Bundestag Caucus Leader, Volker Kauder and German Chancellor Angela Merkel
He was defeated by deputy leader Ralph Brinkhaus in a 125 to 112 vote.
A journalist from Der Spiegel commented: "Merkel era slowly coming to an end".
Puppet Masters
Bundestag Caucus Leader, Volker Kauder and German Chancellor Angela Merkel
He was defeated by deputy leader Ralph Brinkhaus in a 125 to 112 vote.
A journalist from Der Spiegel commented: "Merkel era slowly coming to an end".
© Vladimir Fedorenko / Sputnik
State Duma plenary session
State Duma plenary session
The nine amendments drafted by President Putin reduce the proposed increase in the retirement age for women, guarantee that pensioners keep all current tax benefits until the reform is fully completed, and offer additional payments to several categories of citizens, such as pensioners living in remote rural areas and representatives of indigenous peoples in northern Russia.
© AP Photo/Alex Brandon
But the most significant import from academic feminism is the idea that a long-ago incident of adolescent sexual misbehavior (assuming that the assault happened as described, which Kavanaugh has categorically denied) should trump a lifetime record of serious legal thought and government service.
Now The New Yorker is charging that Kavanaugh exposed himself to a Yale classmate at a party, ramping up outrage to the point that feminists are demanding that the hearings they wanted be canceled - though The New York Times regarded the latest allegation as too flimsy to publish.
The feminist nostrum that the personal is political is being weaponized to subordinate the public realm of ideas to the private realm of sexual relations - all, ironically, in the service of a highly political end: preventing a judicial conservative from being seated on the high court.
© Armin Durgut/Global Look Press
In what she described as a "poisonous connection" between liberal political bias and Silicon Valley's biggest tech firms, Carrie Sheffield, national editor of the conservative-leaning Accuracy in Media (AIM), called it "chilling" that politically conservative voices were being silenced.
"There is a dearth of conservative and libertarian thought that is openly expressed in Silicon Valley and is quite often suppressed," she claimed citing data from the Lincoln Network, a conservative organization based in Silicon Valley.
Author and journalist Eric Burrows argues that the Google discussions represented a wider effort by social media companies to control the way all users used their platform.
© Umit Bektas / Reuters
Ankara, Turkey
Ankara, Turkey
"We need to be realistic... Am I supposed to let people freeze in winter?... Nobody should be offended. How can I heat my people's homes if we stop purchasing Iran's natural gas?" Erdogan said in an exclusive interview with Reuters.
He said that there were similar situations with Iranian gas imports during the presidency of Barack Obama. At the moment, Turkey is buying 50 percent of its gas from Russia, with the rest imported from Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Algeria.
© Joshua Roberts / Reuters
US Supreme Court nominee judge Brett Kavanaugh is sworn in during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, September 4, 2018
US Supreme Court nominee judge Brett Kavanaugh is sworn in during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, September 4, 2018
On Thursday, the committee is supposed to hear from both the judge and Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who says Kavanaugh attempted to rape her at a high school party sometime in the summer of 1982. It is not clear whether Ford will show up to testify, however.
The vote was initially scheduled for Monday the 24th, until Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) agreed to postpone it for the sake of hearing from Ford. Democrats on the committee, as well as Ford's attorneys, demanded a FBI investigation into her claims. They also wanted to further postpone the hearing so Ford could drive from California to Washington, as she was reportedly afraid of airplanes, and that Kavanaugh testify ahead of Ford, which is at best unusual.
© Thomas Peter / Reuters
Guards at the entrance to the US embassy in Beijing, China, April 5, 2018
Guards at the entrance to the US embassy in Beijing, China, April 5, 2018
Ji Chaoqun, 27, was arrested in Chicago on Tuesday. The Chinese national is suspected of working "at the direction of a high-level intelligence officer in the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security," the complaint against him claims. The intelligence officer allegedly asked him to provide information on engineers and scientists, including US defense contractors, who might be of interest to the ministry. Ji reportedly collected information on eight such individuals, including his fellow Chinese nationals working in the US. Ji reportedly collected information on eight such individuals, including his fellow Chinese nationals working in the US.
Comment: The New York Times reports that one of Ji Chaoqun's handlers was also arrested.
Mr. Ji's handler at a regional arm of China's Ministry of State Security, which collects domestic and foreign intelligence, was also arrested, according to an F.B.I. affidavit. The officer, identified only as Intelligence Officer A, was arrested sometime before April. It is not clear where he was arrested or by whom. [...]Also see:
"They just wanted me to purchase some documents on their behalf," Mr. Ji told the F.B.I. of his handlers, adding that they had told him that making the payments for the reports from China would be too onerous.
The F.B.I. contends that the M.S.S. was "testing Ji's skills as a potential asset by tasking him to purchase these background check reports."
Mr. Ji emailed the files to his handler and called them "midterm test questions."
He also asked an engineer to provide him with technical information from an unnamed aircraft engine supplier, a defense contractor that does aviation research for the military. He then provided the information to the Chinese government.
After graduating in 2015, Mr. Ji enlisted in the Army Reserves in the spring of 2016 under a program that allows immigrants to qualify for American citizenship in exchange for serving in the military.
As part of his application, Mr. Ji lied about his contacts with Chinese intelligence officials, according to court documents.
- China accused of using Linkedin to recruit spies in US
- Details surface about Chinese spy who worked nearly 20yrs for Democrat Senator Feinstein
- Revealed: Chinese Govt. killed and imprisoned 18-20 CIA spies after penetrating Hillary Clinton's private server
© Morteza jaberian / Agence France-Presse / File
It is interesting that many countries still feel the need to organize military parades to commemorate national days. This is a very old practice, and the fact that it still continues in the 21st century tells us that little has changed since the 19th century with regard to relations between states.
For countries like China and Russia, military parades are particularly important, as they offer an occasion to display how powerful and disciplined their armed forces are. France's Bastille Day parade is well-known, even though it is harder in their case to understand why and to whom the French still need to show their military power. These are not the only examples of course, as many other countries preserve this martial tradition. We have to admit that military parades do not only help to dissuade foreign powers, but they are a domestic political instrument as well. Thanks to military parades, the governments show their people how tough and effective their security forces are.
Iran's Khuzestan region, where the attack occurred, is mainly populated by Iran's Arabic speaking minority. The province is home to Abadan, which is the country's main oil field. The very same region played a crucial role in the beginning and during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. As a matter of fact, the military parade was commemorating the start of that bloody war, which, in a way, proves that Iran's perception on regional relations and national interests has not changed much since those days.
Sergej Magnitsky
This is no excuse. I didn't do my due diligence, and take full responsibility for erroneous information printed under my name. For that, I apologize to readers. I refer to two articles of mine published in a Cypriot publication, dated December 25, 2015 and January 6, 2016.
Browder's basic story, as he has told it time and again, goes like this: in June 2007, Russian police officers raided the Moscow offices of Browder's firm Hermitage, confiscating company seals, certificates of incorporation, and computers.
Browder says the owners and directors of Hermitage-owned companies were subsequently changed, using these seized documents. Corrupt courts were used to create fake debts for these companies, which allowed for the taxes they had previously paid to the Russian Treasury to be refunded to what were now re-registered companies. The funds stolen from the Russian state were then laundered through banks and shell companies.
The scheme is said to have been planned earlier in Cyprus by Russian law enforcement and tax officials in cahoots with criminal elements. All this was supposedly discovered by Magnitsky, whom Browder had tasked with investigating what happened. When Magnitsky reported the fraud, some of the nefarious characters involved had him arrested and jailed. He refused to retract, and died while in pre-trial detention.
Comment: Kudos to Hazou for speaking up and acting like a responsible adult. He's one of the only journalists with the integrity to do so. Browder, on the other hand, is nothing a sick con man with absolutely no redeeming qualities. There's a special place in hell for slanderers like him.
See also:
- Bill Browder tries to shut down film about his $230 million theft from Russia and how he left Magnitsky to die in prison
- The stakes just rose thanks to Bill Browder: EU threatens Cyprus with Article 7, censure for allegedly violating Browder's human rights
- Alex Krainer: Why I Wrote Grand Deception - The Truth About Bill Browder
- The questionable ties among Russian oligarchs, Magnitsky Act and Steele Dossier
Mostly civilians were harmed, including women and children, the death toll likely to rise.
The terrorist attack was reportedly carried out from outside the parade perimeter - from a park overlooking the observation platform.
According to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman General Abolfazl Shekarchi, four terrorists were involved in the incident, affiliated with the anti-Iranian (Arab separatist) Al-Ahwaz group, three killed, the other arrested but died of his wounds.
Both Ahwaz and ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. Shekarchi said terrorists involved were trained by the US (the CIA and/or special forces) and Israel's Mossad in two Persian Gulf states, likely Saudi Arabia and the UAE if the report is accurate - both countries militantly hostile toward Iran, along with Washington and Israel.
Comment: See also:
- Rouhani compares Ahvaz parade attack to 9/11 as he slams US for implying Iran is to blame
- 25 people killed, 60 injured, during attack on military parade in southern Iran - UPDATE: Iran blames 'regional terror sponsors & their US masters' for the attack
- NewsReal: Israeli-French Deception Downs Russian Spy Plane Off Syria, US Escalates 'Regime Change' Against Iran
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