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Spain's third largest city endorses pro-Palestinian BDS, Podemos leader calls Israel a "criminal country"

Pablo Iglesias
© Reuters
Podemos (We Can) party leader Pablo Iglesias delivers a speech during a motion of no confidence debate at Parliament in Madrid, Spain, May 31, 2018
Following the decision of the local council of Spain's third largest city to declare it an "Israeli apartheid-free zone," the leader of Podemos, the party behind the motion, called the Israeli state a "criminal country."

"We need to act more firmly on an illegal country like Israel," said Pablo Iglesias Turrion during an interview with the RTVE public broadcaster.

It has been some difficult weeks for the Israeli occupation. Shakira canceled her concert in Tel Aviv, Argentina canceled the friendly soccer match with Israel, many well-known and international artists and filmmakers pulled out of the pinkwashing Tel Aviv LGBT film festival, and a wave of cities in the Spanish state have declared their support for the Palestinian cause.

Comment: All over the world citizens are uniting against Israel's barbaric treatment of the Palestinians: Also check out SOTT radio's:


Propaganda

Hypocritical Canada warns US immigrants against heading north

immigrants
Nine days after Donald Trump was inaugurated president - as the first travel bans began to go into place - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted out words that would end up haunting his immigration policies like a ghost that sticks around a decrepit mansion.

It only took a few words, too: "To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada."

Trudeau's tweet was obviously intended to paint Trump's travel bans as "Muslim bans" and position Canada as America's caring alternative.

And then things began to go seriously awry for him.

"For someone to successfully seek asylum it's not about economic migration," Trudeau told reporters in August of 2017, mere months later, as the London Guardian reported that his country was "forced to backtrack on open invitation to refugees."

Comment: Mass migration is becoming a crisis of worldwide proportions and pretty much every leader is left with little option but to enforce stricter controls, and voters are increasingly backing this course of action: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Weapons of Mass Migration: Interview with Michael Springmann on Europe's Migrant Crisis


Fire

Ballot box blaze: Iraq's largest voting warehouse goes up in flames

Dark plumes rise into the air above Baghdad
© Thaier Al-Sudani / Reuters
Dark plumes rise into the air above Baghdad
Iraq's largest ballot paper warehouse has caught fire with flames destroying parts of the complex. The blaze comes as the country prepares for a parliamentary election recount.

The inferno at the storage center broke out on Sunday, with early reports from the Iraqi Interior Ministry suggesting that some votes cast on May 12 have been damaged.

Images from the scene show thick plumes of smoke rising from the storage site, which contained votes from the al Rusafa district. Units from the Civil Defense joined fire crews as they battled to put out the blaze. It's not yet known what caused the fire.

Jet3

US F-15 fighter jet crashes into sea off Okinawa, Japan

US Air Force F-15C Eagle
© Dominique Favre / Reuters
US Air Force F-15C Eagle
A US F-15 fighter jet has crashed into the sea near the Japanese island of Okinawa, the US military has confirmed. Okinawa houses a controversial American military presence, which has been the subject of numerous protests.

The pilot ejected from the fighter jet and was safely recovered. Earlier reports suggested there were possibly two crew members on board, but the aircraft has now been confirmed to be a single-seat F-15C Eagle. The jet reportedly took off from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa and crashed some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the coast.

Japan's Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said that the incident is being investigated, according to local media.

Comment: See also: US F/A-18 fighter jet crashes in southwestern Japan


Cross

Jailed and repentant woman pardoned by Trump: 'The only way I made it through was my faith in God'

Alice Marie Johnson
63-year old grandmother thanks God and the President for a second chance at life, says her faith kept her going though one third of her life was spent behind bars

Fox News reported early Friday about the commutation of 63 year old Alice Marie Johnson's life sentence (without parole) and the release of this woman from prison where she had spent 22 years of her life. The President commuted the sentence after socialite celebrity Kim Kardashian West met with Mr. Trump a few days ago.

Mrs. Johnson's response? She was extremely grateful and spoke publicly promising the Commander-in-Chief, "I will make you proud."


Microscope 1

DNA tests show meat in vegan and vegetarian ready meals

microscope scientist
© PA Archive/PA Images
Both supermarkets said their own tests have not found any meat traces (PA)
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has said it is investigating allegations that traces of meat were found in vegetarian and vegan ready meals.

Laboratory tests reportedly found traces of pork in Sainsbury's "meat free" meatballs and traces of turkey in a vegan macaroni ready meal from Tesco, the Daily Telegraph has reported.

An FSA spokeswoman said: "Our priority is to ensure consumers can be confident that the food they eat is safe and is what it says it is.

Comment: While it's always funny to piss off vegans, no one should be lied to about what they are consuming, under any circumstances. These companies better get their acts together or all three of their vegan customers are going to take their business elsewhere.

See also:


Cross

Austria's crackdown on "political Islam: Closure of mosques may lead to 'war between cross & crescent' - Erdogan

Cross and cresent
© Eddie Keogh / Reuters
Austria's move to close mosques and expel "foreign-funded" imams has infuriated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, warning of a war "between cross and crescent" and threatening that Ankara will not sit idle.

"These measures taken by the Austrian prime minister are, I fear, leading the world towards a war between the cross and the crescent," Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul on Sunday. Crescent, which can be seen on mosques and other Muslim entities, symbolizes Islamic religion since time immemorial.

"They say they're going to kick our religious men out of Austria. Do you think we will not react if you do such a thing?" he asked, quoted by AFP. "That means we're going to have to do something," Erdogan added without elaborating.

Document

Researcher discovers potentially 'catastrophic' destruction of Soviet-era documents - Russian govt says all records 'kept forever'

Gulag prisoners
© Mikhail Sokolov/RFE/RL
A photo of Gulag prisoners in Perm (undated).
Russia's Gulag History Museum says a researcher has discovered a secret Moscow directive in 2014 ordering the destruction of some of the last remaining documents on Soviet-era prisoners -- a move it described as "catastrophic" for historians.

The discovery by Russian researcher Sergei Prudovsky, who has posted online the evidence he provided to the Moscow museum, has alarmed historians and prompted a Russian human rights body to intervene, media reported on June 8.

As many as 17 million people were sent to the GULAG, the notorious Soviet prison camp system, in the 1930s and 1940s, and at least 5 million of them were convicted on false testimony. The prison population in the sprawling labor camps peaked at 2 million people.

Case files of the gulag prisoners were often destroyed, but their personal data was kept on registration cards, which are still held by police and intelligence agencies.

The museum said the newly disclosed classified order in 2014 instructed Russian officials at those agencies to destroy the registration cards of prisoners who had reached the age of 80 -- which now would include almost all of them.

Comment: The Russian government has responded to Prudovsky's discovery and worries:
Gulag documents are "kept forever" in accordance with strict regulations, the Russian deputy minister of internal affairs said. The statement comes amid reports that prisoner records are being destroyed under a secret order.

A Russian museum studying the history of the infamous Gulag prison camps, which existed in the Soviet Union until 1960, has learned that prisoner data is being evaporated. The story was initially reported by Kommersant on Friday, and immediately picked up by other Russian and Western media outlets.

The records in question are the 'registration cards' that contained the personal data of prisoners, including movement between the camps and release date from the forced labor camp. For those who died in the Gulag, the authorities had a special file which was sent for permanent storage to the archive. The survivors' cards are often the only source of information about their fate for relatives.

One of the Gulag Museum researchers claimed that one such card is missing, according to Russian media reports citing director Roman Romanov. When the authorities of Magadan Region, Russia were asked about the record, a local branch of the internal affairs ministry said the document was destroyed under a confidential 2014 order. The document was reportedly signed by multiple Russian ministries and services, including the interior ministry, justice ministry, and defense ministry, and allowed the destruction of the cards after former convicts turn 80.

The contents of the 2014 document, as well as its exact text, has not been released, so its exact wording is unclear. Romanov has already addressed Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the Presidential Human Rights Council, regarding the matter.

It was also raised at Friday's Human Rights Council meeting. During the session, Russian Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Igor Zubov said the registration cards are under strict regulations and are kept forever.

The head of the Gulag Museum believes that the case is just an administrative "casus," according to Lenta.ru online newspaper, who Romanov spoke with.

"What has happened in Magadan is the first such case in hundreds of similar requests," he said. In the interview, he said the museum regularly deals with such records and have been provided with all the necessary records before. Political repressions are still a very sensitive topic in Russia. There are no precise figures on how many people were imprisoned in this case. Romanov says that more than 20 million people went through the Gulag.



Star of David

Israeli occupation forces seal Palestinians' family home with them inside

Palestinian door
© Ma’an News Agency
The front door of the Zahida family home after it was sealed by Israeli forces.
A Palestinian family was trapped inside their home and forced to leave through a broken window after Israeli occupation forces welded their front door shut in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron this morning. The incident took place on Al-Shuhada Street in the Old City of Hebron, one of the most heavily militarised streets in the occupied West Bank.

Samer Yusri Zahida told Ma'an that Israeli occupation forces broke into his brother's house at 8am and forced him and his three other family members into one room. After detaining the family for a brief period of time, occupation forces broke one of the windows in the house and exited through it, allegedly telling the family that if they want to leave the house they must also exit through the window. Israeli forces then sealed the front door shut.

Zahida noted that the window that was broken did not lead to the main road, but to the neighbour's house. Locals later opened the house's main door.

Coordinator of the Human Rights Defenders Association in Hebron, Imad Abu Shamsieh, told Ma'an that Israeli occupation forces have been trying to force the family out since they moved in two weeks ago, in what he said was an "attempt to empty Al-Shuhada Street of all Palestinian residents and provide it to Israeli settlers as a new residence."

Comment: 'Israeli terrorism' begins in the top echelons of government - and the worse it is, the better.


TV

State-funded mind poisoning: Germany considers providing free feminist porn

boots on parade
© Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters
Germany's SPD party is considering providing state funding for feminist pornography in an effort to tackle sexist, racist and damaging stereotypes in mainstream porn.

The porn could even be made available on the websites of public broadcasters, and be referred to during sex education at school, according to the proposal by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which is part of the coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian-Democratic Union party.

The party voted to promote alternative porn at its state party conference in Berlin this month.

"Mainstream porn generally shows sexist and racial stereotypes in which consent is not a theme and certain 'optimal' body types are made as standard," the SDP proposal reads. "In these films, sex seems more like a performance or competitive sport: everything seems to work right away, there is no communication between the performers, no trying out, failure and trying out new things."