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France paralyzed by protests in the 'War of the Lefts'

Pepe Escobar
RT
Fri, 27 May 2016 01:49 UTC
French protests
© Stephane Mahe / Reuters
A striking French labour union EDF employee stands near a burning barricade that blocks the entrance of the depot of the SFDM company near the oil refinery to protest the labour reforms law proposal in Donges, France, May 27, 2016
Paris burns as Hollande fiddles. Take it as shorthand for nationwide protests in France against a proposed labor "reform" while the President poses at the G-7 in Japan as if he's one of the Masters of the Universe.

France is semi-paralyzed - from dockworkers in the port of Le Havre (a key trade hub) to workers in refineries, oil depots, nuclear power stations (accounting for 75 percent of the national electricity supply), airports, and the metropolitan Paris rail system. This has translated into panic at myriad petrol stations - with much of the French transportation system brought to a standstill.

All this because the cataclysmically unpopular, nominally "socialist"Hollande administration has introduced a draft law that drastically modifies the French labor code and essentially adopts Anglo-Saxon neoliberal "hire and fire" in a deeply regulated, regimented nation where workers' rights and protections are taken extremely seriously. Hollande and his astonishingly mediocre Prime Minister Manuel Valls defend it as the best way to fight chronic unemployment.

Comment: See also: Mass protests across France: Resistance against the global Orwellian nightmare

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Snakes in Suits

House Republican read Bible verse condemning homosexuality before vote on LGBT rights amendment


RT
Sat, 28 May 2016 01:55 UTC
LGBT flag outside Congress
© Molly Riley / Reuters
A GOP congressman has called on the Bible for help with a verse condemning homosexuality - right ahead of the vote on a Democrat-proposed amendment that would prohibit work discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Shortly before voting started on Thursday on the Energy-Water appropriations bill, a freshman member had read a verse that essentially calls for death to homosexuals.

Rick W. Allen, the Georgia Republican with the Bible, went straight for the jugular with Romans 1:18-32 and Revelations 22:18-19, which greatly antagonized gay activists who called for him to be censured.
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Heart - Black

2 killed in UCLA murder-suicide, campus lockdown has been lifted


RT
Wed, 01 Jun 2016 11:35 UTC
police at UCLA campus
© Patrick T. Fallon / Reuters
There has been a shooting at the University of California at Los Angeles, university officials confirmed. The shooting occurred in the school's Engineering 4 building, according to the campus alert system. Two males are dead in a murder-suicide.

The Los Angeles Police Department said that the two victims were men who were found dead inside the engineering building.

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Camcorder

Purdue University developing tool to allow police access to all public cameras

Derrick Broze
Activist Post
Tue, 31 May 2016 14:39 UTC
security cameras
Computer scientists at Purdue University have created a new tool which could potentially allow law enforcement to access any camera that is not password protected.

Researchers with Purdue University are developing a system which could soon allow law enforcement officers to access any public camera system. The tool is designed to help law enforcement determine where and how to respond to crime. The development of the tool was first reported by WIRED:
The system, which is just a proof of concept, alarms privacy advocates who worry that prudent surveillance could easily lead to government overreach, or worse, unauthorized use. It relies upon two tools developed independently at Purdue. The Visual Analytics Law Enforcement Toolkit superimposes the rate and location of crimes and the location of police surveillance cameras. CAM2 reveals the location and orientation of public network cameras, like the one outside your apartment.
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Wolf

Austrian police arrest 20yo neo-Nazi who planned to shoot asylum seekers


RT
Mon, 30 May 2016 02:44 UTC
Nazi salute
© Darren Hauck / Reuters
Police in the Linz-Land district of Austrian capital Vienna have arrested a suspected neo-Nazi allegedly planning to massacre asylum-seekers. Officers found weapons and ammunition at the man's home, along with Nazi memorabilia, AFP reports.

According to a statement from the police, the detained 20-year-old "repeatedly told friends that he wanted to 'shoot dead all asylum-seekers with his shotgun' at a refugee center." Police did not disclose the man's name.

The statement, cited by AFP, also claims the man used neo-Nazi terms in his speech and sent two text messages to a friend that included "national socialist ideology."

APA news agency reports the man's threats were directed specifically against a refugee center in his district. Citing sources close to the detainee, the agency states the man even threatened his own grandmother.

Police say they discovered wartime Nazi items during a raid on the detainee's home on Thursday, arresting him near the premises early on Friday. He was taken to prison in Linz.
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Dollars

Capital amnesty policy paying off as Russian money returns from tax havens


RT
Fri, 27 May 2016 01:53 UTC
bank vault
© Toru Hanai / Reuters
The Kremlin policy of capital amnesty has started to pay off, as recent data from the Central Bank shows more money is returning to Russia from overseas tax havens.

The last two years saw a major inflow to Russia. In 2015, $5.2 billion came from the Bahamas and $1.9 billion from Bermuda, which is a 43 and 9 percent increase, respectively, Vedomosti daily reports, quoting Central Bank data.

Investment from the British Virgin Islands decreased, but that jurisdiction retained second place for direct investment in Russia, the newspaper added.

In December, businessman Gennady Timchenko reportedly restructured the ownership of his Volga Group. He now owns 99.9 percent of the company shares and the firm will pay taxes in Russia. Earlier, the investment company belonged to a Cyprus-based Volga Resources Ltd and Luxembourg's VRN Sarl.

In 2014, another Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov and his partners restructured assets of the British Virgin Islands-based USM Holdings, transferring the controlling stake of the mining and metals company Metalloinvest and cellphone operator MegaFon to Russian subsidiaries.

The Russian amnesty on capital expires on July 1. Before that date, taxpayers who declare their foreign assets and bank accounts will be exempt from sanctions by the state for non-payment of taxes.

In May, Russia's Federal Tax Service signed an international agreement on the automatic exchange of financial information, which will allow it to obtain data on the financial accounts of taxpayers from more than 80 jurisdictions, including offshore tax havens.
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Heart - Black

Egyptian teenager dies during illegal female genital mutilation surgery

Salma Abdelaziz and Sarah Sirgany
CNN
Wed, 01 Jun 2016 02:08 UTC
female circumcision
© Getty Images
After Mayar Mohamed Mousa's twin sister finished her operation, it was the 17-year-old's turn to go under the knife. But this was not a medical operation to provide treatment -- it was mutilation to remove her clitoris.

A registered doctor administered a full anaesthetic to the teenager in a private hospital in Egypt's coastal Suez province, according to Dr Lotfi Abdel-Samee, the health ministry undersecretary in the province, and then began surgically removing part of her sexual organs.

Mousa did not survive.

She died of complications Sunday caused by female circumcision, Abdel-Samee told CNN. It is a common procedure in the region known as female genital mutilation (FGM). The practice has been illegal in Egypt since 2008 but remains a strong tradition in Egyptian society where families see cutting as a way to "calm" or "purify" young girls.

The initial results of an autopsy performed on the girl cite blood clotting as the possible cause of death, according to Abdel-Samee. El Canal National Hospital, the facility that carried out the banned procedure, was shut down by authorities after Mousa's death and the case is currently under investigation by state prosecutors, Abdel-Samee said.

Comment: See also:

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Meteor

The meteoric rise of Yehuda Glick: From messianic settler activist to messianic Israeli parliamentarian

Dan Cohen and Tamar Aviyah
Mondoweiss
Tue, 31 May 2016 00:00 UTC
Bibi and Glick

Yehuda Glick holds a copy of his guide to ascending the Temple Mount with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
"Extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement," Moshe Ya'alon remarked at a press conference following his ouster as defense minister.

The focus of attention was on Netanyahu's imminent appointment of Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) party leader Avigdor Lieberman to the defense ministry, overlooking Ya'alon's replacement in Likud: US-born settler and face of the Temple Movement Yehuda Glick.

The Temple Movement aims to build a third Jewish temple on Haram al-Sharif as part of a vision to replace Israel's ethnocratic parliamentary system with a monarchy based on halacha (Jewish law) throughout Eretz Yisrael (the biblical Land of Israel including Palestine and beyond). While Lieberman's appointment signifies a success for Israel's secular right wing, Glick's entrance to the parliament is a major step forward in the Religious Zionist takeover of Israel.

More than two decades of the peace process have empowered Israel's hardline elements, rendering the Labor Zionist camp irrelevant and struggling to maintain any appeal to the Israeli mainstream. As Israel's old guard has become mostly obsolete, the settler movement has positioned itself as the future, taking over key positions in the government, the military, police and Shin Bet, and winning public support through the Temple Movement. "Religious Zionism is on its way to taking control of the State of Israel," former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin warned in 2015.

Comment: See also: Religious zealotry waging and winning a quiet revolution in Israel

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Pistol

8-year-old boy brought loaded gun to his NYC elementary school


RT
Sat, 28 May 2016 02:00 UTC
Child with handgun
© Molhem Barakat / Reuters
It was no laughter matter when an eight-year-old boy brought a loaded gun to his elementary school Friday. Teachers called 911 upon seeing the weapon during an end-of-year celebration. It marked the sixth such case in New York since March.

The boy, whose name has not been reported, raised suspicions when he refused to sit down on his backpack at the "Spirit Day" celebrations outside of Public School 91 in Brooklyn. As one of the teachers lifted the backpack, it seemed too heavy. The teacher then took a look inside and found a gun, wrapped in a smaller plastic bag.

The New York Police Department confiscated the firearm, which it identified as a Taurus handgun loaded with four bullets.
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Airplane

French investigators say detected signals presumed to come from EgyptAir MS804 black boxes


RT
Wed, 01 Jun 2016 00:04 UTC
EgyptAir MS804 black box search
© Alexandre Groyer / Marine Nationale / AFP
A French ship has detected signals deep under the Mediterranean Sea, believed to be from the black boxes of EgyptAir Flight MS804. The plane crashed last month, killing all 66 passengers and crew on board.

Citing a statement from Egypt's investigation committee, the Civil Aviation Ministry said the signals were received from the French vessel 'Laplace.'

France's Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA) also confirmed that a signal has been detected from one of the black boxes. The BEA is the French body responsible for the investigation of civil aviation accidents.
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