Facebook is censoring SouthFront's website and videos.

• All posts with links to southfront.org have been removed;
• All SouthFront videos released in 2018 have been removed;
• No more links to southfront.org can be posted on Facebook;

The formal reason is that southfront.org doesn't meet Facebook's Community Standards.

Estonia has started offering residents free genetic profiling in a nationwide experiment aimed at minimizing risks for typical diseases and encouraging a healthier lifestyle through personalized data reports.

Lili Milani, a researcher with the Estonian Genome Center at the University of Tartu, said Thursday the scheme kicked off in March and will initially cover some 100,000 volunteers in the Baltic country of 1.3 million. Participants are required to donate DNA samples from blood and give consent to storing their data to the Estonian Biobank, which has collected health records and biological samples from Estonians since 2000.

"Cardiovascular diseases are the No. 1 killer in Estonia," Milani said, adding that authorities and scientists were hoping that the genetic screening data could answer questions on living habits and diet for better health care prevention.

Reports on unproven allegations of a chemical attack in Douma, the Syria city formerly occupied by the Army of Islam insurgent group, invariably rely on a key source: The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS). Together with the White Helmets, SAMS has been cited by the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and virtually every Western media organization reporting on the incident. In Douma, SAMS staff have claimed that they treated more than 500 people for symptoms "indicative of exposure to a chemical agent."

The group also played a central role in shaping the narrative of a sarin attack in Al Qaeda-controlled Khan Sheikhoun in April, 2017, providing biomedical samples to the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which violated its stated protocol by accepting evidence without a verifiable chain of custody. That incident prompted the launching of 57 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base by the American military. Almost exactly a year later, a strikingly similar event is said to have tripped the "red line" again, and is likely to trigger a more robust assault by the US and its allies.

SAMS claims to be a "non-political, non-profit medical organization," and is cited as a credible authority by media reporting on the incident in Douma. Scant published material is available on the organization's origins as an exile arm of the Islamist-oriented Syrian opposition, its involvement in sophisticated influence operations from the Turkish-Syrian border, or its close relationship to neoconservative elements in Washington and Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.

SAMS is not merely a group of Syrian doctors tending to the wounded in war torn areas, nor can it be considered a objective source on chemical attacks and other atrocities. The organization is a USAID-funded lobbying powerhouse that functions with a single-minded determination to stimulate a US-led war of regime change that will place Syrian Islamists in power in Damascus.

Despite weeks and weeks of media hype about porn star Stormy Daniels, not only has President Trump's job approval rating jumped in the latest Quinnipiac poll, but only 23 percent of Americans believe the alleged affair is an important issue. A massive majority of 73 percent say it is not.

Even 51 percent of Democrats agree it is not an important issue, along with 79 percent of Independents. Moreover, there is also no notable gender gap on the question.

In worse news for the media, although Trump denies the affair, by a margin of 58 - 14 percent they do not believe him but they still do not care.

By a margin of 59 - 24 percent, people also believe Trump knew about the $130,000 payoff to silence Daniels (Trump denies being told about it). But by a margin of 59 - 38 percent, they say Trump's possible knowledge of the payoff is not an important issue - this includes 63 percent of Independents. And again there is no notable gender gap on the question.

One interesting and completely undeniable fact that we don't talk about nearly enough is how Syria has been a target for regime change by the US-centralized power establishment since long before the uprising in 2011.

Proponents of US military interventionism in Syria will avoid addressing this known fact like the plague. They're more than happy to dispute claims about false flags and the White Helmets, but if you start asking them "Hey don't you think it's a little odd that the government we're all freaking out about right now just so happens to be one that's been a target for regime change by US defense and intelligence agencies since long before any of this started?" they get real squirmy all of a sudden.

It's true though. Let's go over five key items in the mountain of evidence for this, starting with the most recent and working our way backward:

A 'Code Pink' protester was removed from Mike Pompeo's confirmation hearing for his new appointment as Secretary of State. She told RT that as a former diplomat she thought that Pompeo was not fit for the job.

A number of Code Pink protesters, dressed in pink, held up signs demonstrating against Trump's choice. "No more wars, no Pompeo," they chanted. One of the women protesting, Ann Wright, was removed from the room as she shouted, "He's no diplomat!"

The accused mass murderer who took 17 lives in Parkland, Florida was in court on Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether he can afford to pay for his own attorney - or if the Broward Public Defender's Office will continue to defend him with taxpayer dollars.

The Sun Sentinel reported that he is set to inherit $25,000 from his late mother's life insurance policy, and possibly as much as $800,000 from her estate. Records showed that at one point, the teen had over $12,000 in a bank account, but that amount was down to just over $350 as of April 5.

Regarding any funds at his disposal now or in the future, defense attorney Melisa McNeill said: "He would like that money donated to an organization that the victims' families believe could facilitate healing in our community or an opportunity to educate our community."

Public Defender Howard Finkelstein added, "One of our concerns is that a private lawyer may come in...and bill tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars."

According to Assistant Public Defender Diane Cuddihy, "The costs in this case are going to be astronomical." The defense asked the judge to consider the fact that the defendant will likely face numerous civil lawsuits from the victims of the shooting and their family members.

A female Islamic extremist has been caught by police in possession of a USB key that contained the identities of 2,626 intelligence officials from France's Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (DCRI).

The woman, identified as Mina B., was already known to the country's intelligence services and had been placed on the terror watch list known in France as the S-File, Le Point reports.

Mina B. was questioned by French authorities back in April of last year over her involvement with another radical Islamic extremist named Sana O. who she was said to have helped house and finance in 2016. Sana O. had attempted to travel to Syria and join radical Islamic extremist groups on two occasions before having his passport revoked.

Police recently opened a second investigation into Mina B. and found she had been in contact with several Islamic extremists in the area around Magnanville.

The USB stick contained a list of the identities of 2,626 intelligence officials and was dated from 2008. Initially, the file appeared to have been deleted but investigators were able to recover much of the data.

The list contained the names, numbers, and assignments of every intelligence official in the Commission National Joint Administrative Committee (CAPN).

Members of the same government that is responsible for violating privacy laws and illegally collecting data from its citizens, openly lectured the CEO of a company for violating privacy laws and illegally collecting data from its users-a case of irony that could only play out in a country that brags about the unprecedented freedom enjoyed by its citizens.

The special congressional hearing on Facebook's use of user data lasted for five hours on Tuesday, and the word "privacy" was mentioned nearly 100 times. While there were a number of questions as to whether Senators Diane Feinstein and Chuck Grassley-who are both 84 years old-fully grasped the concept of Facebook and its business model, the concerns about how the social media giant is treating its users was overwhelming.

"Consumers ought to have clearer information, not opaque policies and complex click-through consent pages. The tech industry has an obligation to respond to widespread and growing concerns over data privacy and security and to restore the public's trust," Grassley said. "The status quo no longer works. Moreover, Congress must determine if and how we need to strengthen privacy standards to ensure transparency and understanding for the billions of consumers who utilize these products."

Stephen B. Jacobs has a warning from the past for America today: It's happening again.

At 79 years old he is among the youngest of the living Holocaust survivors and was born six years after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. But Jacobs can remember life in the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald; what the Nazis did to him, his family, his friends.

He worries about what's happening right now in America, where he has lived and prospered since arriving a couple of years after Buchenwald's liberation on April 11, 1945.

The American far-right appears emboldened since the election of President Donald Trump, who led an inflammatory, nationalist campaign. Since then, clashes like the one in Charlottesville are becoming almost commonplace.


"Things just go from bad to worse every day," Jacobs, a successful New York architect who designed the Holocaust memorial at Buchenwald, tells Newsweek. "There's a real problem growing."

So much so that Jacobs thinks there's a "direct parallel" with Germany between the two world wars.