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European Islamaphobia: Estonian politician wants to ban Koran in public places


RT
Sun, 03 Apr 2016 15:19 UTC
Koran Exegese
An Estonian politician has come up with a proposal to ban the Koran in public places, saying that the "negative and criminal side" of Islam is very strong and that banishing the Muslim sacred book is good for Estonia's safety.

Outlawing the Koran was proposed by Kristiina Ojuland, head of the People's Unity Party (PUP), Estonian media reported.

"Today, the negative and criminal side of Islam is so strong that we believe this move is a necessary measure to provide safety for our country and our nation, especially our women and children," Ojuland, who served as Estonia's foreign minister from 2002 to 2005, told the Estonian BNS news agency.

The party's leadership said it is concerned over the growing number of refugees arriving in the EU and in particular in Estonia.

"We decided to start gathering information from the population on cases of abuse and harassment, which is hushed in the mainstream media," Triin Raidmets, the leader of the PUP branch in Pärnu, said.
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Key

Building bridges: Russian-Chinese alliance in full bloom

Jeff J. Brown
The Saker
Sun, 03 Apr 2016 00:00 UTC
xi putin, russia china alliance
© politrussia.com
Any questions about Russia's and China's long term cooperation were put to rest, after conducting research on what these two Anti-West colossuses are doing, on a daily basis.

This week, I did a web search on the popular internet engines, Google and Bing. I did this, to follow up on my previous Moscow-Beijing Express article, where I pondered if these two giants on the world stage were hopefully transforming the "Putin-Xi marriage", into a truly long term, bilateral alliance, for the future. See The Xi-Putin honeymoon is over-now it's time to make the China-Russia marriage succeed long term

What I found even surprised me and definitively reassured my hypothesis of hope.

I looked for "Russia + China" and "Xi + Putin". In each case, behind the Great Western Firewall, there were a couple of recent entries, and then mostly dated drivel from 2014 and before. There is obviously a reason for this. It is called censorship and propaganda. It's probably not the search engines' fault. The carefully scripted Western narrative of supreme empire and global hegemony is happening in the newsrooms and editorial boards of newspapers, radio and television stations across Eurangloland. This is being confirmed over and over, as shown in this article, with accompanying videos: Top German Journalist Admits Mainstream Media Is Completely Fake: "We All Lie For The CIA"

If you search for the same strings in Chinese though, you enter another reality, and I suspect the same observation would be true in Russian. The Chinese language web is saturated with articles, photos and videos of "Russia + China" and "Xi + Putin", and it is up to today's date and added to, with every bilateral contact and collaboration.

Comment:

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Chess

China's participation in Syria peace talks, a win for Moscow and Damascus


Sputnik
Sun, 03 Apr 2016 14:53 UTC
Xie Xiaoyan
© news.kodoom.com
Xie Xiaoyan, Special Representative to Syria
Chinese government for the first time appointed a Special Representative for Syria, who was the former Chinese ambassador to Iran, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei said. "China appointed a special envoy in order to better promote peace negotiations, to contribute to better contact with the relevant parties," the official representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. Hong Lei also said that China supports the efforts of the Special Representative of the UN on Syria Staffan de Mistura on peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis. "China comes from the fact that a political solution is the only way out of the Syrian crisis," he added.

Linking China to a political solution of the Syrian conflict will play into the hands of Russia and the legitimate government of Syria, political analyst Anton Khashchenko said. "On the whole, the decision of China is positive for Russia and for Syria too. If you look at China's position over the past few years on the Syrian conflict, it together with Russia has vetoed the UN Security Council on the Syrian issue for four times. China as well as Russia supports the legitimate authority in Syria."

In China, as well as in Russia, there is a problem amongst its own citizens, who are attracted to Daesh. Beijing is not interested in the fact that these people are returning to China after training with the militants. "It is for these reasons and for a number of others that I think China's decision to appoint a Special Representative is such an important point, including fixing of the negotiating political process that has begun already at a normal level," Anton Khashchenko told Sputnik. According to him, China is fully interested in putting an end to terrorist groups in the region, including those that are prohibited in Russia and other countries.

Comment: "China's position is based on the necessity to preserve Syria's independence, its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We hope that all the sides [involved in Syrian settlement] will decrease the level of controversies, achieve broader consensus and find a solution of the Syrian problem through dialogue and consultations," - Hong Lei

Due to similar approach and understanding, the Syrian conflict has only served to strengthen the ties between Russia and China, which will be perceived by the US as a detriment. Is it? So far a relatively neutral position happens to align two powerful countries under similar perceptions to achieve a peaceful and rightful conclusion for a sovereign nation in turmoil by Western-forced regime change. The US will likely inflame this neutrality until it becomes a negative, diabolical and conspiratorial plot in order to obfuscate Western empirical intentions. The US could have been on the same page and aligned with Russia and China, for real versus pretense. Instead it chose Israel's agenda.

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Vader

The strange case of a Nazi who became an Israeli hitman

The Forward and Dan Raviv And Yossi Melman
Haaretz
Mon, 04 Apr 2016 14:20 UTC
Otto Skorzeny
© Wikimedia Commons / Kurt Alber
Otto Skorzeny
On September 11, 1962, a German scientist vanished. The basic facts were simple: Heinz Krug had been at his office, and he never came home.

The only other salient detail known to police in Munich was that Krug commuted to Cairo frequently. He was one of dozens of Nazi rocket experts who had been hired by Egypt to develop advanced weapons for that country.HaBoker, a now defunct Israeli newspaper, surprisingly claimed to have the explanation: The Egyptians kidnapped Krug to prevent him from doing business with Israel.

But that somewhat clumsy leak was an attempt by Israel to divert investigators from digging too deeply into the case — not that they ever would have found the 49-year-old scientist.

We can now report — based on interviews with former Mossad officers and with Israelis who have access to the Mossad's archived secrets from half a century ago — that Krug was murdered as part of an Israeli espionage plot to intimidate the German scientists working for Egypt.
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Vader

Pentagon cannot account for $223M in anti-ISIS operation spending


Sputnik
Mon, 28 Mar 2016 12:51 UTC
Pentagon Gate - Logo
© Kevin Harber
The US Central Command cannot account for $223 million in orders placed during the international operation against Daesh because of inaccurate records-keeping and poor guidance, according to a Department of Defense Inspector General audit released on Monday.

Specifically, the Inspector General said they were unable to verify the accuracy of 72 US Army Central Command ACSA orders valued at more than $202 million "due to a lack of supporting documentation."
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Folder

First Panama Papers casualty? Former Iceland Premier calls on current PM to resign to 'prevent a social uprising'

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Mon, 04 Apr 2016 08:57 UTC
Cameron and Gunnlaugsson
© Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images
Both Gunnlaugsson and Cameron's father were implicated in the latest leaks.
One of the more prominent names featured in the Panama Papers disclosure is that of Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson. The reason is that according to the leaked files, Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and his wife secretly owned a company called Wintris set up in 2007 on the Caribbean island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, to hold investments with his wealthy partner, later wife, Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir.

As Guardian reports, the couple were living in the UK at the time and had been advised to set up a company in the tax haven in order to hold and invest substantial proceeds from the sale of Pálsdóttir's share in her family's business back in Iceland.

Gunnlaugsson owned a 50% stake in Wintris for more than two years, then transferred it to Pálsdóttir, who held the other 50%, for one dollar. The prime minister's office now says his shareholding was an error and "it had always been clear to both of them that the prime minister's wife owned the assets". Once drawn to the couple's attention in late 2009, the error was corrected.

Towards the end of Gunnlaugsson's time as a Wintris shareholder, having returned to Iceland, he was elected to parliament as leader of the Progressive party.

Gunnlaugsson, who became prime minister four years later, never disclosed his Wintris shares on Iceland's parliamentary register of MPs' financial interests.

Comment: Further reading: Disinfo campaign commences: Panama 'leaks' target West's enemies, ignore NATO criminals

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Bad Guys

Washington Times: Erdogan is playing 'dangerous game' by blackmailing Europe


Sputnik
Mon, 04 Apr 2016 03:32 UTC
erdogan con isis
Pushing the European Union to make concessions to Turkey considering its accession to the bloc, President Erdogan may have won a Pyrrhic victory, American historian Daniel Pipes writes. Amid the major migrant crisis, Europeans not be too embracing of the increased influx of Turkish citizens to the continent.

Blackmailing Brussels, the Turkish president risks leading his country into a catastrophe of unprecedented scales that would likely result in the collapse of the state, Pipes, who is the president of the Middle East Forum, wrote in an opinion column for The Washington Times.

According to the historian, Erdogan has taken advantage of millions of Syrian refugees seeking a chance to get to northern Europe, using the moment as a tool to push his own agenda through.

Comment: Also see: Neocons ready to cut Erdogan loose? Open letter to the wannabe Sultan

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Bullseye

Assad: West is 'dishonest,' pursues policy detached from international law


RT
Sun, 03 Apr 2016 20:44 UTC
Assad West dishonest
© SANA / Reuters
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad
That the West can't be trusted is the most important lesson Syria has learned during five years of civil war, Bashar Assad, Syrian president, said in an exclusive interview with Sputnik.

"The most important lesson we have learned, but I suppose we knew it all along, is that the West is not honest. Western countries are dishonest," Assad stressed.

The US, EU and their allies "are pursuing a policy far removed from the principles of international law and the United Nations" and because of that "it is impossible to rely upon the West to solve any issue," he said.

"We live in a world where there is no international law or morality in politics at present. Anything can happen anywhere on our planet," the Syrian president added.

Comment: President of Syria Bashar Assad understates things quite a bit here, especially when he says that the West ie. the U.S. is "not honest". But he is being a statesman, and it would be inappropriate for him to say that the US gov is made up of a bunch of murderous, profit-driven, power-seeking and conniving psychopaths - not that we're putting words in his mouth.

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No Entry

Ukraine membership in EU blocked by 5 states


RT
Sat, 02 Apr 2016 03:44 UTC
Poroshenko and Juncker
© REUTERS/ Yves Herman
Five EU countries remain firmly against Ukraine ever joining the union, French diplomat Pierre Vimont, who has helped negotiate the Ukraine - EU Association Agreement, told a Dutch publication ahead of next week's advisory referendum on the deal in the Netherlands.

Germany, France, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands all rejected the idea of Ukraine's potential EU membership during the five-year negotiation period in 2008-2012, Vimont told Volkskrant. Even after the 2014 Euro-Maidan revolution, the group of EU states refused to consider the matter of including a clause in the Association Agreement that would outline a roadmap for Ukraine's potential ascension into the Union - despite efforts by Britain, Sweden, Poland and the Baltic states to pave the road for Kiev. The EU states "consistently refused... to make any pledges about the future," Vimont explained.

An anonymous Lithuanian diplomat confirmed the fracture within the EU, telling the publication that countries which thought of including a clause in the treaty on membership went too far while France and the Netherlands "just kept saying 'no perspective, no perspective.'" Vimont said that France and the Netherlands are skeptical about Ukraine's prospects within the EU as both countries are "fed up with expansion," noting that both states also rejected the EU constitution in referendums in 2005.

Comment: With its proximity to Russia, the US and other EU members want the Ukraine as a buffer for military logistics. "European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker noted that a rejection of the treaty could lead to a 'continental crisis.'" Does this sound like a veiled threat to you?

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Attention

Libyan front: Terror could soon metastasize in Africa

Catherine Shakdam
RT
Fri, 01 Apr 2016 13:23 UTC
AM flag africa
© www.gconew.com
The forgotten child of Western interventionism, Libya continues to battle its demons: terror, instability, mass migration, which NATO ever-so willingly unleashed onto the war-torn nation under the convenient label of "humanitarian interventionism."

If Libya stands today free of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime, and the violent nepotism his rule asserted as the predominant socio-political matrix, the North African nation is not exactly home free either. And while there is no denying that Gaddafi had to go ... if anything, because his people wished it so, Western interventionism literally exploded Libya's chance at a unified transition of power.

Should Libya been allowed to handle its own affairs, should Libyans been allowed to practice their free political will, it is likely the country would not have fallen prey to terror - it is likely war would not have broken out between tribal factions, and it is likely radical militants would never have had the opportunity to open a new front of terror in Africa - right at Europe's doorstep.

In true neocon fashion, NATO preferred to destroy first, bomb now, and then blame someone else later...in most cases - Russia. Funny though how strikingly different Western interventionism has been from Russia's careful, and lawful collaboration with its foreign partners: i.e. Syria. Wherever Western powers have dropped bombs, chaos, death and more radicalism have ensued - whenever Russia has stepped in however radicals have retreated, and IDPs* returned home. [*Internally Displaced Persons]

Are you still under the impression that Western capitals know best? Clearly they don't. Clearly their agenda lies not in the promotion of stability, but rather absolute chaos. Because it would be foolish to think that their actions are only the products of stupid politicking.

Comment: Africa has at least 29 current terrorist factions, such as: Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Lord's Resistance Army, Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS...and so on. Terrorist activities have run rampant in Rwanda, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Uganda...to name a current few. While the pillage and terrorism of Africa has taken place for centuries, it portends to get worse with the "rescue" involvement of foreign "interest" on top of the inevitable infighting of radical groups for territorial conquest. Terrorism in Africa is also a part of Western history as well. Case in point: the Atlantic Slave Trade that built America.

See also:

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