Sex Payouts, Character Assassinations: Trudeau Struggles to Contain Corruption Scandal

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As sordid details of the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal emerge, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are under fire for what many analysts allege were strategic leaks intended to smear Jody Wilson-Raybould.

The former attorney general has accused Canada’s prime minister and top staffers of attempting to interfere in the criminal prosecution of Montreal-based global engineering firm SNC-Lavalin on bribery and corruption charges relating to its government contracts in Libya from 2001 to 2011.

Since the scandal broke in February, Trudeau and the Liberals have taken a hit in the polls, dropping four points behind the Conservatives, CBC News reported in March. And the prime minister’s personal popularity has tanked more than his party’s, dropping six to eight points, with some pundits predicting the growing SNC-Lavalin scandal may be the end of Trudeau’s political career.

In a more unsavory aspect of the affair, Montreal’s La Presse revealed last month that SNC-Lavalin paid $30,000 to Saadi Gadhafi, the son of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, to cover his hiring of prostitutes during his visit to Canada in 2008, according to the National Post. . .

The information was gathered during an investigation of Stéphane Roy, former vice-president of SNC-Lavalin, on fraud and bribery charges, and its publication was allowed after the charges were dropped in mid-February because of court delays, the National Post reported. (Read more from “Sex Payouts, Character Assassinations: Trudeau Struggles to Contain Corruption Scandal” HERE)

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Migrants Hijack Cargo Ship

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By Fox News. Migrants hijacked a cargo ship that had rescued them in the Mediterranean Sea, forcing the crew to set a course for Europe, the governments of Italy and Malta said Wednesday.

Authorities in both countries vowed to keep the vessel, identified as the Turkish oil tanker El Hiblu 1, out of their territorial waters.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said the tanker had rescued some 120 people, and described the incident as “the first act of piracy on the high seas with migrants” as alleged hijackers.

“Poor castaways, who hijack a merchant ship that saved them because they want to decide the route of the cruise,” Salvini, who heads the anti-migrant League party, was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

Salvini said weather conditions in the Mediterranean were not good; it was unclear if the tanker would end up approaching Malta or Italy’s Lampedusa island. But he had a message for the pirates: “Forget about Italy.” (Read more from “Migrants Hijack Cargo Ship” HERE)

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Rescued Migrants Hijack Merchant Ship Near Libya – Reports

By BBC News. Migrants have hijacked a merchant vessel that rescued them off Libya’s coast, ordering the crew to head towards Malta, reports say.

More than 100 migrants aboard the cargo ship are said to have acted after being told they would be taken back to Libya. . .

The EU says the decision to suspend Operation Sophia in September follows a request by Italy.

The mission was put in place four years ago to deter people smugglers and rescue migrants trying to reach Europe by boat. Tens of thousands have been saved.

Lately, the mission has largely targeted smuggling networks as the number of people making the crossing dropped sharply following a controversial deal between the EU and Libya. (Read more from “Rescued Migrants Hijack Merchant Ship Near Libya – Reports” HERE)

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Israel, Palestinian Militants Trade Fire as ‘Truce’ Appears to Unravel

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The Israeli army on Tuesday bombed several targets in the Gaza Strip as Palestinian militants responded with a new barrage of late-night rocket fire, demonstrating that a truce with Hamas rulers showed signs of unraveling.

Tuesday night’s airstrikes came in response to a lone rocket attack. The military said it hit a Hamas military compound and a weapons manufacturing warehouse in southern Gaza. Militants responded by firing another rocket. Israel said both projectiles landed harmlessly in open areas.

The violence, less than two weeks before Israel holds national elections, is likely to become a major theme in the final stretch of a tight reelection campaign for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who indicated the election would not deter him from acting.

Netanyahu cut short a visit to the U.S. and rushed back to Israel on Tuesday to deal with the crisis. After meeting with Netanyahu, Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, ordered an additional troop buildup along the border.

Netanyahu had been scheduled to give a speech in Washington to the AIPAC pro-Israel lobbying group. Instead, he addressed the group by satellite, telling them that over the past 24 hours Israel had pounded militant sites in Gaza on a scale not seen since a 2014 war with Hamas. (Read more from “Israel, Palestinian Militants Trade Fire as ‘Truce’ Appears to Unravel” HERE)

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NARRATIVE FAIL: One of Largest Glaciers on Earth That Shrank Is Growing Again

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In a blow delivered to global warming purveyors, a new study discovered that a massive Greenland glacier that had been shrinking rapidly is expanding again.

NBC News reports that a new study published in Nature Geoscience examined the Jakobshavn glacier, in central west Greenland, the ice sheet’s fastest glacier and largest by volume discharge, and found that as opposed to the situation in 2012, when the glacier was shrinking 1.8 miles every year while thinning roughly 130 feet, over the last two years the process has been reversed.

The abstract for the study notes that the glacier “has been the single largest source of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet over the last 20 years. During that time, it has been retreating, accelerating and thinning.” It links the growth and thickening of the glacier over the last two years to “to concurrent cooling of ocean waters in Disko Bay that spill over into Ilulissat Icefjord,” adding, “Ocean temperatures in the bay’s upper 250 m have cooled to levels not seen since the mid 1980s.”

The scientists note that their information was gleaned from two NASA data sets: the radar altimetry of the Oceans Melting Greenland mission and the laser altimetry of Operation Icebridge. The study states, “Between 2016 and 2017, we observe ice thickening of 20 to 30 m in the vicinity of the front … Repeat Glacier and Ice Surface Topography Interferometer (GLISTIN) measurements in 2018 show that the thickening continued at a similar rate near the front, but has now extended as far as 80km upstream and has spread laterally.”

The study acknowledges, “Over the past several years, ocean temperatures have cooled on the continental shelf in the vicinity of Jakobshavn Isbrae. We find that ocean temperatures in Disko Bay below about 150 m cooled by nearly 2 degrees centigrade between 2014 and 2016.” (Read more from “NARRATIVE FAIL: One of Largest Glaciers on Earth That Shrank Is Growing Again” HERE)

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Activist Reveals the Terrifying Number of Christians Murdered by Islamists in the Past 20 Years

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Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, told Breitbart News that Islamists murdered 70,000 Christians in Nigeria over the last 20 years. He joined Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Dylan Gwinn.

“We don’t always get the press,” said King of many news media outlets’ disinterest in persecution of Christians. “It is absolutely the case [that Christians are the most persecuted faith].” . . .

King added, “A lot of people don’t know that … in Nigeria, probably 70,000 Christians have been murdered in the last 20 years by Islamists, and that’s just scratching the surface. It’s going on all over. There’s a spectrum to the oppression.” . . .

Last Monday, Dede Laugesen, director of Save the Persecuted Christians, told Breitbart News that “anti-Christian bias” across America’s “mainstream media” drives news organizations to downplay the mass murder of Christians by Islamic terrorist groups. . .

People don’t believe that Christians can be persecuted, that they could be slaughtered. Here in the United States, we just have a different sense of who Christians are, but out in the greater world, Christians are viewed as a threat to control and power. What you have operating in Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country — 200 million people living there with 50 percent Christians, 50 percent Muslims — you have two of the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups operating — Fulani militants and Boko Haram, now affiliated with ISIS Islamic State in West Africa — and they are driven by radical sharia supremacist ideology, seeking to spread shariah across the entire country of Nigeria.

(Read more from “Activist Reveals the Terrifying Number of Christians Murdered by Islamists in the Past 20 Years” HERE)

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President Trump Scraps Latest North Korea Sanctions

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President Donald Trump ordered the Treasury Department to withdraw its latest sanctions aimed at North Korea on Friday, rescinding a directive administration officials made the day before. . .

In a move Politico called a “remarkable reversal,” the president tweeted, “It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea. I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!”

The Washington Post noted that no new sanctions were announced by the Treasury on Friday, but the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control did clamp down on two Chinese shipping firms Thursday for allegedly trying to skirt North Korean sanctions. . .

The Trump administration has been in ongoing talks with North Korea in an attempt to convince the country to denuclearize, but the most recent summit between the president and Kim was cut short over a disagreement on terms. Last week, Kim threatened to withdraw from discussions with the U.S. altogether, and resume missile testing. (Read more from “President Trump Scraps Latest North Korea Sanctions” HERE)

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Trump Administration Hits Iran With New Sanctions

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By Daily Wire. On Friday, the Trump Administration smacked the terrorist, jihad-exporting, sharia supremacist Iranian regime with a fresh round of sanctions. . .

The Iranian regime is the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism. Iran is deeply embedded with Bashar al-Assad in Syria, supports the fundamentalist Islamist Houthi rebels in Yemen, supports Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad alike in the Gaza Strip, retains the Lebanese jihadist group Hezbollah as a Shiite proxy, and more generally funds lethal terrorism and sows chaos the world over. The U.S. has not had formal diplomatic relations with Iran ever since the fateful Islamic Revolution there in 1979. (Read more from “Trump Administration Hits Iran With New Sanctions” HERE)

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Trump Administration Slaps New Sanctions on Iran

By Fox News. The Trump administration announced Friday that it is slapping new sanctions on more than two dozen Iranian individuals involved in the country’s nuclear and missile research programs, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced Iran’s growing influence.

The Treasury Department said the sanctions target 31 Iranian scientists, technicians and companies affiliated with Iran’s Organization for Defense Innovation and Research, which is known to have been at the forefront of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

“Individuals working for Iran’s proliferation-related programs—including scientists, procurement agents, and technical experts—should be aware of the reputational and financial risk they expose themselves to by working for Iran’s nuclear program,” the State Department said in a statement on Friday.

The administration’s move to impose sanctions is unusual, because they are not focused on what the individuals are currently doing, but rather because of their past work in nuclear weapons development, and the potential that they could attempt to restart the nuclear activities. (Read more from “Trump Administration Slaps New Sanctions on Iran” HERE)

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Last ISIS Stronghold Destroyed

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The caliphate has crumbled, and the final offensive is over. While the official announcement hasn’t yet been made – Fox News has been told that this village, the last ISIS stronghold, is liberated.

It’s the first time since we’ve been here in Syria for five days that the bombs have stopped dropping and the gunfire has disappeared. We have witnessed the end of the caliphate – the brutal empire that once ruled over 8 million people – is gone. . .

The last five days, Fox News has witnessed the last major offensive up close -– with U.S.-backed SDF forces attacking ISIS from three sides, pushing the fighters back, house to house, then tent to tent, against the Euphrates River. . .

For four-and-a-half years, ISIS held this territory, ruling over it with an iron fist. It was the terrorist group’s heartland – and they were so dug in that the only way to push them back was to flatten whole villages. The devastation here goes on for miles – and craters like this are a reminder of the critical role played by U.S. airpower. Military jets still fly overhead.

SDF fighters are all so grateful to the U.S., not just for their help in the battle, but now for its decision to leave troops here when it’s done. Reports now suggest the figure may be around 1,000 staying. (Read more from “Last ISIS Stronghold Destroyed” HERE)

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2020 Democrats Abandon Pro-Israel Pretense

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The leadership in the Democratic Party used to believe that it was important to at least be perceived as supportive of America’s closest and most strategically important Middle East ally. But aspiring Democratic presidential hopefuls have decided to abandon Israel, as proven by their refusal to speak at next week’s AIPAC Policy Conference.

The list of speakers at next week’s AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., includes not a single declared 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

AIPAC, a bipartisan pro-Israel organization that advocates for the strengthening of the U.S.-Israel bond, is the opposite of a fringe group. In fact, many in the pro-Israel community have become frustrated with its watered-down stances in order to accommodate Democrats’ increasing abandonment of the Jewish state. If anything, AIPAC has become what can be fairly labeled a center-left pro-Israel organization. AIPAC has continuously appeased liberals through its support of the two-state solution and continuing engagement with the Palestinian Authority.

Anti-Israel zealots in the Democratic Party have attempted, with now demonstrable success, to make support for Israel politically toxic. Popular Democratic members of Congress such as Islamist anti-Semite Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have slandered AIPAC, labeling the group a shadowy, nefarious actor that undermines the American political system.

Some Democratic hopefuls have already confirmed that they will not be speaking at next week’s conference, while others have abstained from commenting on their schedule.

Several of the same 2020 Democrats who refuse to attend the AIPAC policy conference unanimously agree that it is essential to re-engage in the Obama-brokered Iran nuclear deal. The deal gave Iran, which openly calls for Israel’s destruction, $150 billion in unfrozen assets and a pathway to nuclear weapons.

Even President Obama, who was very hostile to Israel, spoke at AIPAC, both as a presidential candidate in 2008 and later as president in 2012. At the time, Democrats calculated that it was important to at least be perceived as pro-Israel. During the course of the Obama presidency, top cabinet official spoke at every annual AIPAC conference and stressed their commitment to the US-Israel alliance.

It appears those days are over. The Democratic Party has become an anti-Israel party. And 2020 Democrats’ harmonious refusal to attend a middle-of-the-road, bipartisan pro-Israel conference cements that reality. Scorched-earth leftists are rapidly transforming the Democratic Party into the party of anti-Israel hate. AIPAC, due its unapologetic support for Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state, has officially become politically toxic for 2020 Democrats. (For more from the author of “2020 Democrats Abandon Pro-Israel Pretense” please click HERE)

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New Zealand Announces Weapon Ban

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By Fox News. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Thursday announced the country was immediately banning “military-style semi-automatic weapons” after last week’s attack that killed 50 people at two mosques.

Speaking to reporters, Ardern said that the weapons would be banned in addition to “all assault rifles,” among firearms. (Read more from “New Zealand Announces Weapon Ban” HERE)

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NZ Foreign Minister Headed to Turkey to ‘Confront’ Erdogan’s Mosque Shooting Comments

By Reuters. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Turkey to “confront” comments made by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the killing of 50 people at mosques in Christchurch.

Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday after a lone gunman opened fire at the two mosques during Friday prayers.

Erdogan – who is seeking to drum up support for his Islamist-rooted AK Party in March 31 local elections – said on Tuesday Turkey would make the suspected attacker pay if New Zealand did not.

The comments came at a campaign rally that included video footage of the shootings that the alleged gunman had broadcast on Facebook. . .

“Our deputy prime minister will be confronting those comments in Turkey,” Ardern told reporters in Christchurch. “He is going there to set the record straight, face-to-face.” (Read more from “NZ Foreign Minister Headed to Turkey to ‘Confront’ Erdogan’s Mosque Shooting Comments” HERE)

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