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68 killed in jail riot and fire at Venezuela police station

riot valencia police station venezuela
© Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters
Relatives of inmates held at the General Command of the Carabobo Police react as they wait outside the prison in Valencia, Venezuela March 28, 2018.
At least 68 people have been killed at a Venezuela police station, where an apparent riot and escape attempt resulted in a fire. The casualties have been confirmed by the country's prosecutor general.

The fire took place in the General Command of the Carabobo Police in the city of Valencia. After the fire, dozens of relatives gathered outside the station, trying to break in to get answers, reportedly forcing police to intervene.

Venezuela Prosecutor General Tarek William Saab has confirmed the incident in a series of tweets, saying 68 people were killed in "a presumed fire," including 66 men and two female visitors. He said four special prosecutors have been appointed to investigate the incident.

Bullseye

Enough with the extremist rhetoric: Tucker Carlson takes aim at David Hogg and those using him to push gun control agenda

tucker carlson and david hogg
In the wake of the Parkland shooting, the left has waged a proxy war on guns. And they've done so with child soldiers.

The most prominent of these has been David Hogg. If you've been anywhere near a TV, computer, smartphone or newspaper these past few weeks, you've undoubtedly seen Hogg, whose only compelling argument is that he survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and that you need to listen to him.

Whenever someone calls Hogg out on the fact that being a shooting survivor does not make one an expert on constitutional law, gun policy, school security, or really anything other than your own experience, they're called insensitive - almost as if the left is hiding behind these child soldiers, using them as human shields.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has had enough of this line of thinking.


Comment:


Magnify

Has Sibel Edmonds gone off the deep end? Newsbud editor attacks 21st Century Wire, Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley

Sibel Edmonds

Sibel Deniz Edmonds is the founder and editor-in-chief of NewsBud
James Corbett looks into the controversy surrounding Sibel Edmonds, Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett regarding their reporting on the Syrian conflict. He fact checks Newsbud's recent Syria Under Siege video and comes to some unfortunate conclusions.


Red Flag

UK male suicide rate 'a stain on our society' - 84 men take their lives per week

facepalm
© Getty
Britain's strategy to tackle male suicide is an "absolute lottery" as it does barely anything to stop 84 men from committing suicide every week, a campaigner told RT.

Amid reports of the UK seeing a male suicide every two hours, Simon Gunning, CEO of Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), said the staggering rates are the "clearest indicator that we are doing very badly in certain areas."

"The issue is there are 84 men a week who choose a permanent solution to temporary problems," Gunning said. "Unable to see hope, they think death is better than life."

Overall, suicide claims the lives of 6,000 people in the UK, the majority of whom (75 percent) are male. It has prompted CALM to launch Project84, a campaign aimed at raising awareness about suicide in the country.

Eye 1

Dystopian policing: China using facial recognition to identify and fine jaywalkers

China fines jaywalkers
© Flickr user Angie Harms
Traffic authorities in the Chinese city of Shenzhen have teamed up with an AI firm named Intellifusion to carry out the rather dystopian policing, reports the South China Morning Post. Already traffic police in the city have been using Intellifusion software and cameras to identify passing jaywalkers and project their faces and identifying information on large screens located near intersections for all to see, but now Intellifusion is taking its surveillance a step further.

The company is partnering with social media platforms including WeChat and Sina Weibo and local mobile phone carriers so it can text jaywalkers the second they offend. Police will also have the option of delivering a ticket and fine on the spot for people who are picked up by the AI system for repeat offenses.

Comment: See also: China to bar people with bad "social credit" from planes, trains - "once untrustworthy, always restricted"


Cell Phone

FSB tells internet messengers to give up clients' correspondence within 10 days of receiving official request

servers
© Klaus Ohlenschläger / Global Look Press
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has ordered data exchange services such as internet messengers to give up the encryption keys for their clients' correspondence within 10 days of receiving an official request.

The document published on the Russian government's official web portal on Thursday expands the earlier order for all "organizers of information distribution on the internet network" to present encryption keys if requested by the relevant FSB directorate.

The order was issued after earlier this month Russia's Supreme Court demanded that popular messenger and blogging platform Telegram hand over encryption keys to its clients' traffic to the FSB without court warrants.

As they announced the ruling, judges reiterated that the constitutional right to secrecy of correspondence should not be extended to internet messages, as there was no way to ensure that the staff of internet companies had no access to user data.

Laptop

Friend of WikiLeaks: Ecuador cut Assange's internet over tweet criticizing Catalonia crackdown

Ecuador embassy julian assange
© Peter Nicholls / Reuters
The Ecuadorian Embassy in London
The move by the Ecuadorian embassy to cut all communication for Julian Assange was triggered by his critical remark on the arrest of Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, which compared modern Germany to the Nazis, a source says.

The WikiLeaks founder, who is stranded in Ecuador's diplomatic mission in London, found himself in a total communication blackout on Wednesday. The ire of the Ecuadorian government, which chose to leave its embassy staff without mobile connection rather than allow Assange to stay online, was triggered by the fugitive activists' remarks on Catalan politics, a source close to WikiLeaks told RT.

Comment:


Handcuffs

FBI agent charged for leaking secret documents to The Intercept

FBIguys
© The Intercept
An FBI agent in Minnesota has been charged over leaking secret documents to The Intercept, reportedly related to threats made by individuals from a particular Middle Eastern country and the FBI's use of informants.

A two-page document filed by prosecutors for the Department of Justice's National Security Division, cited by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, charges Terry James Albury with two counts of unlawfully disclosing and retaining national defense information.

The government charged Albury with unlawfully possessing a 2011 document about assessing the FBI's "confidential human sources" and another document "relating to threats posed by certain individuals from a particular Middle Eastern country." He is said to have "knowingly and willfully" shared those materials with a journalist.

Comment: It seems Albury was fed up with what he witnessed at the FBI and made little effort to cover his tracks. As the Star Tribune reports:
The affidavits also pointed to discussions between Albury and a co-worker in 2015 in which they weighed reporting what they said was an inappropriate e-mail sent by another colleague.

During the discussion, the affidavit read, Albury wrote in an e-mail that "if [the Office of Professional Responsibility] does not respond, let me go on record and say i will contact the press."

"While the co-worker's e-mail is unrelated to the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents to the News Outlet, the exchange of these messages shows that Albury had considered disclosing internal FBI information to the media," according to the affidavit.
However, this is the second Intercept source to be charged with leaking information in the past year. In June 2017 Reality Winner was arrested for leaking NSA documents to the Intercept. Moon of Alabama reported at the time of her arrest that they found "irresponsible behavior by The Intercept's reporters and editors which neglected all operational security trade-craft that might have prevented the revealing of the source." The article continued:
The lessons learned from this catastrophic -for the source- leak:
  • Start thinking of good op-sec before you think of leaking.
  • Computer access gets logged. Do not leave any suspicious (log) trace at your workplace (or anywhere else).
  • Do not provide any trace from your immediate workplace or any personal metadata with the leaked material.
And last but certainly not least:
  • Do not trust The Intercept.



Heart - Black

Vegan taken into custody after defending death of butcher in French supermarket attack

France supermarket attack trebes
© Regis Duvignau / Reuters
Authorities are pictured at the scene of a terrorist attack in Trebes, France, on March 23, 2018.
An investigation has been opened in France after a vegan activist posted on social media that she had "zero compassion" for a butcher who was killed in a recent terrorist attack in the southwestern part of the country.

"Well, what, it shocks you that an assassin is killed by a terrorist? Not me, I have zero compassion for him," the person wrote in a message discovered by French authorities on Monday. The activist added that the butcher's death was "justice,"before quickly deleting the post, according to a judicial source cited by 20 Minutes. She was later taken into custody, according to Le Parisien.

The comment was in reference to last week's terrorist attack on a Super U market in Trèbes, France, which was claimed by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). The attack saw two civilians - including butcher Christian Medves - killed. Others were wounded and hostages were taken.

Comment: Prosecutors have announced that this individual could face up to 5 years in prison for their remarks:
A vegan in France who posted a Facebook message offering "zero sympathy" for a butcher killed by an Islamist militant during an attack last week has been arrested and could face prison for the remarks, police and prosecutors said.

The vegan was due to go before a judge on a charge of condoning terrorism on Thursday, two days after a left-wing activist received a one-year suspended sentence for hailing the death of another victim of the same attack, gendarme Arnaud Beltrame.

Condoning terrorism carries a maximum jail sentence of five years and a fine of 75,000 euros ($92,000).



Bomb

Women arrested in school bomb threat says she was 'testing police response'

police line
© Lucas Jackson / Reuters
A woman arrested for phoning in a bomb threat against seven public schools in Oklahoma claimed she was "testing the police response."

The suspect, identified as 48-year-old Stephanie Louise Montgomery, was arrested on a felony complaint of making terrorist threats after she was identified by Claremore Police Department as the sinister caller.

The caller said there were numerous bombs in backpacks at Claremore high school, and numerous bombs at elementary schools," Deputy Chief Steve Cox told The Claremore Daily Progress.