Ministers lose automatic ban on gypsies building on Green Belt

Judges said that the policy amounted to discrimination against the travelling community and ordered Mr Pickles to stop automatically calling in all planning appeals by travellers

Eric Pickles will introduce new Green Belt protections within weeks Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY

By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent

8:16PM GMT 21 Jan 2015

Gypsies will no longer automatically be banned from setting up camp on Green Belt land after the High Court ruled that the Government has been discriminating against travellers.

Communities secretary Eric Pickles introduced a policy of ministers personally reviewing and rejecting all bids made by gypsies in 2013 in attempt to prevent a repeat of controversies like the Dale Farm fiasco in Essex.

But yesterday judges said that the policy amounted to discrimination against the travelling community and ordered Mr Pickles to stop automatically calling in all planning appeals by travellers.

The ruling means that more appeals by travellers to build on the Green Belt - the ribbon of land around towns and cities which controls urban sprawl - will be heard by unaccountable planning inspectors who are likely to give less weight to the importance of these protected green areas.

Last night countryside campaigners said they were concerned by the ruling. Shaun Spiers, the chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “Local authorities should make proper provision for accommodating gypsy and traveller families. Too few do so and this is a major problem.

“But Eric Pickles’ duty is to defend the Green Belt from inappropriate development of any kind, and it would be worrying if this decision made it harder for him to do so.”
Over the past year ministers have called in or recovered around 100 planning appeals from travellers who have been denied the right to build on green belt land by local council planning departments.
Since the change in policy more appeals to build on the Green Belt had been turned down.
After the ruling – which forces ministers only to call in certain developments – this figure is likely to fall substantially, to around 60, with the remaining 40 considered by planning inspectors. The fear is that more of these appeals will be allowed because ministers will not have direct oversight.
One departmental source said that it was “fair to say that ministers have given greater weight of the importance of protecting the Green Belt” when deciding on competing issues in a planning appeal.
Last night it emerged that the Government would publish new planning rules to strengthen the rights of ministers to protect the Green Belt in coming weeks.
The source said: “Ministers are quite determined to increase protections of the Green Belt. We have already done a lot – we want to do more. Is Eric Pickles going to be discouraged? No – we will redouble our efforts to protect the Green Belt.”
In the ruling, Mr Justice Gilbart ruled that Mr Pickles’ policy had discriminated against gypsies and travellers, breaching the Equality Act 2010 and the human rights of two Romany gypsies from Kent.
His test-case ruling was a victory for two Romany gypsies - Charmaine Moore, a single mother with three children who is under threat of eviction from a site at North Cudham in the London borough of Bromley, and Sarah Coates, a disabled woman also with three children fighting to live temporarily on Green Belt land at Sutton-at-Hone near Dartford, Kent.
Mr Pickles issued the new guidance to councils on how they can use their legal powers to remove illegal sites, as well as protest camps and squatters on public or private land.
He said at the time that local authorities must act more quickly to shut down unauthorised encampments to prevent the forced £7million eviction of Dale Farm, once the UK’s largest travellers sites, on green belt land in Crays Hill, Essex, in 2011.
However the changes were attacked by travellers groups. Joseph Jones, chairman of the gypsy council, said: “It’s creating tension it’s a negative thing to do. At the moment it seems like a theme. It seems like open season on ethnic minorities.”

Protest leader quits in 'Hitler' row

Leader of German "anti-Islamisation" group steps down in row over him pictured with "Hitler moustache".

For more details, see the BBC News website

At International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Roma remain ‘underreported’ victims

At International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Roma remain ‘underreported’ victims

20/01/2015 - Misunderstood and still persecuted, the Roma people (also known as Romani or Gypsies) remain what some experts consider a relatively underreported ethnicity ahead of this year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, which will mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.

Drawing support from many non-Nazi Germans who harbored social prejudice towards Roma, the Nazis judged Roma to be “racially inferior.” The fate of Roma in some ways paralleled that of the Jews. Under the Nazi regime, German authorities subjected Roma to arbitrary internment, forced labor, and mass murder. German authorities murdered tens of thousands of Roma in the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union and Serbia, and killed thousands more in the concentration camps at Aushwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. 

“The Roma are a small minority, and due to long-term persecution in the various societies Roma have lived, they have, as a group, tended to be reluctant to advertise their ethnic background,” Peter Black, a senior historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), told JNS.org. “The Roma have, for the past two or three centuries, been the victims of negative and violence-inciting stereotypes about them and their behavior.”

Read more on http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2015/1/20/at-international-holocaust-remembrance-day-roma-remain-underreported-victims#.VL9Ox8lls7o

Guatemalan Court Sentences Ex-Police Chief for Murdering 37

Guatemalan Court Sentences Ex-Police Chief for Murdering 37

by aletho

teleSUR | January 19, 2015 A Guatemalan court found Pedro Garcia Arredondo guilty of murder, attempted murder, and crimes against humanity Monday for the massacre of 37 people at the Spanish embassy in Guatemala 35 years ago, EFE reports. Garcia Arredondo, 69, is responsible for burning the victims of the massacre to death on Jan. […]

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Five Surprises About American Internment During World War II

Five Surprises About American Internment During World War II

by aletho

By Jan Jarboe Russell | Disinformation |January 20, 2015 The general history of America’s internment of its own citizens during World War II has focused on the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese, 62 percent of them American-born, who were forcibly evacuated from the Pacific coast after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But few people know that […]

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German city plans to accommodate refugees in former concentration camp

German city plans to accommodate refugees in former concentration camp

By Elisabeth Zimmermann
20 January 2015

The German city of Schwerte in the Ruhr region announced early last week that it plans to accommodate around 20 refugees in a former SS barracks on one of the sites of the World War II Buchenwald concentration camp.
During the Nazi dictatorship, the German state rail company’s largest repair yard was located on the outskirts of Schwerte. The concentration camp was directly connected to it. Forced labourers from Poland and Eastern Europe were herded into the barracks, with at times more than 700 crammed into small spaces. Their labour was exploited by the rail company to carry out repairs.
In total, there were 136 separate camps that were part of the Buchenwald concentration camp at the end of the Second World War. The forced labourers confined there were used mainly for work in the munitions industry. It is exactly 70 years since the camp at Schwerte was shut down in January 1945. Since 1990, a memorial and plaque on site commemorate the fate of the forced labourers.
Schwerte’s decision provoked wide-ranging criticism. The head of the council of refugees for North Rhine-Westphalia, Birgit Naujocks, stated she found the plan dubious and repulsive. It recalled “horrible memories and gruesome images.” At the same time, she expressed appreciation for the need in some places to find emergency solutions for the accommodation of refugees. But she couldn’t understand why the city didn’t put up temporary cabins.
The head of the Buchenwald at Weimar memorial, Rikola-Gunnar Lüttgenau, told MDR Thuringen radio that it was a bad solution. Sending refugees to industrial areas with such an historical burden was incompatible with the values of a caring and welcoming culture.
Even North Rhine-Westphalia’s state president, Hannelora Kraft (Social Democrats, SPD), and Minister for Work, Integration and Social Affairs Guntram Schneider (SPD) appealed to the city of Schwerte to abandon its plan. But they were more concerned with the media uproar abroad rather than with the refugees. “We can’t afford headlines like this,” Schneider commented.
In spite of a broad range of criticism and protest, Schwerte intends to stick to its plan. At a press conference on January 16, Schwerte mayor Heinrich Böckelühr (Christian Democrats, CDU) railed against “outside advisers.” The city council, including the fractions of the SPD, CDU and Greens, with the sole exception of the Left Party fraction, is firmly behind the proposal. There was simply no other space available, and it was the “quickest and most cost-effective solution.”
As further justification, it was explained that the examination of air reconnaissance pictures confirmed that the buildings to be used were only established in the 1950s, meaning that the original SS barracks were not involved. In addition, refugees from the Balkans had already been housed on the grounds of the former concentration camp in the 1990s, and for a time there was also a Waldorf kindergarten and artist’s studio.
The honourary spokesman of the asylum-seekers’ working group in Schwerte, Hans-Bernd Marks, supported the city’s decision. “We have no problem with it,” he told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, justifying this by saying that the available refugee homes were overburdened and a temporary solution was welcome. He then added, “Where do we begin and where do we stop, if we cleared every building Nazis were in?”
The plan to house refugees, who have just escaped life-threatening conditions in wars, civil wars and persecution in countries like Syria, Iraq, Ukraine or African countries, on the grounds of a former concentration camp, is cynical and abhorrent. It shows that the ruling elite will shrink from nothing in their assault on the working class, the most vulnerable section of which is immigrants.
The action in Schwerte is symptomatic of the brutal and inhumane refugee policy of the German government and local authorities, the main goal of which is deterrence.
Only last September, it was revealed that refugees housed at facilities in North Rhine-Westphalia had been humiliated and abused by security personnel. Videos from the Burbach camp showed how a refugee was compelled under threats from a security guard to lie on a damaged and dirty mattress, and how a guard pressed his boot into the neck of a tied-up refugee lying on the ground.
Despite promises to improve conditions at refugee homes, nothing has changed. If anything, the situation for refugees has gotten worse.
On January 12, WDR television showed a documentary, titled “Welcome: How Germany is overwhelmed by the flood of refugees” by Florian Bauer and Naima el Moussaoui, as part of its “die story (the story)” series. The title was somewhat misleading, because the programme made clear that the issue was not that the authorities were overburdened, but rather that there was a systematic policy against refugees.
Letters from municipalities and from the district government of Arnsberg to North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister, Ralf Jäger, were repeatedly cited in the film referring to the lack of places and facilities for the accommodation of refugees, as well as the completely unsustainable situation in refugee camps packed full. Some of the letters were five years old, but nothing has happened.
The film began with scenes from the processing centre in Dortmund, where refugees from Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, and East and West Africa arrive every day. These are all countries where the German government is helping stoke the crises that drive thousands of people to flee.
Since the institution only has 350 beds, they attempt to send the vast majority of refugees who arrive to other accommodation on the same day. Giving the refugees social care is impossible, as a social worker explained to the film team. They can only be processed.
The next stop in the film is a refugee home in the Rheindahlen district of Mönchengladbach. The dilapidated wooden barracks on a former NATO base are referred to by the refugees living there simply as “the camp”. Three to five people have to live in an area of 15 square metres. Everything is falling apart, from the cooking plates in the rooms to the hallways and the sanitary facilities. One hundred sixty people have to share 12 filthy, stinking toilets and showers. The Mönchengladbach city authorities apparently have no money for renovations.
A refugee from Nigeria, whose sister was murdered by Boko Haram and who had completed a daring and perilous journey, showed the film team his room that he shared with three other refugees. “I am now where I wanted to go, but it isn’t like I imagined it would be”, he commented. “It is inhumane.”
According to the film team, numerous accommodation centres for refugees in Germany are just as bad. A further example from Cologne features a scene where the social department is planning to house 200 refugees in an empty hall in a disused market in an industrial zone. Toilets and showers will be located in cabins outside the hall.
The film also shows the mistreatment of a Yezidi family by the German authorities. Every time they have an appointment with the foreign office, they are woken without warning early in the morning. The authorities repeatedly threaten them with deportation.
Several months ago, the persecution of the Yezidis in Iraq served as the pretext for the German government to supply the Kurdish Peshmerga with weapons and to send soldiers to northern Iraq to train them.
Half of the refugees who come to Germany languish in dormitory accommodation for years. In North Rhine-Westphalia and other states, there are no standards for their accommodation. Their terrible treatment is not linked to the overburdening of the authorities, but rather is deliberately aimed at serving as a deterrent to others.

The FBI’s Dubious Record on Prosecuting Terror Plots

The FBI’s Dubious Record on Prosecuting Terror Plots

by aletho

Fake plots get busted, real ones get a pass By Dave Lindorff | ThisCantBeHappening! | January 19, 2015 If you’re planning to commit an act of terror in the US and want to be left alone by the FBI, make sure your target is something, or someone, that the US government doesn’t like or care […]

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One Of The Most Life-Altering Realizations A Human Can Ever Have

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In the course of any given day we can experience a range of emotions, but often we are struggling to find peace or joy. The struggle to find peace often comes from getting caught up in the various actions of the day which we think are incredibly significant. This happens because we become out of touch with what is, who we are and the nature of our world. We don’t even have to look at things on a “spiritual” level to realize that we are just a spec in the entirety of our universe -of all that is. This is why “The Pale Blue Dot” is such a significant image. It reminds us not to take life too seriously.

“The Pale Blue Dot” Image taken by Voyager 1.

The spec you see in the picture above is us. It is Earth at a very far distance. Sitting in the midst of vastness just being, Earth is put into perspective when we see an image like this. Take a moment to realize where we truly are and how we ultimately are a tiny spec in a massive interconnected universe. Now I don’t want to create the idea that we are insignificant, because I don’t believe that to be true. Given we are connected to everything and everything is connected to us, we do have an impact on everything in our universe. Everything is ultimately equal and the same consciousness. Everything is one massive playground where many beings are playing together. I simply want to encourage reflection after looking at this image.

Are the things we get upset about, get angry about, worry about, have fear about, really worth all the emotional turmoil they create? Think of the pain, destruction, grudges and heartache that comes of even small actions due to how we make them so serious. Don’t get me wrong, there can be growth in experiencing these things, but is there a higher state of consciousness or awareness we can reach to see our daily “troubles” in a different light? To see our lives in a different light all together?

Take a moment and close your eyes. Take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. Feel the true nature of who you are and realize that behind all we make serious with our minds, there is a feeling of peace that exists. This is what this image inspires me come back to. That peace is always there and can be an everyday occurrence should we shift out of making life so personal and so serious. World peace is ultimately up to us, not anyone else or any external factor.

Listen as Carl Sagan as he speaks eloquently about this image and its implications. It is life-altering.

Anti-Sodomy Laws 'Breed Intolerance,' Says U.N. Chief

Anti-Sodomy Laws 'Breed Intolerance,' Says U.N. Chief

Posted: 17 Jan 2015 09:42 AM PST

The U.N. Secretary General criticized laws that criminalize sodomy in a speech given in India, which recently reinstated its own ban on same-sex sex.
read more

ISIS Barbarians Throw Two Gay Men to Their Deaths in Iraq

ISIS Barbarians Throw Two Gay Men to Their Deaths in Iraq

The jihadist barbarians of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have executed two more gay men -- this time in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, located in the Nineveh province.

And unlike two earlier executions, where a total of three men were stoned to death by ISIS militants in Syria for alleged homosexuality, these latest killings were carried out by throwing the victims off the roof of a tall building. Graphic photos of the executions were then uploaded to Twitter.

Radio Free Europe reports:

The Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq has published photographs that appear to show a man being thrown from the roof of a tall building apparently in Mosul, as punishment for being gay...

One photograph, taken from the top of the building from where the man was apparently pushed to his death, shows a large crowd gathered in the public square below.

Another image shows a man with his face covered by a black balaclava, reading out the sentence imposed on the man under the IS group's version of Shari'a law. The caption to the photograph says that the verdict was issued by a Shari'a court in "Wilayat Nineveh," IS's name for Mosul and its environs.

Another image shows the victim being held by another man, apparently his executioner, on the edge of a rooftop. Text accompanying the photograph says that the man is being punished with "Hadd," meaning a punishment that is determined in the Koran and the Hadith for crimes considered to go against the rights of God. The caption noted that the man had committed the crime of the practices of the "people of Lot," a euphemism for sodomy, and that he must be killed by being "thrown from a high place."

A graphic image shows the man being pushed to his death. Another image shows what appears to be the man's body on the ground.

The Daily Beast puts the images in context:

Death is shown in high resolution--the killing carefully composed inside the frame. These images belong to a deliberate social media and information strategy. Like all good Internet propaganda the images are made to be readily "shareable" and appear to have been released with the intent that they travel to a broader audience. It worked. Obscene and merciless, it's a reflection of the state of life under ISIS rule.

The situation for LGBT people living in areas controlled by ISIS extremists could not be more bleak: international human rights groups say they are "at imminent risk of death."

Three more photographs of the executions are after the jump. WARNING: Extremely graphic. The next time someone tells you how offensive images depicting the prophet Muhammad are, show them these images instead.

Read more at http://www.bilerico.com/2015/01/isis_barbarians_throw_two_gay_men_to_their_deaths.php#tQeZkTAdGox9wzwB.99

Major Cities Across The US Becoming Equipped With “Full-Time” SWAT Teams

Major Cities Across The US Becoming Equipped With “Full-Time” SWAT Teams

by aletho

By John Vibes | The Free Thought Project | January 16, 2015 Indianapolis, Indiana – For at least six months now, the SWAT team for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has been deployed full-time, responding to routine calls and conducting investigations. It was reported by WishTV that in the past six months, the Indianapolis SWAT […]

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Military Police From the Torturous Gitmo Prison, Being Recruited as Cops

This Won’t End Well: Military Police From the Torturous Gitmo Prison, Being Recruited as Cops

by aletho

By John Vibes | The Free Thought Project | January 16, 2015 This week, as millions of Americans demand that Guantanamo Bay guards be prosecuted for war crimes, it seems that some of them may be getting jobs as cops instead. It was recently reported that large numbers of military police officers who were formerly […]

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US Condemns ICC Preliminary Probe into Israeli War Crimes

US Condemns ICC Preliminary Probe into Israeli War Crimes

by aletho

Al-Akhbar | January 17, 2015 The United States joined Israel in condemning the International Criminal Court decision to open a preliminary probe Friday into possible war crimes committed against Palestinians, blasting it as a "tragic irony." ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her office would conduct an "analysis in full independence and impartiality" into alleged war […]

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3,000 "Moderate Rebels" Defect to ISIS - US Preparing 5,000 More

3,000 "Moderate Rebels" Defect to ISIS - US Preparing 5,000 More

 

Harbinger of what's to become of US "rebel army" it plans to stand up in spring. 

January 16, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Reported along the peripheries of the Western media, it was reported recently that some 3,000 so-called "moderate rebels" of the "Free Syrian Army" had defected to the "Islamic State" (ISIS).  While not the first time so-called "moderates" have crossed over openly to Al Qaeda or ISIS, it is one of the largest crossovers that has occurred.

With them, these 3,000 fighters will bring weapons, cash, equipment, and training provided to them by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States, the UK, and perhaps most ironic of all in the wake of the recent terror attack in Paris, France. Indeed, ISIS and Al Qaeda's ranks continue to swell amid this insidious network of "terror laundering" that is only set to grow. 

It was an open conspiracy exposed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 article,  "The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?", that the US and its regional allies sought to use Al Qaeda and other extremist groups to wage a proxy war on Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. [sic, not credible] This conspiracy has clearly manifested itself today in the form of ISIS. Despite a feigned military campaign waged against ISIS, targeting primarily Syria's oil infrastructure, the true source of ISIS' strength, emanating  from NATO territory in Turkey, remains unscathed and uninterrupted. Additionally, torrents of cash, weapons, and supplies are working their way across ISIS' rank and file through the migration of so-called "moderates" under their banner. 

Before this brigade-sized defection, several other "vetted moderate rebel" groups, armed by the US in particular, have openly pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. The most notorious incident was when terror group Harakat Hazm, provided antitank TOW missiles by the US, openly pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization Al Nusra. Al Nusra would assume possession of the TOW missiles, using them allegedly in a successful campaign in Syria's Idlib province. 

The Daily Beast would report in its  September 2014 article, "Al Qaeda Plotters in Syria ‘Went Dark,’ U.S. Spies Say," that: 

One Syrian rebel group supported in the past by the United States condemned the air strikes on Tuesday. Harakat Hazm, a rebel group that received a shipment of U.S. anti-tank weapons in the spring, called the airstrikes “an attack on national sovereignty” and charged that foreign led attacks only strengthen the Assad regime.The statement comes from a document, purportedly from the group, that has circulated online and was posted in English translation from a Twitter account called Syria Conflict Monitor. Several Syria experts, including the Brookings Doha Center's Charles Lister, believe the document to be authentic. 

Before the official statement, there were signs that Harakat Hazm was making alliances in Syria that could conflict with its role as a U.S. partner. In early Septemeber a Harakat Hazm official told a reporter for the L.A. Times: “Inside Syria, we became labeled as secularists and feared Nusra Front was going to battle us…But Nusra doesn't fight us, we actually fight alongside them. We like Nusra.”

This group would later be reported by the Western press as having "surrendered" to Al Qaeda. The International Business Times would claim in its article, "Syria: Al-Nusra Jihadists 'Capture US TOW Anti-Tank Missiles' from Moderate Rebels," that: 

Weaponry supplied by the US to moderate Syrian rebels was feared to have fallen into the hands of jihadist militants affiliated to al-Qaida after clashes between rival groups.  

Islamist fighters with Jabhat al-Nusra seized control of large swathes of land in Jabal al-Zawiya, Idlib province, at the weekend, routing the US-backed groups the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SFR) and Harakat Hazm, activists said.  

Washington relied on SFR and Harakat Hazm to counter Isis (Islamic State) militants on the ground in Syria, complementing its air strikes.

Clearly however, Harakat Hazm's "surrender" was merely the finalizing of its growing alliance with Al Nusra. 

US Prepares Another Brigade for ISIS 

When "moderates" appear inevitably destined for the ranks of ISIS, and with US weapons falling into Al Qaeda's hands along with entire brigade-sized defections taking place, what the world would last expect is for the US to prepare another brigade-sized army to arm, fund, train, and turn loose inside of Syria. But that is precisely what the US is planning to do.

Stars and Stripes would report in its article, "Agreement reached for US to train Syrian rebels in Turkey," that:

Officials say the initial round of training would produce of 5,000 trained Free Syrian Army members within about a year.  

Saudi Arabia in September agreed to host the training of moderate Syrian rebels to assist the U.S. strategy to combat Islamic State insurgents, who control territory in Syria and Iraq.  

U.S. support of the Free Syrian Army has been criticized as halting by supporters of greater U.S. involvement in Syria, and the group suffered setbacks when units were overrun and driven from their bases in recent weeks by members of another insurgent group, the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

Only this "Free Syrian Army" wasn't overrun and driven out by Al Nusra - as previously mentioned - instead many of these groups had been part of long-running alliances with the Al Qaeda franchise, and simply made it official, bringing their Western arms, cash, and training with them. 

For the US already, plausible deniability is impossible with revelations as early as 2007 exposing America's desire to use Al Qaeda as a proxy military force. [ sic !] With Harakat Hazm turning over US-supplied antitank TOW missiles to Al Qaeda, and now an entire brigade-sized defection by so-called "Free Syrian Army" fighters to ISIS - what besides "disaster" could befall America's new brigade it plans to start training this spring?

Inevitably, these fighters, their supplies and weapons will end up consolidated under ISIS and Al Nusra's banner. Terrorism continues to grow in Syria not because of ISIS' control over oilfields and revenue from hostage ransoms, but because the US and its partners continue to intentionally feed into its maw thousands of trained fighters, weapons, and billions in cash, equipment, and other supplies.

When these terrorists begin filtering into Europe and America, the same interests involved in intentionally creating this massive terrorist enterprise in Syria will wring their hands demanding what little is left of civilization at home be dismantled, after having insidiously and intentionally destroyed it abroad.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.  

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.mx/2015/01/3000-moderate-rebels-defect-to-isis-us.html

Gas Theft and Auschwitz Snub… Russia’s Every Right to End the Insults

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 17.01.2015 | 00:00

How many insults does the European Union expect Russia to bear without consequences? Ethnic cleansing of Russian people by the Brussels-backed Kiev regime, a refugee crisis on Russia’s borders, economic sanctions based on groundless accusations hurting Russian society – and now this – the neo-Nazi cabal [ sic ! ] that seized power in Ukraine with CIA backing last year has repeatedly been found guilty of siphoning off Russia’s natural gas exports to the EU. On top of all that comes the insult of Russian President Vladimir Putin not being invited along with European leaders to attend the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. More on that in a while. But first on the issue of natural exports. Russia this week finally responded to the Kiev regime’s incorrigible banditry by giving notice that it is to cut off all gas supplies that transit through Ukraine – which make up about 40-50 per cent of the EU’s supply. In the middle of winter and with temperatures plummeting the move by Russian state-owned Gazprom has reportedly sent Brussels officials into panic mode. No doubt the dutiful Western corporate media will crank up the «Putin as arch villain» narrative. Families freezing across Europe will be attributed to the «evil genius» of the «Soviet mastermind». Maros Sefcovic, European Commission vice president for energy, said the decision by Gazprom to turn off the gas taps will damage Russia’s reputation as an international supplier. His admonition echoes earlier calls by Europe’s energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger who appealed to Russia not to «politicise» energy trade.  That’s ironic humour for you. Russia has not politicised anything; it is the Brussels bureaucracy, along with their American cohorts, who have sought to politicise everything – and to give Moscow impossible room for manoeuvre.  Gazprom’s chief executive Alexei Miller this week reminded international media that Russia has been a reliable supplier of natural gas to Europe for the past four decades – even during the West’s aggressive Cold War. Besides, the objective of Russia’s latest gas cut-off is not to end the trade with Europe. Russia is planning to route future supplies to the EU through Turkey. As Miller pointed out, it is up to the EU to now build the necessary infrastructure to take the gas supplies from the Turkish border into Greece and beyond. Russia’s objective is simply this: to put an end to the Kiev regime’s de facto theft of Russian gas exports to Europe. How much more reasonable can that be? We can imagine how Britain would react if Scotland decided to with-hold North Sea oil supplies transiting its territory. Or how France would respond if its wine exports were being hijacked en route by some third party. Or the US if Mexico were found to be surreptitiously dipping into its exports to the rest of South America. It’s an absurd complaint by EU officials and governments to now accuse Russia of «energy blackmail». After all, it was Brussels that put the kibosh on Russia’s South Stream gas project via the Black Sea last year, thus, in effect, squeezing Russia to fall back on the Ukrainian transit route. That route has, as noted, become infeasible due to the Kiev regime’s incessant and illegal siphoning off of Russian exports.  So what does the EU want Russia to do? Keep giving gas handouts to the Kiev mafia-regime that refuses to pay for its own gas supplies and which is bombing and killing ethnic Russians in the eastern Ukrainian regions? Russia has every right to take measures to protect its vital economic interests. An alternative pipeline through Turkey will provide a southern arc complimentary to the existing Nord Stream Russian gas supply route via the Baltic Sea into Germany. It is therefore ridiculous to accuse Russia of cutting off gas supplies to the EU. Russia is merely cutting off illegal interference in its exports by a third party – the Kiev Reich. Admittedly, entailed is a critical supply problem this winter for the EU until the Turkish route is implemented. But that’s not Russia’s problem; it is Brussels’ problem for having blocked the construction of the South Stream project and for its relentless indulgence of the Kiev regime, with all its criminality. In any case, complaints from the EU that Russia is damaging its reputation as an international energy supplier ring hollow. Russia has found a ready alternative market for its gas exports with China after Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping signed a $400 billion record deal last year. The Asian market for Russia’s prodigious energy resources is projected to overshadow the EU market. Moreover, the Moscow-Beijing partnership is to be financed with roubles and yen, which relieves Russia and China of artificial dependence on the US dollar or Euro.  It seems the height of European conceit to lecture Russia about trade ethics, when the former has imposed a gratuitous embargo on Moscow over baseless accusations of interfering in Ukraine. It is the EU elite and their Washington ally who have been systematically interfering in Ukraine and provoking a war of aggression on the eastern regions – with a death toll of nearly 5,000 over the past year and up to one million refugees. If international law and morality were adhered to, it is Brussels and Washington that should be sanctioned, if not prosecuted for the criminality they have unleashed in the form of the Kiev regime. Europe’s hypocrisy and double think are underscored with France’s ongoing unilateral abrogation of the deal it had with Russia for the supply of two warships. Russia has paid France over $1 billion already for the delivery of the Mistral class vessels; yet Paris refuses to honour the contract. A less polite but not inaccurate way to describe this French misconduct is state-sponsored «piracy».  Washington is reportedly breathing down the French government’s neck to not relent on its shameless scuppering of the Russian Mistral contract. Which makes the damage to French «reputation» all the more injurious. Not only is France not be trusted as an international trading partner; its «sovereign independence» is also evidently at the mercy of Washington’s bullying. How can anyone trust the French government to honour anything in the light of this craven kowtowing? But here’s the coup de grace for European insolence towards Russia: French President Francois Hollande and his German counterpart Joachim Gauck will be among other European leaders to attend the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz later this month. The ceremony will be led by Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski. An official invitation was reportedly not sent to Moscow, and Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week that the Russian president would not be attending the Auschwitz event, as a result. In January 1945, it was the Russian Red Army that liberated the death camp – which has since come to symbolise the crimes of Nazi Germany and European fascism generally. Russian troops liberated thousands of Poles, Jews and other European nationals from imminent death at Auschwitz, where over one million had already perished. The French Vichy regime collaborated with Nazi Germany to send hundreds of thousands to their death at Auschwitz and other extermination centres.  Seventy years on, Russia is being snubbed over perhaps its most heroic contribution to Europe – the defeat of fascist Germany and its mass extermination programs.  It is astounding how relatively quickly European history is in effect being re-written – and by countries that were perpetrators of the horrors of World War II. But should we be surprised? Russia saved Europe’s neck from fascism and continues to save Europe’s neck from freezing every winter with its natural gas supplies. And yet for all this, Russia has to endure insults and provocations from a thankless European elite.  It’s time that there were consequences for such hideous, purblind European arrogance. Russia can legitimately take her generous bounties elsewhere in the world – and let the incorrigible ingrates freeze if they want to!

NOM's Brian Brown 'Confident' Supreme Court Will Uphold Gay Marriage Bans

NOM's Brian Brown 'Confident' Supreme Court Will Uphold Gay Marriage Bans

Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), says he's 'confident' the Supreme Court will uphold state gay marriage bans

Lieberman Threatens To “Dismantle” ICC

Lieberman Threatens To “Dismantle” ICC

IMEMC & Agencies | January 17, 2015

Following the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch a preliminary investigation to determine “whether war crimes have been committed” during Israel’s last war Gaza in the summer of 2014, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened that Israel “would act on dissolving the ICC,” and considered the decision “provocative.”
Lieberman alleged that the ICC decision “only aims at attempting to impact Israel’s ability to defend itself.”
He added that Israel will not cooperate with any investigation, and will act on the international level to dissolve the ICC after describing the decision as hypocritical, and supportive of what he called “terrorism.”
Lieberman also alleged that the decision is an outcome of what he called anti-Israel moves that only aim at “harming Israel and its right to defend itself.”
The Foreign Minister went on to talk about Syria and how the court “failed to intervene,” adding that there is no comparison between the Israeli army, which he called the most moral army in the world, with what he labeled as “terror groups” in Gaza.
He called on his government to officially reject the decision, and refrain from any cooperation with it.
On Friday evening, Lieberman told Israel’s Channel 2 TV that Tel Aviv should act on removing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from his post, and engage in talks with some Arab countries to reach what he called “a peaceful resolution that does not harm Israel’s ability to defend itself.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also angered by the decision, and said that the ICC cannot conduct the investigation because “Palestine is not a sovereign state.”
The latest developments came after the ICC prosecutor Fatou Densouda declared she has opened a preliminary investigation of “possible” war crimes committed during the most recent Israeli war on Gaza.
She also vowed an independent and impartial preliminary investigation, adding that the move comes after the Palestinian Authority signed the founding treaty of the ICC in July of last year, and officially recognized its jurisdiction.
During the summer Israeli escalation on the Gaza Strip, the army bombarded dozens of thousands of Palestinian homes and residential towers, hospitals and clinics, UNRWA schools and facilities, media offices and dozens of other civilian facilities, in addition to destroying the infrastructure in the besieged coastal region.
The Ministry of Housing in Gaza recently said the number of homes that have been destroyed, and partially damaged, during the Israeli aggression on the coastal region is close to 124,000.
The Israeli bombardment and shelling killed at around 2,137 Palestinians, including 578 children, 264 women, and 103 elderly, while[ wounding] more than 11,100, including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly.

Settlers break into secondary school in occupied J'lem

Settlers break into secondary school in occupied J'lem
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 15 Jan -- Approximately ten Israeli settlers stormed Wednesday a secondary school in Tur neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem and fired tear gas and sound bombs into it under Israeli police protection. Head of the follow-up committee in Tur neighborhood Mufid Abu Ghannam confirmed that ten Jewish settlers stormed the school Wednesday afternoon while the students were leaving their classes. The students panicked at the attack and started shouting and screaming, forcing the settlers and soldiers to withdraw from the school amid heavy fire of tear gas bombs. Israeli forces, in their turn, fired heavy volleys of live bullets into the air to scare the students, he added. Beit Orot settlers have twice tried to break into the school on previous days; however the local residents confronted them and forced them to withdraw, Abu Ghannam pointed out. Meanwhile, Israeli forces stormed under heavy tear gas bombs the nearby girls' elementary school under the pretext of looking for a wanted person.
http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=69650

Four years, one dead Palestinian and a closed investigation

Four years, one dead Palestinian and a closed investigation
+972 Blog 16 Jan by Yesh Din, written by Yossi Gurvitz -- What does an Israeli military investigation of the killing of a Palestinian look like? An utter waste of time -- On Friday, January 16, 2009, stormy demonstrations took place throughout the West Bank, as Operation Cast Lead was in full force in Gaza. The Israeli media did not report the many civilian casualties caused by IDF fire in the Gaza Strip. The Arab media, however, reported on it extensively. Yesh Din wrote about a failed investigation by the Military Police Criminal Investigations Division (MPCID) about a shooting that day in Bil‘in here. That same day at a demonstration in Hebron, someone in an Israeli uniform – probably an IDF sharpshooter – fired one bullet at Musab Badwan Ashak Dan‘a, 17, and killed him. We’ll never know who the shooter was. Whether the shooting was justified will remain unanswered; and the reason for that, as usual, is the the MPCID’s scandalously incompetent investigation. In order to view the depth of the MPCID’s negligence, let’s look at the events in chronological order, as seen from the files of our attorney, Attorney Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, with the brisk aid of Attorney Osnat Barthor.
http://972mag.com/four-years-one-dead-palestinian-and-a-closed-investigation/101414/

Israeli jailers assault Palestinian child during prison visit

Israeli jailers assault Palestinian child during prison visit
RAMALLAH (PIC) 16 Jan -- Israeli jailers have physically assaulted a Palestinian child while [he was] visiting his older brother in Eshel prison, human rights sources said. Ahrar Center for Prisoners Studies reported that the 9-year-old Youssef Obeidat went Thursday to Eshel prison along with his mother and 15-year-old sister in order to visit his brother, who was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces seven months ago. During their search, Youssef protested against the way his sister was searched by Israeli prison guards, which prompted them to severely beat him. He suffered bruises in his body and face. Then, the jailers allowed the mother alone to visit her son. Ahrar Center said that prisoners’ families are usually exposed to assaults and humiliating measures at hands of Israeli prison guards, forcing them to avoid visits to their relatives.
http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=69667

Turkish Christians Assist Syrian Refugees

Turkish Christians Assist Syrian Refugees
International Needs Turkey is supporting Syrian refugees. Turkey -- Syrian refugees are in the fight for their lives in Turkey. The Islamic State has forced thousands from their homes. Now they're trying to survive in camps in snow and subfreezing temperatures.
International Needs Turkey Director Behnan Konutgan is with the refugees handing out warm clothing. "It's 6 degrees centigrade below zero (21 Fahrenheit)." And it's snowing.
The needs are great, Konutgan says. And while "the evangelical church [in Turkey] is very small, [they] have done marvelous things for the refugees. They are welcomed by the local authorities. They respect the churches, and they welcome us very well."
It's strange, because Turkey is predominately Muslim.
Konutgan says these refugees were stuck in the mountains without food or water. "When I say that this support comes from the churches, they say, "Ah ha! Because of the churches, we are safe."
The stories from the mountains are horrible. One woman told Konutgan that some of women didn't want to see their children suffer, so they threw them off the mountains to their death.
Another woman told him that she had given her daughters to a Saudi man and gave him $50. He said he would take care of them until after the conflict was over. She hasn't heard from the man and believes her daughters were kidnapped.
Christians are meeting the refugees in their despair, providing hope found in Christ alone. You can help, too.
Konutgan says the refugees want to know about Jesus. And in the midst of tragedy, God is working. "They hear the Bible, so this is a good opportunity for the Gospel. I'm sure they will come to Christ Jesus. There are thousands of people among them who secretly say they love Jesus."

Live ammunition used at Nabi Saleh demonstration

Live ammunition used at Nabi Saleh demonstration

by aletho

International Solidarity Movement | January 16, 2015  Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine - For five years now, residents of Nabi Saleh have been denied access to their spring. A source of irrigation for their crops, as well as a place for recreation: al-Qaws spring was the heart of this farming community. The illegal settlement of Halamish […]

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Supreme Court agrees to hear gay marriage issue

Supreme Court agrees to hear gay marriage issue

The Supreme Court announced Friday it will decide this term a historic question about whether the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry or whether states are free to limit marriage to its traditional definition as a union only between a man and a woman.

The court will answer a question left open when the justices last confronted the issue in 2013 and said that a key portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and in a separate case allowed same-sex marriages to resume in California.

The court Friday accepted four cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, where restrictions about same-sex marriage were upheld by an appeals court. The high court will hear oral arguments in April and decide the issue by the time justices adjourn in June.

State bans on such unions nationwide have been struck down since the Supreme Court’s action in 2013. When the justices declined to review a clutch of those decisions this past fall, same-sex marriage proliferated across the country.

Couples may now marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia. More than 70 percent of Americans now live in states where gay couples are allowed to wed, according to estimates by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Public attitudes toward such unions have undergone a remarkable change as well. Polls show that a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, which was not sanctioned anywhere at the turn of this young century.

After the court’s announcement Friday afternoon, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Obama administration will file a friend of the court brief asking the justices “to make marriage equality a reality for all Americans.”

In the DOMA case, U.S. v. Windsor, the 5-to-4 decision written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the federal government could not refuse to recognize or provide benefits to people in same-sex marriages that were conducted in states where such unions were legal.

Dozens of lower court judges nationwide have read Kennedy’s opinion — in which he was joined by liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — to compel findings that state bans violate constitutional rights as well.

Withholding federal recognition of same-sex married couples, Kennedy wrote in Windsor, places them “in an unstable position of being in second-tier marriages” and “demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects . . . and whose relationship the State has sought to dignify.”

Kennedy, the pivotal member of the court who most often sides with conservatives, nevertheless has written all of the court’s modern decisions protecting gay rights, including Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down sodomy laws that targeted gay men.

But his Windsor decision also cited the principles of state autonomy, which states have cited in defending laws and state constitutional amendments defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.

“The state’s power in defining the marital relation is of central relevance in this case,” Kennedy wrote, but he added that was not just because of federalism, but also because the states that gave gay couples the right to marry “conferred upon them a dignity and status of immense import.”

He said the history of DOMA was written to convey moral disapproval of homosexuality and “a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented.

Roberts wrote separately in Windsor to point out that the decision did not pass judgment on state bans.

“We may in the future have to resolve challenges to state marriage definitions affecting same-sex couples,” he wrote. “That issue, however, is not before us.”

But most lower court judges thought the logic of the majority argument indicated that the bans were unconstitutional. And many of them cited Scalia’s caustic dissent in Windsor.

“It takes real cheek for today’s majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here,” Scalia wrote.

Instead, “the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition,” Scalia wrote, and such suits are a “second . . . shoe to be dropped later.”

Almost everyone, however, was surprised by how quickly that shoe dropped. Within six months, the first federal judge had struck down a ban, in Utah. Quickly, judges nationwide, and panels of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th circuits, struck down state bans.

Many observers thought the Supreme Court would open its term by agreeing to review those decisions. Instead, the justices declined, and then systematically turned down requests from affected states that marriages not be allowed to take place until the court provided a final answer.

Proponents of same-sex marriage hope those actions were a signal from the court. They contend that the delay allowing gay marriages to proliferate provide the kind of incremental change that the court often looks for before approving a fundamental societal change.

The justices have given no reason for their action at the time. But Ginsburg, who has performed several same-sex marriages since the Windsordecision, has said in interviews that there is no need for the high court to intervene when lower courts are in agreement.

That changed in November, when a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati upheld the bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, writing for himself and Judge Deborah L. Cook, rejected the Windsor analysis that led other appeals courts to strike the bans on same-sex marriage.

In his decision, Sutton repeatedly returned to the principle of democratic action, saying advocates of same-sex marriage would be better off by persuading their fellow citizens than by asking federal judges to force the issue.

“When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers,” Sutton wrote.

“Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.”

Senior Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey said in a sharply worded dissent that Sutton’s opinion “would make an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy.” But she said federal judges are required to protect the constitutional rights of the minority.

“If we in the judiciary do not have the authority, and indeed the responsibility, to right fundamental wrongs left excused by a majority of the electorate, our whole intricate, constitutional system of checks and balances, as well as the oaths to which we swore, prove to be nothing but shams,” she wrote.

Sutton declined, in contrast to most other judges, to compare bans on same-sex marriage to the prohibitions on interracial marriage that the Supreme Court struck down in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia and said it is rational for states to want to go slowly in endorsing unions that did not exist in the nation until 11 years ago.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-gay-marriage-issue/2015/01/16/865149ec-9d96-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

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