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Trump vows “severe punishment” for Saudi Arabia if…
Saturday, 13 October 2018 21:53 Written by pmnewsU.S. President Donald Trump said in a CBS interview on Saturday that there would be “severe punishment” for Saudi Arabia if it turns out that missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Riyadh and legal resident of the United States, disappeared on Oct. 2 after visiting the consulate.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment,” Trump said.
Asked whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave an order to kill him, Trump said “nobody knows yet.
”But we’ll probably be able to find out.” Trump added in excerpts of the “60 Minutes” interview that will air on Sunday “we would be very upset and angry if that were the case”.
Trump said that there was much at stake with Khashoggi case, “maybe especially so” because he was a reporter.
But Trump signaled that cutting off U.S. military sales to the kingdom may not be an option, saying, “I don’t want to hurt jobs.”
Turkish sources have told the Media that the initial assessment of the police was that Khashoggi was deliberately killed inside the consulate.
Riyadh has dismissed the claims.
Three Nigerian scammers bag 235-year imprisonment in America[PHOTOS]
Saturday, 13 October 2018 13:25 Written by dailypost.ngThree Nigerian scammers who befriended many of their victims on dating sites have been slammed huge prison sentences by a Mississippi court after making tens of millions of dollars from their schemes.
A court in the Southern District of Mississippi had in February found them all guilty of crimes including mail fraud, wire fraud, identity theft, credit card fraud and theft of government property. Ayelotan and Raheem were also found guilty of conspiracies to commit bank fraud and money laundering.
Dating back to at least 2001, the scammers were involved in multiple internet fraud schemes, resulting in losses in the tens of millions, according to the Department of Justice.
It claimed that they would befriend women on dating sites, establish a romantic relationship and then either get them to send money or have them participate in fraud schemes, usually without the victim’s knowledge.
The unsuspecting women would sometimes be required to cash counterfeit checks and money orders; use stolen credit card details to purchase goods; and use stolen personal information to take over victims’ bank accounts.
A whopping 21 defendants have already been charged in this ongoing case, 12 of whom have pleaded guilty to charges involving conspiracy and 11 of whom have been sentenced.
The three Nigerians were among the six extradited from South Africa by US Department of Justice in 2015 to face charges of running a series of scams against gullible Americans over the past 16 years.
Fourteen others resident in the US were also arrested to face trial in Gulfport, Mississippi on nine federal charges, including conspiracy to commit identity theft, wire fraud, bank fraud, theft of US government funds, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The indictment states that since 2001 the accused, were part of a string of scams against Americans, facilitated by internet communications. These include the longstanding 419 scheme, whereby a massive windfall is promised once a small number of payments have been provided, but the DoJ claims it went much further than that.
The team was also accused of running romance stings to bilk the lonely of funds, shipping fraud, running fake work-from-home businesses, check fraud, and plain-old hijacking of other people’s bank accounts and credit cards to divert funds.
Global fraud continues to grow thanks to the internet and an increase in the use of both anonymizing technology and bots designed to mimic human behavior.
ThreatMetrix, which analyzes 20 billion annual transactions, blocked 130 million fraud attempts in Q1 alone, a 35% increase on the same time last year.
However, it is Europe that has become a major fraud hotspot. There were 50% more fraud attempts originating from the region than the US in the quarter, the firm claimed.
NAN
US First Lady, Melania Trump Breaks Silence On Husband's Alleged Romance With Stormy Daniels
Friday, 12 October 2018 21:33 Written by tori.ngCosby is in jail while these big names accused of sexual misconduct are walking free
Friday, 28 September 2018 22:37 Written by face2faceafricaAmerican democracy is sick in the 21st century as justice has become the missing link in democratic processes involving sexual assault on women and racist attacks.
The United States has been hit by nume
The Cosby Show star had more than a dozen women accuse him of sexual misconduct going back almost 30 years, and one case made it to court which convicted him for the 2004 sexual assault of Andrea Constand.
The 81-year-old black man who rose to fame in the 1960s becoming the first black actor to star in a drama series fell into shame and in jail, for a crime he pled not guilty to, but had admitted in a 2005 document to “obtaining sedatives to give to young women he wanted to have sex with”.
Scapegoat?
Cosby is the first and only celebrity during the #MeToo era to be jailed after dozens of top celebrities were named by accusers who said they were sexually assaulted. President Donald Trump’s nominee for Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, is currently under pressure after a professor Christine Blasey Ford alleged that in the early 1980s Kavanaugh had attempted to rape her.
Here are some big names who have been accused of sexual misconduct but are walking free.
Bill O’Reilly
Wealthy American journalist, author, and former television host Bill O’Reilly has been accused by at least six women of sexual harassment and threatening producers and guests to have sex with him or risk losing their careers if they refused him.
He is reported to have reached a legal settlements deal totalling a $45 million with the six women who were unsuccessful in court.
His misconduct was revealed in various New York Times investigations that resulted in his sack in 2017 by Fox News which was also implicated for helping him settle five sexual harassment lawsuits totalling $13 million.
Matt Lauer
Harvey Weinstein
American film producer Harvey Weinstein was the basis upon which the #MeToo movement started in 2017 after a report by the New York Times and The New Yorker claimed that dozens of women had accused him of rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse over at least 30 years.
Over 80 women have come out afterwards to accuse him of the acts which he denied. He was fired from his company, The Weinstein Company, and criminal complaints were filed by at least six women against him which resulted in his arrest in New York in 2018 and a subsequent rape charge and other offences. He was released on bail pending investigations.
He is also being investigated in the United Kingdom and other countries for the same allegations. Weinstein is walking free.
Russell Simmons
Hip-hop, fashion and entertainment mogul Russell Simmons was accused by model Keri Claussen Khalighi of coercing her to perform a sex act and later penetrating her without her consent in his New York apartment in 1991. He disputed her account, saying the relationship was consensual.
From that time to 2018, over half a dozen women have accused him of sexual misconduct, and six of them accused him of rape. The latest is 37-year-old filmmaker Jennifer Jarosik who accused him in January 2018 of rape and sexual assault.
She filed a lawsuit in California’s Central District Court, seeking $5 million in damages. Jarosik alleged that Simmons raped her in August 2016 after she was invited to his house in Los Angeles.
When Jarosik arrived, Simmons allegedly asked her to have sex with him, to which she allegedly said “no.”
“Simmons got aggressive and pushed Plaintiff [Jarosik] on his bed. Plaintiff tried to force Defendant to stay away from her and in doing so, Defendant knocked Plaintiff off his bed, and Plaintiff hit her head and then Defendant pounced on her while she was still in shock and fear, and proceeded to rape her,” says the lawsuit.
Simmons stated that he has “never had a sexual encounter that was not consensual or lawful — ever.”
TRUMP
The United States President Donald Trump has been the centre of sexual misconduct allegations made by at least 19 women since the 1980s.
He has been sued three times including a suit by his then-wife Ivana who made a rape claim during their 1989 divorce litigation. All the suits were withdrawn. Some of the allegations were public before his presidency and others came up during and after his campaign for office.
A 2005 audio recording that was leaked during the 2016 presidential campaign implicated Trump who was bragging that he “can do anything” to women. He can “just start kissing them … I don’t even wait” and “grab ’em by the pussy”. He denied behaving that way toward women and later threatened to sue all of his accusers.
Trump has also been accused by several former Miss USA and Miss Teen USA contestants of entering their dressing rooms in 1997, 2000, 2001, and 2006, while they were dressing up. He owned the Miss Universe franchise and had said in an interview in 2005 that he could “get away with things like that”.
Donald Trump is still the president of the United States and he has actively supported all the men accused of sexual misconduct in his government and blamed the victims and media of a political smear campaign.
Popular News
Plane ditches into Pacific lagoon
Friday, 28 September 2018 10:56 Written by Punchng.com
Passengers were forced to swim for their lives Friday when an airliner ditched into a lagoon after missing the runway on a remote Pacific island and began sinking.
The Air Niugini Boeing 737-800 was attempting to land at Weno airport in Micronesia but ended up half submerged in Chuuk lagoon after the accident on Friday morning.
The airline said the plane, which was involved in a collision with another aircraft earlier this year, had “landed short of the runway”.
Remarkably, it reported no serious injuries among those on the plane, which was making a scheduled stop on its way from the Micronesian capital Pohnpei to Port Moresby.
“Air Niugini can confirm that all on board were able to safely evacuate the aircraft,” the firm said in a brief statement.
“The airline is making all efforts to ensure the safety and immediate needs of our passengers and crew.”
The airline did not detail what caused the accident, which occurred at about 9:30am (2330 GMT Thursday).
But it said it had been informed that “the weather was very poor with heavy rain and reduced visibility at the time of incident”.
Passenger Bill Jaynes, editor of the Pohnpei-based Kaselehlie Press newspaper said he did not even realise there had been an accident until he saw water gushing into the fuselage.
“It was surreal,” he told Bible Baptist Radio Chuuk shortly after being discharged from hospital with a gash on his forehead.
“I thought we landed hard until I looked over and saw a hole in the side of the plane and water coming in. I thought ‘this is not the way it’s supposed to happen’.”
Jaynes praised the response of the locals.
“They immediately starting coming out in boats. They were awesome and I was really impressed,” he said.
– Previous accident –
A witness told the media the plane approached the airport “very low” before hitting the water.
The runway, like others in the north Pacific, is relatively short at 1,831 metres (6,006 feet).
It is surrounded on three sides by water. The Chuuk lagoon was a famous World War II battle site and dozens of Japanese vessels and planes are on the lagoon floor, now a tourist attraction for scuba divers.
It is not the first time a plane has overshot the runway in Micronesia.
In 2008, an Asia Pacific Airlines cargo Boeing 727 overran and ended up with its nose landing gear in the lagoon at the end of the Pohnpei airport runway.
Papua New Guinea’s Accident Investigation Commission (AIC) said it was preparing to send investigators to Weno.
“We’re trying to arrange a team to go there but I cannot give you any more information because I simply don’t have it,” a spokesman told AFP.
Air Niugini is Papua New Guinea’s national airline and lists only one 737-800 among its fleet of 21 aircraft on its official website.
According to registration details supplied by the airline, the plane was built in 2005 and had previously been owned by Air India Express and Mumbai-based Jet Airways.
The AIC website details an incident involving the aircraft in May this year when a Hercules operated by a freight company clipped the 737’s wing while taxiing, causing “significant damage”.
The website said the accident is still under investigation.
(AFP)
81-YEAR-OLD BILL COSBY SENTENCED TO STATE PRISON FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT
Tuesday, 25 September 2018 22:14 Written by informationng.comCelebrity comedian, Bill Cosby, has been sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for sexual assault by Judge Steven O’Neill.
Consequently, Cosby was categorised as a sexually violent predator. This means that the comedian must must undergo counselling for life and be listed on the sexual offender registry, BBC reports,
He was also reported to have declined to make a statement when a judge gave him the opportunity.
The 81-year-old star of The Cosby Show was found guilty in April of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004.
The court in Norristown, Pennsylvania, has scheduled two days for the sentencing, to give witnesses the opportunity to speak before the judge. However, Cosby’s lawyers said he will appeal the conviction, which observers say could push the case up to Pennsylvania’s highest court and take several years.
More than 50 women have come forward to publicly accuse Cosby of sexual assault spanning several decades.
But Cosby’s conviction on three counts of aggravated indecent assault refers solely to accusations from Constand, a former employee at Temple University in Philadelphia, Cosby’s alma mater.
Canadian politicians are playing a dangerous game on migration
Sunday, 23 September 2018 04:31 Written by theconversationCanada has joined the club of states embroiled with irregular migration. But our challenges are not unique, and we have two decades of European misadventures with irregular migration to guide our response. Unfortunately, Canadian politicians are following a well-rehearsed script in which crisis responses to anti-refugee sentiment undermine liberal values, limit policy options and open us to blackmail by hostile neighbours.
I have spent several years studying Europe’s relationship with irregular migration, most recently on a six-week trip that included looking at the Italian government’s hardline policies.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini came to power on a promise to expel 500,000 migrants, and has spent his short tenure repealing services, criminalizing migrant rescue NGOs, fostering xenophobic nationalism and undermining European solidarity.
Salvini, also serving as deputy prime minister, blames migrants for longstanding Italian social problems like youth unemployment. In June, Tito Boeri, head of the Italian pension agency, clashed with Salvini on a very simple point that immigration was needed in light of an aging workforce. Salvini responded by stating that the tenured economist “lives on Mars” and that evidence-based arguments about demographics “ignored the will” of Italians.
This kind of populism has troubling parallels in Canada. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has blamed asylum-seekers for longstanding affordable housing challenges and ended cooperation with the federal government on the issue. His stonewalling and scapegoating to foster a crisis in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election are well-worn tactics.
Fears trump facts
Anti-immigrant populism trades on two interrelated trends. First, facts matter far less than voters’ feelings; second, as Daniel Stockemer from the University of Ottawa puts it, scapegoating migrants pays off at the ballot box. Ruling parties are caught in a bind since governments that want votes should be responsive to their citizens. But responding to anti-immigrant sentiments means policies with negative economic, social and security outcomes.
Ruling parties in Europe have tried to thread the needle by getting tough on irregular migration while maintaining open asylum systems. They must show voters that they’re doing something when their political challengers claim they have lost control of borders and undermined public safety. Statements by Michelle Rempel, the Conservative Party of Canada’s immigration critic, about irregular migration are thus wholly unoriginal.
Today, Justin Trudeau announced a program to house illegal border crossers in Toronto area hotels for an indeterminate period of time, using your tax dollars. My thoughts here https://youtu.be/oc4fde7xorQ
Xenophobia fosters false opinions. Many Italians believe foreigners comprised 26 per cent of the population, when in reality it is only nine per cent. Similarly, a recent Angus Reid pollfound Canadians overestimated the number of asylum-seekers by almost 60 per cent. The majority said Canada was too generous, and that the current situation represented a crisis despite the swath of Liberal ministers and range of credible experts saying the opposite.
Crises demand action
Crises demand extraordinary measures. Seventy-one per cent of respondents in the Angus Reid survey would devote resources to border security if they were in charge. Only 29 per cent said they would focus on assisting arrivals. Respondents were more aware of the asylum issue than any other in 2018. But as in Europe, Canadians’ strong opinions are based on feelings rather than facts.
The federal Liberals have reacted by shuffling the cabinet and appointing a tough-on-crime ex-police chief to oversee the issue. But Bill Blair has been named Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction. While this might seem like a savvy move, bundling migration with security narrows the range of options to reactive and counter-productive policies that exclude economic and social interventions. When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Not to be outdone, the Conservatives would extend the Safe Third Country Agreement to the entirety of the border, meaning asylum-seekers could be turned back anywhere.
Read more: It's time to abolish the inhumane Canada-U.S. deal on asylum-seekers
Securitizing borders is expensive, rarely works for long and undermines refugee protection. It also results in more criminality. Prohibition in the face of high demand fosters black market supply. Illicit economies and more dangerous routes also make migrants vulnerable to human trafficking.
What’s more, criminalizing migrants reduces policy options. Politicians in Europe are obsessed with “breaking” smuggling rings, with little interest in the supply/demand logics that drive them. Irregular migration becomes more spectacular, offering politicians fodder to escalate the response. This leads to right-wing parties framing migration as a civilizational threat, the starkest examples of which can be found in Austria, Hungary and Italy.
Maxime Bernier’s tweets about “extreme multiculturalism” and the “cult of diversity” were cribbed from European populists. His break from the Conservative Party in favour of forming an intellectually and morally authentic right-wing party was right on script.
5/ Trudeau’s extreme multiculturalism and cult of diversity will divide us into little tribes that have less and less in common, apart from their dependence on government in Ottawa. These tribes become political clienteles to be bought with taxpayers $ and special privileges.
Despite Conservative attempts to brush off Bernier’s defection at the party’s recent policy convention, a far-right fringe party could bleed voters. If Europe offers any lessons, the Conservatives will likely mimic Bernier’s arguments.
That both Andrew Scheer and Michelle Rempel supported far-right activists to score points against Justin Trudeau is telling. So is the fact that Conservative delegates voted for ending birthright citizenship based on apocryphal stories of citizenship tourists.
Canadians like to believe we are exceptionally tolerant. Environics pollster Michael Adams argues that Canada is particularly resistant to xenophobic populism, partly because of our immigration history. But the current situation reveals a different story: Canada’s openness is more about exceptional geography.
In a 2017 study, Michael Donnelly from the University of Toronto found that Canada is no more tolerant than similar countries, and argued our resistance to populism is because we’ve been spared migration crises. That’s no longer true.
Frays the social fabric
What can be done? The government inherited a broken refugee system from Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, but the Liberals must address unsustainable backlogs in asylum processing, which cascade through the system and decrease people’s trust in its efficacy. Conservatives must ask whether scapegoating asylum-seekers for votes is worth the cost. It frays the social fabric, and will leave them holding the bag if they win the 2019 election.
Political discourse matters. The migrants and asylum-seekers I interviewed this summer told me time and again that Salvini ascension had changed the mood. People routinely approach them in the street to tell them that their time is up and they’ll be expelled to Africa. Italian nationalists have shot migrants in the street. Recall that the Québec City mosque shooter was motivated by xenophobic nationalism. It can, and has, happened here.
All of this might sound like the moralizing of a university researcher (from Toronto, no less), so I will conclude with a national security rationale. Canada’s 2019 federal election campaign will coincide with dates for ending Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of migrants in the United States. While some might choose to come here, the more troubling option is that Donald Trump could send them our way.
Beggar-thy-neighbour policies can be used to exacerbate migration crises, and Trump is nothing if not a zero-sum thinker. As Kelly Greenhill from Tufts University has shown, states routinely use “engineered migration” to coerce or deter their rivals. Turkey did it to Europe in 2016, securing an extra three billion Euros with a threat that it would allow hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers into Europe.
It would take a profound willed ignorance to assume Trump is beyond engineering a migration event to deflect public opinion at home, influence the Canadian elections or leverage trade concessions. Politicians from across the spectrum have a duty to ensure Canada is not exposed to that kind of blackmail, particularly not for gains at the ballot box. That means de-escalating the rhetoric and co-operating to ensure we have our house in order.
Author: Craig Damian Smith: Associate Director, Global Migration Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto
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BREAKING: Trump cuts refugee admissions for 2019
Monday, 17 September 2018 21:46 Written by AFPThe Trump administration slashed its annual cap on refugee acceptances on Monday for the second year in a row, saying it would take only a maximum 30,000 in the fiscal year to come.
That was down from a 45,000 limit in the year that ends on September 30 — but higher than the actual number of refugees resettled in the past year, estimated at below 21,000.
“The improved refugee policy of this administration serves the national interest of the United States, and expands our ability to help those in need all around the world,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We are and continue to be the most generous nation in the world.”
(AFP)