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Foreign Affairs (News/Activism)

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  • (UK) Defence review: 10,000 troops could tackle terror attacks - PM

    11/25/2015 1:51:55 PM PST · by the scotsman · 6 replies
    BBC News ^ | 23rd November 2015 | BBC News
    'Up to 10,000 troops could be deployed in the UK in the event of a Paris-style attack, David Cameron has said, as he announced £12bn extra defence spending. The PM said ministers wanted to replace the Trident nuclear deterrent, but the estimated cost had risen and completion been put back until "the early 2030s". The number of civilians employed by the MoD is to be reduced by almost 30% by the end of the Parliament, he added. Dai Hudd, the Prospect union general secretary, called this "devastating". Setting out the government's Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), Mr Cameron announced...
  • Obama signs defense bill but blasts Gitmo restrictions

    11/25/2015 1:40:26 PM PST · by jazusamo · 21 replies
    The Hill ^ | November 25, 2015 | Jordan Fabian
    President Obama on Wednesday signed a $607 billion annual defense policy bill, even though it includes language that hampers the closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison. As a presidential candidate Obama pledged to close the controversial detention facility, but has been thwarted repeatedly by Congress, which opposes transferring detainees to the mainland United States. In a rare move, the president issued a signed statement blasting provisions in the bill intended to block the president from moving Guantanamo Bay prisoners to facilities within the U.S. "I am, however, deeply disappointed that the Congress has again failed to take productive action...
  • Erdogan in 2012: Brief Airspace Violations Can't Be Pretext for Attack

    11/25/2015 12:01:42 PM PST · by McGruff · 17 replies
    Sputnik News ^ | November 25, 2015
    Turkey has cited airspace violations as its justification for shooting down a Russian Su-24 bomber on Tuesday. But only three years ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan specifically stated that such actions should "never be a pretext for an attack." In response to the downing of a Russian bomber by Turkish fighter jets on Tuesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that the military's actions were justified. "We did not want this situation to happen, but everybody has to respect Turkey's right to defend its borders," he told reporters, adding that the military's actions were "fully in line with Turkey's rules...
  • State Department: Iran Deal Is Not ‘Legally Binding’ and Iran Didn’t Sign It

    11/25/2015 11:45:47 AM PST · by GilGil · 35 replies
    National Review ^ | 11/24/2015 | Joel Gehrke
    President Obama didn’t require Iranian leaders to sign the nuclear deal that his team negotiated with the regime, and the deal is not “legally binding,” his administration acknowledged in a letter to Representative Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) obtained by National Review. “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document,” wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant secretary for legislative affairs, in the November 19 letter.
  • Obama welcomes an Islamist Trojan horse: Consider who is selecting our refugees

    11/25/2015 11:39:03 AM PST · by taildragger · 14 replies
    World Tribune ^ | 11/24/2015 | Jeff Kuhner
    “President Obama is a threat to our country,” Donald Trump told me in a recent interview. He’s right. Mr. Obama now poses a clear and present danger to America. His stubborn insistence on resettling so-called “refugees” from Syria threatens to Balkanize our country and subvert it from within. The president is willing to potentially sacrifice countless Americans on the altar of liberal multiculturalism. He is gambling with our lives.
  • Amid terror wave, UN adopts six resolutions — all anti-Israel

    11/25/2015 11:30:59 AM PST · by Olog-hai · 35 replies
    INN ^ | 11/25/2015, 2:25 PM | Ari Soffer
    In a move dubbed "surreal" by a leading UN watchdog, and as a campaign of daily Palestinian terrorist attacks continues to target Israelis, the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday adopted six resolutions - all of which bar none condemned Israel. Not a single mention was made of the Palestinian attacks, which have left 22 Israelis dead and hundreds wounded, nor did any other countries - even serial human rights violators such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and others - receive any of the General Assembly's attention. More disturbingly still, five of the the UNGA resolutions were sponsored by the...
  • Isis: Shocking video shows Islamic State child executioner beheading victim

    11/25/2015 11:17:08 AM PST · by detective · 27 replies
    International Business Times ^ | July 17, 2015 | Priya Joshi
    A shocking video has been released showing a child being forced by depraved Islamic State fighters into carrying out the savage beheading of a Syrian regime army officer
  • No future for Jews in Europe

    11/25/2015 10:36:48 AM PST · by No One Special · 21 replies
    World Jewish Daily ^ | November 25, 2015 | unknown
    The chief rabbi of Belgium had some startling comments for the future of Jews in Europe. Amid a terror crackdown in Brussels, where police arrested at least 16 terrorists, and after an attack in Paris that took the lives of 130 people, Rabbi Avraham Gigi said: "There is a sense of fear in the streets, the Belgians understand that they too are targets of terror. Jews now pray in their homes [as opposed to at synagogues] and some of them are planning on emigrating," Gigi said. "Since Shabbat the city has been paralyzed. The synagogues were closed, something which has...
  • Repugnant Religious Litmus Tests

    11/25/2015 10:25:57 AM PST · by detective · 17 replies
    The New York Times ^ | NOV. 24, 2015 | The Editorial Board
    During the terrorist attack on a hotel in Mali last Friday, there were reports that hostages who could recite the Muslim profession of faith were set free; those who could not were killed. That the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, the Taliban or other fanatical Islamist sects measure the worth of a human life according to his or her religious belief is barbaric. Yet the impulse among American politicians like Jeb Bush and Senator Ted Cruz and Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, to offer refuge only to Christians fleeing war is as appalling.
  • West Germany’s Former Chancellor Predicted Europe Would Have an Assimilation Problem

    11/25/2015 10:12:22 AM PST · by markomalley · 11 replies
    Daily Signal ^ | 11/25/15 | Mike Gonzalez
    In 1990 former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told me in an interview that massive Islamic immigration into Europe kept him awake at night. Between pinches of snuff, Schmidt said he worried Muslims wouldn’t assimilate, and that this would become a big problem for the continent.Schmidt’s ruminations are worth remembering following French President Francois Hollande visit to President Barack Obama Tuesday to ask for help in what he has called France’s war on ISIS. Hollande, who has been much more assertive than his host on defeating ISIS, to say the least, has been candid that “complicity from the inside” is...
  • ISIS teenage 'poster girl' Samra Kesinovic 'beaten to death' as she tried to flee the group

    11/25/2015 10:04:42 AM PST · by McGruff · 60 replies
    The Times of India ^ | Nov 25, 2015
    A teenage girl who ran away from her Vienna home to join ISIS in Syria has reportedly been beaten to death by the group after trying to escape. Samra Kesinovic, 17, travelled to Syria last year with her friend Sabina Selimovic, 15. The two became a 'poster girl' for ISIS, also known as Islamic State, appearing on social media websites in images showing them carrying Kalashnikovs and surrounded by armed men.
  • Obama: No ‘credible intelligence’ of imminent attack on U.S. over Thanksgiving

    11/25/2015 9:59:07 AM PST · by jazusamo · 72 replies
    The Washington Times ^ | November 25, 2015 | Dave Boyer
    Saying U.S. counter-terrorism officials haven't uncovered any credible threat of pending attacks, President Obama urged Americans Wednesday to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. "Right now, we know of no specific and credible intelligence indicating a plot on the homeland," Mr. Obama said after meeting in the White House situation room with FBI Director James B. Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and others. "We continue to do everything possible to prevent attacks at home and abroad." Mr. Obama said it's "understandable" for Americans to worry about terrorist attacks following the Nov. 13 killing spree in Paris by extremists of the Islamic...
  • ErdoÄŸan tacitly acknowledges claim MÄ°T transported arms to Syria

    11/25/2015 9:55:35 AM PST · by Trumpinator · 7 replies
    todayszaman.com ^ | November 25, 2015, Wednesday/ 17:32:45 | TODAY'S ZAMAN
    Erdoğan tacitly acknowledges claim MİT transported arms to Syria Syria-bound trucks operated by MİT were searched in January 2014 after prosecutors received tip-offs that they were illegally carrying arms to Syria. (Photo: DHA) November 25, 2015, Wednesday/ 17:32:45/ TODAY'S ZAMAN / ANKARA President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday seemingly validated claims previously made by critics who alleged that the Turkish government was sending weapon-filled trucks to radical groups in Syria by sarcastically asking, “So what if the MİT [National Intelligence Organization] trucks were filled with weapons?”
  • UK-made missile hit civilian target in Yemen, say human rights groups

    11/25/2015 9:41:44 AM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 4 replies
    The Guardian ^ | November 25, 2015 | Peter Walker and Richard Norton-Taylor
    Human rights groups say they have uncovered definitive proof a UK-made cruise missile was used to destroy a civilian target in Yemen in September and have called for Britain to end arms sales to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting a bloody campaign against rebel forces there. Such a use of the missile, made by Marconi and sold to Saudi Arabia during the mid-1990s, was “depressingly predictable”, said Amnesty International, which conducted the investigation alongside Human Rights Watch. According to research at the scene and interviews with witnesses, the groups say the missile was used on 23 September to destroy a...
  • Is Turkey Lying: Rescued Russian Pilot Says There Was No Warning Before F-16 Opened Fire

    11/25/2015 9:26:30 AM PST · by amorphous · 77 replies
    Zero Hedge ^ | 25 Nov 2015 | Tyler
    The conflicting stories over yesterday's dramatic downing of a Russian jet on the Syria-Turkish border continue to grow, and after the ongoing confusion whether the Russian pilot did or did not enter Turkish territory for a grand total of 17 seconds, moments ago Konstantin Murahtin, the co-pilot from the downed Russian jet who survived the ground fire by US-armed rebels unlike his pilot, and who was rescued by the Syrian army, said that contrary to official reports that Turkey had somehow warned the Russian jet "10 times" (in 17 seconds?) that it would fire, Turkey had in fact given no...
  • Ted Cruz Super PAC Responds To Rubio Attack

    11/25/2015 9:20:05 AM PST · by Isara · 19 replies
    Red State ^ | November 25th, 2015 | streiff
    Yesterday we reported on how a Super PAC that has apparently supports Senator Marco Rubio has taken up Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)'s attack line against Senator Ted Cruz. Back in July, Ted Cruz was one of a super-majority of senators who voted to curtail the ability of the NSA to bulk collect the phone use data of Americans. In the wake of the Paris attack, Rubio perceives there is a) a disadvantage to Cruz in his vote and b) highlight that vote and painting Cruz as “weak on terrorism” will work to Rubio’s advantage. I suppose there are GOP...
  • Putin’s Strategy for Mideast Takes a Hit

    11/25/2015 9:12:58 AM PST · by tlozo · 12 replies
    The Wall Street Journal ^ | Nov. 24, 2015 | Thomas Grove
    The downing of a Russian jet fighter by Turkey threatens to disrupt President Vladimir Putin's plan to bring more countries into his antiterrorism tent, as well as any potential rapprochement with the West. Since launching airstrikes in Syria at the end of September that he said were directed against Islamic State and other terrorist groups, Mr. Putin had called on other countries to join an alliance that includes Iran, Iraq and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. The recent terror attacks in Paris created an opening for the Kremlin: Moscow is preparing for a visit Thursday by French President Francois Hollande...
  • tHIS IS WHAT BATACLAN MUSIC HALL SOUNDED LIKE THAT NIGHT

    11/25/2015 9:12:33 AM PST · by knarf · 5 replies
    YOUTUBE ^ | NOVEMBER 25, 2015 | KNARF
    SOMEONE MASKED OUT THE MUSIC AND OTHER PERIPHERALS
  • Furious #Assad/#Putin forces shell the Syrian-Turkish border areas in #Latakia w/ MLRS video

    11/25/2015 9:05:30 AM PST · by Trumpinator · 3 replies
    https://twitter.com/JulianRoepcke ^ | 11/25/2015 | Julian Röpcke
    Furious #Assad/#Putin forces shell the Syrian-Turkish border areas in #Latakia w/ MLRS. https://t.co/xxNb2vrS6r pic.twitter.com/LT5vugEl2M— Julian Röpcke (@JulianRoepcke) November 25, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHgdAbTtwEc #Russia's message to #Turkey: 'If we bomb your allies only meters from your border but stay in Syria, you can't do anything about it!'— Julian Röpcke (@JulianRoepcke) November 25, 2015
  • Breaking Report: Russia bombs the heart of the Turkish-aspired "safe zone" in northern Syria

    11/25/2015 9:01:43 AM PST · by Trumpinator · 32 replies
    https://twitter.com/JulianRoepcke ^ | 11/25/2016 | Julian Röpcke ‏@JulianRoepcke 4h
    #BreakingReport #Russia bombs #Azaz today, the heart of the Turkish-aspired "safe zone" in northern #Syria. pic.twitter.com/jl5aBHllaO— Julian Röpcke (@JulianRoepcke) November 25, 2015 Clear message to #Turkey and the West: "We won't allow you to save anyone in #Syria. Not even 4 km South of you. This is OUR battlefield."— Julian Röpcke (@JulianRoepcke) November 25, 2015