The European Parliament is introducing a new rule set to curb hate speech, cutting live debate feeds and removing video/audio traces of offensive remarks. A fierce backlash from press and MEPs has critics accusing the EU Parliament of censorship.

The new rule would let the chair of a debate cut a live feed from the parliament "in the case of defamatory, racist or xenophobic language or behavior by a member," also imposing a $9,500 fine on the offender. Remarks deemed offensive could also be erased from "the audiovisual record of proceedings."

The Israeli Air Force targeted on Monday two locations in the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, Palestinian media reported. According to the Wafa news agency, at least two missiles hit a location near the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central part of the enclave and a location in the northern Gaza Strip.

No reports on casualties have been provided yet.

The latest armed conflict between Israel and Hamas, an Islamist political and militant group which has been governing the enclave since 2007, took place in 2014. However, Hamas militants continue firing rockets against Israel, while Israel is targeting Hamas positions in response.

Hamas seeks the creation of an independent state of Palestine and wants Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories it has occupied after the 1967 war.

The potential withdrawal by the US from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) would be "a misguided and shortsighted" step that wouldn't benefit the country, said the UN director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), Lou Charbonneau. "A decision to withdraw would be a misguided and shortsighted step that could significantly set back UN efforts to protect human rights around the world," Charbonneau wrote in a statement published on the HRW website.

Donald Trump's administration is apparently considering quitting the UN Human Rights Council due to its critical attitude towards Israel and its inefficiency, Politico reported, citing a former State Department official. However, there is no official confirmation on that so far.

Charbonneau noted that the council "has taken groundbreaking measures, often with strong US support," including appointing investigating commissions that detected serious human rights violations in North Korea and Syria. "Withdrawing would do nothing to advance US interests but would merely dampen US influence in the international arena," Charbonneau's announcement read.


If Washington decides to leave the council, it would "undermine US allies," the official noted. The result would be that "serial rights abusers like China and Saudi Arabia" would have an opportunity to prevent the UNHCR from "exposing atrocities by the world's worst violators."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has reportedly gone on a crusade against unauthorized sharing of information on his own turf, ordering extensive phone checks and urging staffers against using encrypted-messaging apps. The official sprung into decisive action last week, after it emerged that information discussed at one of the planning meetings with employees of the White House Office of Communications had been leaked to the media, Politico reported, citing sources present at the meeting.

According to the outlet, in an effort to find the source of the leaks, which cast the Donald Trump administration in an unfavorable light in the media, Spicer ordered about a dozen of the staffers called to the gathering to hand over their personal mobile phones as well as those provided by the government for a "check."

Spicer also instructed them against using apps, allowing encryption of the messages, specifically mentioning Confide and Signal, an official with the knowledge of the matter is being quoted by Politico as saying. Confide enables its users to send encrypted messages that instantly "self-destruct" and Signal employs end-to-end encryption of photos and text messages. Justifying the restrictions, Spicer apparently said that the use of these and similar mobile features will constitute a violation of the Presidential Records Act.

Among the recent leaks that has drawn the particular ire of the White House press secretary, according to Politico sources, was a report of Michael Dubke's appointment as the White House communications director, which came out before the official announcement. Dubke replaced Spicer himself, who was reportedly finding it hard to reconcile his duties as presidential press secretary and communications chief.

Six Russian diplomats have died in the last 60 days. As Axios notes, all but one died on foreign soil. Some were shot, while other causes of death are unknown. Note that a few deaths have been labeled "heart attacks" or "brief illnesses."

1. You probably remember Russia's Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov — he was assassinated by a police officer at a photo exhibit in Ankara on December 19.

2. On the same day, another diplomat, Peter Polshikov, was shot dead in his Moscow apartment. The gun was found under the bathroom sink but the circumstances of the death were under investigation. Polshikov served as a senior figure in the Latin American department of the Foreign Ministry.

3. Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, died in New York this past week. Churkin was rushed to the hospital from his office at Russia's UN mission. Initial reports said he suffered a heart attack, and the medical examiner is investigating the death, according to CBS.

4. Russia's Ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, died after a "brief illness January 27, which The Hindu said he had been suffering from for a few weeks.

5. Russian Consul in Athens, Greece, Andrei Malanin, was found dead in his apartment January 9. A Greek police official said there was "no evidence of a break-in." But Malanin lived on a heavily guarded street. The cause of death needed further investigation, per an AFP report. Malanin served during a time of easing relations between Greece and Russia when Greece was increasingly critiqued by the EU and NATO.

6. Ex-KGB chief Oleg Erovinkin, who was suspected of helping draft the Trump dossier, was found dead in the back of his car December 26, according to The Telegraph. Erovinkin also was an aide to former deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, who now heads up state-owned Rosneft.

If we go back further than 60 days...

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on Monday that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) conducted retaliatory airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, the IDF spokesperson said.

The IDF also pointed out that it held Hamas, an Islamist political and militant group which has been governing the Gaza Strip since 2007, accountable for all attacks from the Gaza Strip that threaten Israel and her citizens.

"In response to a rocket fired from Gaza that hit Israeli territory last night, the IAF targeted 5 Hamas positions throughout the Gaza Strip," the spokesperson wrote on Twitter.

Philip Bilden, Donald Trump's pick for navy secretary, has withdrawn from consideration for the post due to problems with separating himself from his business interests. The White House and the Pentagon had said he was "100 percent committed" to the post.

"After an extensive review process," Bilden said in a statement released on Sunday, "I have determined that I will not be able to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics requirements without undue disruption and materially adverse divestment of my family's private financial interests."

Last year the businessman retired from the private equity firm HarbourVest Partners after 25 years.

Trump nominated 52-year-old Bilden, who was an intelligence officer in the Army Reserve from 1986-1996, to lead the navy last month.

A little over a week ago, two sources told CBS News that Trump's nominee for navy secretary may withdraw his nomination, however.

According to the sources, Bilden has faced difficulty separating himself from his financial interests.

The White House rushed to deny the report, however.

"Those people would be wrong," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tweeted. "Just spoke with him and he is 100% committed to being the next SECNAV pending Senate confirm," he added.

In many other countries, excluding the United States, corrupt bankers are often brought to task by their respective governments. The most recent example of a corrupt banker being held accountable comes out of Spain, in which the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Rodrigo Rato was sentenced to four years and six months behind bars.

According to the AFP, Spain's National Court, which deals with corruption and financial crime cases, said he had been found guilty of embezzlement when he headed up Caja Madrid and Bankia, at a time when both groups were having difficulties.

Rato, who is tied to a slew of other allegations was convicted and sentenced for misusing €12m between 2003 and 2012 — sometimes splashing out at the height of Spain's economic crisis, according to the AFP.

Continued from Part 1: Why He's Wrong, Even Though He's Right

I wasn't familiar with the 'fourth turning' before the Bannon media hype, but the idea didn't strike me as off the wall once I read about it. I think it's actually quite useful. And it's not really new either. Howe and Strauss seem to have built upon existing ideas of historical cycles and refined them, tying them to the biological life cycle and filling in a lot of the details. For example, Howe mentions Toynbee's idea of a "great war cycle":

And this is the old lesson of Arnold Toynbee, of what he calls the great war cycle that arose every 80 years or so: it's when the generation who doesn't remember the last great catastrophe finally become the senior leaders.

Another source is Russian sociologist Pitrim Sorokin. I'm not sure if Howe and Strauss were familiar with Sorokin's work, but these blog posts (here, here, and here) suggest that their theory at least "appears to be a clean innovation on Sorokin's work". Sorokin also identified a cycle of 80 to 100 years that ping-pongs between spiritual and materialistic mindsets, roughly corresponding to the awakening and crisis turnings. For Howe and Strauss, the second and fourth turnings - spiritual awakening and secular crisis - form the key moments in the larger cycle of cultural trends.

There's another source, however, that I think rounds out the generational theory even more and provides the perspective we need in order to prevent the current crisis from progressing to a reign of terror. Readers familiar with Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology (which cites Sorokin's work as a source) know that one of main points of the book is that some psychopaths strive for political power, and create societal nightmares once they achieve it. But equally important is his focus on the historical cycles that make such a thing possible. The two are intimately tied together.

The Iranian Navy has successfully test-fired its Nasr sea-launched cruise missile, Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said. The test took place during large-scale military drills stretching over an area covering 2 million sq km in the Persian Gulf.

The latest naval cruise missile, called Nasr, was test-fired during 'Velayat 95' naval exercises stretching from the Strait of Hormuz and Oman Sea to north of the Indian Ocean, Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said, as quoted by the Fars news agency on Monday.


The Nasr was successfully launched and hit the predetermined targets, the minister added, according to Mehr news agency.

Tasnim news agency meanwhile reported that the Iranian Navy had also successfully test-fired an advanced domestically-made laser-guided missile system dubbed Dehlaviyeh, "specialized in targeting vessels and ships."

The Dehlaviyeh anti-ship missile was reportedly tested for the first time and hit the target as well.