Men in France could be fined €350 (US$435) if they follow women in the street, whistle at them, make loud comments about their appearance or ask for their phone numbers, according to a draft proposal to combat "sexual contempt."

The new report will be presented to the French government in the coming days, local media report. The plans come from a parliamentary working group set up by France's secretary of state for equality, Marlene Schiappa. The politicians behind the proposal suggest that men who "violate women's freedom of movement in public space" should face a minimum fine of €90 for those who can pay on the spot. If the fine is delayed, it could reach €350, the report says. The document will be presented to Schiappa, Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet, and Minister of the Interior Gerard Collomb.

Schiappa initially called for the legislation in October 2017, saying that street harassment should be a punishable offence. The 34-year-old feminist is working closely with French President Emmanuel Macron, who once said that harassment could be combated by creating a "simpler verbalization procedure" so that "there is an immediate response" when it occurs.

Part 1

In Donbass, people are once again speaking of an impending war with Ukraine. Rumors of war spread throughout the people's republics from time to time, usually twice a year, but the current deterioration of the situation on the front bodes something far beyond a "seasonal escalation." If alarmist forecasts are confirmed, then we will see not only more provocations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but full-scale combat operations entailing the prospect of drawing Russian and NATO armed forces into the conflict. In other words, what was successfully avoided in Syria, i.e., a collision between Russian and American troops, could very well happen in Donbass.

The latest spark that could ignite war between the Kiev regime and the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (and possibly both sides' respective allies) is the law on "reintegrating" Donbass adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on January 18th.

This event coincides not only with the delivery of lethal offensive weapons to Ukraine by the United States (at the expense of the American budget) and Canada, but also with the Kiev regime's concentration of all its available coercive resources at the borders of the DPR and LPR.

Thus, the legal, military, strategic, and technological preconditions for a full-scale war are being prepared. All that remains is waiting for the appropriate political conditions, and also suitable weather conditions for Ukrainian troops to go on the offensive.

Part of the East Village was once considered Ukrainian-town. Chain brands started dyeing its ethnic roots slowly at first.

But Tom Birchard, whose family owns Veselka -- the 24-hour Ukrainian diner on the corner of 2nd avenue at 9th street, says things seem to be disappearing an increasing pace. Three generations of Birchards have kept Veselka alive, but Tom says a small piece of his heart breaks each time he sees a local business get pushed out by a corporate brand. And it has been breaking a lot.

Perhaps no one has done as much to document the cultural, if not historic bleaching of New York neighborhoods than Jeremiah Moss, the man behind Vanishing New York, a blog that passionately gives voices to institutions that may not have landmark status, but are crucial strands in the cultural fabric of our lives. Strands he feels are being torn out at an alarming pace.

Jeremiah says it is almost like a mass extinction event in which different species are just dropping like flies.

Home Depot was the latest US corporation to announce Trump tax cut bonuses to their employees on Thursday morning.

According to FOX Business Network 241 COMPANIES HAVE NOW ANNOUNCED BONUSES TO EMPLOYEES THANKS TO THE TRUMP TAX CUTS.

Over 2 million US employees will receive bonuses or raises this year thanks to the Trump tax cuts.

But Democrats don't like the bonuses going to working Americans.

Earlier this month House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) trashed the bonuses.

She said $1,000 bonuses are just crumbs.

WikiLeaks, the transparency organization known for publishing leaked documents that threaten the powerful, finds itself under pressure like never before, as does its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Now the fight to silence WikiLeaks is not only being waged by powerful government figures but also by the media, including outlets and organizations that have styled themselves as working to protect whistleblowers.

As Part I of this investigative series revealed, Pierre Omidyar - eBay billionaire and PayPal's long-time owner - holds considerable sway over several journalists and organizations that once championed WikiLeaks but now work for the Omidyar-owned publication, The Intercept. Thanks to his deep ties to the U.S. government and his own long-standing efforts to undermine the organization, Omidyar is using his influence to bring renewed pressure to WikiLeaks as it continues to publish sensitive government information. However, Pierre Omidyar is not the only PayPal-linked billionaire with strong government connections and a dislike for WikiLeaks.

Peter Thiel, who once compared writers at Gawker to Al Qaeda after they wrote about his sexuality, is a close confidant of Donald Trump - who, as president, continues to crack down on whistleblowers (even denying them bail) and whose administration has named arresting WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange a top priority.


Thiel is a perfect companion for the Trump administration in this regard - having, through his management of a top government technology contractor, overseen the creation of a "pre-crime" algorithm that targets would-be whistleblowers. Not only that, but that very contractor once created a plan challenging "the WikiLeaks threat," a plan that displays some frightening similarities to current efforts to silence or discredit the organization and its famous editor.

Billionaire investor George Soros has described the most popular cryptocurrency bitcoin as a bubble, and said it represents a safe haven for authoritarian regimes.

"Normally when you have a parabolic curve, eventually it has a very sharp break," Soros said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, as quoted by Bloomberg.

Ramzan Kadyrov has said that President Vladimir Putin stayed true to his pledge to support Muslims in Russia and around the world, adding that Western policies have only brought war and destruction to Islamic nations.

In a new message posted on the Telegram social network, Kadyrov thanked Putin for his support to Chechen Muslims. He wrote that Putin was fulfilling his promise to protect religious freedom and equality for all major confessions in Russia. In addition, Kadyrov said that such policies were further proof that the Russian Federation is a reliable partner for all Muslim nations.

"These are not just words, Vladimir Putin has constantly proven that he is fulfilling his promises. While the United States and their allies are bringing wars and destruction to the Muslim world, Russia is consistently defending the interests of the Islamic nations and peoples," the Chechen leader wrote.

The drama which is unfolding in northern Syria is truly an almost ideal case to fully assess how weak and totally dysfunctional the AngloZionist Empire has really become. Let's begin with a quick reminder.

The US-Israeli goals in Syria were really very simple. As I have already mentioned in a past article, the initial AngloZionist plan was to overthrow Assad and replace him with the Takfiri crazies (Daesh, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS - call them whatever you want). Doing this would achieve the following goals:

1. Bring down a strong secular Arab state along with its political structure, armed forces and security services.
2. Create total chaos and horror in Syria justifying the creation of a "security zone" by Israel not only in the Golan, but further north.
3. Trigger a civil war in Lebanon by unleashing the Takfiri crazies against Hezbollah.
4. Let the Takfiris and Hezbollah bleed each other to death, then create a "security zone", but this time in Lebanon.
5. Prevent the creation of a Shia axis Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon.
6. Breakup Syria along ethnic and religious lines.
7. Create a Kurdistan which could then be used against Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
8. Make it possible for Israel to become the uncontested power broker in the Middle-East and forces the KSA, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and all others to have to go to Israel for any gas or oil pipeline project.
9. Gradually isolate, threaten, subvert and eventually attack Iran with a wide regional coalition of forces.
10. Eliminate all center of Shia power in the Middle-East.

With the joint Russian-Iranian military intervention, this plan completely collapsed. For a while, the USA tried to break up Syria under various scenarios, but the way the Russian Aerospace forces hammered all the "good terrorists" eventually convinced the AngloZionists that this would not work.

The single biggest problem for the Empire is that while it has plenty of firepower in the region (and worldwide), it cannot deploy any "boots on the ground". Being the Empire's boots on the ground was, in fact, the role the AngloZionists had assigned to the Takfiri crazies (aka Daesh/IS/ISIS/al-Qaeda/al-Nusra/etc/), but that plan failed. The only US allies left in the region are Israel and Saudi Arabia. The problem with them is that, just like the USA themselves, these countries do not have ground forces capable of actually deploying inside Syria and taking on not only the Syrian military, but the much more capable Iranian and Hezbollah forces. Murdering civilians is really the only thing the Israelis and Saudis are expert in, at least on the ground (in the skies the Israeli Air Force is a very good one). Enter the Kurds.

The Israeli PM has a corruption problem. Or does he? Recent allegations of graft seem to have been downplayed by western journalists who appear intent upon supporting him. Is there more to the allegations than is being reported?

One of the quirks of the Middle East is the role of the western media acting almost like a parallel world power, producing critical analysis for an international audience to hold Arab regimes to account. Or at least that's the theory.

The theory falls flat on its face in the case of Israel, a country often referred to as the 'only democracy in the Middle East,' which in reality could teach Arab tyrants a thing or two about how to run a brutal, authoritarian regime. This includes silencing or manipulating the fourth estate.

Street protests have entered their eighth week in Israel over the sheer scale of graft allegedly perpetrated by the prime minister himself. But why does the West not give the subject the attention it is due, given that Israel is America's strongest ally in the region and, at least, the highest recipient of US military aid in the world? For no sooner does Netanyahu escape one corruption investigation - even creating new laws to guarantee himself immunity - another one pops up.

The European Court of Justice has been considering whether organisms obtained by mutagenesis are exempt from the EU's Genetically Modified Organisms Directive.

That might sound esoteric or gobbledygook but both pro- and anti-GMO camps are keenly awaiting the outcome as many believe it will determine the legal status in the EU of the "new genetic engineering techniques".

It almost certainly won't but it might set the stage - or one of them.

These techniques are usually and erroneously lumped together and called gene (more properly genome) editing; chief of which is the much vaunted - some might say irresponsibly over hyped and promoted - CRISPR-Cas. Together with "synthetic biology" they make up what has been called GMO 2.0 and are seen by proponents and opponents as the future - direction and/or battleground - of genetic engineering in food and farming.