January 16, 2016

Tony Blair: Britain must join EU army, fend off ‘backward-looking’ Euroskeptics
Britain should be part of the proposed EU army and stay in the union despite the efforts of “backwards-looking” Euroskeptics to withdraw, controversial former PM Tony Blair claims.  

Davis: Obama Noted Muslims, Said Nothing of Christians ‘Tried, Tested, And Being Mashed Down’ ‘With His Agenda’
Following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis explained why she opposed homosexual “marriage,” and noted that although Obama defended Muslims in his address, he said nothing of Christians who “are being so tried and tested and being mashed down, literally, with his agenda.”  

Sunrise ‘angel,’ cross in sky photographed same day!
What on Earth is happening in the sky? A series of spectacular images of the sun were caught on camera this week from New York to Hawaii, with some saying they see angels, doves and crosses.  

Burkina Faso attacks: Four Al-Qaeda terrorists - 'including two women' - killed after special forces free 126 hostages in hotel siege
Burkina Faso and French forces killed four Islamist extremists on Saturday and freed more than 126 people to end the seige of a luxury hotel by al-Qaida-linked militants, Burkina Faso officials said. In addition to the four jihadists, at least 23 people were killed in the attack at the Splendid Hotel and a nearby cafe in Ouagadougou, the capital, the president said. Growing number of police chiefs, sheriffs join call to arms
It's Florida Sheriff Grady Judd's duty to protect the citizens of Polk County -- but he figures it's their job, too. One of a growing number of rural and big-city law enforcement officials who openly encourages responsible gun ownership, Judd believes guns allow citizens to defend themselves when police cannot.  

Iran nuclear deal: Minister says sanctions 'to be lifted'
International sanctions against Iran are to be lifted today, the country's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has said. Mr Zarif is in Vienna for talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry over Iran's nuclear deal. The international nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, is expected to confirm that Iran has scaled back its atomic activities in line with the agreement.  

Venezuela economy: Nicolas Maduro declares emergency
The Venezuelan government has announced a 60-day economic emergency to deal with the country's worsening crisis. President Nicolas Maduro will govern by decree for two months. The edict includes tax increases and puts emergency measures in place to pay for welfare services and food imports.  

Tsai Ing-wen elected Taiwan's first female president
Ms Tsai, 59, represents Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which leads the camp that wants independence from China. Although she has not made her stance clear, opponents say Taiwan's relations with China will deteriorate as she does not recognise the "one China" policy. China sees the island as a breakaway province - which it has threatened to take back by force if necessary.  

In historic first, a January tropical storm makes landfall in Azores
For the first time in recorded history, a tropical storm has made landfall in the Azores Islands, located in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean, during the month of January. Alex had been a hurricane from Thursday afternoon through Friday morning, but the storm weakened while transitioning into a non-tropical storm system.  

Xi visit to bolster Saudi-China ties
Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia on Tuesday when he will meet with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman to discuss trade and other ties.  

N. Korea Says It Could Halt Nuke Tests If US Scraps Drills
North Korea said it could stop nuclear tests in exchange for the U.S. scrapping joint military drills with South Korea, while also calling for a peace treaty with the U.S. in an echo of demands that were rejected by Washington in the past.  

Pakistani boy cuts off own hand after blasphemy mistake: police
A 15-year-old Pakistani boy cut off his own hand believing he had committed blasphemy, only to be celebrated by his parents and neighbours for the act.  

Pro-regime forces brace for assault to seize Aleppo
Pro-regime fighters are preparing to launch a major assault to recapture Syria's second city Aleppo, a security source in the northern province told AFP.  

Security forces launch assault on besieged Burkina Faso hotel
Security forces launched an assault in the early hours of Saturday to rescue hostages held by Al-Qaeda linked gunman in a Burkina Faso hotel where at least 20 people have been killed. Communication Minister Remis Dandjinou told AFP 63 hostages, including 33 wounded, were evacuated from inside Ouagadougou's four-star Splendid hotel.  

ISIS just messed with the wrong Islamic country
ISIS's November terrorist attack in Paris might have made a bigger splash around the world, but its Istanbul attack Tuesday might actually prove its undoing. That's because it might finally persuade Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who commands the second largest NATO army after America, to stop playing footsie with this noxious outfit and start dealing with it.  

Saudi ally Comoros breaks off relations with Iran
Indian Ocean archipelago and Saudi Arabia ally the Comoros said it had cut diplomatic relations with Iran over what it termed Tehran's "aggression" towards Riyadh.  

January 15, 2016

Man uses microchip implanted in hand to pass through airport security
A man who implanted a microchip containing his airline booking details into his hand was able to use it to pass effortlessly through security to his flight.  

'13 Hours' Review: Riveting Indictment of Obama, Hillary, and The DC Media
Director Michael Bay’s riveting, heartbreaking, and infuriating “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” opens with five simple words: “This Is a True Story.” What it should have read was, “This Is a True Story The Media Has Covered Up For Years.”  

Obama’s Radical 'LGBT' Legacy – An Immoral ‘Transformation’ of America
Note to AFTAH readers: the following is a list of President Barack Obama’s homosexual-bisexual-transgender agenda “achievements,” produced by Human Rights Campaign, the world’s most powerful and well-funded LGBT lobby organization.  

US turns to UN to screen refugees from Central America
The Obama administration is planning to expand a program to let would-be migrants from Central America apply for refugee status before they attempt to come to the U.S., Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday.  

Al Jazeera America is dead: Network goes dark
The U.S. arm of the Qatar-based news network is closing its doors after three years in business. Employees at its Midtown Manhattan offices were informed Wednesday that operations will cease April 30.  

Claims of Russian arms transfers to Hezbollah worry Israel
Lebanon-based Hezbollah is growing stronger as a result of weapons’ shipments from the Russian military, two mid-level commanders in the organization have said. According to the story, first circulated in The Daily Beast, Russia is directly transferring artillery and anti-tank munitions to Hezbollah without any caveat as to what they are used for, despite Russia’s close relationship with Israel.  

Israel's Netanyahu: Swedish FM's remarks 'outrageous'
Israel's prime minister has denounced a call by Sweden's foreign minister to investigate whether recent killings of Palestinians were "extrajudicial". Benjamin Netanyahu said Margot Wallstrom's remarks were "outrageous... immoral and... stupid". Ms Wallstrom had called for "thorough and credible investigations" into the deaths.  

Al-Shabab seizes African Union base in Somalia
Al-Shabab militants have overrun an African Union military base outside the southern Somali town of el-Ade. The Islamist group says it has taken "complete control" of the AU camp and killed more than 60 Kenyan soldiers. Residents told the BBC that al-Shabab had raised its flag at a camp for Kenyan troops and said insurgents had paraded bodies through the town.  

Haredi Orthodox school in London ordered to close
Britain’s Department for Education has ordered a haredi Orthodox school in north London to close by next month. The school...encourages “cultural and ethnic insularity because it is so narrow and almost exclusively rooted in the study of the Torah...Inspectors said the school was founded to prevent students from “developing a wider, deeper understanding of different faiths, communities, cultures and lifestyles, including those of England.”  

Western Europe Jewish migration to Israel hits all-time high
Jewish immigration to Israel from western Europe has reached an all-time high as a result of a rise in anti-Semitic attacks, a leading nonprofit group said Thursday, as France's beleaguered Jewish community grapples with whether to refrain from donning Jewish skull caps for their own safety.  

Goldman Sachs in $5.1 billion toxic mortgage settlement
Goldman Sachs is still spending big money to clean up shady deals that fueled the financial crisis.  

Angry Residents Voice Earthquake Concerns at Edmond Forum
Angry residents in this Oklahoma City suburb chastised policymakers on Thursday for not taking action sooner to restrict oil and gas wastewater injection wells that have been linked to a dramatic rise in earthquakes.  

Hurricane Alex forms in Atlantic, first in January in 78 years
A rare winter hurricane, Alex, formed Thursday in the Atlantic, taking shape well after the end of hurricane season and becoming the first such storm to arise in January in 78 years.Hurricane Alex, with maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour, is projected to head almost straight north, a track that would pose no threat to the United States. At 10 p.m. Thursday, the storm was about 1,100 miles off the coast of Morocco, a position that put it closer to Africa than North America, according to the National Hurricane Center.  

Gitmo detainee vowed to kill as many Americans as possible upon release - Obama releases him
If you watched the State of the Union address, you know that closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay is still a top priority for President Obama. Despite signing a closure order way back in January of 2009, the Commander in Chief has failed to follow through and the facility remains open. Now, the clock is ticking and Obama has stepped up the release of Gitmo inmates. In just the last two weeks, he’s unshackled another four prisoners.  

Palestine - Obama’s Ignorance Becomes His Nemesis
President Obama enters his final year as President having given up on trying to resolve the Jewish-Arab conflict - following in the footsteps of so many other American Presidents whose similarly-shared lofty and noble aspirations ended in abject failure.  

Al Jazeera America going dark after less than three years on-air
When fossil fuel-phobic Al Gore sold his “Current TV” network to Al Jazeera, we noted the oil-based irony and mourned the passing of our favorite primetime lineup. After all, Current had been home to crackpots like Keith Olbermann and Dating Game contestants like Jennifer Granholm for the better part of ten years. That kind of crazy is hard to come by and we knew that we wouldn’t see anything quite like Current again. MSNBC does it’s best to fill the void, but it’s just not the same.  

After Kerry thanks them for ‘appropriate response,’ his Iranian BFFs air hostage video
You’ve heard of the Geneva Convention, right? Both the U.S. and Iran are signatories to it (unlike, say, Al Qaeda or ISIS), and signatories agree among other things that when they detain people from other nations for border incursions, they will not release photos or other images of them for the purpose of humiliating them.  

January 14, 2016

IDF readying itself for threat from ISIS in the Sinai
The Islamic State terror organization's forces have been combating Egyptian forces for some time, but Israel is now preparing for the possible day when the fighting crosses its border. A tense kind of quiet has characterized the Israel-Egypt border for the past year. The desert area has seen the threat of the Islamic State group grow in that time, leading the IDF to realize that it could end up affecting Israel directly...  

Kathy Niakan: Scientist makes case to edit embryos
A scientist has been making her case to be the first in the UK to be allowed to genetically modify human embryos. Dr Kathy Niakan said the experiments would provide a deeper understanding of the earliest moments of human life and could reduce miscarriages. The regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), will consider her application on Thursday.  

Turkey car bomb hits police HQ near Diyarbakir
A car bomb blast has hit a police headquarters in south-eastern Turkey, killing six people and wounding at least 39, officials say. Five civilians including a baby were among the dead. Rescuers searched the rubble for survivors at the scene in Cinar district, Diyarbakir province. Officials blamed the blast on Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) militants, who are active in the mainly Kurdish province.  

Al-Qaida chief called for Islamic Caliphate in East Asia prior to Indonesia attacks
On Wednesday, a few hours before Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, witnessed multiple explosions, al-Qaida's media institution, Al-Sahab, released a video of al-Qaida's leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, urging jihadists in Nusantara (an Indonesian term used by jihadists to describe East Asia) to "exert efforts to eliminate the secular regimes in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines and replace them with Islamic regimes based on Sharia."  

IRS May Still Be Targeting Conservative Groups
Serious internal control flaws mean the IRS may still be unfairly selecting Americans for an audit “based on an organization’s religious, educational, political, or other views,” according to a pair of reports released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO)  

Canadians Panic As Food Prices Soar On Collapsing Currency
As regular readers are no doubt acutely aware, Canada is struggling through a dramatic economic adjustment, especially in Alberta, the heart of the country’s oil patch. Amid the ongoing crude carnage the province has seen soaring property crime, rising food bank usage and, sadly, elevated suicide rates, as Albertans struggle to comprehend how things up north could have gone south (so to speak) so quickly.  

Iran’s Humiliation Of Barack Obama Is Now Complete
This was no friendly maritime assist by Iran. It was a coordinated humiliation of Barack Obama by a regime that has embarrassed the president at every turn.  

Kerry reveals how close Iran is to satisfying nuke deal
Iran could comply with last summer's nuclear deal as early as Friday or this weekend, officials said, requiring the United States and other nations to immediately suspend billions of dollars' worth of economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.  

Suicide bombers attack Jakarta Starbucks, other locations
At least three suicide bombers exploded themselves in a Starbucks cafe in downtown Jakarta on Thursday while two gunmen attacked a police post nearby, a witness told The Associated Press. TVOne, a local television network, reported three other explosions in other parts of the city.  

North Korea says nuclear test shows it could 'wipe out' US
North Korea's U.N. mission claimed Wednesday that its successful nuclear bomb test showed that it could now "wipe out" the United States, as the U.N. Security Council grappled with a response to the underground blast.  

Police State: No to Protection, Yes to Suppression
The United States Supreme Court has ruled a number of times that law enforcement cannot protect you. They are there to take a report after a crime is committed. Reality suggests that the police are unable to protect you without compromising your freedom as an individual. To “anticipate” crime and arrest based on a condition of anticipation, before any crime is actually committed, would be to dwell in the realm of Orwellian government where thought crime reigns. Nonetheless, pre-crime suppression has been trying to rear its ugly head, through crime assessment technology, and hate-speech laws.  

SOTU: Obama Ignores San Bernardino, Singles Out Muslim as Victims
Although the biggest terror attack in America since 9/11 happened less than two months ago, because they are as eager to engage in the cover-up as President Obama, the DC Media is not at all interested in pointing out the fact, or pressing the White House on the question of why Obama failed to mention the San Bernardino terror attack during his State of the Union address. He did, however, absurdly single out Muslims as victims of American discrimination:  

Obama administration to expand number of refugees admitted to U.S.
In a speech at the National Defense University, Kerry said the expansion of the Refugee Admissions Program will be directed toward people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, to “offer them a safe and legal alternative to the dangerous journey many are currently tempted to begin, making them easy prey for human smugglers who have no interest but their own profits.”  

Why BDS can’t win
If the aim of BDS was to ruin Israel economically, the nail in their coffin came with the official announcement that Israel’s debt burden fell to below 65% in 2015.  

January 13, 2016

Following Incendiary Remarks, Israel Slams Doors on Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom
Following an accusation by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström alleging that Israel carries out “extrajudicial executions” of Palestinian terrorists, her Israeli counterpart Tzipi Hotovely said that Israel is “closing its doors to official visits from Sweden.”  

Earthquake jolts Jammu and Kashmir
Srinagar: An earthquake of 5.8 magnitude on the Richter scale jolted Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, forcing panicky residents in various cities and towns to run out of their homes onto the streets.  

Rev. Graham on SOTU: ‘Our Nation is Broken – It’s Broken Morally, It’s Broken Spiritually, It’s Broken Politically’
In anticipation of President Barack Obama’s last State of the Union Address on Tuesday night, Rev. Franklin Graham said he could already reveal the condition of our nation – it is broken, morally, spiritually, politically, and racially. The reverend added that he hoped President Obama would “turn to God for wisdom and direction” in leading America for his last 12 months in office.  

Iran frees US sailors held in Gulf - state television
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have released 10 US sailors held for entering its territorial waters in the Gulf, state television reported. They were detained on Tuesday after one of their two vessels broke down during a training mission, the US says. A statement read on state media said the group was released into international waters after apologising.  

Turkey: 'IS suicide bomber' kills 10 in Istanbul Sultanahmet district
A suspected member of the Islamic State (IS) group has killed 10 people, at least eight of them German tourists, in a suicide bomb attack in the Turkish city of Istanbul, officials say. They say the Syrian national carried out the attack in the Sultanahmet district, near the famous Blue Mosque. Fifteen people were wounded, many of them also German.  

Bomb near Pakistan polio centre 'kills 15'
At least 15 people have been killed in a suspected suicide bombing outside a polio vaccination centre in the south-western Pakistani city of Quetta. Many of the casualties are thought to have been police guarding the clinic. Armed guards are routine for polio workers in Pakistan, who have been the target of many deadly attacks by Islamist militants in recent years.  

ISIS affiliate in Sinai threatens to stop Jordan's natural gas supply
In the...weekly newspaper, Al-Nabah...ISIS directly threatened Jordan's king Abdullah II, saying that: "Jordan's apostate ruler will have natural gas only with the permission of Amir al-Mu'minin [ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi]." On January 8, the ISIS branch in Egypt, Sinai Province, attacked the El-Arish pipeline to Jordan, blowing up the pipeline which carries gas from Egypt to the Hashemite Kingdom.  

US church pension board blacklists Israeli banks
The United Methodist Church...numbering over seven million members in the United States, announced on Tuesday that its pension board will not invest in five Israeli banks in protest of their role in financing Israeli settlement activity beyond the 1967 Green Line. The move is considered a victory for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, an ad hoc campaign driven by pro-Palestinian supporters...  

CCRKBA To Obama: “Fill Empty Seat With Someone Who Used Gun To Save Lives
BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today challenged President Barack Obama’s use of an empty chair in the Guest Box at tonight’s State of the Union speech to signify victims of gun violence, suggesting instead that the chair could be filled by someone who used a gun to save lives.  

Reds Exploiting Blacks: The Roots of Black Lives Matter
The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) casts itself as a spontaneous uprising born of inner city frustration, but is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded communist/socialist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades. Its agitation has provoked police killings and other violence, lawlessness and unrest in minority communities throughout the U.S. If allowed to continue, that agitation could devolve into anarchy and civil war. The BLM crowd appears to be spoiling for just such an outcome.  

Electric Cars Left Behind As Oil Price Plunges
Plug-in electric vehicles failed to win over U.S. consumers amid the auto industry’s record sales in 2015, as low gasoline costs and daunting sticker prices damped demand. Americans bought just 102,600 such vehicles in 2015, a 17 percent decline from the previous year, according to researcher Autodata. Persuading car buyers to choose electric got more difficult as gasoline slid to $2 a gallon by the end of last year. “Why should I go electric and pay more when gas is so cheap?” Ludwig Willisch, chief executive officer of BMW of North America, said in an interview. —Dana Hull, Bloomberg, 6 January 2016  

Israel, the West, and the Migration Challenge
In 2015, mass migration, whether it be of refugees from war-torn areas or simply jobseekers, became a leading issue in many Western democracies. In the United States, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is riding a wave of popular antagonism toward immigration. In Switzerland, the Swiss People’s Party, which demands limitations on immigration, won a decisive victory in the October elections.  

Obama: Sure I’ve divided the country, but it’s not, like, ‘Civil War divided’
When Obama took office, he promised to be a great uniting force. He swore up and down that he would heal racial, economic, and social wounds, bringing the United States into a new golden era of cooperation and brotherhood. That didn’t happen. Almost from day one, with his “Republicans can sit in the back of the bus” comment, Obama proved to be one of the most divisive political figures in American history.  

5.6-magnitude earthquake jolts Afghanistan
Afghanistan was once jolted by another earthquake in the early hours of Wednesday morning, four days after a mild earthquake jolted different parts of the country including capital Kabul.  

January 12, 2016

Scientists may have just discovered Einstein’s gravitational waves
Rumors are circulating that scientists have finally discovered gravitational waves – one of the most important variables in Albert Einstein’s understanding of how the universe works. If confirmed, the observations could become the biggest leap in physics in a hundred years.  

Clinton Email Outlined Plan to Spark Arab-Spring Style Protests Against Israel
a former US diplomat suggested to Clinton that she push the Palestinians to form Arab Spring-like protests against Israel to push the government to make fresh overtures towards a two-state solution. Thomas Pickering, a former US ambassador to Israel, wrote to Clinton on December 18, 2011 that she should recommend sparking Palestinian demonstrations, led by female protesters, to force Israel to re-enter peace negotiations.  

Pope Francis Says All Major Religions Are Paths To Same God
A new video has just been released in which Pope Francis very clearly expresses his belief that all of the major religions are different paths to the same God. He says that while people from various global faiths may be "seeking God or meeting God in different ways" that it is important to keep in mind that "we are all children of God". This is the most recent example that shows that the Pope has completely abandoned any notion that a relationship with God is available only through Jesus Christ.  

Hezbollah: Russia is arming us
Russia is providing Hezbollah with heavy weaponry, according to two of the Lebanese terrorist organization's field commanders. The militants, who spoke with reporters from US media outlet The Daily Beast, said that they are receiving the arms with "no strings attached" and that as far as the Syrian civil war goes, the Assad regime, Hezbollah, Iran and Russia are operating in complete concert with one another.  

Google Chairman Thinks AI Can Help Solve World's ‘Hard Problems’
Google’s chairman thinks artificial intelligence will let scientists solve some of the world’s "hard problems," like population growth, climate change, human development, and education. Rapid development in the field of AI means the technology can help scientists understand the links between cause and effect by sifting through vast quantities of information, said Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc....  

Report: US-led coalition bombs ISIS 'bank' housing 'millions of dollars'
An ISIS storage facility housing "millions of dollars" in cash was bombed by US-led coalition forces in the Iraqi city of Mosul, AFP reported Monday. "We estimate in the millions of dollars... from all their illicit stuff: oil, looting, extortion," a US defense official told AFP on the condition of anonymity.  

ISIS obsessed with launching 9/11-style attack using weaponized drones
A British thinktank says terror groups like Islamic State can easily outfit commercially-available drones with weapons in order to to carry out large-scale terror attacks. ...“Islamic State is reportedly obsessed with launching a synchronized multi-drone attack on large numbers of people in order to recreate the horrors of 9/11,”...noting that "the technology of remote-control warfare is impossible to control."  

Blast in central Istanbul tourist area leaves several killed
Ten people were killed and fifteen others were wounded after a large explosion rocked a central Istanbul square on Tuesday, a statement from the Istanbul governor's office said. Investigations were being conducted into the type of explosive which caused the blast and those responsible, the governor's office statement said.  

U.S. may send strategic assets, but not warheads, to South Korea
The United States and South Korea are discussing deploying more U.S. "strategic assets" to the region after North Korea's atomic test last week but not restoring U.S. nuclear arms to the South, a U.S. official said on Monday.  

Putin Says Sheltering Assad Would Be Easier Than Snowden Asylum
President Vladimir Putin said giving refuge to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad would be much easier than it was for Russia to grant asylum to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, though he dismissed the idea as “premature” in an interview with German newspaper Bild.  

Exposing Major PC Cover-up in Sweden – Leading Daily Dagens Nyheter Refused to Write About Cologne-like Sex Crimes in Central Stockholm
The Cologne sex assault on New Year’s Eve, where groups of Arab and North African men groped more than a hundred German women, has shocked Europe this last week. But a very similar incident, with a large number of perpetrators and victims, took place in the Swedish capital last summer. That incident however was silenced by large Swedish newspapers and media companies, despite repeated attempts from police officers to contact journalists. This is how leading Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter tried to cover up a politically inconvenient sex assault story.  

The State of the Nation: A Dictatorship Without Tears
There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”—Aldous Huxley.  

GOP Congress Critters would rather watch the USA die than give up Power and extreme Wealth
With ongoing acts of patent lunacy—or the darker reason…collaboration—the Republican-controlled US Congress refuses to remove the cancer eating away at Washington D.C. just as the Democrats have done for decades. Instead, the aforementioned Congress seems to prefer the ultimate demise-for-lack-of-proper-care that will soon be the cause of death.  

Half of US shale drillers may go bankrupt: Oppenheimer's Gheit
Half of U.S. shale oil producers could go bankrupt before the crude market reaches equilibrium, Fadel Gheit, said Monday. The senior oil and gas analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. said the "new normal oil price" could be 50 to 100 percent above current levels. He ultimately sees crude prices stabilizing near $60, but it could be more than two years before that happens.  

Philly mayor: Cop shooting ‘in the name of Islam’ had nothing to do with Islam
Let’s start with the good news: If all ISIS sympathizers are such bad shots, we might not have as much reason for concern as we thought. How you fire 13 times into a car at point-blank range without killing your target is beyond me. But thank God, 33-year-old officer Jesse Hartnett is OK, and suspect Edward Archer’s assault in the name of Islam drew blood but still ended up a spectacular failure.  

Sacrificed In Benghazi
The crux of President Obama's campaign was that he sent terrorists packing. Apparently, the survival of the Obama Administration was more important than the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods, Glen Doherty.  

January 11, 2015

Magnitude 6.1 quake strikes west of Hokkaido, Japan: USGS
A magnitude 6.1 quake struck in the ocean 75 km (47 miles) south of the town of Rishiri on the Japanese island of Hokkaido early on Tuesday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It put the depth of the quake at 236 km, and originally reported the magnitude at 6.3.  

6.9 magnitude earthquake strikes off Indonesian Moluccas
A 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck on Monday, around 330 km (205 miles) north-northwest of Indonesia's Molucca islands, the US Geological Survey said. The USGS said the quake was 102 km deep. The NOOA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that, based on available information, "a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected".  

Was this the most foul-mouthed Golden Globes yet? And was all the free booze to blame?
It is supposed to be a night of glitz and glamour, with celebrities arriving in elegant gowns and suave suits to celebrate the great and good of the film industry. But this year's Golden Globes was more obscene than graceful, with celebrities swearing in nigh on every speech.  

Madaya Syria: Aid convoy enters besieged town
An aid convoy has begun entering the besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Madaya with enough food to last 40,000 people for a month, the UN says. Residents have been trapped there for six months by a government blockade and have received no aid since October.  

China's yuan spikes higher, but stocks tumble
China guided its yuan currency higher on Monday, and offshore it surged against the dollar, spurred by what traders called aggressive intervention by Beijing, although Chinese stocks tumbled again as doubts persisted over policymakers' intent. Perceived mis-steps by China's authorities have stoked concerns in global markets that Beijing might lose its grip on economic policy...  

Hitler's Mein Kampf sells out instantly after being published in Germany for first time in 70 years
A controversial critical edition of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf has sold out instantly after going on sale in German bookshops for the first time in 70 years. Demand for the 2,000-page annotated version of the inflammatory text that hit bookstores on January 8 massively exceeded supply, with 15,000 advance orders for an initial print run of just 4,000 copies.  

Human-Animal Chimeras Are Gestating on U.S. Research Farms
Braving a funding ban put in place by America’s top health agency, some U.S. research centers are moving ahead with attempts to grow human tissue inside pigs and sheep with the goal of creating hearts, livers, or other organs needed for transplants. The effort to incubate organs in farm animals is ethically charged because it involves adding human cells to animal embryos in ways that could blur the line between species.  

Isis 'ran sophisticated immigration operation' on Turkey-Syria border
Islamic State ran a sophisticated immigration operation through a Syrian border town with Turkey until its defeat in the area by Kurds this summer... Passenger manifests...carry the stamps of Isis’s “department of immigration” and “department of transport”. They show that buses passed through the town having submitted the names, dates of births, ID numbers and even birthplace of scores of travellers.  

Car Insurers Find Tracking Devices Are a Tough Sell
In a lab at Progressive Corp....managers and technicians...watch a colleague drive from his home outside Cleveland to the city zoo. A dot on a computer screen moves along a map overlaid with speed limits, turning red when the driver is speeding. ..The catch is the industry needs its customers’ consent to gather the information, and many customers are wary.  

The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat ‘score’
While officers raced to a recent 911 call...a police operator in headquarters consulted software that scored the suspect’s potential for violence... The program scoured billions of data points, including arrest reports, property records, commercial databases, deep Web searches and the man’s social- media postings. It calculated his threat level as the highest of three color-coded scores: a bright red warning.  

Al-Qaida warns Saudi Arabia it will pay for executing militants
Al-Qaida has warned Saudi Arabia it will pay for the executions of dozens of its members, saying they were intended to be a new year's gift to Riyadh's Western allies aimed at consolidating the rule of the Saud dynasty. Though it was the killing of a Shi-ite cleric...sparked a crisis between Saudi Arabia and...Iran, most of the 47 executed were al-Qaida militants convicted of bombings and gun attacks...  

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb threatens to attack Rome, Naples and Madrid
...On January 6, the media institute of the al-Qaida-affiliated organization released a video titled "From the Desert's depth," in which the Malian fighter, Abu Basir al-Bamari...urged the Muslims...to "fight against the French infiltrators" in order to restore Sharia law in the country. To achieve its aim...the organization threatened to attack the West: "We will strike them in Naples, in Rome, in Madrid. The blasts will be everywhere."  

Mexican drug boss 'Chapo' Guzman loves his mom, feels no remorse
Notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman feels neither remorse nor responsibility for smuggling billions of dollars worth of drugs into the United States, and does not consider himself a violent man despite countless murders blamed on him.  

Canadian pastor jailed by N. Korea struggles with hard labour
A 60-year-old Canadian pastor, jailed for life with hard labour in North Korea, says he spends his days digging holes in an orchard in a prison camp where he is the sole inmate.  

Putin defends Russia's recent aggression, blames US and Europe for rising tensions
Germany's leading newspaper Bild has published an exclusive interview with Russia's president Vladimir Putin. In partnership with Bild, Business Insider has published an English translation below.  

Mayor denounces rape of woman by five men in New York playground
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday denounced the rape of a woman by five men at a Brooklyn playground, pledging police would work to swiftly apprehend the suspects in "this vicious crime."  

US bomber flies over S. Korea as show of force against North
The US sent a heavy bomber over South Korea on Sunday in a show of force as North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un insisted his country's latest nuclear test was carried out in self-defence.  

Netanyahu leading effort to thwart Obama bid for U.N. chief
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly is planning payback for President Obama’s dismissing Mr. Netanyahu’s objections to the Iran nuclear deal last year. Mr. Netanyahu is said to be rallying moderate Arabs to thwart Mr. Obama’s bid to become the Secretary-General of the United Nations after he leaves the White House next year.  

January 10, 2016

Obama’s Constitutional Overreach… and Israel
Netanyahu isn’t the only one the administration sneers at It sneers at the American public and at members of Congress as well. And in so doing, it sneers at and deliberately breaks US law and tramples the US Constitution.  

China Goes Full Keynesian-tard: Demolishes Never-Used Just-Built Skyscraper
"Growth" meet "mal-investment boom-bust" In a perfect example of the smoke-and-mirror-ness of China's credit-fueled expansion, a 27-storey high-rise building which was completed on November 15th 2015 was just demolished, "having been left unused for too long."  

Lawmakers to Obama: ‘Stop importing the threat’
Now that two ISIS operatives who entered the U.S. as Iraqi refugees have been arrested on terror-related charges, the heat is sure to get turned up in the debate over the “vetting” of Muslim refugees and whether it is even possible to screen them for terrorist ties.  

Producer of New A&E Show on Antichrist: 'People Feel Like These are the End Times'
When asked by the Hollywood Reporter why there is renewed interest in the Antichrist, Glen Mazzara, the showrunner of “Damien,” said he thought it was because there is increased anticipation that we may be living in the end times...  

Gas prices could drop toward $1 a gallon
In some gas stations around the country, the price of a gallon of regular has dropped below $1.42. AAA and GasBuddy, two organizations that follow gasoline prices, say that gasoline prices below $2 will not be unusual in most of the United States  

Kuwaiti Media: Obama to Seek UN Secretary Generalship
Al –Jarida, an Arabic language Kuwaiti magazine, published an article on Friday claiming that US President Barack Obama has set his sights on becoming the next Secretary General of the United Nations when he leaves the Oval Office in one year. The article also claimed that upon hearing of President Obama’s plans, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu “vowed to counter his campaign.” They quoted Netanyahu as saying, “Eight years of Obama’s judgments and marginalizing Israel was not enough? Now he wants to be in a position to cause us trouble in the international forum?”  

U.S. Supreme Court set to hear challenge to public sector unions
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider on Monday a conservative legal challenge targeting public sector unions...brought by non-union teachers in California who object to being compelled to pay for collective bargaining. The dispute pits 10 public school teachers and the Christian Educators Association International against the California Teachers Association...a history of backing liberal political causes.  

US flies B-52 bomber over South Korea amid North tensions
The US has flown a B-52 bomber over South Korea in a show of force after North Korea said it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. The B-52 swooped over an air base close to the North-South border. Pyongyang said it detonated an underground device earlier this week to widespread condemnation, but experts remain sceptical about the claim.  

Israel's first stealth fighter jet enters advanced production stage
The first Lockheed Martin F-35 [dubbed Adir in the IAF] stealth fighter jet, due to be delivered to Israel later this year, had entered an advanced production stage. To mark the event, the head of the Defense Ministry's delegation to the US, Aharon Marmaroush, visited Lockheed Martin's production plant in Fort Worth, Texas, and inscribed a message on the frame of the future IAF jet.  

Jordan to form judicial committee to 'inspect Israel's violations' at Temple Mount
Jordan has been appointed to form an international judicial committee to inspect Israel's "violations" on the Temple Mount, Jordanian daily Al-Rai reported on Sunday. This role was assigned to Jordan, which is internationally recognized as the preserver of the holy places in Jerusalem, during a conference that took place recently in Egypt, assembling Arab judicial experts.  

Airstrikes in Syria Kill Dozens in Rebel-held Town
Monitors said airstrikes on a rebel-held town in northwestern Syria killed dozens of people Saturday, including civilians, fighters and prisoners. But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights did not say whether the strikes in Idlib province were carried out by Syrian or allied Russian warplanes, which have both bombed the area in recent weeks.  

Egypt upholds prison sentence for former autocrat Mubarak
An Egyptian court on Saturday upheld a three-year prison sentence for graft that was already served by former President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons, who are out of prison and will not have to serve additional time.  

N. Korea's Kim Calls Nuclear Test a 'Self-Defensive Step'
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says his country conducted a hydrogen bomb test Wednesday as "a self-defensive step for reliably defending" the Korean Peninsula from the danger of nuclear war caused by "U.S.-led imperialists."  

Mexican drug lord’s dreams of biopic aided in his capture
In the rain and darkness Friday morning, Mexican marines crept up in trucks with their lights out and jumped between rooftops on Boulevard Jiquilpan, surrounding a little white house in this coastal city where their country’s most-wanted fugitive, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was hiding.  

Will Iran and Saudi Arabia Go into War?
First, it was the Egyptian embassy, second the American embassy, later Denmark, then the British embassy was ransacked by mostly Basijis, and now, it is the turn of Saudi Arabia's embassy to be attacked by crowds of Iranians. What kind of diplomacy is Rowhani's government referring to?  

Cairo, Red Sea attacks deal new blows to Egypt
Armed men shot dead a police officer and a soldier in their car on the outskirts of Cairo on Saturday, Egypt's state news agency said, a day after suspected militants armed with knives wounded three European tourists in a Red Sea resort.
Texas armed standoff ends after 15 yearsAfter almost 15 years, what is believed to be the longest armed standoff in American history quietly came to a peaceful close earlier this week.