Far-right Matteo Salvini's proposal designed to crack down on migration

The populist Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini has called for migrant reception centres to be set up on the external borders of southern Libya after a meeting with the African nation's leaders in Tripoli.

He said the proposal, one of many in a Italian package designed to crack down on migration, will be put to EU heads of governments at a meeting on Thursday.

It was the first visit to Libya by a member of the new Italian government, which was elected on a wave of public unrest about the arrival of more than 500,000 mainly African migrants trafficked across the Mediterranean by Libyan smuggling gangs over the past four years.

If forced to choose, Israel prefers the presence of terrorist groups to Iranian influence.
At first glance, all appears calm in this southern Syrian city where protests first broke out seven years ago. Residents mill around shops in preparation for the evening Iftar meal when they break their daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

But the tension is nonetheless palpable in this now government-controlled city. A few weeks ago, Russian-brokered reconciliation talks in southern Syria fell apart when Western-backed militants rejected a negotiated peace.

Whether there will now be a full-on battle for the south or not, visits last week to Syria's three southern governorates, Daraa, Quneitra, and Suweida, reveal a startling possibility: al-Qaeda's Syrian franchise-the Nusra Front-appears to be deeply entrenched alongside these U.S.-backed militants in key, strategic towns and villages scattered throughout the south.

U.S. media and think tanks obfuscate this fact by referring to all opposition fighters as "rebels" or "moderates." Take a look at their maps and you only see three colors: red for the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies, green for opposition forces, black for ISIS.

So then, where is the Nusra Front, long considered by Western pundits to be one of the most potent fighting forces against the SAA? Have they simply-and conveniently-been erased from the Syrian battle map?

US President Donald Trump has fired another salvo on Twitter, this time aimed at California Congresswoman Maxine Waters' recent call for Americans to harass administration officials so that they have "no peace."

We were wrong to believe that the US project for the Middle East was a peace plan for Palestine. Despite the communications from the White House, this is not what President Trump is seeking. He is approaching this question from a radically different angle than that of his predecessors - not attempting to render Justice between his vassals, as an emperor would, but to unblock the situation in order to improve the daily lives of the populations involved.

The Israëlo-Arab conflict, which was originally a late episode of the European colonial conquest, was developed in order to hinder Arab unity. It was no longer a case of affirming the strength of the Western powers in the Middle East, but of making sure that the Arabs did not constitute a bloc which could compete with them. At first colonial, the logic of the conflict became imperial by aligning itself behind the United States.

But today, the Western powers which have dominated the world for the last few centuries are in decline, while Asia, the bearer of other civilisations, has once again become the centre of the world. It follows that the pressure brought to bear on the Arabs is dwindling. It is in this context that President Trump is putting an end to the Cebrowski doctrine of the destruction of social and State structures in the region, and is attempting to pacify the Israëli conflict.

Donald Trump's personal team for international negotiations - composed of his faithful lieutenants Jared Kushner (his son-in-law) and Jason Greenblatt (ex-vice-president of his conglomerate, the Trump Organization) - therefore approach the Palestinian question from a geopolitical angle. Since they have no diplomatic experience, their plan is not to find a solution which satisfies all the protagonists, but to reduce the pressure on this population in order that they might live a normal life according to the ideal of the right to happiness as it is set out in the US Constitution. This is a major objective for Donald Trump, who intends to dissolve US imperialism and replace it with the logic of commercial competition.

The latest instance of leftist rage is centered on the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" border enforcement policy, which has the inevitable result of temporarily separating children from the parents of illegal immigrants while they are processed and prosecuted prior to deportation.

One of the main targets for the leftist outrage is Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who found herself the subject of an incredibly rude protest while she attempted to enjoy a quiet dinner at a D.C.-area Mexican restaurant on Tuesday evening.

"How dare you spend your evening here eating dinner as you're complicit in the separation and deportation of over 10,000 children separated from their parents?" screamed one male protester while Nielsen sat in silence.

"How can you enjoy a Mexican dinner as you're deporting and imprisoning tens of thousands of people who come here seeking asylum in the United States? We call on you to end family separation and abolish ICE!" the protester added.

As noted, leftists and Trump-haters cheered the display of intolerance by the anti-ICE protesters who descended upon Nielsen in the Mexican restaurant.

You knew it was coming. Eighteen months into the Trump administration and the president's ostensibly serious critics have finally broken the glass on the "Trump-is-a-Nazi" line of attack.

To be certain, there were previous allusions to this from media, Democrats and "Never Trumpers" - accusations of authoritarianism meant to implicitly draw the connection between President Donald Trump and Nazi Germany. Apart from the "over-woke," under-informed Hollywood set, however, critics largely managed to avoid making the explicit comparison.

Until now, that is, with the issue of family separations at the U.S. border dominating headlines.

But overwrought comparisons to the Nazis are both historically illiterate and an extreme strategic misstep. The president's critics have crossed a rhetorical line from which there can be no turning back.

That the Trump administration would be compared with Nazi Germany is not surprising. Accusations of "Republicans-as-fascists" long predate this administration. A Democratic congressman accused President Ronald Reagan of "trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from 'Mein Kampf.' " In more recent times, recall Keith Olbermann's tarring of President George W. Bush as a "fascist" in an on-air segment in 2008, an appellation also bestowed upon other members of the Bush administration.

The secrets are hidden behind fortified walls in cities across the United States, inside towering, windowless skyscrapers and fortress-like concrete structures that were built to withstand earthquakes and even nuclear attack. Thousands of people pass by the buildings each day and rarely give them a second glance, because their function is not publicly known. They are an integral part of one of the world's largest telecommunications networks - and they are also linked to a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.

Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. In each of these cities, The Intercept has identified an AT&T facility containing networking equipment that transports large quantities of internet traffic across the United States and the world. A body of evidence - including classified NSA documents, public records, and interviews with several former AT&T employees - indicates that the buildings are central to an NSA spying initiative that has for years monitored billions of emails, phone calls, and online chats passing across U.S. territory.

The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company's "extreme willingness to help." It is a collaboration that dates back decades. Little known, however, is that its scope is not restricted to AT&T's customers. According to the NSA's documents, it values AT&T not only because it "has access to information that transits the nation," but also because it maintains unique relationships with other phone and internet providers. The NSA exploits these relationships for surveillance purposes, commandeering AT&T's massive infrastructure and using it as a platform to covertly tap into communications processed by other companies.

Much has previously been reported about the NSA's surveillance programs. But few details have been disclosed about the physical infrastructure that enables the spying. Last year, The Intercept highlighted a likely NSA facility in New York City's Lower Manhattan. Now, we are revealing for the first time a series of other buildings across the U.S. that appear to serve a similar function, as critical parts of one of the world's most powerful electronic eavesdropping systems, hidden in plain sight.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's defense team has appealed a federal judge's decision to revoke his bail and send him to jail.

Manafort's attorneys on Monday filed a notice to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that they were appealing U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson's June 15 decision.

Jackson revoked Manfort's bail and ordered him jailed until his trial begins in Washington in September over charges filed by special counsel Robert Mueller alleging he attempted to tamper with two potential witnesses in the case against him.

Federal authorities warned Antifa members Monday to stop occupying an Oregon Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building or be arrested.

"Individuals who continue to obstruct the entrance of this federal facility will be subject to arrest and prosecution in federal court," a flyer Federal Protective Service agents distributed to Portland, Oregon, Antifa members reads. "It is unlawful under federal law to obstruct the entrances, foyers, lobbies, corridors, offices and/or parking lots of federal facilities."

Antifa has been camping outside the ICE building since last week and effectively shutting down the building. Federal authorities went into the building around 3:30 a.m Monday to secure the building.

I landed late last night in Boston, and saw this news:

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is calling on her supporters to confront Trump administration officials and staffers in public amid widespread backlash to the President's zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration.

"Let's make sure we show up wherever we have to show up," Waters told a crowd in California over the weekend. "If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere."