Reuters: Cuba Releases 53 Prisoners

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Plenty of us had our doubts as to if it would actually happen, including yours truly. But if the breaking news from Reuters pans out, Raul Castro has carried through and released the full crop of 53 political prisoners under discussion in the ongoing American rapprochement with Cuba.

Cuba has released all 53 prisoners it had promised to free, senior U.S. officials said, a major step toward détente with Washington . . .

You’re not off base at all if you would rather wait until Congress has been briefed and we get this from multiple sources in DC. Getting mixed messages (or outright lies) out of Havana would be nothing new. But assuming this proves true, it shouldn’t be all that surprising. Cuba has a lot on the line in this deal as we’ve discussed here at length. The benefits to Castro and the communist party far outweigh anything we’ll see out of this deal, and if Raul had bailed out on one of the very first agreements he made – particularly one which was so easy for him to make good on with no restrictions on his end – then opponents of this deal would be handed a huge new slug of ammunition to undermine it going forward.

One of the chief complaints I heard when the deal was first announced is still in play, of course. Just because these prisoners were released this week and government leaders had a chance for a photo op, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be picked up again and thrown in a cell next week on “new charges.” But there is at least hope that things won’t play out that way because of the aforementioned need on Castro’s part to keep painting the best face on all of this. (Of course, it still wouldn’t hurt for those 53 to hightail it out of the country by Friday if they have the chance.)

The next goal on the table is to reopen the embassy in Havana and, presumably, the one in Washington also. We heard some strong words out of the GOP when this was first announced, specifically along the lines of, “Good luck getting funding for that.” As the weeks have gone by, though, general public support for easing restrictions has been nearing the 70% mark and I don’t know how many members of Congress are going to want to buck those types of numbers when the total money involved will be essentially a rounding error in the budget. (Read more about “Cuba Releases 53 Prisoners” HERE)

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Obama, Top US Officials Fail to Attend Unity March Against Islamic Extremism

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Photo Credit: Fox News By Fox News. Attorney General Eric Holder is in Paris to attend a meeting on fighting terrorism, but did not participate in a march with world leaders Sunday to honor the 17 people killed last week in France.

More than 40 world leaders marched arm in arm through Paris to rally for unity and freedom of expression and to honor the victims of the three days of terrorist attacks.

The leaders headed a demonstration of at least tens of thousands of people who converged on the capital after three gunmen last week attacked a newspaper office, kosher supermarket and police.

Among the world leaders attending the event, under extremely tight security, are French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Holder is the top Obama administration official to attend the terrorism meeting. Secretary of State Kerry is in India attending an international investment conference and push to trade ties with the giant South Asian nation ahead of visit by President Obama later this month. (Read more about the top US official failing to attend HERE)

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Obama Fails to Attend Unity March as Well

By Newsmax. As many as 1.6 million people marched through Paris on Sunday in a massive show of unity and defiance in the face of terrorism that killed 17 people in France’s bleakest moment in half a century.

The march ended without major incident by 9 p.m. Sunday, Paris police said.

Their arms linked, more than 40 world leaders headed the somber procession, setting aside their differences for a manifestation that French President Francois Hollande said turned the city into “the capital of the world” . . .

Notable for his absence was President Barack Obama. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Blackmail 101: Court File Shows Billionaire Epstein Filmed Prince Andrew, Others with Underage Girls

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Prince Andrew’s tycoon pal may have taken compromising photos of him with the underage girl he is alleged to have abused.

Details buried in original court papers filed against pervert Jeffrey Epstein, 61, reveal that he recorded the sordid orgies he threw for VIPs at his luxury homes using cameras hidden in the walls of guest bedrooms.

The woman known as Jane Doe 3 – said to be 30-year-old Virginia Roberts – claims she was held as a sex slave and forced to sleep with the Duke of York in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands . . .

One of the sexual encounters with the Prince, 54, is alleged to have taken place at an orgy ­involving other underage girls on Epstein’s private island.

The financier, who was jailed for 18 months in 2008 after pleading guilty to solicitation for prostitution, kept a sickening stash of images on a computer seized at his Palm Beach mansion in 2006. (Read more about how Epstein filmed his guests in compromising situations HERE)

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North Korea Offers Nuclear Test Moratorium if US Scraps Training with South Korea

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Photo Credit: Washington TimesNorth Korea has told the United States that it is willing to impose a temporary moratorium on its nuclear tests if Washington scraps planned military drills with South Korea this year, the North’s official news agency said Saturday.

Washington called the linking of the military drills with a possible nuclear test “an implicit threat,” but said it was open to dialogue with North Korea.

The U.S. has previously refused to cancel military drills with South Korea, even at times of high tensions, and has said the North must first demonstrate how sincere it is about nuclear disarmament before serious talks can resume.

The North’s reported proposal comes at a time of animosity between North Korea and the U.S. over a Sony movie depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The U.S. blames the North for crippling hacking attacks on Sony Entertainment and subsequently imposed new sanctions on the country, inviting an angry response from Pyongyang, which has denied responsibility for the cyberattacks.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the government proposed to the U.S. what it calls a “crucial step” to ease animosities and remove the danger of war, prompted by desires to pave the way for a reunification with South Korea this year, which marks the 70th anniversary of the rivals’ division. (Read more about the nuclear test moratorium HERE)

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Double-Agent: Numerous Jihadist Sleeper Cells Prepared to Repeat Paris Attacks Worldwide

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By Perry Chiaramonte. A former Danish motorcycle gangster who joined Al Qaeda, only to become a double agent who claims to have helped the U.S. hunt down one of the terrorist organization’s top leaders, said this week’s attacks in Paris prove that sleeper cells are positioned around the west, ready to carry out fresh attacks.

Morten Storm, who, as an informant for Denmark’s national intelligence agency Security and Intelligence Service (PET), had first-hand dealings with Anwar Al-Awlaki while the U.S.-born cleric was head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said western countries must protect themselves by canceling the citizenships of homegrown radicals who travel to the Middle East to fight or train. Once radicalized, homegrown jihadists can easily blend into society until given the signal to strike, he said.

“Deception is their warfare,” Storm said on a conference call facilitated by the New York-based terrorism research group Clarion Project. “One of the things that these groups believe in is that you are allowed to trick someone into believing that you stand for something else when you really have other agendas. They will act as normal members of western society.”

Storm, 38, who co-wrote “Agent Storm: My Life Inside al Qaeda and the CIA,” speculated that the suspects who launched the bloody, commando-style attack on French satire magazine newspaper Charlie Hebdo are likely among many such Islamist terrorists in position and ready to carry out attacks in Europe. . . (Read more from this story HERE)

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Canadian Prime Minister Says International Jihadists Have Declared War on the West and Must be Confronted


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Islam is preparing our resting place. Western elites are carrying the coffin.

By Don Feder. The response to the latest Religion of Peace atrocity – the attack on a humor magazine in Paris that left 12 dead, 17 wounded — was craven, inane and utterly predictable.

French President Francois Hollande called the murders by jihadists shouting “God is great” and “The Prophet has been avenged,” “barbaric” and (going way out on a limb) “without a doubt an act of terrorism.” He did not specify the type of terrorism – eco-terrorism, narco- terrorism, Basque terrorism? This is unsurprising, as the socialist president was elected with the support of 93% of French Moslems. . .

The president of the United States, now into his sixth year of denying of reality, refused to use the terms “Islamic terrorism,” “Islamic extremism” or Islamic-anything-that-isn’t-nice.” “Our thoughts and prayers” are with the French people, Obama said. He “strongly condemns the horrific shooting” . . .

The problem with the establishment’s Hans-Christian-Andersen version of Islam is that most in the Moslem world who believe in Islam, have spent their lives studying Islam, and live Islam deny it emphatically . . .

In a December 28 speech at Al-Azhar, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took a stern tone with the assembled clerics: “I say and I repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution before Allah. The entire world … is waiting for your next move…because this ummah (worldwide Moslem community) is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost – and it is being lost by our own hands.” But he’s only the president of the largest Moslem country in the Middle East, so what does he know?

Islam is preparing our resting place. Western elites are carrying the coffin. (Read more from this story HERE)

UPDATE: French Police Kill Paris Massacre Suspects (+video)

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By Fox News. Near-simultaneous raids by French police Friday evening at locations 25 miles apart took out the Islamist brothers behind Wednesday’s massacre at a Paris satirical magazine and a cop-killing crony who had seized hostages at a Paris grocery on their behalf, but also left at least four hostages dead, according to authorities and reports from the scene.

The lightning-quick strikes ended two tense, hours-long standoffs, one at a printing plant north of the city and the other at a kosher supermarket on Paris’ east side, where four hostages were killed, as many as 15 were freed. A hostage held north of the city by the brothers, who killed 12 in a commando-style attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, was reportedly freed. The fast-moving developments, signaled by explosions and gunfire at a printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goele, followed by similar sounds at Hypercacher (Hyper Kosher), a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris, brought to a climax a three-day terror ordeal and manhunt involving nearly 90,000 police and military personnel.

Cherif and Said Kouachi, the radicalized French-born slackers whose attack on Charlie Hebdo left two police officers among the dozen dead, were both killed in the first raid. The brothers, 32 and 34, respectively, are believed to have ties to Al Qaeda in Yemen, and military experts who viewed footage of their bloody, late-morning raid on Wednesday said they appeared to be well-trained terrorists. Charlie Hebdo had long angered Muslim radicals with its penchant for publishing cartoon images of Prophet Muhammed.

In Paris, police said Amedy Coulibaly, who is believed to have know the brothers and was suspected of killing Paris Police Officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe Thursday, as she attended to a routine traffic accident in the city, was killed in a raid moments later, ending his supermarket siege. Police had identified him and his longtime girlfriend, Hayat Boumeddiene, as suspects in the police killing, but her whereabouts were not immediately known. Police were searching for another possible suspect who may have escaped the grovery store siege, but it was not clear if that person was Boumeddiene. (Read more about the Paris massacre suspects HERE)

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Excellent Video Synopsis of How the Islamic Jihadists Were Taken Out


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Obama on France Attacks: ‘We’re Hopeful That the Immediate Threat Is Resolved’

By Fred Lucas. President Barack Obama said he hopes the immediate threat in Paris is over, while cautioning that the situation is still shifting.

Speaking after French police undertook twin operations to break sieges where the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo massacre were holed up and where hostages were being held in a kosher supermarket, Obama said the U.S. and France are united in their values, calling France “our oldest ally.”

“We’re hopeful that the immediate threat is resolved,” Obama said. “The French government continues to face terrorism and has remained vigilant.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Iraq is Giving US Weapons to Iranian Militias

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By Joel Himelfarb. U.S. weapons intended for Iraq’s embattled military are winding up in the hands of Shiite militias backed by Iran, Bloomberg reports.

Obama administration officials and U.S. lawmakers say the Baghdad government, which received $1.2 billion in training and equipment assistance in the omnibus spending bill passed by Congress last month, has been turning military hardware over to the militias.

A senior administration official told Bloomberg’s Josh Rogin and Eli Lake that the U.S. government is aware of this but is caught in a dilemma. Iraqi security forces are unable to fight ISIS without the assistance of the militias, who are sometimes commanded by officers of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

But if Washington were to stop arming the Iraqi military, the situation would get even worse, with ISIS overrunning even more of Iraq and committing atrocities on an even larger scale. The official said the risk of failing to help the Baghdad government was greater than the risk of doing so. (Read more about Iraq giving US weapons to Iranian militias HERE)

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U.S. Military Back to Training in Iraq, but it’s a Little Different this Time

By Loveday Morris. Years after the U.S. military tried to create a new army in Iraq — at a cost of over $25 billion — American trainers have returned to help rebuild the country’s fighting force.

But this time, things are different.

With the Iraqis dependent on their own logistics, there is a shortage of weapons and ammunition available for training. For the time being, soldiers at Camp Taji are restricted to shouting “bang bang” to simulate firing during exercises. And, mindful of how Iraqi troops fled their positions last June during a major offensive by Islamic State extremists, U.S. trainers have added some new elements to boot camp. (Read more from this story HERE)

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The Case of the Missing Castro: It’s Officially Been One Year Since the Cuban Dictator has been Seen Publicly

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By Fox News Latino. Today marks 365 days since the former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, 88, was last seen in public — he was a gaunt presence who delicately shuffled his way through an art gallery in Havana.

His absence has been especially conspicuous because so far has he made no comment about the announcement that the U.S. will restore diplomatic relations after more than 50 years of hostility.

Little information about Castro is officially disclosed, including where he lives. But his silence has once again started rumors about his fragile health.

Late on Thursday, various media outlets reported that Castro had died and that Cuban officials were to hold a press conference on his death after a report was published by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera about Castro’s demise.

Cuban officials vehemently denied both Castro’s death and the press conference and the Italian newspaper eventually retracted its story, but not before social media sites like Twitter exploded with rumors of the elder Castro’s death. (Read more about the missing Castro HERE)

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One Castro is Dead. Long Live the Other One.

By David Francis. Around 6:00 this morning, amid a flurry of news on the search for the Parisian gunmen, a curious rumor started to circulate on social media: Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro had died.

Initial reports appear to have come from the Diario Las Américas, an anti-Castro Cuban exile paper in Miami. Soon, German and British media picked up on the story. By 6:30 a.m., Twitter was filled rumors of the longtime Cuban leader’s demise.

This makes sense: News of Castro slipping into the great beyond is shovel-ready for Twitter. The 88-year-old Castro is known to be in poor health and is rarely seen in public, so his death wouldn’t be all that surprising. It also fits well into the current U.S.-Cuba thaw narrative. It would serve as a fitting end to the era of Cold War hostilities.

Perhaps most importantly, Castro’s passing would be sure to spark controversy. He remains a divisive figure for Cubans and Cuban exiles; his passing would ignite debate over whether he was Cuba’s savior or if he doomed the island nation to decades of poverty. What better place to hash this out than Twitter?

Unfortunately for the anti-Castro crowd, the rumor appears to be untrue. But it gained enough traction on social media that the Cuban government was forced to deny that it would hold a press conference to comment on reports. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Paris Suspect in Massacre May Have Been Trained by Guantanamo Prisoner Released by Obama Admin.

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Photo Credit: Fox News By Fox News. One of the two brothers suspected of gunning down 12 people in an attack on a Paris-based satirical magazine traveled to Yemen in 2011 and had direct contact with an Al Qaeda training camp, according to U.S. government sources.

Fox News is told the investigators have made it a priority to determine whether he had contact with Al Qaeda in Yemen’s leadership, including a bomb maker and a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.

Both Said Kouachi, 34, who is known to have gone to Yemen, and his brother, Cherif Kouachi, who served time in France on a terrorism conviction, were on a U.S. no-fly list, sources confirmed. The new information shows both suspects, who were still being hunted Thursday night, had ties to Al Qaeda affiliates, one in Yemen and the other in Iraq.

“AQAP (Al Qaeda’s Arabian Peninsula affiliate) has been the real force within Al Qaeda that’s always been focused on external operations against the West and the United States – the most committed to doing this,” Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News. McCaul has been getting regular briefings about the Paris attack. (Read more about the suspect linked to Guantanamo prisoner released by the Obama Admin. HERE)

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French Police Swarming Paris Forest in Search for Islamic Suspects

By Fox News. French police are swarming a 51-square-mile dense forest in their hunt for the Islamist terrorist brothers suspected of carrying out Wednesday’s deadly shooting massacre at the Paris office of a satirical magazine.

Authorities say the two brothers, identified as Said and Cherif Kouachi, may be hiding out in the Forêt de Retz, a vast woodland described as “larger than Paris,” Sky News reported.

The pair robbed a gas station at gunpoint Thursday near the small town of Villers-Cotterêts, about 40 miles northeast of Paris, a day after they opened fire inside the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people and wounding 11 others, four seriously, police said. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Islamic Genocide: Boko Haram Slaughters 2000 in One Day

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Photo Credit: Breitbart
Islamist terror group Boko Haram reportedly burned down an entire Nigerian village on Wednesday, killing an estimated 2,000 people.

An official told the BBC that countless bodies lay motionless in the street. Senior Nigerian government official, Maina Maaji Lawan, said that the town Boko Haram had raided, one that had an estimated population of 10,000, now became “virtually non-existent.” “It has been burnt down,” he added.

Boko Haram killed an estimated 2,000 last year in its jihad to expand its self-declared Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria, an area with a heavy Muslim population.

If reports are accurate, Boko Haram has just overtaken its 2014 death toll in one day.

The mass slaughter comes after Boko Haram overtook a government military base on Saturday. It is believed that the jihadists launched their attack on the village from the recently-overtaken base. The barracks previously hosted the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), which hosts soldiers from the governments of Nigeria, Chad, and Niger. (Read more on the village Boko Haram slaughters HERE)

Read about Obama stating we must defend against Islamophobia HERE.

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