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Icelandic leaders to boycott 2018 World Cup in Russia - 'suspends' bilateral contacts over Skripal case

Luzhniki Stadium Moscow world cup
© Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow will host matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Iceland has announced it will be boycotting the World Cup this summer. It comes after the US and EU countries announced the expulsion of diplomats over the Sergei Skripal poisoning case.

Iceland also said it is temporarily suspending its bilateral contacts with Russia at the highest level. Reykjavik had summoned the Russian Ambassador earlier on Monday and informed him of the measures implemented.

"All of Iceland's closest allies and partners have decided to take measures against Russia in the wake of the Salisbury attack, including the Nordic countries, most member states of NATO as well as several EU nations,"the statement, published on the website of Iceland's government, reads.

Heart

East Ghouta residents cheer as Syrian Army enters Ayn Tarma suburb for the first time in years

East ghouta residents welcome syrian army
© Ruptly
Crowds cheered as the Syrian Army entered Ayn Tarma's suburb in Eastern Ghouta for the first time in years on Saturday,.

This came following the announcement of Jobar's main terrorist group Faylaq al-Rahman agreement to leave the area.


Comment: See also:


Popcorn

Bill Maher repeats 'lie' about NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch's past - then she fires back with tweet (VIDEO)

Dana Loesch
© Alex Wong/Getty Images
After Bill Maher repeats a "lie" about Dana Loesch and her past, Loesch hit back with the truth.
HBO "Real Time" host Bill Maher repeated a "lie" about Dana Loesch on his show Friday night, lashing out at her and other conservatives who dislike Hollywood.

Now Loesch is firing back.

What did Maher say?

Maher took aim at conservatives from Hollywood or those associated with Hollywood, such as Scott Baio, James Woods, Pat Sajak, President Donald Trump, among others. He also mocked Stacey Dash and Trump's inauguration last year for having the band "3 Doors Down" perform while former President Barack Obama had superstars, such as Beyoncé and Stevie Wonder, perform at his.

Then Maher set his sights on Loesch.

Fire

Austria: Sex attacks continue to rise in wake of migrant crisis

Austrian Police Car
© HANS PUNZ/AFP/Getty Images
The number of sex attacks in Austria has increased for the second straight year following the 2015 migrant crisis with 2017 seeing close to 5,000 sexual assault and rape cases.

The Austrian Interior Ministry released new figures on the number of sex attack cases that occurred in the country in 2017, showing yet another rise since 2015 to 4,700 cases in a country of less than nine million people, Kronen Zeitungreports.

Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, a leading member of the anti-mass migration Freedom Party (FPÖ), commented on the newly released statistics, saying: "Since the migration wave in 2015, there has been a massive increase in sex offences. This is an alarm signal for me, so it is right and important that the penalties are tightened."

Comment: See also:


Arrow Up

Poll shows majority of Americans now suspect unelected shadow govt in charge

Deep state
According to a Monmouth University Poll that was released this week, the majority of Americans believes that a group of unelected government and military officials secretly manipulate the United State government from behind the scenes.

According to the poll, both democrats and republicans feel that there is a "deep state" faction that works in secrecy and exists to shape policy as well as spy on American citizens.
A majority of the American public believe that the U.S. government engages in widespread monitoring of its own citizens and worry that the U.S. government could be invading their own privacy. The Monmouth University Poll also finds a large bipartisan majority who feel that national policy is being manipulated or directed by a "Deep State" of unelected government officials. Americans of color on the center and left and NRA members on the right are among those most worried about the reach of government prying into average citizens' lives.
Not only do the majority assert that there is indeed a deep state, but they also readily admit that they think the US government is actively engaged in surveillance against its own citizens. Again, illustrating the ominous nature of such a notion, party lines did not matter. The suspicion of the government violating the rights of its own citizens is bipartisan.

Comment: With Turmp's recent appointments of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, one could say he's definitely not working for the American people anymore. See also:


Dollars

$1.3 trillion spending bill betrays the American people

Pelosi schumer
© Associated Press/J. Scott Applewhite
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
I don't know if I even have the words to express how disgusted I am with the omnibus spending bill that was just rushed through Congress. Members of the House of Representatives were given less than 24 hours to read this 2,232 page monstrosity of a bill before they were expected to vote on it, and so obviously nobody was able to read the entire thing before the vote was held. This is the kind of thing that Democrats were greatly criticized for in the past, but now it is Republicans that are doing it. The Republican Party is supposed to stand for limited government, and this is yet another example that shows how badly broken the system in Washington has become.

I am running for Congress in Idaho's first congressional district, and I want to make it exceedingly clear that I would have voted against this bill. In addition to fully funding Planned Parenthood, this bill also funds a whole host of other liberal priorities. But other than an increase in military spending, conservative priorities are almost entirely ignored by this bill.

Over the past decade, we have been adding more than a trillion dollars a year to the national debt, and this omnibus spending bill dramatically increases government spending at a time when we should be desperately trying to get our financial house in order.

Comment:


Pistol

'March For Our Lives' crowd count reportedly well below expected and initial reports

March for our Lives
Around 200,000 people attended the March For Our Lives gun control event in Washington, D.C. Saturday afternoon, CBS News reported.

The number is well below the 500,000 number organizers of the event expected and 600,000 less than initially reported by many news outlets immediately following the celebrity-fueled march and rally. The march took place between noon and 3 p.m. on Pennsylvania Avenue between 3rd Street NW and 12th Street NW.


Comment: CBS is reporting the head count at 200,000, well below the initial call of 800,000. Looks like someone was counting their chickens before they'd hatched.

See also:


Wolf

Turkish-led forces descend into infighting over Afrin spoils of war/looting

turks loot aftrin
© Agence France-Presse
A Turkish-backed Syrian Arab fighter tows towing looted items in a trailer after seizing control of the northwestern Syrian city of Afrin from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) on March 18, 2018
Violent clashes broke out on Sunday, March 25, between the "Hamzah" and the "Ahrar Al Sharqiya" group using medium weapons in direct confrontations, the first of its kind between the factions of the Turkish-led Olive Branch forces in Afrin.

Many of the dead and wounded were killed in the areas of Al-Ra'i roundabout and Mazra'at Al-Emad.

"The clash broke out because of the fighting over the spoils and the division between the two factions," a source told STEP News. "The Ahrar al-Sharqiya group seized a civilian car, an agricultural machinery and a house. Hamzah assaulted the assembly sector to take the spoils and seize again, which led to the outbreak of a clash between the two factions, resulting in the deaths of many."

Attention

South African farmers' protests buried in fake news

white south african graves
© Juda Ngwenya / Reuters
A man walks through a field of crosses erected near Pretoria, South Africa, to honor mostly white farmers who have died in farm attacks over past decade
Black Monday and the Burning Issue of Fake News

After the brutal murder of Western Cape farmer Joubert Conradie in Klapmuts, video footage of a grief-stricken plea from his friend Chris Loubser went viral. A visibly devastated Loubser asked whether something could please be done to draw attention to the scourge of farm attacks and murders plaguing the country.


His appeal would spark remarkably peaceful protests by farming communities and supporters nationwide. But instead of condemning crime and violence, some Twitter activists, media professionals, and politicians instead chose to cry "racism" and "white supremacy" rather than murder.
south african farmers

Pierre de Vos is Claude Leon Foundation chair in constitutional governance at the University of Cape Town. His Twitter account is followed by 93.7K people.

Comment: See also: Lauren Southern has been focusing on this issue with a series of documentary vignettes on the treatment of white farmers in South Africa. They're worth watching. Here's a couple:






Arrow Down

Israeli police dressed as civilians break into cemetery to destroy tombstones of Palestinians killed by Israel

israeli police destroy palestinian tombstones
Earlier this month, Israeli police forces dressed in civilian clothes broke into the Palestinian al-Mujahidin cemetery and destroyed the tombstones of seven Palestinians killed by Israel.

Located just outside the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, al-Mujahidin cemetery is the final resting place of several Palestinian "martyrs" who were killed by Israeli forces in the so-called Jerusalem Intifada that began in 2015.

Many of the slain Palestinians who are buried in the cemetery were deemed by the Israeli state as "terrorists" after some carried out attacks on Israelis. Several of the Palestinians' bodies were held for hundreds of days by the Israeli state before being returned to their families for burial.

Comment: Imagine the international outrage had Palestinians desecrated an Israeli cemetery.