Russian TV Shows U.S. Diplomat Decked by Embassy Policeman

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Russian television broadcast footage of a policeman tackling a man the report said was an undercover CIA agent trying to enter the U.S. embassy in Moscow without identifying himself.

In the grainy, approximately 15-second clip, the man exits a taxi and is almost immediately tackled by a policeman who emerges from a guard box and wrestles him to the ground. In the ensuing struggle, the man manages to push himself through a door into the embassy compound, while the officer attempts to pin him down.

The incident, which took place at night on June 6, was caught on a security camera, according to the report shown Thursday on Russia’s NTV channel. The channel didn’t describe how it obtained the footage.

Russian-U.S. relations have deteriorated to a level not seen since the Cold War as the two powers find themselves on opposite sides of conflicts from Ukraine to Syria. In a sign of worsening ties, Moscow and Washington are boosting troop levels that face off against each other on Russia’s borders with the Baltic states, which are all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (Read more from “Russian TV Shows U.S. Diplomat Decked by Embassy Policeman” HERE)

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U.S. Imposes First Sanctions on North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for Human Rights Abuses

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The Obama administration imposed sanctions for the first time Wednesday on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for his alleged role in perpetuating widespread human rights abuses.

The U.S. also blacklisted 10 other regime officials for allegedly helping Kim run prison camps, torture citizens, hunt down defectors, and maintain a nationwide system of propaganda and censorship.

The new Treasury Department sanctions freeze any of the individuals’ assets in the U.S. and prevent Americans from doing business with the blacklisted officials.

“Human rights abuses in the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] are among the worst in the world,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement announcing the sanctions Wednesday.

“The government continues to commit extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced labor, and torture. Many of these abuses are committed in the political prison camps, where an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 individuals are detained, including children and family members of the accused,” he added. (Read more from “U.S. Imposes First Sanctions on North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for Human Rights Abuses” HERE)

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China Says Wants Peace After Paper Warns on South China Sea Clash

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China’s government sought to downplay fears of conflict in the South China Sea after an influential state-run newspaper said on Tuesday that Beijing should prepare for military confrontation.

Editorials in the Global Times newspaper ahead of a July 12 international court ruling on competing claims in the South China Sea by China and the Philippines said the dispute had already been complicated by U.S. intervention.

It faced further escalation due to the threat posed by The Hague-based tribunal to China’s sovereignty, the paper said.

“Washington has deployed two carrier battle groups around the South China Sea, and it wants to send a signal by flexing its muscles: As the biggest powerhouse in the region, it awaits China’s obedience,” the Global Times said.

The paper said China should speed up development of its military deterrence. While it could not keep up with the United States in the short-term, “it should be able to let the U.S. pay a cost it cannot stand if it intervenes in the South China Sea dispute by force,” the paper said. (Read more from “China Says Wants Peace After Paper Warns on South China Sea Clash” HERE)

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Security Ordered Tightened as Death Toll in Baghdad Hits 157

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As the death toll from the weekend truck bombing in Baghdad climbed to 157, Iraq’s embattled prime minister ordered new security measures, including abandoning the use of bomb-detection wands that U.S. experts pronounced worthless years ago.

But security forces were still using the devices Monday evening, as a string of smaller bombings in the capital killed 16 people and wounded dozens more.

Sunday’s suicide attack by the Islamic State group was the single deadliest bombing to hit Baghdad in more than a decade of war and insurgency.

Also Monday, five convicted terrorists were executed in Baghdad, the Ministry of Justice said in an announcement that appeared aimed at restoring faith in Iraq’s security forces in the wake of the devastating attack.

Firefighters and medical teams were still uncovering bodies from the city’s Karada neighborhood Monday morning. Officials said a dozen people were missing and at least 60 of the dead were women and children. At least 190 people were wounded. (Read more from “Security Ordered Tightened as Death Toll in Baghdad Hits 157” HERE)

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OBAMA’S PARTNERS IN PEACE: We Have 100,000 Missiles in Lebanon; “Opportunity to Destroy Israel Is Now Better Than Ever”

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It is now clear to even the most obtuse observers that Barack Obama misled the American people, treated the feckless Republican Congressional leaders like the fools they are, and basically behaved like a Bond villain in ensuring that the Iranian terror state could secure nuclear weapons.

Iran’s leaders continue to celebrate the deal, most recently issuing public statements during an iftar meal to break the Ramadan fast. Each of Iran’s leaders took turns calling for the destruction of the United States, Israel, and the West.

President Hassan Rouhani said the last year’s nuclear deal “was the cheapest way to achieve Iran’s goals and interests…”

…The country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday called for student associations to establish a “unified anti-US and anti-Zionist front” among the Muslim world’s students, Tasnim News Agency reported…

…On a similar note, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig.-Gen. Hossein Salami, said on Friday “more than 100,000 missiles are ready to fly from Lebanon,” according to Tasnim…

…“Today, the grounds for the annihilation and collapse of the Zionist regime are [present] more than ever,” he declared, saying there are “tens of thousands of destructive long-range missiles” from Islamic territories aiming at all of “occupied” Israel… “[and] the opportunity to destroy Israel is now better than ever.”

When war breaks out between Iran and its neighbors — and it will — you can thank Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Their legacy will be apocalypse and their names will be synonymous with death and calamity. (For more from the author of “OBAMA’S PARTNERS IN PEACE: We Have 100,000 Missiles in Lebanon; “Opportunity to Destroy Israel Is Now Better Than Ever” please click HERE)

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Norwegians Discover Way to Defeat American Marines Using Bacon and Small Children

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Hilarious (and presumably true) tale spotted at Reddit and authored by 1nf1del (caution: strong language):

In the U.S. Marines, doing a mock war in the Norwegian city of Trondheim with the Dutch, Germans and other allies, training in urban combat. My infantry unit was positioned in a large soccer field next to an elementary school. Keep in mind there was no actual combat, even simulated; it was mostly just practicing maneuvers and tactics. But we still looked out of place with weapons and gear, etc. It’s f***ing February. In Norway. Cold as balls. Snow up to our knees. Norway obviously has no snow days, so the kids were all in school.

Anyway, so Norway has this most delicious and amazing delicacy, I have no idea what it’s called, but it’s basically a bacon-wrapped hot dog; we just assumed it was called Candy of the Lord. As Americans we were naturally and instantly addicted. You find them at gas stations, and there just happened to be one on the other side of the school where we were camped. A few of my fellow Marines and I requested permission to go to the gas station and we set out on our way.

We made it to right about where the main entrance of the school was, and the doors opened; school was out. There were only a few kids, probably 6 or 7 years old. Lots of talking and laughing. Gawking at us as we walked by, with our guns and huge ridiculous snow suits. One precocious little bugger made shooting noises at us. We made shooting noises back.

And then someone in my group. I don’t know who. God help me I don’t know who…
Someone threw a snowball and hit a little girl in the leg.

And those little Norwegian children unleashed hell.

There was a shrill cry in unintelligible Norseman and the doors to the school burst open. School children flooded out like a never-ending flood of something that never ends. Screeching, smiling, sprinting – how the f*** were they sprinting?? – little bastards were slinging snowballs faster than the laws of physics should allow. It was like that movie Elf. If you can imagine riding in a fast car in a snowstorm and sticking your head out the window. Now imagine the snowflakes that are hitting your face are the size of snowballs. We couldn’t f***ing see. We couldn’t run. We could barely breathe. Holy f***….

We tried to return fire and threw one, maybe two half-packed, shitty snowballs that fell apart in the air, arms flailing like drunk octopi. I am from Texas. We were a unit stationed in North Carolina. We were so outmatched and out of our element, it only made them laugh harder. We were cutoff from our main forces. We tried to perform a flanking maneuver but f*** me they were fast. I think some of them were throwing rocks!

My comrades. I could see them speed waddling in their huge suits back to camp like a f***ed up pair of white Teletubbies, under withering fire. f*** tactics, f*** me, f*** the Candy of the Lord, this was survival! I was the slow one in the group. My snowboots were too big but they were the smallest size they had at Issue g**dammit!! My Marines left me behind.

I tried pulling my hood over my head and keeping my head down. No longer content to pelt my defenseless body with ballistic snow, the enemy swarmed me and dragged me down, cackling like a pack of hyenas descending on a wildebeest. I tried to sling them off by spinning. I came out of one of my boots and fell. I began to scream and plead for them to stop but they neither understood nor gave a single Nordic f***. They literally pinned me down with about five kids on each limb. It was then that I actually thought – oh shit. I’m really in trouble. My snow-mittens were ripped off and flung into trees. They started shoving snow down my suit. Have you ever had anyone drop an ice cube down your shirt?

Well now imagine someone shoveling handfuls of ice cubes down your shirt. It literally shocked the breath out of my body.

They left me laying like a Family Guy accident victim. Moaning and screaming in the cold. Rifle packed with snow and dirt. Boot buried some-f***ing-where. They ran away laughing, jabbering in their crazy language. I lay there trying to figure out just what in the great American f*** had happened.

TL;DR – Norwegians discover way to defeat American Marines using bacon and small children.

LPT -don’t ever, ever get in a snowball fight with Norwegian school kids.

TIL – there are more names for shoving snow down peoples’ clothes than should be reasonably expected.

EDIT – Wow. Thanks for the GOLD and thanks for all the kind words! You guys rock. Glad I could make you laugh with my inadequacies. hahahaha. Worst snowfighters ever.

EDIT EDIT Candy of the Lord= baconpølse, and yes – it was filled with cheese! Very important detail that I left out. Sorry.

(For more from the author of “Norwegians Discover Way to Defeat American Marines Using Bacon and Small Children” please click HERE)

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Bangladesh Attack Shows Depth of Country’s Extremist Problems

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As Bangladesh comes to grip with the horrific terrorist attack July 1 at a café in an upscale neighborhood in Dhaka, the Sheikh Hasina government must focus on shutting down local Islamist militant groups and cooperating closely with U.S. authorities to determine whether the terrorists had operational links to global groups.

The attack, which involved a 12-hour hostage siege, left at least 20 hostages and two Bangladeshi security personnel dead. The victims included nine Italian, seven Japanese, one Indian, two Bangladeshi, and one U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi origin. Three of the victims were students at U.S. colleges.

According to media reports, the six attackers were all Bangladeshi, and five of them were individuals the local police had tried to arrest previously. The attackers had asked the hostages to recite verses from the Koran, and those who could not were brutally tortured and killed, according to survivors of the ordeal.

In the last three years, religious extremists in Bangladesh have stepped up their attacks, systematically murdering liberal bloggers, writers, professors, and activists, as well as members of the minority Hindu community.

The attacks appear aimed at silencing free speech and Islamizing Bangladeshi society.

There also appears to be competition between terrorists claiming allegiance to al-Qaeda and those associating with the Islamic State (ISIS). The Bangladeshi authorities arrested several members of a local terrorist group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, in 2015 for making or attempting to make contact with ISIS.

In another sign of its growing interest in Bangladesh, ISIS recently published a five-page article titled, “The Revival of Jihad in Bengal,” in its flagship magazine “Dabiq,” which warned of further attacks against Westerners in Bangladesh.

Al-Qaeda has also turned more of its attention to Bangladesh in recent years. In September 2014, when al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri launched its South Asia wing (al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent), Zawahiri released a video that assured Muslims in India, Bangladesh, and Burma that the organization would help “rescue” them from injustice and persecution.

In January 2014, Zawahiri released an audio message calling on Bangladeshis to rise up against the state.

The Hasina government has blamed previous extremist attacks on the political opposition. But given the demonstrated ISIS and al-Qaeda interest in Bangladesh, it does not make sense for the Bangladeshi government to dismiss out of hand any connections of the attacks to global terrorist movements.

The July 1 attack was a planned and coordinated event that was at least inspired by ISIS ideology, although ISIS operatives may or may not have directed the attack. Either way, it is clear that Bangladesh has a serious Islamist extremist problem on its hands, and simply blaming the political opposition is not an acceptable response.

Moving forward, the U.S. must insist on fully transparent and joint investigations of this and previous attacks to determine any potential global linkages and how the terrorist networks can be crushed.

Hasina deserves credit for emphasizing the secular principles of the country’s founding. However, her government must now focus on putting into place the security measures necessary to protect those who want to uphold these principles. (For more from the author of “Bangladesh Attack Shows Depth of Country’s Extremist Problems” please click HERE)

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Pope Benedict Says ‘Gay Lobby’ Tried to Influence the Vatican

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Newly released information written by Pope Emeritus Benedict has details of an alleged “gay lobby” he says tried to influence decisions at the Vatican.

Benedict is set to release a book titled “The Last Conversations,” in Italian on September 9. An Italian newspaper was able to access certain excerpts from the book and ran an article about some of the contents. “The Last Conversations” will be the first time a pope has ever judged his own pontificate after the fact.

Benedict’s papacy ended with his resignation — the first pope in six centuries to do so –and he has claimed he did so freely, without coercion. However, in the book, he speaks of a “powerful” gay lobby at the Vatican, and how he worked to dismantle it. According to The Guardian, these men “had their sexuality in common but worked together for their own ends rather than pushing the cause of gay believers.”

During his time as pope, Benedict denounced gay marriage, calling it a “manipulation of nature,” as well as threat to the foundation of society, the family. Official Church teaching maintains that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered,” and argues for the compassionate treatment of gay individuals.

After he resigned in 2013, Benedict vowed to remain “hidden to the world.” He acknowledged that his body and mind were no longer strong enough to hold a position of power and took up residence in a former convent inside the Vatican. Since then, he’s dedicated his time to reading and writing. He also kept a journal during his papacy, but said he plans on destroying it.

The current pope, Pope Francis, recently made news concerning comments he made apologizing to gays on behalf of the Catholic Church. “After many hours of prayer and various consultations, I’ve realized that mere apologies do not constitute appropriate repentance for the Catholic Church’s many sins … I think that the Church not only should apologize … to a gay person whom it offended, but it must also apologize to the poor as well…,” he said. (For more from the author of “Pope Benedict Says ‘Gay Lobby’ Tried to Influence the Vatican” please click HERE)

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Islamist Militants Kill 20 Hostages in Bangladesh Restaurant Attack, 13 More Rescued by Commando Raid

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At least seven Islamic terrorists attacked an upscale restaurant in the diplomatic quarter of Bangladesh’s capital Friday night, killing 20 people and taking more than a dozen others hostage before confronting authorities in a 10-hour long standoff.

Early Saturday, a Bangladeshi commando raid supported by armored vehicles resulted in the deaths of at least six attackers and the capture of a seventh. Thirteen hostages were rescued. Two police officers were killed in an earlier gun battle with the militants.

The Islamic State (ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan area, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist activity online. The ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency posted photos purportedly showing the bodies of hostages, though their authenticity could not be immediately confirmed.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina condemned the attack in a nationally televised speech, vowing to fight militant attacks in the country and urging people to come forward with information . . .

At a news conference, Army Brigadier General Naim Asraf Chowdhury said most of the victims had been killed with sharp weapons on Friday night. (Read more from “Islamist Militants Kill 20 Hostages in Bangladesh Restaurant Attack, 13 More Rescued by Commando Raid” HERE)

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Law Enforcement Sources: Gun Used in Paris Terrorist Attacks Came From Phoenix

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One of the guns used in the November 13, 2015 Paris terrorist attacks came from Phoenix, Arizona where the Obama administration allowed criminals to buy thousands of weapons illegally in a deadly and futile “gun-walking” operation known as “Fast and Furious.”

A Report of Investigation (ROI) filed by a case agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) tracked the gun used in the Paris attacks to a Phoenix gun owner who sold it illegally, “off book,” Judicial Watch’s law enforcement sources confirm. Federal agents tracing the firearm also found the Phoenix gun owner to be in possession of an unregistered fully automatic weapon, according to law enforcement officials with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.

The investigative follow up of the Paris weapon consisted of tracking a paper trail using a 4473 form, which documents a gun’s ownership history by, among other things, using serial numbers. The Phoenix gun owner that the weapon was traced back to was found to have at least two federal firearms violations—for selling one weapon illegally and possessing an unregistered automatic—but no enforcement or prosecutorial action was taken against the individual. Instead, ATF leaders went out of their way to keep the information under the radar and ensure that the gun owner’s identity was “kept quiet,” according to law enforcement sources involved with the case. “Agents were told, in the process of taking the fully auto, not to anger the seller to prevent him from going public,” a veteran law enforcement official told Judicial Watch.

It’s not clear if the agency, which is responsible for cracking down on the illegal use and trafficking of firearms, did this because the individual was involved in the Fast and Furious gun-running scheme. (Read more from “Law Enforcement Sources: Gun Used in Paris Terrorist Attacks Came From Phoenix” HERE)

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