Fidel Castro rebuked President Obama in a lengthy diatribe Monday just days after the president’s historic visit to Cuba.
The former Cuban revolutionary leader published a letter in state-controlled media titled “Brother Obama,” in which he recalled the U.S.’s past efforts to overthrow his government.
“We do not need the empire to give us anything,” Castro wrote.
It was the elder Castro’s first response to Obama’s two-and-a-half-day visit last week, during which the president said he came to the country to bury the final vestige of the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere.
Obama met with Cuban leader Raul Castro, Fidel’s younger brother, but did not meet with the revolutionary leader, who is reportedly in poor health. Fidel Castro handed over power in 2008. (Read more from “Fidel Castro Lashes out at Obama After Cuba Visit” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-29 01:28:172016-04-11 10:51:00Fidel Castro Lashes out at Obama After Cuba Visit
Explosions rip through a group of protesters staging an anti-government peace rally in Ankara, October 2015, resulting in the worst ever single terror attack in Turkey’s modern history. The upsurge in violence helped propel President Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) to a stronger showing in the November elections, but he did not receive enough votes to change the constitution.
Secular and liberal Turks sighed with premature relief when on June 7, 2015, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) lost its parliamentary majority in general elections for the first time since it came to power in November 2002. With 41 percent of the national vote (compared with 49.8 percent in the 2011 general elections), the AKP won eighteen fewer seats than necessary to form a single-party government in Turkey’s 550-member parliament. More importantly, its parliamentary seats fell widely short of the minimum number needed to rewrite the constitution in the way Erdogan wanted it so as to introduce an executive presidential system that would give him uncontrolled powers with few checks and balances, if any.
Undaunted by what looked like an election defeat, Erdogan chose to toss the dice again. At his instructions, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pretended to hold coalition negotiations with opposition parties while secretly laying the groundwork for snap elections. In Erdogan’s thinking, the loss of a few more seats would make no difference to AKP power, but re-winning a parliamentary majority would make the situation totally different. Then a terrible wave of violence gripped Turkey.
First, the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan, PKK), which had been fighting a guerrilla war from mountain hideouts in northern Iraq, declared an end to its unilateral ceasefire begun in 2013. Then on July 20, a Turkish suicide bomber killed more than thirty people at a pro-Kurdish gathering in the small town of Suruc. Claiming that the Turkish state had a secret role in the bombing, the PKK killed two policemen in the town of Ceylanpinar. The three-decades-old violence between the Turkish and Kurdish communities had suddenly roared back with a vengeance. In one of Turkey’s bloodiest summers ever, more than a thousand PKK fighters and Turkish security officials were killed. (Read more from “Beware: All Eyes on ISIS While Ergodan Seeks De Facto Sultanate” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-29 01:27:032016-04-11 10:51:01Beware: All Eyes on ISIS While Ergodan Seeks De Facto Sultanate
As part of an extensive interview with The New York Times posted Saturday, the GOP presidential front-runner [Donald Trump] was asked about China’s aggressive island-building in the South China Sea, and what the U.S. response should be . . .
“I would use trade to negotiate,” he added. “Would I go to war? Look, let me just tell you. There’s a question I wouldn’t want to answer. Because I don’t want to say I won’t or I will… That’s the problem with our country.”
“A politician would say, ‘Oh I would never go to war,’ or they’d say, ‘Oh I would go to war.’ I don’t want to say what I’d do because, again, we need unpredictability. You know, if I win, I don’t want to be in a position where I’ve said I would or I wouldn’t. I don’t want them to know what I’m thinking.” (Read more from “Trump Won’t Say If He’d Rule out War With China” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-28 02:12:082016-04-11 10:51:02Trump Won’t Say If He’d Rule out War With China
At least 65 people were killed and as many as 280 injured in an explosion at a park in the Pakistani city of Lahore, which, according to the BBC, were Christian families out for the Easter weekend. The bomb went off in the early evening when the park was crowded with families.
The Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed responsibility for the attack. “The target were Christians,” a spokesman for the faction said in a statement. “We want to send this message to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that we have entered Lahore. He can do what he wants but he won’t be able to stop us. Our suicide bombers will continue these attacks” . . .
Facebook has apologized for sending out security check notifications to users across the world Sunday after the blast in Pakistan. The feature urges Facebook users to connect with friends and family during disasters to let them know they’re safe. The notification said, “Are you OK? It looks like you’re in the area affected by [the explosion]. Let friends know that you’re safe.” (Read more from “Pakistani Park Suicide Bombing That Killed 65 Targeted Christians” HERE)
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Friday he’s “pleased” to see Iraqi security forces beginning their advance to retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State terrorists, and he said they’re doing it with the help of U.S. Marines on the ground.
Those Marines are providing artillery firepower for the advancing Iraqi troops.
Just five days ago, on Monday, a U.S. military spokesman announced that a 200-strong Marine detachment had been sent to the Makhmour area of Iraq to protect the Americans who are advising the Iraqi troops for the coming battle in Mosul.
The Marines were there for “force protection.” It is not a “combat outpost,” Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters on Monday. But he admitted that could change — and apparently, it has.
On Friday, Carter said, “The U.S. Marines we’ve sent near Makhmour, where Staff Sgt. Carter gave his life, are now providing artillery fire at the request of the Iraqis to help support the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) advance against the enemy and protect their forces. (Read more from “U.S. Marines Providing Artillery Fire to Support Advancing Iraqi Ground Troops” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-26 02:14:072016-04-11 10:51:05U.S. Marines Providing Artillery Fire to Support Advancing Iraqi Ground Troops
By Bridget Johnson. A new video posted online by ISIS supporters shows the Eiffel Tower exploding and crashing to the ground in stylized, video game animation.
The video begins with a river of blood pooling and dripping off a wooden table filled with stacks of American money, guns, knives and bullets.
It’s ripped from a video game, as betrayed by the name of a video game designer with a U.S. company carved in the wood of the animated table.
The video is titled “A message to the Western Kafir [Disbelievers] from the Supporters of the Caliphate.” It’s narrated in English and subtitled in Arabic, and was posted on YouTube and other file-sharing sites.
It included Defense Department footage related to strikes on the Islamic State and news footage of ISIS attacks. (Read more from “ISIS Supporters Release Video With Exploding Eiffel Tower” HERE)
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Belgium Fears Nuclear Plants Are Vulnerable
By Allisa J. Rubin and Milan Schreuer. As a dragnet aimed at Islamic State operatives spiraled across Brussels and into at least five European countries on Friday, the authorities were also focusing on a narrower but increasingly alarming threat: the vulnerability of Belgium’s nuclear installations.
The investigation into this week’s deadly attacks in Brussels has prompted worries that the Islamic State is seeking to attack, infiltrate or sabotage nuclear installations or obtain nuclear or radioactive material. This is especially worrying in a country with a history of security lapses at its nuclear facilities, a weak intelligence apparatus and a deeply rooted terrorist network.
On Friday, the authorities stripped security badges from several workers at one of two plants where all nonessential employees were sent home hours after the attacks at the Brussels airport and one of the city’s busiest subway stations three days earlier. Surveillance footage of a top official at another Belgian nuclear facility was discovered last year in the apartment of a suspected militant linked to the extremists who unleashed the horror in Paris in November. (Read more from “Belgium Fears Nuclear Plants Are Vulnerable” HERE)
Human rights campaigners have condemned Japan’s use of the death penalty after two inmates were hanged, bringing the number of executions to 16 since the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, took office in late 2012.
The executions were carried out on Friday, just weeks before Japan is to host the G7 leaders summit: Japan and the US are the only two G7 nations that retain the death penalty, while European countries are among the most vocal critics of Japan’s secretive executions.
Yasutoshi Kamata, 75, was hanged in Osaka for the murders of five people – including a nine-year-old girl – between 1985 and 1994, according to Japanese media.
Junko Yoshida was convicted of killing two men in the late 1990s to obtain life insurance payments. The 56-year-old, who was executed in Fukuoka, is the first woman to be hanged in Japan since 2012.
Campaigners accused Japan of resisting the global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty in the mistaken belief that the punishment acts as a deterrent. (Read more from “Japan Executes Two Prisoners Amid Protests” HERE)
The Muslim Brotherhood and its various offshoots have chosen 2016 as the year they will turn their focus away from the Middle East and toward the Western democracies seen as ripe for revolutionary activity, says a former FBI counter-terrorism specialist and Islam expert.
The revolutionary jihad movement that swept through the Middle East and North Africa as part of the “Arab Spring” is starting to take root in Europe with attacks already carried out on Paris and Brussels, said John Guandolo.
This movement will eventually spread to the United States, said Guandolo, a former Marine and instructor at the U.S. Army War College who now provides training to law enforcement agencies that want to learn more about the jihadist network in the U.S.
That network is operated, he said, by the International Muslim Brotherhood through its many front organizations. Among them are the Muslim-American Society, or MAS; Muslim Student Association, or MSA; Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR; Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA; and North American Islamic Trust, or NAIT.
Guandolo, author of the book “Raising a Jihadi Generation,” said the Muslim Brotherhood is teaming up with the Black Lives Matter movement to create violent events that will surprise many police agencies in cities across the U.S. (Read more from “FBI Counter-Terror Expert Sees Historic Islam Pivot” HERE)
The Obama administration has spent three years engaged in secret talks with Iran that resulted in the payment of nearly $2 billion in taxpayer funds to the Islamic Republic, with more payouts likely to come in the future, according to a recent letter issued by the State Department and obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.
The administration’s disclosure came in response to an inquiry launched in January by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), who was seeking further information about the Obama administration’s payment of $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to Iran, which many viewed as a “ransom payment” for Iran’s release that month of several U.S. hostages.
The administration’s official response to Pompeo was sent earlier this week, just days after a Free Beacon report detailing a months-long State Department effort to stall the lawmaker’s inquiry.
“We apologize for the delay in responding,” Julia Frifield, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs, states in the letter’s opening.
Obama administration officials first began talks to settle a number of outstanding legal claims leveled against the United States by Iran in 2014. The administration predicts that more taxpayer-funded payments are likely to be granted to the Islamic Republic in the future, according to the letter. (Read more from “Obama Admin Engaged in Secret Talks to Pay Iran Nearly $2 Billion” HERE)
In Brussels police are still desperately hunting a dangerous terrorist after he fled a triple-suicide bombing in the city that left 34 dead, as officials search for news on U.S. citizens who went missing during the attack and medics tend to nine more Americans lying wounded in hospital.
Meanwhile in Buenos Aires President Barack Obama was dancing the night away with wife Michelle at a glitzy state dinner alongside Argentine President Mauricio Macri and his first lady Juliana Awada as part of a two-day state visit.
Despite increasing calls from the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for the President to return home in the wake of the Brussels attack, Obama showed his determination to carry on regardless Wednesday night.
Perhaps as a concession to his critics, Obama said he will be sending John Kerry to Brussels on Friday to express his condolences on behalf of the American people and stand in solidarity with Belgium.
The Obamas also shared at candlelit dinner with Macri and Awada at the Centro Cultural Kirchner, named after Argentina’s former President and Marci’s predecessor, in the country’s capital this evening. (Read more from “Obama Dances While Brussels Burns” HERE)
