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Obama (See no Evil)Leaves Aggression by Russian Aircraft Out of Conversation with Putin By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

The White House said President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin chatted on the phone today — but Obama did not bring up Russia’s too-close-for-comfort aerial actions near a U.S. ship and a reconnaissance plane.

U.S. European Command said Saturday that a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea was barrel-rolled by a Russian Su-27 on Thursday.

“The unsafe and unprofessional actions of a single pilot have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries,” Danny Hernandez, a spokesman for U.S. European Command, told CNN, noting that the plane “performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers” within 50 feet of the U.S. RC-135.

A week ago, two Russian SU-24 jets made “numerous close-range and low altitude passes” that led the U.S. ship to suspend flight operations until the Russian planes were gone. Last Tuesday, a Russian KA-27 Helix helicopter “conducted circles at low altitude around the ship, seven in total, at approximately 5 p.m. local.”

“The helicopter passes were also deemed unsafe and unprofessional by the ship’s commanding officer. About 40 minutes following the interaction with the Russian helicopter, two Russian SU-24 jets made numerous close-range and low altitude passes, 11 in total. The Russian aircraft flew in a simulated attack profile and failed to respond to repeated safety advisories in both English and Russian,” U.S. European Command said in a statement.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama had a conversation with Putin today about Ukraine and abiding by the Minsk talks.

“The United States continues to believe and President Obama continues to make a forceful case that Russia needs to abide by their commitments, and by doing so they can begin to relieve some of the isolation they have sustained as a result interfering in the sovereign activities of their neighbors in Ukraine,” Earnest said.

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Jewish prime minister elected in Ukraine By Arnold Cusmariu

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

On 14 April 2016, by a vote of 257 to 50, Ukraine’s Parliament elected Volodymyr Groysman prime minister, replacing Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was forced out by public dissatisfaction and allegations of corruption surrounding his government.

At 38, Mr. Groysman is the youngest Ukrainian prime minister ever elected and the first Jew to hold such a high position.

Here are some basic facts about him:

– Born in Vinnytsia into a Jewish family on 20 January 1978.

– Grandfather Isaac survived the Holocaust by pretending to be dead after being dropped into a mass grave by Nazi troops.

– Started his career in 1994 as a commercial director of the small private business company “ОКО” and as a commercial director of the private enterprise “Youth.”

– 2003 graduate of the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management with a specialty in jurisprudence.

– Elected mayor of Vinnytsia in 2006.

– 2010 graduate of the National Academy of State Administration with a specialty in community development management.

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Is Obama plotting yet again to harm embattled Israel? By Victor Sharpe

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

According to a report dated April 16, 2016 in the sometimes reliable Debka Special Report, “Israel’s top political leaders and military commanders were stunned and shocked last weekend when they found out that US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to support the return of the Golan to Syria.”

If this is true, Barack Hussein Obama is plotting yet again a way to torment the Jewish state with yet another vile edict, one which clearly has nothing to do with enlightened statecraft but much more to do with evil witchcraft.

The occupant in the Oval Office cannot salivate enough at the prospect of harming Israel’s security and survivability. No doubt he is fulfilling a malevolent pact he has made with a cabal of Islamists and extreme leftists; both of which ideologies have satanic hatred for Israel.

With this threat hanging over the strategic territory known as the Golan Heights, it is time once again to learn its history and Biblical significance. Even as modern day Syria is convulsed in a murderous and bloody civil war with untold thousands dead and maimed; even as its tyrant, Bashir al-Assad, fights for his political and physical life; even with all this, he nevertheless spews forth his hatred of Israel and his call to take away the Golan Heights from the Jewish state.

But so do those “rebels” who are fighting him and thus remind us of the famous aphorism: “better the devil you know,” or better still, “a plague on all your houses.”

Those of us who have stood on the Golan’s 1,700 foot steep escarpment, are struck by its immense strategic value overlooking Israel’s fertile Hula Valley and the beautiful harp-shaped lake below, called in Hebrew, Kinneret (better known as the Sea of Galilee.)

But during Syria’s occupation of the territory, no agriculture of any significance took place and no restoration of its terrain was ever undertaken. Instead, the Golan was a giant Syrian army artillery encampment whose sole purpose was to deliberately rain down upon Israeli farmers, fishermen and villagers an endless barrage of shells.

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Trump’s Bully Pulpit His threats to blow up the July convention are a sign of weakness.

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

Donald Trump says he wants to unite the Republican Party, but he keeps acting as if he’s mounting a hostile takeover. He’s now threatening to blow up the party’s July convention because he and his campaign were too lazy or inept to understand the 50 state nomination rules.

That’s the story behind Mr. Trump’s complaints that the party’s nominating rules are “rigged” against him. “It’s a crooked system. It’s 100% corrupt,” the front-runner howled on Sunday following a Friday op-ed on these pages making the same claims. He added on Sunday that he hopes a contested GOP convention in July “doesn’t involve violence.” Thanks for the warning.

Mr. Trump is upset that he’s being outhustled in winning delegates, and that he may fall short of the 1,237 he needs to win a majority in July. His latest embarrassment came at the Wyoming state convention on Saturday as Ted Cruz won the 14 delegates up for grabs. Mr. Cruz was the only candidate to show up in Casper, where he added to the nine (of 12 available) delegates awarded last month at county meetings. Mr. Trump, who said he didn’t want to “waste money going to Wyoming,” now claims Mr. Cruz won thanks to “party bosses.”

This is the same line the New Yorker leveled at the Colorado GOP, which also uses county and state conventions (rather than a popular vote) to elect delegates, and which recently awarded Mr. Cruz a delegate sweep. Yet both state processes were transparent and well known to all campaigns since last year.

In Wyoming’s case, “every presidential candidate for the last 40 years has managed this process and has worked through this process and has followed the process,” state GOP Chairman Matt Micheli told Fox News. Having failed to organize well enough to compete on these open terms, Mr. Trump is inventing complaints that such caucuses are “voterless.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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Taliban Starts Spring Offensive With Kabul Truck Bomb At least 28 killed and more than 300 injured in explosion outside government building By Jessica Donati and Ehsanullah Amiri

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

KABUL—The Taliban claimed responsibility for a large bombing Tuesday outside a Kabul government building that Afghan officials said killed at least 28 people and wounded 327 others, the deadliest attack in the capital in months.

The Islamist militant group said it had detonated a truck laden with explosives, though the report couldn’t be immediately confirmed by Afghan officials. It announced the start of its annual spring offensive last week and has since intensified attacks across the country.

The bombing targeted a compound used by Afghanistan’s Secret Service, flattening part of its perimeter wall. Taliban gunmen disguised in military uniform stormed it shortly after the explosion and were still battling Afghan security forces hours later.

The blast shattered buildings and windows in the area, trapping people under the rubble. Hospitals around the city were inundated. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Spanish Police Arrest Moroccan in Mallorca for IS Links Man arrested in Palma de Mallorca city where he lived

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

MADRID—Police say they have arrested a Moroccan man with alleged strong links to the Islamic State group and who was allegedly pushing for attacks to be carried out in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.

A statement said the man was arrested Tuesday in Palma de Mallorca city on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca where he lived.

It said the detainee poses “a clear threat to national security” given that he used the Internet to promote recruitment for IS, help send potential combatants abroad and encourage attacks in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. It said he maintained close contact with IS leaders in Syria.

Spanish police have arrested dozens of suspected jihadist recruiters in recent years.

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Bomb on Jerusalem Bus Injures 21 Israeli police say most of those hurt were riding a bus that was driving alongside By Orr Hirschauge

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

TEL AVIV—A bomb exploded at the back of a bus and injured 21 people as it traveled through southeast Jerusalem on Monday, Israeli police said.“We confirm that a bomb went off. We are still examining all possibilities,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Police are investigating how the bomb was planted on the bus.

Few passengers were on the bus when it exploded before 6 p.m. local time, with two seriously wounded, he said. An initial police statement said the bus was empty.Most of the injured were riding in a bus that was driving alongside.

“It looked like a terror attack scene,” Mr. Rosenfeld said. “Two buses in flames, many people lying on the road and heavy presence of emergency services.”Many of those wounded suffered from burns, said Elad Pas, a paramedic at the scene. Emergency medical staff reported that others had suffered from smoke inhalation and cuts from shards of glass. “They were hurting, but were very much aware of the situation,” he said.

Police teams including a bomb disposal specialist combed the surrounding area.At the time of the blast the buses were driving between an industrial area and a mostly Jewish residential neighborhood.The attack comes amid one of the worst periods of violence in Israel in decades. Palestinians have carried out more than 300 stabbings, shootings and car rammings against Israelis since September. Some 30 Israeli civilians and soldiers have been killed by Palestinians, Israel’s Foreign Ministry says. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Merkel’s Road to Moral Surrender Germany’s recklessly humanitarian leader betrays her country’s liberal values. Bret Stephens

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

How does European humanitarianism become a road to moral surrender? In Germany, they’re beginning to find out.

Jan Böhmermann is a German political satirist—think of a younger version of Jon Stewart—who, on his TV show last month, read aloud a lewd poem about Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The verse was replete with mocking references to the Turkish president’s anatomy, his alleged relations with farm animals, and his mistreatment of religious and ethnic minorities.

Was it funny? My wife, who’s German, puts it in the category of “so puerile you laugh.” But Mr. Böhmermann had a serious point, explicitly framing his poem as an example of Schmähkritik, or abusive criticism, and therefore not necessarily protected by German law. His larger aim was to test the limits of free speech, much as the American comedian George Carlin did in the 1970s with his notorious “seven words you can’t say on TV.”

The ploy succeeded too well. The Turkish foreign ministry made a formal request of the German government to prosecute Mr. Böhmermann under a Wilhelmine-era law (known as Section 103 and previously used by the Shah of Iran and Augusto Pinochet of Chile) forbidding insults against foreign leaders. Mr. Erdogan has also filed a private suit against the comedian, who is now under police protection in consideration of the recent fates of European satirists who ran afoul of Muslim sensitivities.

None of this is surprising: The Turkish government is pursuing nearly 2,000 criminal cases against Turkish citizens accused of insulting Mr. Erdogan, some of which involve school-age children who posted material on Facebook. Mr. Erdogan’s bodyguards also recently roughed up some demonstrators protesting him in Washington, D.C. It’s in the nature of political thuggery to recognize no boundaries, moral or territorial.

It’s also in the nature of the liberal West constantly to seek an accommodation with the thugs. ZDF, the German public broadcaster that carries Mr. Böhmermann’s show, immediately pulled the offending clip from its website, though it promises to foot his legal bills. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that she found the poem “deliberately hurtful,” a comment her spokesman went out of his way to disclose. CONTINUE AT SITE

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A New and Dangerous Great Game Peter O’Brien

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

A New and Dangerous Great Game | London Center for Policy Research | National Security, Energy, and Risk Analysis

In 1904, after the long British struggle to control Afghanistan, and the Russian Empire’s efforts to expand into central Asia (and take control from the British), a British geographer, Halford MacKinder, published a paper suggesting that he who controlled the heartland of Asia would control Asia itself, and by extension, the world. In short, MacKinder explained why England and Russia had been vying for control of central Asia, what was known as ‘the Great Game.’ His theory, the Heartland Theory, was popular with the Russians (even before MacKinder gave it a name), and later with the Soviets, and has since been adopted by China.

Interestingly, an American strategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, had postulated in 1900 that Asia could be controlled from the sea. Mahan suggested that control of the Suez Canal and control of Singapore and the Strait of Malacca on one side of the South China Sea (SCS) would give a great power – one with a powerful navy – the ability to control trade into and out of Asia and therefore accomplish the same thing the Heartland Theory later suggested.

In the years following WWII the US Navy had an extensive presence in the SCS. However, the US slowly stopped paying attention to the SCS during the 1990s, following the break-up of the Soviet Union.

In 1947 the Republic of China published a map claiming ownership of most of the islands in the SCS. This map – the ‘9 Dash Line’ – was later taken by the People’s Republic of China as defining their claim in the SCS, and after some minor variations, they have used it to justify their current activities.

But until several years ago the Chinese claim mattered little. In the last several years, however, recognizing the extent of the power vacuum, China has been aggressively building on reefs and islands in the SCS. China intends to control the SCS. A new great game, between two nuclear powers, has started in the South China Sea.

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When Success In Iraq Breeds Terror In Europe By Herbert London President, London Center for Policy Research

Posted By on April 19th, 2016

Notwithstanding all of the commentary to the contrary, the Iraqi army assisted by U.S. Special Forces is putting the Islamic State on the defensive in Iraq. In fact, the Iraqi army is poised to retake the northern province of Nineveh and may soon gain control of Mosul, the province’s largest city and a militant stronghold. This is the good news, but it is not the whole story.

Up until recently the goal of ISIS was to acquire and hold territory, to build a Caliphate under a state structure. However, with that state structure in disarray, the strategy has changed and with it, the potential terrorist danger has increased. It is now the case that ISIS has involved adherents in the spread of its extremist ideas and encouraging acolytes to attack wherever they might be.

The message from the Brussels’ murders reinforces the warning from Paris – four months earlier – that the Islamic State not only has the capability of deadly terrorist attacks in the heart of Europe, but that these attacks are part and parcel of a revised strategic vision.

From outposts remaining in Iraq and, most significantly, in Syria, ISIS can use refugee flows into Europe as a method for embedding terrorist cells. Moreover, these terrorist “sleepers” can easily find “safe houses” in sanctuary neighborhoods like Molenbeek in Brussels. It is estimated that about 5,000 Europeans have travelled to Iraq and Syria to train and several hundred have since returned.