Turkey's purge of Gulen supporters continued on Saturday with the closure of hundreds of private schools, charities and other institutions suspects of links with the US-based cleric. Ankara declared a state of emergency after a failed military coup. The decree issued by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is his first since the state of emergency was declared on Wednesday. He has ordered the closure of 1,043 private schools, 1,229 charities and foundations, 19 trade unions, 15 universities and 35 medical institutions, state news agency Anadolu reported on Saturday.

The organizations slated to be shut down are suspected of links with US-based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan, who turned into his fierce opponent. The Turkish government accused Gulen of having a hand behind the last week's coup attempt as well as earlier attacks on it.

In the wake of the weekend violence, which claimed at least 246 lives, Ankara launched a massive purge of suspected Gulen supporters among the military, police, judges, municipal officials and other branches of the government. Another such measure ordered by Erdogan on Saturday allows for longer detention of people without charge.

The three-month state of emergency declared on Wednesday gives the Turkish executive authority to pass laws without parliament's support and limit rights and freedoms as they deem necessary.

Turkey's foreign allies, the US and the EU, reacted nervously to the crackdown. The EU threatened to suspend accession talks with Ankara, if Erdogan delivered on his threat to lift a moratorium on capital punishment. The US said Turkey should provide convincing proof of Gulen's guilt, if it wanted the cleric to be extradited. Gulen, a long-time resident of the US, has denied masterminding the coup.

The armed group which seized a police station in Yerevan released all hostages, Armenian National Security Service spokesman Samson Galstyan said on Saturday.

On July 17, the armed group took several police officers hostage at a patrol police station in Yerevan's district of Erebuni. The hostage-takers are demanding the release of Jirair Sefilian, an opposition politician and the founder of the New Armenia Public Salvation Front.

"Armenia's deputy police chief Maj. Gen. Vardan Egiazaryan and Yerevan's deputy police chief Col. Valeri Osipyan,who were the last two hostages held captive, were released from the building of the patrol police station," Galstyan said.

There are at least five Daesh military training camps in Kosovo, located in remote areas near the self-proclaimed republic's border with Albania and Macedonia, a source close to the intelligence services told Sputnik. The largest camps are located in areas adjacent to the towns on the Urosevac and Djakovica line as well as the Decani district, the source said, adding that the smaller camps were tracked in the Prizren and Pec regions. A total of 314 Kosovo Albanians along with Daesh terrorists are now fighting government troops in Syria and Iraq, among them 38 women, according to the source.

As for the recruitment, it takes in two stages; the first is conducted by non-governmental organizations [NGOs] that operate in Kosovo and at numerous private schools, the source said. "The future Daesh terrorists are 'brainwashed' there and they also learn Arabic and study the Koran, something that is followed by so-called 'combat practice' training, headed by former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). They typically teach the rookies to wage guerrilla warfare and handle guns, among other things," according to the source.

"In addition, each camp has several Daesh terrorists who decide on sending the rookies to the war or preparing them for the role of suicide bombers," the source said, citing about 70 Kosovo Albanian families who decided to join Daesh.

After 8 days after the tragedy in Nice, a new act of terrorism shook Europe. Unknown persons opened fire in several places in Munich. The main attack was targeted at a mall, with 9 people shot. This is the second terrorist attack in Germany in recent days. On July 19th, a refugee from Afghanistan attacked train passengers in Bavaria with an ax .

Who committed the attack?

It is not exactly known who the attackers were. The most likely are two versions:

1. Islamic extremists. This is not necessarily immigrants among the Wahhabis in Germany because, among radical Muslims there are many converts from native Germans. Note that a terrorist attack in Germany occurred almost a week after the attack in Nice. According to the police the suspected gunman is an 18-year-old local resident with dual German and Iranian citizenship. He apparently committed suicide

2. Neo-Nazis. This version is based on the fact that the attack took place on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Norway back in 2011, which was carried out by the now infamous Anders Breivik.

3. Foreign nationalists (the Kurds against the Turks).

Whatever the motives of the direct perpetrators of the crime actually are, its consequences will increase the tension, anxiety, and disorientation in German society. They will be easier to manipulate, using the threat of Islamic terrorism and neo-Nazism, including being manipulated from the outside. In general, the attack tends to weaken confidence in Europe and its peoples in their leaders.

Newly passed Transparency Law compels rights groups to divulge foreign funding in all official statements

The Israeli government stands accused of waging a campaign of incitement against human rights groups as it tries to hamper efforts by the international community to monitor abuses of Palestinians under occupation.

A so-called Transparency Law, passed by the Israeli parliament last week, compels some two dozen Israeli rights organisations to declare publicly that they receive a majority of their funding from foreign governments.

In future, they will have to divulge such funding - mostly from individual European states or the European Union - every time they appear in the media, issue publicity material, make statements online, and deal with official bodies. Failure to do so will incur a substantial fine.

The legislation's aim, peace activists argue, is to vilify these groups with the Israeli public, suggesting they are "foreign agents" and "traitors" seeking to subvert Israel's security and its national interests.

Jeff Halper, founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, said the human rights community was being "publicly shamed". He told Al Jazeera: "The government wants these groups to be seen as disloyal and anti-Israel. It is about cementing a public consensus that they constitute an enemy within."

Foreign 'meddling'

Most of the affected groups work in the occupied territories, monitoring human rights violations, the expansion of settlements, torture of Palestinian prisoners and Israel's military courts system. The best-known include B'Tselem, Peace Now and Yesh Din.

But the law also applies to social justice groups operating inside Israel. Most focus on structural discrimination against the country's Palestinian minority, a fifth of the Israeli population.

Two hundred eighty-three members of the presidential guard of Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been arrested by Turkish authorities over alleged affiliation to the last week's failed coup, Press TV information website reported on Saturday.

Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Press TV that the suspects were part of the Special Forces regiment stationed at the presidential palace in capital, Ankara.

According to the source, after a police investigation is conducted, the Palace of Justice in Ankara will take the suspects.

At the same time, an unnamed official of Turkish government said that Turkish authorities had cancelled 10,856 passports, including close to 10,000 green and grey ones. The reason for such action was a "flight risk" of the holders who are in custody or on the run.

Hillary Clinton is having a bad day, to say the absolute least. On the day she set aside to announce her Vice Presidential selection, Julian Assange and Wikileaks posted leaked DNC emails proving the DNC forced Bernie out and attempted to ruin Trump with sultry lies.

Today, Clinton chose Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Her announcement clearly marred by Assange's revelations of the DNC's indiscretions. But worse more, Kaine has a history of sinister idealogy. In fact, he once forced sixth grade girls to take Gardasil shots, according to a 2007 article from the Washington Post.

Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, has appealed to the UN with an official letter in which he requests that pressure be put on Ukraine in order to prevent the resumption of full-scale hostilities in Donbass. In Churkin's opinion, Kiev is preparing a military operation, and his letter cites data on Ukrainian security forces' shelling of civilian residential areas in Donbass "within the last week alone." The number of these bombardments has grown dramatically.

Churkin is known for his professionalism and poise. Obviously, only the most extreme circumstances could have compelled him take such an extraordinary step. Moreover, this is not the first appeal by such a high-ranking Russian diplomat to international and foreign institutions. The Foreign Ministry of Russia's State Secretary Grigory Karasin already met with the ambassadors of France and Germany on this subject and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone talk with the presidents of the US, France, and the German Chancellor. According to Karl Marx's famous formula, quantity turns into quality. In our case, the number of shellings of Donbass' cities by the UAF and neo-Nazi battalions risks turning into a new, full-scale war.

It should be admitted that Kiev's tactics are quite effective. Shellings cause tangible losses while also exerting psychological pressure on the republics. The purpose of such frequent attacks is provoking return fire by the DPR and LPR's armies. Then Kiev would accuse the Donbass republics (and of course Russia) of tearing up the Minsk Agreements, and call upon the international community to intervene in the conflict. By "international community," of course, is meant NATO. At the NATO summit in Warsaw, words of support for Kiev against "Russian aggression" were heard along with promises to provide military and technological assistance. It is possible that these and other measures of support are being prepared. Most likely, this is not Ukraine's accession to NATO, but NATO's accession to Ukraine, i.e., an actual occupation of Ukrainian territory by the alliance. This could come about in the form of establishing permanent military bases and upgrading equipment and manpower.

My friends from the military and political circles of the DPR report that the sheer force of UAF attacks is reminiscent of the most difficult days of summer, 2014. But the republics are not afraid of fire. On the contrary, they are waiting for when Ukraine will go on a new offensive in order to then bury the Ukrainian army on Donbass land. Ukraine has already been given two chances to stop (and survive), but has not taken any of these. Churkin's letter is perhaps one of the last warnings for Ukraine.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a month ago, the Russian air-forces destroyed a top-secret military facility, used by Special Forces of the USA and the UK in Syria. The Government and military in all three countries, according to the newspaper, ignore this fact.

On June 16 Russian planes in Syria hit a remote military installation at "Al-Tanf" in the south-east of the country. As the publication of The Wall Street Journal, citing military sources states, the aim was a secret base of the US and the UK. Coincidence or not, but the strike occurred after the base was left by the 20 people of the UK military personnel.

The US military states, that some cluster bombs were dropped on the base. After that, the representatives of the US Central Command in Qatar called Russian colleagues in Latakia, explaining that the facility that was bombed is a part of the American infrastructure. But a second blow was delivered some 30 minutes after this.

Katehon experts comment on this:

US is known for its official support of the so called "moderate opposition" and the secret support of the ISIS extremist group. US uses its bases not to fight terrorism as they claim, but to overthrow Assad's Government. The US-UK base has been created illegally and as a violation of both the sovereignty of Syria and International Law.

Hillary Clinton's pick for vice president is Virginia senator Tim Kaine, who is considered a safe choice by some, but not as progressive as many supporters would like.

Donors to the Clinton campaign received text messages at 8:11pm EST reading, "I'm thrilled to tell you this first: I've chosen Sen. Tim Kaine as my running mate. Welcome him to our team.