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Spanish minister: Catalonia attackers possibly avoided checks designed for detecting terror threats


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 14:25 UTC
People hold placards and flag as they take part in a march of unity after last week attacks, in Barcelona
© Albert Gea / ReutersPeople hold placards and flag as they take part in a march of unity after last week attacks, in Barcelona, Spain, August 26, 2017.
The terrorists who killed 16 people and injured 120 others in Barcelona and Cambrils in mid-August probably managed to evade specialized security controls to detect potential threats, Spain's interior minister has conceded.

"It's true that these controls exist," Juan Ignacio Zoido said in an interview with Spanish radio Monday as cited by Reuters.

"It's possible some checks weren't made in this case and we will have to determine how we can avoid this happening again," he emphasized.

Zoido didn't specify what type of measures are being used by Spanish law enforcers to detect terrorist threats.

The terrorist cell, based in the Catalan town of Alcanar, was able to avoid the controls, among other things, managing to acquire 120 gas canisters without attracting the attention of authorities.

None of those involved in the attacks on August 17 and 18 had raised suspicion previously, the minister said.
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Bug

Tweet first, ask questions later: Nutjob Louise Mensch spreads lurid Trump allegations based on hoaxer's unverified assertions

Jon Swainewaine
The Guardian
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:00 UTC
Louise Mensch
Louise Mensch
Explosive allegations about Donald Trump made by online writers with large followings among Trump critics were based on bogus information from a hoaxer who falsely claimed to work in law enforcement.

Claude Taylor tweeted fake details of criminal inquiries into Trump that were invented by a source whose claim to work for the New York attorney general was not checked, according to emails seen by the Guardian. The allegations were endorsed as authentic and retweeted by his co-writer Louise Mensch.

The source's false tips included an allegation, which has been aggressively circulated by Mensch and Taylor, that Trump's inactive fashion model agency is under investigation by New York authorities for possible sex trafficking.

The hoaxer, who fed the information to Taylor by email, said she acted out of frustration over the "dissemination of fake news" by Taylor and Mensch. Their false stories about Trump have included a claim that he was already being replaced as president by Senator Orrin Hatch in a process kept secret from the American public.

Comment: This is not the first time that Mensch has been caught out spreading lies in the interest of demonizing Trump, Russia, Putin, etc... More worrying than the fact that she'll never learn from her errors, is that she has so many thousands of people following her every stupid tweet!

See:

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Info

Oxford don resigns in anti-Trump protest possibly by mistake


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:54 UTC
Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford
© David Goddard / Getty Images
A senior academic at Britain's top university has quit his job over allegations that a major Oxford sponsor donated funds to Donald Trump's US presidential campaign.

Swedish Professor Bo Rothstein, who taught at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, resigned from his position over claims that the School's founder, Soviet-born industrialist Leonard Blavatnik, sponsored Trump's presidential bid.

Blavatnik, who is Britain's richest man, worth $19.8 billion, spent some £75 million (US$97.2 million) on building the new school at Oxford, the mission of which is to "inspire and support better government and public policy around the world."

In a resignation letter seen by the Guardian, Rothstein said: "As I see it, Donald Trump's policies are also antithetical to the goal of the Blavatnik School of Government, which aims to improve the quality of government and public policy-making worldwide, so that citizens can enjoy more secure and more fulfilled lives."

"Mr. Blavatnik's decision to support Donald Trump makes it impossible for me to continue at the Blavatnik School of Government."
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Snowflake

Why this former Clinton campaign staffer found this Houston rescue very problematic

Matt Vespa
Townhall
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 13:35 UTC
Confederate flag
Our friends at Twitchy have been monitoring social media, as they usually do, for the wild and the wacky from the Left. In the case of the major hurricane slamming Houston right now, not even life or death situations can prevent progressives from being triggered.

Logan Anderson worked on Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 campaign and she did not like that there was a Confederate flag on a boat that was helping black residents get to safer ground. However you may feel about the Stars and Bars, it's totally irrelevant in these situations. Who cares? The water is rising. People could die. Who really cares about a Confederate flag on a boat? Now, she does say that in this situation, she would have jumped into the boat and then ripped off the flag. Then again, it looks like it's attached to the rudder of the airboat, so maybe that's not such a good idea.

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Star of David

Israel mulls special status and extended visas for people with Jewish heritage


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 12:58 UTC
Jerusalem prayer wall
© Marko Djurica / Reuters
The Israeli government will soon consider recommendations to grant gentiles with Jewish roots, crypto-Jews and members of "emerging communities" who are not eligible for immigration, extended visas to explore their Jewish heritage.

The committee, appointed by Israel's Diaspora Affairs Ministry and headed by political theorist Ofir Haivry, is set to recommend special dispensation for people around the world who would not otherwise be eligible for immigration to Israel, reports Haaretz.

Those not eligible under The Law of Return, which specifically covers converts to Judaism and people with a Jewish spouse or grandparent, can only visit the country on a tourist visa with a limit of three months.

The new guidelines would not impact the Law of Return, but would constitute a step towards amending it and, if implemented, would apply to millions of people around the world. It would include tens of thousands of people in Poland and Hungary who are descendants of Jews that hid their identity during the Holocaust.
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Yoda

500 British Muslims attend 'anti-terrorism' training camp in Staffordshire


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:25 UTC
Manchester, UK. Police and other emergency services are seen near the Manchester Arena after reports of an explosion.
© Joel Goodman / Global Look PressMay 22, 2017 - Manchester, UK. Police and other emergency services are seen near the Manchester Arena after reports of an explosion.
More than 500 British Muslims have taken part in an 'anti-terrorism' training camp to learn how to identify extremism and help those in danger of becoming radicalized.

The three-day 'Al-Hidyah 2017' conference at Keele University in Staffordshire, hosted by Minhaj-ul-Quran International, a leading moderate British Muslim organization, focused on extremists' talk of "us and them" and their use of false terminology in citing the Koran.

Workshops and lectures, broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook, intended to give British Muslims ideological confidence to counter Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) propaganda.
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Dollars

Pro-Business think-tank: Exposing massive pay gap between workers & CEOs 'silly'


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:00 UTC
Workers select sliced peaches to place into metal cans
© Bloomberg / Getty ImagesWorkers select sliced peaches to place into metal cans during the canning process on the production line. Veria, Greece.
Theresa May's newly announced plans to force public companies to publish the pay gap between their top executives and average earners is "completely misguided," the Adam Smith Institute, a leading free market think-tank, told RT.

Ben Southwood, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, said the approach is a "silly" way of addressing the issue of social inequality, as there is actually "no problem" with CEOs being paid much more than normal employees.

His comments follow the government's announcement on Tuesday of a package of reforms on corporate governance that would compel publicly-registered companies to publish how much their chief executives earn compared to their average employee.
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USA

US withholding data on fate of orphaned Russian-American boy


RT
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 12:51 UTC
Children’s Rights Commissioner Anna Kuznetsova
© Aleksey Nikolskyi / SputnikChildren’s Rights Commissioner Anna Kuznetsova
The US is not providing Russia with any information on a 9-year-old boy who lost both of his parents in a series of tragic events last week, Anna Kuznetsova, the Children's Rights Commissioner for the Russian president has said.

All attempts by Russian relatives of the orphaned boy, Daniel Morozov, who has dual citizenship, to make contact with him have so far been futile, Kuznetsova said. She added that the relatives of the boy's father, including his uncle, have already arrived in the US but were unable to meet with him or even obtain any information about him.
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Heart - Black

Dead pregnant woman may have been victim of 'womb raiders'

Joshua Rhett Miller
New York Post
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 12:36 UTC
Savanna Greywind
Savanna Greywind
The body of a missing pregnant woman was found wrapped in plastic in a North Dakota river, ending an eight-day search and raising the macabre possibility that "womb raiders" forcibly removed her baby before she was killed, authorities and reports say.

Fargo Police Chief David Todd told reporters late Sunday that kayakers found the body of Savanna Greywind, 22, hanging from a log in the Red River. Todd, who spoke to the media from the Minnesota side of the river about six miles north of Moorhead, said investigators found suspicious material at a nearby farmstead that may be a crime scene, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

Greywind, a nursing assistant at a senior care facility, disappeared on Aug. 19 from the apartment she shared with her parents in north Fargo. Five days after she went missing, a 2-day-old baby girl was found at a neighbor's home.
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Brain

SOTT Focus: Confronting Your Liberal Beliefs is the Single Most Important Thing You Can Do at This Time

Foxx Tupelo
Sott.net
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 14:08 UTC
obama trump immigration
I'm not particularly old, but I'm old enough to remember the days when being a member of the political left meant standing against Bush and his Neocon/Neoliberal agenda, resisting the totalitarian Patriot Act, and not wanting to go to war with Iraq for oil on trumped up claims of WMDs and 'al-qaeda' in Iraq.
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