thousands of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers” as they cross the Mediterranean for Europe.
Both of Libya’s competing governments and various armed groups are holding thousands of detainees in long-term arbitrary detention, according to HRW.
The people are being held for lengthy terms – sometimes reaching up to four years – without any charges being pressed against them.
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From Russia Today
Management, authorities ‘ignored’ warnings at Swedish center where refugee killed worker
Published time: 27 Jan, 2016 20:48
Police investigators are seen outside a home for juvenile asylum seekers in Molndal in south western Sweden on January 25, 2016. © Adam Ihse / TT News Agency / AFP A therapist working at a juvenile asylum seekers’ center, where a 15-year-old boy stabbed a care worker on Monday, has said its owners and the authorities had been warned of danger to staff over a year ago, but certified the facility as “flawless” anyway.
“So far nothing serious has happened, but it will do,” a therapist, who has chosen to remain anonymous, told management back in December 2014, according to Göteborgs Tidning newspaper.
The housing center on the outskirts of Gothenburg, where 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher was killed, is operated by Living Nordic, a private company, on behalf of the Swedish government. The therapist said that since opening in September 2014, it had been a victim of staff cuts, so care workers were often the only adult supervising ten 14 to 17 year-olds, in contravention of best practices for such institutions.
“The question of lone working at night was discussed with management several times. The management did not help, they are not listening,” said the therapist.
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From Russia Today
60% of refugees heading to Europe are economic migrants – top EU official
Published time: 27 Jan, 2016 11:05
A majority of people coming to Europe from the Middle East and Africa are economic migrants using asylum-seeker status as a cover, according to a top EU official. The EU may reinstate internal border controls if the crisis isn’t resolved in two months.
“More than half of the people now coming to Europe come from countries where you can assume they have no reason whatsoever to ask for refugee status… more than half, 60 percent,” said Frans Timmerman, vice-president of the European Commission, citing what he said were new, unpublished figures from the EU border agency Frontex.
Speaking on Tuesday with Dutch national broadcaster NOS, he added that these false refugees are mostly aspiring settlers from Morocco and Tunisia and are infiltrating Europe through porous Turkish borders in pursuit of better economic prospects.
Timmerman urged EU countries to accelerate the deportation procedure for those who pretend to be fleeing war or persecution. In this way, Europe would be able to provide support for those who need protection, he said.
Since last year Germany, Austria, France, Sweden, Denmark and Norway have reintroduced border controls for a maximum six-month term in a bid to curb the inflow of asylum seekers. On Monday, the European Commission said it could expand the temporary border checks for a period of two years, which is only possible if the existence of the Schengen zone is perceived to be in danger.
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From Russia Today
Outrage in Denmark as 17yo girl faces fine for using pepper spray against sex attacker
Published time: 27 Jan, 2016 07:03
A Danish teenager who said she was sexually assaulted now faces a fine for using pepper spray against her attacker. The man who pulled her to the ground and tried to undress her fled the scene without any charges.
The incident took place in the center of the small town of Sonderborg in southern Denmark at about 10 p.m. local time Wednesday. She told police that an English-speaking man knocked her to the ground, tried to unbutton her pants and undress her.
However, she was apparently able to protect herself as she pulled out pepper spray and used it against the man, who escaped the scene and hasn’t been charged.
Police say that the girl may face a fine.
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From Russia Today
‘US destabilized Europe’: Austrian record-holding athlete lashes out at ‘idiotic’ refugee policies
Published time: 27 Jan, 2016 04:28
Austrian sky diver and base jumper Felix Baumgartner © Sergio Morae / Reuters
Austrian athlete and daredevil, Felix Baumgartner, known for his super-sonic leap from the stratosphere, has bashed EU politicians for their “idiotic” refugee policies in a lengthy post. He added that Washington is destabilizing Europe “on purpose.”
Baumgartner, the first human to break the sound barrier without a plane and holder of records for the highest balloon ascent and highest parachute jump, made several posts criticizing Western politicians on his Facebook page.
Baumgartner, who is Austrian by birth, but has been living Switzerland since 2012, lashed out against Vienna’s policies, chiding local politicians for their failures in leading the country.
“A country where you are fined for fishing without a license but where people cross the border without passports is run by idiots,” he wrote. According to the Local, this quote, which was posted by Baumgartner in a separate picture, is not new and has been attributed to Czech Republic President Milos Zeman.
Nonetheless, the athlete went further in a follow-up post criticizing German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her “disastrous ‘welcome’ policy,” which he said is not a solution to the refugee crisis, but rather the source of the “problem”.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Brown University AEPi disaffiliates over alleged bias against non-Jewish frat brothers
(JTA) — The Brown University chapter of the historically Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi has separated from the international organization and become an independent fraternity.
The president of the new fraternity, now called Beta Rho Pi, said the chapter broke with the international organization over biases against non-Jewish members as well as its handling of the issue of sexual assault.
Fraternity President Ben Owens said in an Op-Ed in the Brown Daily Herald that the chapter objected to the “demeaning way that some representatives of AEPi National treated our non-Jewish brothers.”
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From Russia Today
China warns George Soros: Don’t go to ‘war’ against our currency
Published time: 27 Jan, 2016 03:03
Georges Soros, Chairman of Soros Fund Management. © Charles Platiau / Reuters
China’s official newspaper warned billionaire investor George Soros not to bet against the Yuan in a front-page opinion piece, as China tries to boost confidence in its home currency, also known as the renminbi, which has dropped 5 percent since August.
“Soros’s war on the renminbi and the Hong Kong dollar cannot possibly succeed – about this there can be no doubt,” said the article titled “Declaring war on China’s currency? Ha ha,” published by People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party.
The opinion piece is an attempt to convince investors that the renminbi is still a safe choice despite the currency’s 5.7 percent tumble since August. Meanwhile, China’s central bank has been dipping into its foreign exchange reserves and spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to halt the currency’s slide.
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From Russia Today
Bibi vs. Ban? Israeli PM accuses settlements-slamming UN chief of backing Palestinian ‘terrorists’
Published time: 27 Jan, 2016 01:12
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (L) and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. © Jim Hollander / Reuters
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has slammed Israel’s “provocative” settlements, saying the attacks by Palestinians he condemns are a natural reaction to the occupation. This escalated into a war of words as the Israeli PM accused Ban of supporting terrorists.
Speaking before the United Nations Security Council, Secretary-General Ban said he was “deeply troubled” by new reports that the Israeli government has approved plans to build more than 150 new settlements, which he referred to as “provocative acts” by Jerusalem.
This and other activities, such as the declaration of 370 acres in the West Bank south of Jericho as “state land,” according to Ban, “are bound to increase the growth of settler populations, further heightening tensions and undermining any prospects for a political road ahead,” the UN said in a press release.
As he touched upon the volatile situation between the two states, Ban also condemned the growing number of vengeful attacks by Palestinians against Israeli citizens.
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From The Independent
Doomsday Clock: Threat of oblivion pits humanity at ‘three minutes to midnight’, experts say
6th November 1952: Characteristic mushroom shaped cloud begins formation after the first H-Bomb explosion (US) at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Three Lions/Getty Images
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Hunger-striking Jewish extremist collapses in prison
(JTA) — Meir Ettinger, a suspected Jewish terrorist being held under Israel’s administrative detention policy, collapsed in prison nine days after launching a hunger strike.
Ettinger, grandson of the late far-right extremist Meir Kahane, was given emergency medical treatment on Tuesday, the Times of Israel reported the following day, citing Maariv. His hunger strike is in protest of his detention.
He has been held since August under a policy, generally used only against Palestinians, that allows Israeli authorities to hold suspected terrorists for six months at a time without filing formal charges.
According to The Jewish Press, which cited Hakol Hayehudi (Hebrew for The Jewish Voice), Ettinger and Eviatar Slonim, who recently joined the hunger strike, are being held in Eshel Prison near Beersheba. The two were moved in October to “the security prisoners’ section of the prison, where they are surrounded by Arab terrorists who threaten to kill them,” according to the Press.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Oberlin College president to discuss campus anti-Semitism with alums
(JTA) — The president of Oberlin College will speak with two members of an alumni group that has raised concerns about the anti-Semitic climate on campus.
Marvin Krislov will conduct a phone conversation with the alums of the Ohio liberal arts college on Friday. Krislov had been scheduled to hold a meeting Tuesday with an alum to discuss the issue.
The phone call comes several weeks after 200 alumni wrote to the college administration to voice concern about the actions of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, at Oberlin and a school culture they believe tolerates anti-Semitism.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Poll: 10% of Americans ‘less likely’ to vote for a Jew for president
NEW YORK (JTA) – Being an evangelical Christian candidate for president is twice as great a liability as being a Jewish candidate, according to a new poll.
The Pew Research Center survey on faith in the 2016 presidential campaign found that only a small percentage of Americans are less likely to vote for a presidential candidate because he is Jewish, but half of all respondents said they are less likely to vote for a candidate who doesn’t believe in God.
Eighty percent of respondents said a candidate being Jewish makes them no more or less likely to vote for him. Ten percent said they were less likely to vote for a Jew for president, and 8 percent said they were more likely.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, is the only Jewish candidate currently in the 2016 presidential race.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Sanders, Obama to hold Oval Office meeting
(JTA) – President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders at the White House.
There will be “no formal agenda” for Wednesday morning’s Oval Office meeting, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement, adding that the meeting was first discussed in December.
Polls show Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont running in the Democratic primaries, and Hillary Rodham Clinton running neck and neck in the Iowa caucuses, which will be held Monday. Clinton served as Obama’s secretary of state during his first term in office after losing the Democratic primary to him in 2008.
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From Russia Today
Austrian defense minister calls for extension of military service to cope with refugees
Published time: 27 Jan, 2016 19:13
Boots of recruits of the Austrian armed forces © Lisi Niesner / Reuters
Austria’s defense minister has called for longer military service, which he says is required to cope with the influx of asylum seekers. The proposal was voiced a day after Austrian MPs approved a bill toughening admission policies for migrants.
The basic military service period needs to be prolonged in order for Austria’s army to be able to deal with the increasing numbers of asylum seekers, Austria’s defense minister, Hans Peter Doskozil, said. The measure is aimed at maintaining the Austrian army’s “sustainability,” he told to the Austrian state broadcaster ORF, as cited by The Local. He said that otherwise, there might not be enough troops to patrol Austria’s “green border” crossings, which lack check points, if required.
Doskozil did not specify by how long military service needs to be extended, adding that a general agreement within the army was needed.
Military service in Austria, which is compulsory for Austrian men aged 18 to 50, was cut from eight to six months in 2006.
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From Russia Today
Canada do-over: Trudeau’s FM says time to reboot relations with Russia
Published time: 27 Jan, 2016 05:31
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Dion. © Geoff Robins / AFP
Russia-Canada relations are about to get a reboot, with the countries’ foreign ministers expressing willingness to resume dialogue after a stall caused by events in Ukraine. The new Canadian government believes snubbing Russia was not productive.
Canada’s new Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Dion, told journalists on Tuesday that it is not productive not to talk to Russia, signaling a shift in Canada’s foreign policy.
“Look, Canada was speaking to the Russians even at the tough times of the Cold War and now we are not speaking – almost not – because of the former policy of the former government. In which way it’s helping Ukraine? In which way it’s helping our interest in the Arctic? ” Dion said.
