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Che Guevara

Former diplomat and friend of Julian Assange says he was put through 'hell' at embassy after Moreno election

assange embassy staff

Julian Assange with the Ecuadorian embassy staff
Julian Assange was always respectful but went through "hell" in the Ecuadorian embassy as officials tried to "break him down", according to a former senior diplomat.

Fidel Narvaez worked at the London embassy for six of the seven years the WikiLeaks figurehead lived there and says they became friends.

Assange was evicted a few weeks ago after a change of government in Ecuador.

Its new president, Lenin Moreno, publicly criticised the whistleblower and gave the impression the government ended his stay after growing tired of his alleged bad behaviour.

Comment:


Newspaper

Indian General Elections 2019: Money, Social Media and Nationalism

Indian General elections 2019 schedule
The world's largest democracy will hold parliamentary elections this month. The elections are conducted in 7 stages from April 11 to May 23rd. Phase 1 of the elections were completed on April 11th. 900 million people are eligible to vote, including 84 million first-time voters, in 1 million polling booths supervised by 11 million personnel for 543 parliamentary seats. 130 parties fielded more than 8000 candidates. Incumbent Prime minister Narendra Modi is expecting to retain his position, while opposition party (Congress lead UPA) that won 10 times out of the last 15 Lok Sabha elections (since independence) is hoping to reverse their abysmal 2014 performance. A record amount of money ($US 7 to 9 billion) is expected to be spent on this years election making it costlier than last US presidential election.

While the Ruling Hindu nationalist BJP coalition (NDA) hopes to showcase Modi's reforms during the last 5 years and highlight his tough stance on national security, the opposition parties are trying to take advantage of weak unemployment figures, anti-incumbency trends and attempt to cast Modi as corrupt with slogans like 'Chowkidar Chor Hai' (watchman is a thief) which is a reverse of the rhetoric Modi used to portray himself as a "Chowkidar" (a watchman or gatekeeper). Like a Bollywood movie, Indian elections contain a lot of emotion, pomp, drama, music and color.

Fire

Jewish group vehemently denounces Polish ritual of beating and burning long-nosed effigy of 'Judas'

Poles beating Jews in effigy
© Screenshot from a ekspresjaroslawski.pl video.
The World Jewish Congress has condemned as anti-Semitic a tradition upheld by a small Polish town, which involves beating and burning an effigy of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus Christ.

A video showing this year's celebration of a dubious local tradition in Poland was published by a local news website ekspresjaroslawski.pl and drew international attention. The World Jewish Congress has condemned it in a statement on Sunday.

"Jews are deeply disturbed by this ghastly revival of medieval anti-Semitism that led to unimaginable violence and suffering," CEO Robert Singer said. "We can only hope that the Church and other institutions will do their best to overcome these frightful prejudices which are a blot on Poland's good name."


Comment: While it does absolutely no one good to keep the the broad brush of racism in sway, and the fires of irrational anger lit, the traditions mentioned in the above article may very well have their roots in a history of oppression that many seem largely, willfully, ignorant of.


Fire

Exploding Teslas: Carmaker to investigate video showing parked Model S exploding in Shanghai

Exploding Tesla Shanghai

The video, time stamped Sunday evening and widely shared on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, shows the parked EV emit smoke and burst into flames seconds later. A video purportedly of the aftermath showed a line of three cars completely destroyed.
U.S. electric vehicle (EV) maker Tesla Inc said it has sent a team to investigate a video on Chinese social media which showed a parked Tesla Model S car exploding, the latest in a string of fire incidents involving its cars.

The video, time stamped Sunday evening and widely shared on China's Twitter-like Weibo, shows the parked EV emit smoke and burst into flames seconds later. A video purportedly of the aftermath showed a line of three cars completely destroyed.

Shares of Tesla were down less than 2 percent at $268.5 in trading before the bell.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the origins of the videos, which Weibo users said were taken in Shanghai.

The cause of the explosion could not be immediately ascertained from the videos.

"We immediately sent a team onsite and we're supporting local authorities to establish the facts. From what we know now, no one was harmed," Tesla said in a statement on Monday.

It declined comment further when contacted by Reuters.

There have been at least 14 instances of Tesla cars catching fire since 2013, with the majority occurring after a crash.


Comment: The above referenced video (beginning at approximately 1:17):




Pocket Knife

Transit worker stabbed on subway platform in New York City following random altercation

Transit worker
A New York City transit worker is recovering after he was stabbed on a subway platform on Easter Sunday following an altercation.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority conductor was sitting on a bench at the southbound platform for No. 2, 4 and 5 trains at 149th Street and Grand Concourse in the Bronx when the suspect randomly approached him and slapped him in the face, MTA worker Tina Smith told ABC New York station WABC.

The pair then engaged in a physical fight, and the suspect stabbed the MTA worker several times in the shoulder and torso, WABC reported. The 33-year-old conductor was able to hold the suspect, identified as 20-year-old Walter Rivera, down until police arrived and took him into custody.

Rivera was charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon, according to WABC.

Biohazard

George Monbiot, Extinction Rebellion And The Madmen Who Want to Wreck Civilization

Extinction Rebellion protest
Climate protesters Extinction Rebellion have spent the week blocking London's roads, staging die-ins, glueing themselves to trains, climbing on top of buses, and even chaining themselves to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's house. The activists' aim is to cause maximum disruption and get themselves arrested to draw attention to climate change. Protest leaders claim that humanity faces extinction unless carbon emissions are cut to net zero by 2025.

They have compared themselves to Gandhi and Martin Luther King. A BBC podcast asks if Extinction Rebellion are 'the new Suffragettes'. They have been endorsed by many on the radical left who have persuaded themselves that a serious rebellion is afoot.

Last week, left-wing new media outlet Novara Media posted on social media a video of veteran eco-warrior George Monbiot. In it, Monbiot calls for an end to green tinkering and the 'micro-consumerist bollocks' of sustainable cotton buds, etc. Instead, he says, 'we need to get to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it'. The audience cheered and the clip went viral, with over one million views. James Corden from Gavin and Stacey retweeted it. Leftists tweeted excitedly about a decisive and radical shift in the 'Overton Window' in favour of abolishing capitalism.

Comment: These are the nutty Lefties Peterson and others warn will destroy civilization if left unchecked. Note how they're widely promoted in the MSM. Conceived and born in Britain, 'Extinction Rebellion' is the latest British environmentalist fad. With each new wave, however, it becomes more and more extreme. Something to keep in mind is that the British security state has had a strong hand in that country's green movement since the beginning: Having a controlled 'rebellion' on the streets is of course highly convenient for the UK government at a time when genuine rebellion threatens because of its grand deception over Brexit. The fake opposition has also proved helpful in France, where the media has devoted more attention to schoolgirls boycotting school 'because the climate' than to the Yellow Vest rebellion.

Beyond the BS ideologies environMentalists espouse, at root they embody the desire to wreck everything just so that 'something interesting' will happen in their lives. They have zero affinity for the actual popular rebellions taking place because those hold the potential to make the world a better, fairer place. They instead - subconsciously for the most part, though very much intentionally on the part of the clever schizoids driving it forward - seek to increase suffering and to punish their compatriots for their 'sins against the climate'. And they're using impressionable children to
do it...

See also:


NPC

CNN's April Ryan reignites feud with Sarah Sanders, says it's time to 'lop her head off' and fire her

Sarah Sanders April Ryan
CNN's political analyst April Ryan reignited her long-running feud with White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders in (French) revolutionary style, calling it time to "start lopping the heads off." Things quickly got out of hand.

"She should be let go, she should be fired, end of story," Ryan opined on Thursday night. "When there is a lack of credibility there, you have to start lopping the heads off...she needs to go."

Adding a delicious layer of irony, Ryan went on to blame Sanders for threats against journalists.

Attention

Germany: Man throws firecracker into church, 24 people injured in mass panic

munich church
© Screenshot Youtube
A man stormed a church in Munich on Saturday, causing injuries to at least 24 people as the parishioners fled the service.

The assailant, described as an "African" man by some media outlets, caused the mass panic and injuries. The congregants were treated for light injuries and returned to the service. Videos posted online show the inside of the St. Paul's Parish church in disarray. The police arrested the man on Saturday evening in the church.

Comment: See also:


Bomb

Sri Lanka Terror: Multiple explosions target Catholic churches and luxury hotels on Easter Sunday - Death toll hits 290 - UPDATES

Sri Lanka attacks on Easter Sunday
© Instagram / jeevan_rajeevan
Six explosions rocked Catholic churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka as Christians began Easter Sunday celebrations, with at least 50 killed and hundreds injured, local authorities confirmed.

The blasts occurred at around 8:45am local time at St. Anthony's Church in Colombo and St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo, a Catholic-majority town outside of the capital. The Zion Church in Batticaloa on the eastern coast was also targeted.


At around the same time, the Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury five-star hotels were also hit, police confirmed. All attacks appear to have been coordinated.

At least 52 people were killed, media reported, citing police.


Comment: Update 16:00 CET

The latest figure is that 207 people were killed, and around 500 injured, from 8 blasts in different cities in Sri Lanka.That death toll is expected to rise...
At least 207 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in a series of bomb blasts that hit luxury hotels and churches across Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, leaving the entire country in a state of lock-down.

The first wave of attacks struck at the heart of the country's minority Christian community during busy Easter services at churches in the cities of Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa on Sunday morning. Additional blasts ripped through three high-end hotels, the Shangri La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury, all in capital city Colombo.


Update 21:30 CET

RT has more details:

The churches are located in three locations on different sides of the island: St. Anthony's Church in its commercial capital Colombo and St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo on the western coast, and the Zion Church in Batticaloa in the east.
church bombings sri lanka
The explosions hit as Easter Sunday services were being held, with over 50 people killed in St. Sebastian's alone, according to a police official cited by Reuters. Over 25 people were reportedly killed in Batticaloa.

sri lanka bombings

Hotels hit in Easter Sunday explosions in Sri Lanka
All three hotels are located in Colombo, one of them - Cinnamon Grand - about 200 meters from the prime minister's residence, and the other two not much further away.

sri lanka bombings
Also, 10 days ago, Sri Lanka's national police chief reportedly sent out an alert about a radical Islamist group planning bomb attacks on prominent churches in the country.

The alert was sent by Pujuth Jayasundara on April 11, according to AFP. The alert said:
"A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama'ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian High Commission in Colombo..."
That's pretty much what just happened. Which foreign intelligence agency, inquiring minds would like to know...

Here's footage of a bomb going off at a church in Colombo:


This was clearly a sophisticated multi-site, coordinated operation - the worst to hit the Indian subcontinent since 2008 in Mumbai. Police have arrested 7 people suspected of involvement, during raids which cost three police lives.

Turkey's Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, has compared the attacks to the recent shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand. He may not have had this in mind but the perpetrators (the handlers, not the hired guns) may have sought to provide a 'balancing counterweight' to the outrage at Muslims being killed during religious worship in mosques.

12 hours later, no group has yet claimed responsibility, and there's no obvious suspect. There has been no violence in Sri Lanka since its civil war ended 10 years ago, so the country has had no flare-up of Random Muslim Violence thus far during the two decades of the 'War on Terror'. Which makes today's multi-site attacks all the more strange.

The manufactured 'clash of civilizations' continues...

Updates 22 April 2019

Another bomb has been found near Colombo airport. Police have defused it and the airport was put into lockdown.

And another one still was found today in a van outside St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Colombo, scene of carnage yesterday. It apparently detonated as police prepared to defuse it:


Denmark's richest man has lost 3 of his 4 children to the explosion at one of the hotels hit during yesterday's mega-terror attack.

Police have reported finding 87 bomb detonators at the main bus station in Colombo. Clearly, whoever carried this out, had a LOT of financial backing in order to do so.

Meanwhile, questions are being asked about why this warning, issued 10 days before the attacks, failed to prevent them from happening:


The current death toll has jumped to 290, with about 500 wounded. 32 of those are thought to be foreigners, including American, British, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Moroccan, Dutch, Pakistan and Portuguese nationals. A total of 24 suspects have been rounded up, and all of them are apparently Sri Lankan nationals.

However, the country's health minister has said:
"We do not believe these attacks were carried out by a group of people who were confined to this country.
He also stated that there was "an international network," without which the attacks "could not have succeeded."

There have still been no claims of responsibility for the attacks...

The US State Department has piped up to warn that the terrorists are planning further attacks in Sri Lanka. It provided no information about why it believes this to be the case, so we can only presume it's because the US government is in contact with the terrorists.

Here's an RT summary of the sites hit so far:





Pirates

Daesh claims failed militant attack on Saudi police station

Saudi police
© AP Photo / Hasan Jamali
Earlier in the day, four militants attempted to attack a police station, but were stopped by the security personnel.

According to Al Arabiya, four militants were killed while attempting to attack a police station in the area of Zulfi, about 250 km to the north of the capital Riyadh.