Anti-PC Professor Jordan Peterson Slams UK Media over Cringeworthy Сhannel 4 Interview

How the Liberal media hides the truth

and vilifies the right

A professor who is gaining support for his campaign against political correctness has attacked the British media, after he was accused of forming an army of trolls against a reporter following an interview on Channel 4.

Jordan Peterson, a Canadian lecturer, has criticized the way Cathy Newman, a Channel 4 anchor, turned on him in an interview, before he rebuked her over comments he made on transgender personal pronouns.

A social media storm erupted, with Peterson’s growing fanbase mocking Newman and posting videos of the moment he left her speechless. The anchor was lost for words after she called him out for offending transgender people, only for Peterson to respond by hailing Newman’s own right to offend him with her line of questioning.

In a heated 30-minute exchange, now watched tens of thousands of times, Peterson asked the presenter why she felt she could use her right to freedom of speech but he could not use his.

Peterson came to prominence when he criticized the Canadian government’s Bill C-16, which proposed including gender identity and orientation in the Canadian Human Rights Act, thus making it illegal to discriminate based on outward expression of gender. The clinical psychologist refused to accept the bill and was attacked in his country.

Now he has hit out at the Guardian, among other papers, for how it covered the exchange. Speaking to Joe Rogan on his eponymous podcast, Peterson described how following the interview he was subjected to abuse – yet only the trolling aimed at Newman was widely reported.

Presenter Rogan said he watched the interview “several times” and was shocked by the way Newman spoke to the writer. “She went into it incredibly confrontational, not trying to find your actual position,” he said.

Peterson told how Newman changed dramatically when they met on screen, after being pleasant in the green room.

“I was the hypothetical villain of her imagination,” he said. “As soon as the cameras went on she was a completely different person, and I thought, ‘oh, I see.’ This is why YouTube is going to kill TV, because television by its nature, these narrow broadcast and technologies, they rely on forcing the story because it has to happen now.

“It hasn’t ceased to amaze me that I think, they thought the interview went fine. I know some people behind the scenes who know what’s going on behind the scenes and they are shell-shocked.”

What Peterson objected to most was how he was later further vilified, along with his fans.

He told Rogan: “And then of course there was the counter-response, the Guardian the next day published an article saying the head of Channel 4 had to call in security because of threats.

“About 20 newspapers picked that up and said Cathy Newman is being harassed by an army of online trolls.”

The presenter and Peterson argued there were “way more” negative comments and violent threats towards the professor than there were to Newman.

Following the interview and the subsequent fall out, Daily Mail contributor Peter Hitchens tweeted to accuse fans of Peterson of being involved in a cult.

The controversial Peterson has also faced accusations of being associated with the alt-right.

The lecturer is currently promoting his new book, ‘12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos’.

video 29:55

Trump’s CDC Director Resigns After Bombshell Report on Tobacco Stock Holdings

Corruption is Everywhere, but CDC????!!

I don't have a sub-category for stupid on this blog, so this story appears under the 'corruption' category. No actual corruption has been alleged here but Fitzgerald certainly created the dynamics for corruption to be possible; some might say, probable, or even, inevitable.

It's hard to understand how someone who has risen to the heights of Head of CDC could do something that seems so utterly stupid, so, I suspect there is more to this story than related here. If someone knows the rest of the story, please let me know.

The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned after it was revealed she had purchased stock in a tobacco company a month after taking the job, which oversees smoking-cessation programs, among other things.

Newly sworn-in Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar accepted Brenda Fitzgerald’s resignation on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported citing the agency spokesman.

“Dr. Fitzgerald owns certain complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as the CDC Director,” HHS spokesman Matt Lloyd said. “Due to the nature of these financial statements, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period.”

Lloyd said the department’s ethics office had reviewed her financial holdings, instructing her to divest of certain holdings that might pose a conflict of interest.

Politico broke the news of Fitzgerald's tobacco stock options on Tuesday, shortly before President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address.

The news outlet discovered Fitzgerald had bought between $1,001 and $15,000 in Japan Tobacco stocks one month into her leadership of the agency, a post she has held since July. Japan Tobacco is one of the largest tobacco companies in the world and sells four tobacco brands in the US through a subsidiary.

“You don’t buy tobacco stocks when you are the head of the CDC. It’s ridiculous; it gives a terrible appearance,” Richard Painter, who served as George W. Bush’s chief ethics lawyer from 2005-2007, told Politico. He described the move as “tone deaf.”

That's an understatement!

Politico reported a day after purchasing the stock, Fitzgerald toured the CDC’s Tobacco Laboratory, which researches how the chemicals in tobacco harm human health.

Fitzgerald also has shares in drug and food companies. She owned between $1,001 and $15,000 in Merck & Co, Bayer and health insurance company Humana, as well as between $15,001 and $50,000 in US Ford Holding Co, according to Politico. The outlet also reported Fitzgerald had repeatedly been unable to testify before Congress because of her unresolved financial conflicts.

While holding stock, she participated in meetings related to the opioid crisis, hurricane response efforts, cancer and obesity, stroke prevention, polio, Zika and Ebola, according to her schedule between August 1 and October 27.

Merck has been working on developing an Ebola vaccine and also makes HIV medications. Bayer has worked with the CDC in the past to prevent the spread of the Zika virus.

Records confirm Fitzgerald sold the tobacco company shares on October 26 and all of her stock holdings above $1,000 by November 21, more than four months after becoming head of the CDC.

Why You Can't Expect the Truth from Main Stream Media

Oliver Stone slams ‘lame-brained’ Spielberg movie

over WaPo portrayal

Why is Oliver Stone's opinion important? Like me, he believes the USA is run by Deep State. Deep State is a combination of military and business tycoons and probably includes Dark Ops organizations in America's intelligence systems.

Director Oliver Stone took a swipe at the Washington Post and Stephen Spielberg’s “lame-brained” film, The Post in a Facebook tribute to the late journalist Robert Parry on Sunday.

Stone commended the Consortium News’ founder for breaking from the “tyranny of mainstream media conformity” and his breaking of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Stone then pointed to the fact that the Washington Post’s publisher Katharine Graham, who is the subject of ‘The Post’, “deliberately ignored” that story.

“Note how she’s now being lionized in Spielberg’s lame-brained ‘The Post’,” he said of the character played by Meryl Streep.

‘The Post’ follows the period in 1971 when the Washington Post debated reporting on the Pentagon Papers after the New York Times had been prevented by doing so by a court order.

The Pentagon Papers was a Department of Defense study outlining the history of the US role in Vietnam dating from World War II to 1968. Leaked to the NYT by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, it revealed the government lied about secret military operations including the bombing of Laos and Cambodia.

Graham’s decision to side with her editors and report on the Pentagon Papers in June 1971 is depicted as heroic in Spielberg’s film, despite her enjoying relationships with establishment political figures such as the Kennedys and Henry Kissinger.

Parry, who was a correspondent for the Post-owned Newsweek in the 1980s, said he witnessed “self-censorship because of the coziness between Post-Newsweek executives and senior national security figures” during his time at the publication.

"On one occasion in 1987, I was told that my story about the CIA funneling anti-Sandinista money through Nicaragua’s Catholic Church had been watered down because the story needed to be run past Mrs. Graham, and Henry Kissinger was her house guest that weekend,” Parry told FAIR in 2001. “Apparently, there was fear among the top editors that the story as written might cause some consternation.”

“As audiences, we're inundated with the surface of events but seem unable to interpret them correctly,” Stone continued, “With intelligent, common-sense repetition (not the continual Russia-bashing of NY Times and WaPo), we learn and remember.”

Stone is known for a vast body of films portraying political figures and subjects, Including the Vietnam war in ‘Platoon,’ John F Kennedy in ‘JFK,’ Richard Nixon in ‘Nixon’ and George W. Bush in ‘W.’ He also directed the acclaimed Snowden movie about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

It has to be disappointing, if not infuriating to Oliver Stone, that a man of Steven Spielberg's ability and influence, appears to ignore the great evils that are occurring behind the scenes in American politics, military and media. 

Prominent Saudi Cleric: ‘Holocaust Denial is a Crime that Distorts History’

The New Moderate Face of Islam in Saudi Arabia

“We consider any denial of the Holocaust or minimizing of its effect a crime [that] distort[s] history and an insult to the dignity of those innocent souls who have perished,” a prominent Saudi cleric stated. 

By: The Tower and United with Israel Staff

In a historic move, the leader of the Muslim World League, a group based in Saudi Arabia, has condemned Holocaust denial as a “crime [that] distort[s] history and an insult to the dignity of those innocent souls who have perished.”

In a letter sent to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum last week, Dr. Muhammad bin abdel-Kareem Al-Issa, the secretary general of the Muslim World League, wrote that “history is indeed impartial no matter how hard forgers tried to tamper with or manipulate it.”

Al-Issa wrote the message, sent to museum director Sara Bloomfield, five days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day was marked on January 27.

Al-Issa also referred Holocaust denial as “an affront to us all since we share the same human soul and spiritual bonds.”

The cleric did not specify Jews as the principal victims of the Holocaust in his letter, but instead spoke of “this human tragedy perpetrated by evil Nazism” and “our great sympathy with the victims of the Holocaust, an incident that shook humanity to the core, and created an event whose horrors could not be denied or underrated by any fair-minded or peace-loving person.”

Al-Issa also expressed a willingness to visit the Holocaust museum the next time he visits Washington, D.C.

The Arab world is notorious for its Holocaust denial.

Al-Issa, a former justice minister, had taken over the Saudi-funded Muslim World League in 2016. The league has previously been known for propagating “a radical, hate-filled, anti-West, anti-Semitic version of Islam.”

Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,  speculated that Al-Issa’s appointment is a reflection of the reform movement led by the new crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, who has vowed to eradicate extremism in the kingdom.

Speaking in November, Al-Issa stated that “any act of violence or terrorism that tries to hide behind religion has no justification whatsoever, not even in Israel.”

Al-Issa has been vocally supportive of the reforms pushed by Bin Salman in his move to “fight extremist Islam.”

The ISIS Murder of French Priest 19 Months Ago - The Rest of the Story

This article is dated to the previous administration in France but contains information not previously reported on this blog

Attacker who murdered Catholic priest under police supervision, wore monitoring bracelet

One of the two knife-wielding Islamist attackers who slit the throat of a Catholic priest during a morning Mass in northern France Tuesday was under judicial supervision after trying to travel to Syria twice under false names.

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters that 19-year-old Adel Kermiche's bail conditions allowed his electronic monitoring bracelet to be deactivated for a few hours every morning, a period that corresponded with the attack in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

Priest Jacques Hamel was killed in a terror attack on a France church.

The revelations are expected to intensify criticism of President Francois Hollande's government with the French people already reeling from the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, which killed 84 people.

"To attack a church, to kill a priest, is to profane the republic," Hollande said in nationally televised speech after speaking with Pope Francis, who condemned the killing in the strongest terms.

The church is in the French region of Normandy.

Kermiche and a second unidentified attacker stormed the church, forced priest Jacques Hamel to kneel before they killed him, and captured the bloody assault on film, according to a nun who escaped the assault. 

"They forced him to his knees. He wanted to defend himself. And that's when the tragedy happened," said the nun, identified as Sister Danielle.

"They recorded themselves. They did a sort of sermon around the altar, in Arabic. It's a horror," she told BFM television. Molins said the other hostages were used as human shields to block police from entering.

Both attackers were shot dead by anti-terror police units as they ran outside the sanctuary shouting "Allahu Akbar!" One had three knives and a fake explosives belt, Molins said; the other carried a kitchen timer wrapped in aluminum foil and had fake explosives in his backpack.

What was the point of the fake bombs? It was surely to make sure that the police would kill them so they could go immediately to Paradise and their virgins. Their horror started when they woke up in Hell.

ISIS' Amaq news agency said the France attack was carried out by two Islamic State "soldiers," Reuters reported.

Molins said Kermiche was arrested in Germany in March 2015 trying to join extremists in Syria using his brother's ID, and then was arrested in Turkey two months later using a cousin's ID. 

Family friend Jonathan Sacarabany told the Associated Press that Kermiche's family alerted authorities to his radicalization in an effort to stop him going to Syria. A French law enforcment official told AP Kermiche, who grew up in the town, was required to check in with police once a day under the terms of his supervision.

"[ISIS] has declared war on us," Hollande said Tuesday. "We must fight this war by all means, while respecting the rule of law -- what makes us a democracy."

Democracy will crumble if you lose this war. Radical Islam uses democratic freedoms in their quest to destroy democracy, and we let them. Civil war is already happening, only, there is just one side doing the fighting. France Has Two Choices - Civil War or Submission

The cold-blooded murder of Hamel, who was ordained in 1958, stunned the community of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a working-class suburb of the medieval city of Rouen.

The town's mayor, Hubert Wulfranc, in tears, denounced the "barbarism" and, breaking down, pleaded, "Let us together be the last to cry." 

"Everyone knew him very well," Claude-Albert Seguin, 68, said of Hamel. "He was very loved in the community and a kind man."

Rouen diocese official Philippe Maheut said the slain priest had been at the church for the past decade and "was always ready to help," said.

"His desire was to spread a message for which he consecrated his life," Mahut told The Associated Press. "And he certainly didn't think that consecrating his life would mean for him to die while celebrating Mass, which is a message of love."

While France is officially secular and church attendance is low, the country has deep Catholic roots. ISIS has urged followers to attack French churches and the group is believed to have planned at least one earlier church attack that was foiled when the assailant shot himself in the leg.

The church was reportedly on a "hit list" discovered at the residence of a would-be ISIS attacker in April 2015, The Sun reported. Abdel sid Ghlam was believed to be planning "imminent attacks" in France when investigators arrested him. Officials allegedly uncovered an arsenal of weapons and found that Ghlam was talking with someone in Syria who had ordered him to strike specific churches -- including the one targeted Tuesday.

The attackers entered through the back door of the church and took the priest, two nuns and two parishioners hostage during morning Mass, police said. 

Three hostages were rescued in good condition. Another hostage originally listed in critical condition was expected to survive, Molins said.

One person, a minor, was arrested in the investigation. Molins said he is believed to be the 16-year-old younger brother of someone wanted by authorities for trying to go to Syria or Iraq in 2015.

Vatican Spokesperson Greg Burke told Fox News that Pope Francis was "shocked" especially because the attack "happened in a house of worship." He added the Pope was "…praying for the victims of the attack."

The cluster of towns near Rouen had already been linked to the Islamic State group. A micro-cell of recruits from the area included a Frenchman seen cutting the throat of a Syrian soldier in a November 2014 video. Maxime Hauchard, a Muslim convert, was among at least four people who met at a local mosque and later left to join the extremists.

France is currently under a state of emergency after the Bastille Day attack and a string of deadly assaults last year claimed by ISIS that killed 147 victims.

Finland Re-elects Russia-Friendly President by Landslide

Another European leader who does not appear to be falling for

NATO's anti-Russia super-hype

Niinisto wins landslide re-election as Finland's president

By Ed Adamczyk

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto won a second term in office on Sunday in a landslide victory over seven opponents. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

UPI -- Finnish President Sauli Niinisto was re-elected to a second term, the first time the popular vote -- and not a runoff -- was sufficient to determine a winner.

Niinisto received 62.7 percent of the vote on Sunday, with seven other candidates receiving the remaining 37 percent.

Each conceded the election later in the day. His closest opponent, Pekka Haavisto of the Greens Party, received 12 percent. Voter turnout was about 70 percent, officials said.

Rather than seeking the nomination of his National Coalition, Niinisto ran as an independent candidate. Polls indicated that his support came from across the country's political spectrum, and even Haavisto said, "The people wanted stability."

While the position is largely ceremonial, the presidential duties include involvement in Finland's foreign policy.

Niinisto, an economist, made his reputation as a skilled power broker in his first six-year term by balancing Finland's responsibilities to Western countries while building a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A defense telephone hotline was established between Finland and Russia during Niinisto's first term. He and Putin have spoken in person or by telephone more than 20 times, Bloomberg News reported. Russia and Finland share an 833-mile border.

"I see no need to change our Russia policy," Niinisto said after his re-election. "We differ on Crimea and East Ukraine and the sanctions, but we've cleared the air on that. Beyond that are a multitude of issues neighbors must take care of."

Niinisto will be inaugurated Thursday.

Poland’s Holocaust-Revisionism Law Triggers Backlash from Israel

The "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate at the former Nazi German concentration camp Auschwitz, in Oswiecim, Poland,

January 27, 2018. © Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Israeli leaders are up in arms over pending legislation in Poland that would officially outlaw blaming Poles for the heinous Holocaust crimes committed on Polish soil during World War II.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the proposed law, passed by the lower house of the Polish parliament on Friday, “baseless.” The new legislation prescribes prison time for using phrases like “Polish death camps” to refer to the notorious mass concentration camps Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland during World War II.

“One cannot change history, and the Holocaust cannot be denied,” Netanyahu wrote on Facebook late on Saturday, adding that he had asked the Israeli embassy in Poland to “meet tonight with the Polish prime minister to relay my firm stance against this bill.”

The bill, which still needs approval from Poland’s Senate and president, is perceived by critics as an attempt by the country’s nationalist government to target anyone who seeks to contest its official stance on the conduct of Poles during the war, which places emphasis on heroism and sacrifice while rejecting the complicity of some in mass murder. Under the new legislation, anyone who publicly attributes blame for the crimes committed by the Nazis to Poles or the Polish state would be liable for penalties.

“Non-governmental organizations indicate that every other day the phrase ‘Polish death camps’ is used around the world,” Poland’s deputy justice minister Patryk Jaki said in a speech before the lower house on Friday. “In other words, German Nazi crimes are attributed to Poles. And so far the Polish state has not been able to effectively fight these types of insults to the Polish nation.”

Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial has issued a statement opposing the Polish legislation, saying it is “liable to blur the historical truths regarding the assistance the Germans received from the Polish population during the Holocaust.”

“There is no doubt that the term ‘Polish death camps’ is a historical misrepresentation,” the Yad Vashem memorial said. “However, restrictions on statements by scholars and others regarding the Polish people’s direct or indirect complicity with the crimes committed on their land during the Holocaust are a serious distortion.”

Former Finance Minister Yair Lapid, the head of Israel’s centrist Yesh Atid party, also lambasted the controversial bill on Twitter.

“I utterly condemn the new Polish law which tries to deny Polish complicity in the Holocaust. It was conceived in Germany but hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered without ever meeting a German soldier. There were Polish death camps and no law can ever change that,” Lapid wrote.

His comment added fuel to the fire, sparking the Polish Embassy in Israel to respond: “Your unsupportable claims show how badly Holocaust education is needed, even here in Israel.”

“My grandmother was murdered in Poland by Germans and Poles,” Lapid replied. “I don’t need Holocaust education from you. We live with the consequences every day in our collective memory. Your embassy should offer an immediate apology.”

To which the embassy retorted: “How does that relate to the fact that WW2 death camps were German Nazi, not Polish (our thread)? Shameless.”

Noting that 73 years had passed since the Auschwitz death camp on Polish soil was liberated, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said that respecting the tragic page of history is a must.

 “The Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the entire world must ensure that the Holocaust is recognized for its horrors and atrocities,” Rivlin said. “Also among the Polish people, there were those who aided the Nazis in their crimes. Every crime, every offense, must be condemned. They must be examined and revealed.”

For decades, Polish society tried to avoid discussing the killing of Jews by civilians, with atrocities usually blamed on the Nazis. The discussion was reinvigorated by the book “Neighbors,” published in 2000, by Polish-American historian Jan Tomasz Gross, which explored the murder of Jews by their Polish neighbors in the village of Jedwabne in 1941. Holocaust historians have gathered a large dossier of evidence of Polish villagers who murdered Jews fleeing the Nazis. According to one scholar at Yad Vashem, of the 160,000-250,000 Jews who had sought help from fellow Poles, only between 10 to 20% survived.

In 2011, Poland’s then-President Bronislaw Komorowski offered an apology during ceremonies marking 70 years since Polish villagers murdered hundreds of their Jewish neighbors in a World War II massacre.

Jedwabne, Poland

Criminal Gang Terrorism Continues in Colombia With 2 More Bombings

2 bombings targeting police stations kill more officers in Colombia

Bombings come a day after a similar attack killed 5 officers

and wounded 40

Thomson Reuters 

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos visits a police officer who was wounded in a bomb attack at a police station, in Barranquilla, Colombia, on Saturday. (Colombian Presidency handout via Reuters)

Two overnight bombings that targeted police stations in Colombia's Caribbean region killed two officers and wounded seven other people, authorities said Sunday, a day after a similar attack killed five officers and wounded 40.

One of the new attacks killed two officers and wounded a third just before midnight local time in rural Bolivar province, police said in a statement, while the other occurred in Soledad about four hours later, according to a police source.

Six people were wounded by the explosion there, five of them police officers, the police source said.

Authorities have arrested one person in connection to Saturday morning's bombing in the port city of Barranquilla, which officials said could have been retaliation for police raids targeting criminal gangs.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos visited the wounded after that explosion and vowed the government would not rest until the perpetrators were caught.

Colombia has myriad crime gangs, some of which operate across large swaths of rural territory and others in major cities. Many are involved in the production and trafficking of cocaine, largely to the United States and Europe, as well as extortion and other crimes. 

Criminal Gangs Flexing Muscles in South America

Ecuador declares state of emergency after

car bomb attack on police 

© National Police of Ecuador / Facebook

Ecuador’s president has declared a state of emergency and tightened security in two cities after a car bomb attack on a police station in San Lorenzo injured at least 28 people and damaged dozens of buildings.

“I’ve declared the state of emergency in San Lorenzo and Eloy Alfaro to strengthen the security of the citizens and the border, as well as to strengthen the attention of the Health, Inclusion, Risks and Housing Ministries for an integrated solution,” the country’s president Lenin Moreno said on Twitter on Saturday afternoon in the aftermath of the morning blast.

There were no fatalities in what the president described as a “terrorist act linked to drug trafficking and criminal groups,” but at least 28 people were injured in the powerful blast – including 14 officers, according to local media.

In addition, some 37 buildings were damaged, including the police headquarters, which suffered significant structural damage, according to Ecuador’s General Prosecutor’s Office.

“We won’t allow them intimidate us,” Moreno added, as he ordered an intensification of the ongoing crackdown on local drug cartels. The large-scale operation has so far resulted in the arrest of at least seven suspects and confiscation of seven tons of chemicals and drug precursors, according to El Comercio.

Police Hdqtrs bombed in Colombia

5 people killed, dozens injured

Meanwhile in neighboring Colombia, a similar bomb attack targeting a police headquarters resulted in at least 5 deaths and dozens of injuries on Saturday. 

Authorities suspect the “act of barbarity” was perpetrated by one of the country’s numerous criminal gangs in retaliation against a similar police crackdown. Colombian authorities offered a reward of 50 million pesos (some $18,000) for any useful information about the perpetrators.

(CNN) At least five Colombian police officers were killed and 42 others injured Saturday morning after a bomb was hurled at a station house in the northern coastal city of Barranquilla, police said.

The attacker, riding on a motorcycle, threw an explosive device at the station in the San Jose neighborhood as officers were preparing to start the workday, according to Colombian police.

The attorney general's office identified the attacker as Cristian Camilo Bellon Galindo, 31. Authorities said he was charged with five counts of aggravated homicide, and 42 counts of attempted homicide. Charges related to terrorism and use of explosives will be filed, authorities said.

Barranquilla Mayor Alejandro Char and metropolitan police Brig. Gen. Mariano de la Cruz Botero told reporters the attack appeared to be in retaliation for recent operations against local criminal organizations, according to the police department's official Twitter account.

Police recovered a radio and notebook linked to the attack.

Czech President - Warrior for Truth - Wins Re-Election

Since this blog is devoted to a search for truth, it's time to celebrate when someone who also fights for truth is re-elected to a significant post on the world stage. Congratulations President Zeman!

UPI -- Current Czech Republic president Miloš Zeman on Saturday won another term, marking the first head of state to return to office in a public vote.

Zeman took 52 percent of the vote against Jiří Drahoš' 48 percent in the election, which included about 5 million votes amounting to about a 66 percent voter turnout.

Other than the industrial city of Ostrava, challenger Drahoš won in most of the main cities while incumbent Zeman drew support from smaller towns and the country.

Zeman's portrayal as being pro-Russian and pro-Chinese was a contrast to his challenger's pro-European Union and NATO positions, which led to the election outcome seen as which way the central European nation will lean - east or west.

In fact, it is possible Zeman is just not falling for the NATO super-hyping of the threat from Russia. NATO's purpose these days is to create as my hysteria as possible and present itself as the only solution to the crisis. I believe Zeman sees right through that and is not going to play that game. 

Neither is he going to play the game of accepting hordes of Muslims into the Czech Republic. Unlike liberal European leaders, he has sense enough to know the result will be cultural suicide. 

Zeman is known for his longstanding support for the US, Israel and the Jews, he was the only European president publicly to support then-candidate Donald Trump before the US presidential election.

During a speech on Saturday, Zeman told his supporters the victory would be his last "and no loss will follow it," referring to the country's constitutional two-term limit.

Drahos congratulated Zeman in a speech to his supporters, saying his ideals will live on and he is "thankful for the enormous wave of energy that has surged with this election."

IMF: Venezuela Inflation Will Increase 13,000% This Year

By Allen Cone 

UPI -- Venezuela's inflation will soar 13,000 percent this year, though other Latin American countries have much better economic prospects, the International Monetary Fund said in a revised forecast Thursday.

The increase -- 130 times greater than last year -- is more than five times the inflation previously projected by IMF.

Of course, this means the Bolivar is rapidly becoming worthless. In 2008, Venezuela issued new Bolivars - Bolivares Fuertes which was worth 1000 of the original Bolivars. Rampant inflation made it necessary, and will probably make it necessary again.

Last year, price increases were 2,400 percent -- the biggest in the world.

The IMF wrote in the report that the rise is "fueled by monetary financing of large fiscal deficits and the loss of confidence in the nation's currency."

President Nicolas Maduro's government has attempted to control inflation by refusing to loosen foreign-exchange controls and price caps that have increased the short supply of all sorts of products, including food to medicine.

Also, Venezuela's real gross domestic product is projected to fall by about 15 percent for a cumulative GDP decline of almost 50 percent since 2013. The growth forecast for 2019 is a 15 percent decline and 6 percent drop in 2019.

"This trend is the result of significant micro-level distortions and macroeconomic imbalances compounded by the collapse in oil exports -- initially from the sharp fall in oil prices in mid-2014 and, more recently, from the collapse in domestic oil production," the IMF said in the report.

The United States last month sanctioned Venezuela government and military officials accused of having associations with corruption and repression. The Treasury Department said "corruption and repression" has continued to grow under Maduro's regime.

The IMF revised its projections of other nations in Latin America with the GDP predicted to increase 1.9 percent in 2018 and 2.6 in 2019 after it was 1.3 percent last year.

Other Latin Americans in Central America and parts of the Caribbean will benefit from stronger U.S. growth, the report said. And South America's economy has increased due to the end of recessions in Brazil and Argentina, as well as higher prices for the raw materials to export, according to the report.

"Recent trends in the world economy and financial markets are good news for Latin America," Alejandro Werner, head of the IMF's Western Hemisphere department wrote in the report. "Global growth and trade are on an upswing, and we expect the momentum to continue in 2018. Stronger commodity prices have also helped the region rebound."

The IMF specifically was high on Ecuador after coming off its recession because of higher oil prices and greater acceptance to financial markets. IMF boosted its 2018 GDP outlook to 2.2 percent from 0.6 percent.

And the IMF cited Chile's growth prospects because of continued improvement in copper prices and business sentiment -- 2.2 percent in 2018.

Mexico's GDP is predict to grow 2.3 percent in 2018 and 3.0 percent in 2019 on the strength of higher growth in the United States, now pegged higher at 2.7 percent in 2018 and 2.5 percent in 2019.

Brazilian Court Upholds Conviction of Former President Lula da Silva

Corruption is Everywhere - Especially in Brazil

By Daniel Uria  

A Brazilian appeals court upheld a corruption conviction against former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as he prepares to run in the country's upcoming presidential election. File Photo by Andrew Harrer/Pool/UPI | License Photo

UPI -- A Brazilian appeals court unanimously upheld a corruption conviction against former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday.

The three-judge panel's decision to uphold the conviction could prevent the 72-year-old da Silva's candidacy in Brazil's upcoming election. The country's "clean record law" bars politicians whose convictions are upheld on appeal from running for office.

"There is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the ex-president was one of the actors, if not the principal actor, of an ample corruption scheme," said Joao Pedro Gebran Neto, one of the judges.

The court ruled against jailing Lula da Silva as he fights the conviction, but increased his sentence from 9 years to 12 years in prison.

"At a minimum, he was conscious and gave support to what happened," Neto said.

Lula Da Silva was convicted of receiving more than $1 million in bribes, including a newly refurbished beachfront apartment, as part of a corruption scandal known as "Operation Car Wash."

The former president can appeal the conviction to Brazil's Superior Electoral Court and the Supreme Federal Court and apply to an electoral tribunal for a special exemption to run for president if the appeal process extends through the election.

He delivered a message of defiance while speaking at a rally of his supporters in Porto Alegre, home of the Fourth Regional Federal Court of Appeals, on Tuesday.

"Only one thing is going to remove me from the streets of this country and that will be the day that I die," Lula da Silva said. "Until then, I will be fighting for a fairer society."

His Workers' Party backed up Lula da Silva in a statement and called on his supporters to take to the streets.

"If they think this story ends with today's decision they're sorely mistaken," the party said. "We won't give up in the face of this injustice."

German City Bans New Refugees Amid Violence, Residents Doubt It Will Solve Problem

The New Normal - Germany Violence Rising

The eastern German city of Cottbus won’t accept any more migrants in a bid to ease tensions after a surge in violence involving refugees. Some local residents, however, say the temporary ban won’t help resolve the core problem.

A university city of some 100,000 residents, Cottbus, saw a string of attacks in a matter of days. Last week, two Syrian teenagers stabbed a 16-year-old German in a brawl, leaving the teen face injuries. Days earlier, one of the Syrians involved in the knife attack reportedly took part in an assault on a married couple outside a shopping center. 

Following the two violent incidents, the teen offender and his father were handed a “negative residency permit” in a first such step by city authorities, meaning the two had to leave. 

The measures didn’t end there, as the interior minister of the Brandenburg state, Karl-Heinz Schroter, announced last Friday that these “shameful incidents must have consequences.” As a result, Cottbus will not be taking in any more migrants for the next few months. 

The temporary restriction, however, is not “a solution to the problem,” a Cottbus local, Andrej Belker, told RT. “In any case, people don’t feel as safe as they used to. There’s some insecurity here,” he added.

While there’s “a need for action,” authorities came up with an approach that's “a little bit questionable," another resident, Lars Kaczmarek, said. “Probably, they could have looked into this case more deeply, to see whether there are other options.”

“They make it look like asylum seekers or whoever attacked the Germans, but there were also cases when it happened the other way around,” a local, Alicia Kuhlmann, said, pointing to the case in which a group of Germans beat up three Afghans on New Year’s Eve that didn’t attract that much attention.

Yet, there is “a breaking point for even the most tolerant of communities,” according to a lawmaker from the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD), Hugh Bronson. “There are about 3,000 migrants who have entered Cottbus, and mostly, they are young males from North Africa and Syria, bringing with them a completely different culture of conflict resolution,” he said in an interview with RT.

"A completely different culture of conflict resolution"

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s much-maligned open-door policy towards migrants and refugees boosted support for the populist AfD party, which entered the Bundestag for the first time in its history, securing 94 seats in last year general election.

With nearly 1 million people seeking asylum in Germany since the refugee crisis erupted in 2015 – fueling strong anti-migrant sentiments – Merkel’s CDU is struggling to reach a coalition agreement with the Social Democratic Party (SPD). A draft CDU-SPD agreement suggests keeping the number of refugees coming to Germany within the range of 180,000-220,000 per year, according to German media. The document reportedly covers the refugees’ family reunification process, suspending it until a new law is adopted and aiming to finally cap it at 1,000 people per month.

2nd Explosion Rocks Malmo, Sweden in Less Than a Week

3rd explosion in Sweden this year

The New Normal - Exploding Sweden

© Johan Nilsson/TT News Agency/via / Reuters

Another explosion has rocked the Swedish city of Malmo, just days after a grenade attack directly targeted a police station.

No injuries have been reported in the blast that happened around 9pm local time outside a restaurant located in an office building in the Rosengard city district, police said. The facade of the building was damaged in the explosion, the Aftonbladet reported.

Police secured the area and a bomb squad was sent to the scene. An Audi was seen close to the area moments before the blast, according to reports.

The office building is located near the police station in Rosengard where an explosion rang out Wednesday. Several cars were damaged when an assailant detonated a hand grenade outside a precinct.

Malmo waterfront

Rosengard is one of the locations in Sweden described as “a geographically-defined area characterized by a low socio-economic status where criminals have an impact on the local community.” Authorities have long struggled to quell the violence associated with conflicts erupting between various gangs and ethnic groups in recent years.

Rosengård is to a high degree populated by minorities. In 1972, the percentage of immigrants was around 18%, with the majority of inhabitants being working-class people from rural Sweden. Since 1974, there has been a "white flight" out of the suburb as more immigrants were assigned there. By 2012, the figure for those of "immigrant background" was given as 86%.

In other words, it is rapidly becoming a 'no-go zone' right in the middle of Malmo, Sweden's 3rd largest city. Stefan's legacy?

So far, they seem to be just practicing. I fear much worse is yet to come.

Two weeks ago on January 7, an explosion at a suburban Stockholm subway station left a man dead after he picked up a hand grenade which exploded in his hand. A 45-year-old woman was also injured in the blast.

Man Accused of Beating Daughter Who Refused to Wear Hijab

The New Normal - Canada, Islamization

Gatineau police urge others to follow teenager's lead,

report so-called 'honour-based' violence

CBC News

Gatineau police have charged a man for allegedly beating his teenage daughter over the course of more than a year because she refused to wear a hijab. 

The 35-year-old father is facing one count each of assault, assault with a weapon and uttering death threats, police said in a news release Thursday. 

In what police described as a case of so-called "honour-based" violence, the father began the series of assaults upon learning his daughter had removed her religious head covering when she left the family home. 

Gatineau police said they hope the courage the young girl showed would motivate others to speak out against similar incidents. The release also included some phone numbers for local resources for victims of violence. 

Below is a list of the community resources: 

Centre d'aide aux victimes d'actes criminels: 819 778-3555

Association des femmes immigrantes de l'Outaouais: 819 776-6764

Centre d'entraide La Destinée: 819 561-7474

L'Antre-Hulloise: 819 778-0997

Pour Elles des Deux Vallées (Buckingham): 819 986-8286

L'Autre chez soi (Aylmer): 819 685-0006

Le Centre Mechtilde (Hull): 819 777-2952

Maison Unies-Vers-Femmes (Gatineau): 819 568-4710