Mutating Bird Flu May Pose Pandemic Threat, Scientists Warn

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A wave of H7N9 bird flu in China that has spread into people may have the potential to emerge as a pandemic strain in humans, scientists said on Wednesday.

The H7N9 virus, one of several strains of bird flu known to be able to infect humans, has persisted, diversified and spread in chickens across China, the researchers said, fuelling a resurgence of infections in people and posing a wider threat.

“The expansion of genetic diversity and geographical spread indicates that, unless effective control measures are in place, H7N9 could be expected to persist and spread beyond the region,” they said in a study published in the journal Nature.

The H7N9 bird flu virus emerged in humans in March 2013 and has since then infected at least 571 people in China, Taipei, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Canada, killing 212 of them, according to February data from the World Health Organization (WHO).

After an initial flare up of human cases at the start of 2013, the H7N9 appeared to die down — aided in large part by Chinese authorities deciding to close live poultry markets and issue health warnings about direct contact with chickens. (Read more from “Mutating Bird Flu May Pose Pandemic Threat, Scientists Warn” HERE)

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Canadian Man Facing Jail Time for Not Giving up Cell Phone; Feds can do the Same Thing at U.S. Borders

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Canadian man Alain Philippon . . . flew into Halifax Stanfield International Airport last week, returning to his home country from the Dominican Republic, and border agents demanded that he enter the password to unlock his phone so they could search it, the CBC reported. . .

Philippon refused, saying the information on his phone was “personal.”

. . .In the U.S., the Fifth Amendment protects individuals from self-incrimination and as the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes, law enforcement generally needs a warrant to compel the unlocking of a phone or computer because providing the password is considered self-incriminating testimony by most courts.

However, as CNET noted, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that cops need a warrant to get a phone password, U.S. border agents don’t need a warrant or even individualized suspicion to conduct a “forensic” search of your phone or computer. . .

Philippon will go to court on May 12, facing charges of hindering border agents under Canada’s Customs Act, the CBC reported. (Read more from “Canadian Man Facing Jail Time for Not Giving up Cell Phone; Feds can do the Same Thing at US Borders” HERE)

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ISIS Video Appears to Show Another Child Soldier Executing ‘Israeli Spy’

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The Islamic State group released a video Tuesday that purports to show the killing of a Palestinian man accused of being a spy for Israeli intelligence.

In the 13-minute video posted online, a militant and a boy dressed in camouflage stand behind a man in an orange jumpsuit kneeling on the ground.

The fighter makes a brief statement in French accusing the man of working for the Mossad before the boy steps forward and shoots the captive, identified as Mohamed Said Ismail Musalam, in the head.

The Associated Press could not independently verify video, but it was released by the IS group’s Furqan media arm and corresponds to previous IS videos.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry declined comment. Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said that it announced earlier this year that Musalam had left for Turkey to fight with IS. (Read more from “ISIS Video Appears to Show Child Soldier Executing ‘Israeli Spy'” HERE)

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“Gifted” ISIS Teen: ‘We’ll Make 9/11 Look like Child’s Play’

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An Islamic State recruit unmasked as a Melbourne teenager has made taunts on Twitter threatening terrorist attacks would make the 9/11 look like “child’s play”.

The boy, dubbed the “white jihadi” after featuring in IS propaganda videos, was previously believed to be British, but was yesterday identified as 18-year-old Jake Bilardi from Craigieburn in Melbourne.

The teenager, a gifted student turned high school dropout reportedly lured by the death cult searching for answers after losing his mother, has been making threats online under an Islamic pseudonym, The Australian reports.

Before his profile was suspended yesterday, he had tweeted about impending attacks.

“What we have in store for you dogs will make 9/11 look like child’s play,” he wrote yesterday. (Read more from “ISIS Teen: ‘We’ll Make 9/11 Look like Child’s Play'” HERE)

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Russian Jets Run ‘Attack Scenarios’ on NATO Ships

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Russian fighter jets have been using NATO ships in the Black Sea as target practice to run “attack scenarios,” a situation that NATO military officials say they are aware of and prepared to defend against if necessary.

In the latest sign of provocation against Western forces by Moscow, Russia is ordering its newest Su-30 multi-role fighter jets to track NATO forces and run mock attack drills to simulate penetrating NATO’s anti-air systems, according to Sputnik, a pro-Moscow news agency.

A NATO military officer said that regional forces are “closely monitoring” the Russian movements and are prepared to defend themselves if necessary.

The Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG2), which is stationed in the Black Sea, “is closely monitoring Russian air and surface activity, and no interactions with Russian ships or aircraft have posed any threat to the safety of the group since the ships entered the Black Sea,” the military official said. “The group is very capable of defending itself and is well protected by a variety of state-of-the-art defensive systems” . . .

SNMG2 “is in the Black Sea conducting regularly-scheduled maneuvers and exercises with Allied national Naval forces,” the officer explained. “This activity is within international norms and will take place in Allied and international waters. All major NATO exercises are announced well in advance and information on our activities is routinely published on public websites.” (Read more about the ‘attack scenarios’ on NATO ships HERE)

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Brits Pledge Thousands to Defend Jihadi John After He Apologizes to His Parents

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By Dipesh Gadher and Tom Harper. Hundreds of donors have pledged their support for an advocacy group that defended Jihadi John and was accused by Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, of being “apologists for terror”.

The group, called Cage, has tapped into grassroots support, raising more than £18,000 [almost $30,000] in the past few days through an online appeal after its bank accounts were closed and its main charity backers were forced to stop funding it. (Read more about Brits pledging to defend Jihadi John HERE)

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‘Jihadi John’ Issues Apology – For ‘Shaming His Parents’

By Ari Soffer. Mohammed Emwazi, the man revealed as ISIS executioner “Jihadi John”, has reportedly written a letter to his family apologizing for “shaming” them – but not for his murderous acts.

According to the UK’s Sunday Times, Emwazi sent a letter to his family – who, since he was outed as the face behind the black-clad jihadi killer have fled Britain back to Kuwait – in which he said he was sorry for the “problems and trouble the revelation of his identity has caused.”

The letter reached his family via a third party from Syria, where Mohammed is based.

But notably he did not express any remorse whatsoever for the gruesome beheadings of a series of western and Japanese hostages, mainly aid-workers and journalists.

Experts told the Times Emwazi’s apology was likely made due to his fear of a belief among some Muslims that those who dishonor their parents go to hell instead of “paradise” after they die. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Boko Haram Swears Allegiance to ISIS

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By Fox News. A message allegedly from the head of Nigeria’s Boko Haram terror group Saturday pledged his group’s allegiance to Islamic State.

The pledge to IS came in an Arabic audio message with English subtitles alleged to have come from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and posted Saturday on Twitter, according to the SITE Intelligence monitoring service.

“We announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims … and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease, and to endure being discriminated against, and not to dispute about rule with those in power, except in case of evident infidelity regarding that which there is a proof from Allah,” said the message. IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has declared himself the caliph.

The message was posted on Twitter, hours after Boko Haram was blamed for four suicide bomb attacks in northeastern Nigeria that killed at least 54 people and wounded more than 140 people. (Read more from “Boko Haram Swears Allegiance to ISIS” HERE)


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Australian Teens Stopped at Airport for Attempting to Join ISIS

By Associated Press. Two Australian brothers aged 16 and 17 were stopped at Sydney Airport on suspicion that they were young jihadis headed to join the Islamic State group, officials said Sunday.

The young brothers from Sydney raised the suspicions of customs officials as they attempted to depart on Friday afternoon, Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton said.


He did not say where the pair were headed apart from a Middle Eastern “conflict zone.” He also refused to say what was found in the boys’ luggage that raised suspicion and led to the brothers beings reported to the airport’s new counterterrorism unit.

“These two young men aged 16 and 17 are kids, not killers, and they shouldn’t be allowed to go to a foreign land to fight then come back to our land eventually more radicalized,” Dutton told reporters. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Russia’s Anti-American Fever Goes Far Beyond Soviet Era’s

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Thought the Soviet Union was anti-American? Try today’s Russia.

After a year in which furious rhetoric has been pumped across Russian airwaves, anger toward the United States is at its worst since opinion polls began tracking it. From ordinary street vendors all the way up to the Kremlin, a wave of anti-U.S. bile has swept the country, surpassing any time since the Stalin era, observers say.

The indignation peaked after the assassination of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, as conspiracy theories started to swirl — just a few hours after he was killed — that his death was a CIA plot to discredit Russia. (On Sunday, Russia charged two men from Chechnya, and detained three others, in connection with Nemtsov’s killing.)

There are drives to exchange Western-branded clothing for Russia’s red, blue and white. Efforts to replace Coke with Russian-made soft drinks. Fury over U.S. sanctions. And a passionate, conspiracy-laden fascination with the methods that Washington is supposedly using to foment unrest in Ukraine and Russia.

The anger is a challenge for U.S. policymakers seeking to reach out to a shrinking pool of friendly faces in Russia. And it is a marker of the limits of their ability to influence Russian decision-making after a year of sanctions. More than 80 percent of Russians now hold negative views of the United States, according to the independent Levada Center, a number that has more than doubled over the past year and that is by far the highest negative rating since the center started tracking those views in 1988. (Read more about the anti-American fever HERE)

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Russia Arrests ‘American Spy’ Gives Him 15 Years Jail Time

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This is the first picture of a Russian policeman jailed for 15 years for handing over Kremlin secrets to the CIA.

Roman Ushakov, 33, from Krasnoyarsk, was found guilty of high treason for allegedly receiving 37,000 euros from his American handlers – hidden in a ‘fake rock’.

The police major confessed to flying to Britain and other foreign countries to meet US agents after making contact with them via a CIA website . . .

He passed to the CIA the identities of around a dozen FSB agents who were posted to ‘closed’ towns and scientific research bases in Siberia where Russian strategic missiles are located, and uranium and plutonium is manufactured.

Ushakov began spying for the CIA in 2009 after being snubbed for a post with the FSB secret service, the court was told. (Read more about Russia arresting the ‘American spy’ HERE)

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Is This ISIS’ Sickest Execution Video Yet?

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By John Hall. Depraved militants fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq are attaching high-definition cameras to the barrels of their guns in order to film barbaric executions in gruesome detail.

The shocking pictures were captured by the terror group’s Tigris River branch, who are currently engaged in fierce battles with up to 30,000 Iraqi Army soldiers and Shia militia roughly 70 miles north of the ISIS-held city of Tikrit.

Still images from the video shows a group of blindfolded prisoners being forced to their knees while heavily armed militants line up behind them. The photographs then cut to the gun barrel cameras, which display in graphic detail the young men being shot to death from point blank range.

The unorthodox camera view and the use of HD equipment give the footage the appearance of a computer game and is just the latest example of ISIS attempting to portray their atrocities in a manner that could appeal to young men and women living in the West. (Read more about the execution video HERE)


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ISIS Allows Militants to Play Foosball on One Bizarre Condition

By Tom Tillison. Taking their obsession with beheading innocent victims to a whole new level, Islamic State militants have issued a fatwa directing Islamic extremist fighters to lop off the heads of the figurines used in foosball games.


Perhaps looking to avoid being tagged as a “no fun allowed” terror group, ISIS has declared that when its fighters are not raping young children, selling women into sexual slavery and beheading and burning alive nonbelievers, they can relax by playing a game of foosball.

That is, under one condition – the heads are cut off from the figurines used in the game. (Read more from this story HERE)

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