Wednesday 22 April 2015

Cop held on two felony charges of dissemination of matter harmful to minors.

BREAKING NEWS: A Decatur police officer, 25-year-old Spencer Wilson, is held in the Adams County Jail on two felony charges of dissemination of matter harmful to minors.

State Police say their week-long investigation found that Jackson sent two underage girls sexually explicit pictures of himself. The girls are said to be under 18 but at least 16 years of age.

Investigators say Wilson had been communicating with them through text messages and Snap Chat.

Angry U.S. Marshal Snatches Woman’s Camera For Recording, Then Smashes It To Pieces

Angry U.S. Marshal Snatches Woman’s Camera For Recording, Then Smashes It To Pieces

Tuesday 21 April 2015

5 Police Officers Resign As First Black Female Mayor Takes Office In MO Town


As the first black female mayor of Parma, Mo., took office last week, five of the town’s six police officers resigned, Missouri television station KFVS reported.
The new mayor, Tyrus Byrd (pictured above on the right), was sworn in on Tuesday evening. Former Mayor Randall Ramsey told KFVS that in addition to the five police officers, the city’s attorney, clerk and water treatment plant supervisor resigned due to “safety concerns.”
Byrd was not aware why the five police officers resigned, according to KFVS. When she took office, Byrd said she could not find the resignation letters and that the city computers had been cleared. She told KFVS that she needs more information before addressing the resignations publicly.
Byrd was born and raised in Parma, and formerly served as the city clerk. Ramsey lost the mayoral election to Byrd by 37 votes after serving as the mayor for 37 years, according to KFVS.

Friday 17 April 2015

New York police chief defends cops caught on video making false arrest without having watched the video

New York police chief defends cops caught on video making false arrest without having watched the video

That’s enough to watch the video to see what happened. They played basketball, just playing basketball …
After attaining a copy of the police report, Bertino’s father spoke in defense of his son.
“The arresting officers lied on the police report saying my son threatened the officer and cursed  at the officer. In the unedited video, you can plainly hear he never cursed at the officer” 
When we got the video, there is some hope that there will be justice. A faint hope, but still it is. Even when the police chief does not want to accept it.
We must give enough public attention to this case! We need to let them know that the American community is closely monitoring this process.

Sunday 12 April 2015

Four Years After Gadhafi, Libya Is a Failed State

Weapons are pouring out of Africa's most oil-rich country while extremist fighters tumble in Nearly four years after NATO-backed rebels toppled the former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, the North Africa country has plunged into chaotic unrest.
The failure of last year’s election to achieve political unity in Libya was most evident when Fajr Libya, or “Libya Dawn” – a diverse coalition of armed groups that includes an array of Islamist militias – rejected the election’s outcome andseized control of Tripoli. The internationally recognized government relocated to Tobruk, situated in eastern Libya along the Mediterranean coast near the Egyptian border, while Libya Dawn set up a rival government, known as the new General National Congress, in the capital.
As forces aligned with the Tobruk government have fought Libya Dawn, the conflict has gradually become internationalized. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have launched air strikes targeting Libya Dawn, while Turkey, Qatar, and Sudan are believed to have provided the Islamist-dominated coalition with varying degrees of support.
The emergence of Daesh (the so-called “Islamic State”) in strategically vital areas of Libya has further complicated the conflict in Africa’s most oil-rich country and raised security concerns in nearby states.
Libya’s Most Polarizing General
The mercurial general Khalifa Belqasim Haftar has emerged as an influential, yet highly divisive, leader in this bloody conflict.
In early March, the anti-Islamist general was appointed commander of the armed forces loyal to the Tobruk government. Haftar’s role in the former Gaddafi regime, his cozy relationship with Washington, and suspicions about his long-term ambitions have given him a controversial reputation among many Libyans. Nonetheless, he’s also gaining respect from those who share his vitriol for Islamists.
Haftar was an early Gaddafi loyalist, and played an important role as one of the “Free Officers” in the 1969 revolution that toppled the monarchy led by King Idris al-Sanusi. Gaddafi later said that Haftar “was my son… and I was like his spiritual father.” It was the start of a military career in which Haftar fought on many different sides.
During the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, Haftar led a Libyan battalion. Later, as a commander of Libyan forces in the country’s 1980-1987 war with Chad, he was allegedly responsible for war crimes when his forces were accused of using napalm and poison gas.
In 1987, the Chadian military scored a major victory in the battle of Wadi al-Doum. In addition to killing more than 1,000Libyan forces, Chad took over 400 Libyans, including Haftar, as prisoners.
Around that time, Haftar’s loyalties shifted.
While held in Chad, Haftar worked with other Libyan officers to coordinate a coup against Gaddafi, before the United States secured his release – by airlifting him and 300 of his men to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and from there to Virginia.
As a newly minted U.S. citizen, Haftar lived in northern Virginia from 1990 to 2011, spending part of this time workingwith the CIA before returning to Libya in March 2011 to fight once again against the Gaddafi regime. Several sources insist that Haftar was out of the CIA’s hands by 2011, but others maintain that the US government orchestrated his return to Libya that year.
Libya’s Civil War
Last year, Haftar called for the unilateral dissolution of Libya’s parliament and the establishment of a “presidential committee” to rule the country until new elections were held. Haftar cited Libya’s “upheaval” as justification for the armed forces to take over.
Many saw his act as an attempted military coup aimed at crushing the Muslim Brotherhood, which had won second place in Libya’s 2012 elections. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan dismissed his announcement as “ridiculous”.
Although many in Libya’s government viewed him as a rogue general hungry for power, his ongoing campaign against Islamist forces has gradually won him supporters. Last May, Haftar waged a campaign called “Operation Dignity” to “eliminate extremist terrorist groups” in the country. Since then, the Tobruk-based government has by and large come to support the general, viewing him as the government’s best bet in the struggle against its Islamist enemies.
Haftar’s anti-Islamist crusade parallels that of Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, who is presiding over a crackdown on Egypt’s Islamists. In making no distinction between so-called moderate Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and hardline factions such as Daesh and Ansar al-Sharia (an al-Qaeda affiliate), Haftar and Sisi are both selling a narrative to the West that their anti-Islamist positions are in sync with the “global war on terror.”
So far, Haftar has been unwilling to negotiate with Libya Dawn – which contains the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing and the “Loyalty to Martyrs” bloc within its coalition. In turn, Libya Dawn refuses to negotiate with Haftar.
The United Nations has begun hosting talks in Morocco between Libya’s various political factions in an effort to unite them against the growing threat of Daesh. Unfortunately, the UN’s efforts to push Libya’s two governments toward dialogue is undermined by the low levels of trust between them, and their mutual belief that only through continued armed struggle can they secure more territory and resources. Indeed, with strong backing from Cairo and Abu Dhabi, Haftar is likely convinced that he can make greater gains through warfare than diplomacy.
The toxic legacy of Gaddafi’s divisive and authoritarian regime, which pitted Libya’s diverse factions against one another, has plagued the prospects for any central authority gaining widespread legitimacy in the war-torn country. Indeed, since he was overthrown in 2011, Libya has turned into a cauldron of anarchy, with little meaningful security existing outside of Tripoli and Benghazi.
Gaddafi’s regime harshly oppressed the Islamist groups that went on to form Libya Dawn, which views its rise to power in Tripoli as hard fought and a long time in coming. They view Haftar as a war criminal from the ancien regimecommitted to their elimination, which will certainly undermine the potential for Libya’s two governments to reach a meaningful power-sharing agreement. With no peace in sight, a continuation of the bloody stalemate between the Tobruk and Tripoli-based governments seems most likely.
International Implications of Libya’s Turmoil
The fall of Gaddafi launched a geopolitical tsunami across Africa and into the Middle East.
Libya is now home to the world’s largest loose arms cache, and its porous borders are routinely transited by a host of heavily armed non-state actors – including the Tuareg separatists and jihadists who forced Mali’s national military from Timbuktu and Gao in March 2012 with newly acquired weapons from Libya. The UN has also documented the flow of arms from Libya into EgyptGazaNigerSomalia, and Syria.
Last October, 800 fighters loyal to Daesh seized control of Derna near the Egyptian border, some 200 miles from the European Union. Since then, Daesh’s Libyan branch has taken control of Sirte and gained a degree of influence in Benghazi, the nation’s second largest city and heart of the 2011 uprising against Gaddafi.
The group’s use of Libyan territory to terrorize and threaten other states has raised the international stakes. In February, Daesh beheaded 21 migrant workers from Egypt because they were Coptic Christians, then released a propaganda video containing footage of the heinous act. That lured Egypt into waging direct air strikes against the group’s targets in Derna.
Last November, Ansar Bait al-Maqdis – the dominant jihadist group in the Egyptian Sinai – pledged allegiance to Daesh, as did Nigeria’s Boko Haram more recently. Daesh has also made direct threats against Italy, promptingofficials in Rome to warn that Italy’s military may intervene in Libya to counter Daesh’s fighters.
One quarter of Daesh’s fighters in Derna come from other Arab countries and Afghanistan. A major influx of Jabhat al-Nusra fighters from Syria have also entered the fray in Libya, underscoring how Islamist extremists from lands far away have exploited Libya’s status as a failed state. This development was most recently underscored when a Sudanese member of Daesh’s Libya division carried out a suicide attack on April 5th, which targeted a security checkpoint near Misrata. The bloody incident resulted in four deaths and over 20 injuries.
The number of weak or failing states across Africa suggests that such international networks will continue to take advantage of frail central authorities and lawlessness throughout the extremely underdeveloped Sahel and other areas of the continent to spread their influence. In the absence of any political resolution to its civil war, Libya in particular – as a failed state with mountainous oil reserves – will remain vulnerable to extremist forces hoping to seize power amidst the ongoing morass.
Giorgio Cafiero is Co-Founder of Gulf State Analytics. Daniel Wagner is CEO of Country Risk Solutions.

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U.S. expands intelligence sharing with Saudis in Yemen operation

The United States is expanding its intelligence-sharing with Saudi Arabia to provide more information about potential targets in the kingdom's air campaign against Houthi militias in Yemen, U.S. officials told Reuters.
The stepped-up assistance comes as two weeks of relentless air strikes by the Saudis and other Gulf Arab allies have largely failed to halt advances by the Iran-linked Houthi forces.
The U.S. officials said the expanded assistance includes sensitive intelligence data that will allow the Saudis to better review the kingdom's targets in fighting that has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands since March.
"We have opened up the aperture a bit wider with what we are sharing with our Saudi partners," said one U.S. official.
"We are helping them get a better sense of the battlefield and the state of play with the Houthi forces. We are also helping identify 'no strike' areas they should avoid" to minimize any civilian casualties, the official said.

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Monday 6 April 2015

Justice stating that it will continue to prosecute medical marijuana cases against individuals in defiance of Congress

A publication from NIDA, revised as of April 2015, states that,
Recent animal studies have shown that marijuana can kill certain cancer cells and reduce the size of others. Evidence from one animal study suggests that extracts from whole-plant marijuana can shrink one of the most serious types of brain tumors. Research in mice showed that these extracts, when used with radiation, increased the cancer-killing effects of the radiation.
This news comes at an awkward time, considering that just this week, an announcement was made by the Department of Justice stating that it will continue to prosecute medical marijuana cases against individuals in defiance of Congress.
So while one government agency is admitting the benefits of marijuana in medical treatments, the Justice Department is pushing forward with prosecuting medical marijuana users in spite of the data substantiating its value.
“It couldn’t be any clearer that marijuana has medical value,” Tom Angell, chairman of the Marijuana Majority, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “When even NIDA and the surgeon general are acknowledging that marijuana can help people who are suffering, it is time for the Obama administration to reschedule the drug. The attorney general can initiate that process today, and there’s no reason for him not to, especially when polling shows that such a huge majority of Americans supports medical marijuana.”
In the Huffington Post, Drug Policy Alliance Director of National Affairs Bill Piper chastised the Justice Department, saying they are defying the will of the voters.

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Thursday 2 April 2015

Over 25,000 foreign jihadis have joined the Islamic State and al-Qaeda

Islamic-State925,000 Muslims from all over the world have joined the jihad. They all apparently misunderstood Islam in the same way — a catechetical failure of monumental proportions on the part of Islamic authorities, but no one seems to have noticed and certainly no one cares about it.
“UN Report: More Than 25,000 Foreigners Fight With Terrorists,” by Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, April 1, 2015:
The number of fighters leaving home to join al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syria and other countries has spiked to more than 25,000 from over 100 nations, according to a new U.N. report.
The panel of experts monitoring U.N. sanctions against al-Qaida said in the report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press that its analysis indicates the number of foreign terrorist fighters worldwide increased by 71 percent between mid-2014 and March 2015.
It said the scale of the problem has increased over the past three years and the flow of foreign fighters “is higher than it has ever been historically.”
The overall number of foreign terrorist fighters has “risen sharply from a few thousand … a decade ago to more than 25,000 today,” the panel said in the report to the U.N. Security Council.
The report said just two countries have accounted for over 20,000 foreign fighters: Syria and Iraq. They went to fight primarily for the Islamic State group but also the Al-Nusra Front.
Looking ahead, the panel said the thousands of foreign fighters who traveled to Syria and Iraq are living and working in “a veritable ‘international finishing school’ for extremists,” as was the case in Afghanistan in the 1990s….