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DHS agent in Portland: Protesters seek to embarrass, defeat Trump, 'Catatonic with hate'

Paul Bedard
Washington Examiner
Mon, 27 Jul 2020 20:44 UTC
portland demonstration
© Marcio Jose Sanchez/ dpa
Hatred of President Trump is fueling protests in Portland, Oregon, prompting activists to threaten the lives of federal police in hopes of driving them away and handing the White House a major embarrassment, according to an agent who broke the code of silence to describe the situation.

"As the night goes on, the rioters become so hateful it is surreal. Their voices hoarse, their sentences jumbled, they seem almost catatonic with hate," said the agent of the Portland clashes that have nearly reached 60-straight nights.

"A totally surreal experience. You get large, nonviolent demonstrations where people march, they chant, they give speeches, then shortly after are replaced with a smaller crowd, though still large, who immediately start trying to break into and destroy the federal courthouse. They have transposed their hatred for the president and for law enforcement onto the physical structure of the federal courthouse, and the uniformed personnel whose job is to protect that courthouse," the agent told the Center for Immigration Studies.
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Arrow Down

As economic conditions continue to worsen, Gaza's young people eye suicide as easy way out


Sputnik
Sun, 26 Jul 2020 20:07 UTC
children gaza
© REUTERS / Mohammed Salem
Suicide rates have spiked in Gaza since the outbreak of the pandemic which worsened an already unstable economic situation in the region. Suleiman Al Ajouri was just one of 35 young people who took their own lives in 2020 and a human rights activist says a future that curerntly offers few solutions is looking even bleaker.

Gaza native Suleiman Al Ajouri was only 23 years old when he committed suicide at the beginning of July, devastating his family and friends.

Moments before he shot himself in the head on the staircase of his home, he posted a message on Facebook hinting at his intentions.

"This won't be a futile attempt", he wrote. "It's an escape. Enough! Complaining to anyone but God is no more than humiliation".

At the time, nobody took it seriously but when Suleiman was gone his post made perfect sense and his friend, Adham, whose real name cannot be revealed for security reasons, says he understood the reasons that pushed him to make that decision.
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Magic Wand

Harry Potter books prove UK lockdown hit despite JK Rowling trans rights row

Mark Sweney
The Gaurdian
Tue, 21 Jul 2020 19:16 UTC
jk rowling
The backlash against JK Rowling's views on transgender law reform has failed to dent the popularity of the Harry Potter author's books, with publisher Bloomsbury saying they have proved a lockdown hit, pushing revenues at the group's children's division up more than a quarter.

The company, which publishes all of the author's Harry Potter books, said its consumer publishing arm grew sales by 28% to £31.4m. The children's division grew by 27% to £18.7m, with Bloomsbury highlighting Rowling's titles as a "bestseller".

Rowling has been criticised by the majority of LGBT campaign groups after expressing "deep concerns" about transgender rights in a lengthy essay in which she also described being a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault. Many of the younger actors who starred in her Harry Potter films have also issued statements distancing themselves from her views.

Nigel Newton, the Bloomsbury chief executive, said the books had remained bestsellers since Rowling published her views on her website last month. "Harry Potter has been very popular with families at home reading to each other and has been marvellous throughout this period," he said.

Comment: Shocking. It's almost as if the general public doesn't actually care (or even know) what Woke Twitter has to say. On a related note, a kids' news website had to retract and apologize for it's attempt at canceling Rowling after she threatened them with a lawsuit:
The Day, a UK news service aimed at British teens, issued a public apology on Wednesday over its June article headlined: "Potterheads cancel Rowling after trans tweet." The publication admitted the article "implied that what JK Rowling had tweeted was objectionable" and that she had "attacked and harmed trans people."

"The article was critical of JK Rowling personally and suggested that our readers should boycott her work and shame her into changing her behavior," the apology, posted on The Day's website, reads, while insisting their intention was merely "to provoke debate on a complex topic."

"We unreservedly apologize to JK Rowling for the offense caused, are happy to retract these false allegations and to set the record straight," The Day continued, pledging to make a "financial contribution to a charity of JK Rowling's choice."


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Star of David

Anger over Israeli decision to demolish new Palestinian 'Covid-19 hospital' ahead of 'deadly second wave'

Alan Macleod
MintPress News
Wed, 22 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC
Israeli Police
© AP/Majdi Mohammed
Israeli police advance on Palestinian protesting the expansion of Jewish settlements in West Bank village of Beita, July 18, 2020.
The Israeli decision to bulldoze a newly built COVID-19 field hospital and testing center in Hebron in the West Bank yesterday has been roundly condemned by activists, rights groups and organizers. "Because demolishing a COVID-19 testing center is totally the best way for Israel to be spending funds right now," wrote female-led antiwar group CODEPINK, "Seriously, this obsession with destroying Palestine, even at the expense of Israeli coronavirus funding, is sick."


Comment: Pronouncements aside, the UN is nearly useless as Gaza's prevention efforts, in the shadow of Israeli domination, are rapidly failing:
Nickolay Mladenov, briefing the Security Council on Tuesday, said that a dramatic increase in novel coronavirus cases in both the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Israel is having a big impact on the situation on the ground. He stressed that primary responsibility for people's well-being still remains with the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Government.

The UN is trying to help by engaging with all sides to ensure that humanitarian aid gets through, but there are limits to what it and others can do, He stressed that primary responsibility for people's well-being still remains with the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Government.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday put the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Israel at 49,481, with 403 fatalities. In the West Bank and Gaza, it reported 10,052 cases and 65 deaths.

Mr. Mladenov briefed the Council's monthly debate on the Palestinian question via video-teleconference as several world leaders - including, in a recent op-ed in an Israeli newspaper, United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson - echoed Secretary-General António Guterres' call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abandon plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

"We need to restart diplomacy", he said, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic and its ensuing economic crisis, which has sent Israeli unemployment soaring past 20 percent, are a chance to move forward along the path to a negotiated two-State solution in line with UN resolutions, bilateral agreements and international law.
"The ferocity of the COVID-19 virus and its devastating human and economic toll demand extraordinary measures (that) rise above politics-as-usual. Immediate efforts to curb the virus and to mitigate its impact must be prioritized. Israeli and Palestinian leaders have a duty to protect the lives and livelihoods of their populations."


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Health

Swiss government says first deal with Iran via humanitarian channel completed


RFE/RL
Mon, 27 Jul 2020 10:00 UTC
Pharmacy crowd
© Atta Kenare/AFP
Crowd of Iranians wait to get prescriptions filled in Tehran.
A Swiss pharmaceutical firm has completed the first transaction under a new humanitarian trade channel with Iran, the government of Switzerland said on July 27.

Trial operations started in January under the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA) to bring food and medicine to the struggling Iranian population without violating U.S. sanctions.

"We would like to emphasize that the operationalization of the SHTA is progressing and that a number of companies have already been approved, more companies will follow. Further transactions should be carried out shortly," the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said in an e-mail to Reuters. SECO did not identify the pharmaceutical company or give a value for the shipment, which it said involved a cancer drug.
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Health

The problem of false positives from Covid-19 tests means UK is inflating its numbers - and taking wrong decisions

Rob Lyons
RT
Mon, 27 Jul 2020 15:31 UTC
C-19 testing facility
© Reuters/Toby Melville
A drive-through coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing facility in Hyde Park, London, Britain
When seven staff at a Scottish football club tested positive for coronavirus, alarm bells went off. But really alarming was when six of those results turned out to be wrong. Such inaccurate tests are exaggerating the problem.

Last weekend, at very short notice, the UK reintroduced quarantine measures for people arriving from Spain. For those already in Spain, or for whom it was too late to postpone their trip, the decision is very inconvenient. For those who can't work at home when they return, it may mean missing out on wages for the two weeks they will have to spend in isolation when they get back. But what if the apparent rise in cases has been exaggerated by seemingly small flaws with testing?

The potential for problems was illustrated by Scottish football team St Mirren last week. The club, based in Paisley, a town just west of Glasgow, reported seven positive test results for Covid-19 among its staff. Alarm bells went off about what this might mean for the new Scottish football season. But this "cluster" was a mirage. When the seven people were re-tested using a more accurate method, just one of them was found to be Covid-positive.

In Spain, half of the reported cases have been in people who had no symptoms. We know that many people who test positive never suffer any symptoms. But what if many of these people don't have Covid-19 at all?
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Arrow Up

Number of foreigners granted Russian citizenship doubles after naturalization laws relaxed

Johnny Tickle
RT
Mon, 27 Jul 2020 15:54 UTC
Russian passport
© Sputnik/Kirill Yasko
Russian Passport
Russia's move to cut down on bureaucracy for those seeking citizenship seems to have been met with a high demand: in the first half of 2020 alone, about 300,000 people obtained it.

The is more than double the number for the same period in 2019, according to Valentina Kazakova, head of migration at the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs. A total of 500,000 foreigners got citizenship last year.

"In absolute terms, about 300,000 people acquired Russian citizenship in the first half of the year," Kazakova said, in an interview with government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta. "Of course, this has been facilitated by this year's changes in legislation."

The increase has also come despite the complicated situation with Covid-19, the official added.

Earlier this summer, President Vladimir Putin signed a bill to end the requirement for naturalized citizens to renounce their existing passports, ending a long-standing hurdle for foreigners interested in becoming Russian. Other bureaucratic hurdles were also removed, including the need to prove a source of income.
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Eye 2

Chicago, the corrupt, crime-infested murder capital of the US is a glimpse of a dystopian future: Al Capone would be proud

Mitchell Feierstein
RT
Mon, 27 Jul 2020 19:09 UTC
BLM chicago protest white people
© Getty Images / Jim Vondruska / NurPhoto
Black Lives Matter Protesters March in the streets of Chicagoin Chicago, United States, on July 25, 2020
The Windy City is suffering record levels of shootings and homicides, yet its leaders, like all Democrats, are bowing to the mob and seeking to defund the police. It's insanity... but it's all aimed at toppling Trump.

Anything can happen, especially in a presidential election year in America. Democratic Party leadership in America has coordinated a well-organized and funded "resist everything" cabal, designed to terrorize Americans and impact the outcome of the November election. They aim to instil fear of thy neighbor across the country, while destabilizing and diminishing trust in government institutions and law enforcement, all in an attempt to overthrow the federal government.

The pillars of this conspiracy include Democratic Party activists within the judiciary, the US intelligence services and the FBI, as well as politicians, district attorneys, teachers' unions and professors. Rather than respecting the rule of law, these activists have been following the power-drunk dictates of the mob and its mob-rule.
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Handcuffs

Austrian court sentences Chechen man on terrorism charges


RFE/RL
Fri, 24 Jul 2020 18:27 UTC
Imarat Kavkaz

Imarat Kavkaz
A court in Vienna has sentenced a 32-year old man from Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya to 10 years in prison for fighting along with militants of the now-defunct group Caucasus Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz) against Russian federal troops.

The Vienna Criminal Court on July 23 found the man, identified as Adam S., guilty of being a member of a terrorist group between 2008 and 2013 and taking part in preparing an attack against Russian troops.

Adam S. testified that he had joined forces fighting against Russia after he witnessed "atrocities" committed by Russian federal troops in Chechnya, whom the man called "the occupiers."
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Book 2

America 'founded on slavery'? Teaching the inaccurate claims of the 1619 Project in US schools is dangerous folly

Micah Curtis
RT
Mon, 27 Jul 2020 18:40 UTC
american students
© Corbis via Getty Images / Robert Daemmrich
US Senator Tom Cotton has introduced a bill to prevent the New York Times' 1619 Project from being taught in American schools that receive federal funds. He's right to do so, as its anti-US propaganda has no place there.

Over the past year, the 1619 Project has been a major talking point with regard to how the United States is looked-at throughout history.

The project, a series of essays from the New York Times Magazine, paints the US as a place that was founded on the basis of slavery. And among some of its more outlandish claims are the ideas that black people have done more for democracy than white people and that capitalism was invented by slavery, as my colleague Igor Ogorodnev discussed last year.

The inaccuracies are one galling element of this. What is equally disturbing is that there are people who think this should be taught in schools. Some have already updated their curricula to include it.

Now Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton has introduced a bill called the Saving American History Act, which would strip federal funding from any school that has it in the curriculum.
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