America "unhappy" over Russia using Iran's Hamedan airport !

The reason is quite understandable given the fact that the West & NATO allies, with support from Israel & gulf monarchy, propped up IS and continue to fund, arm and provide logistical support to oust Bashar Al Assad...

Russia’s Middle East breakthrough… no wonder Washington’s grouchy

RT, 19 Aug, 2016

Russia’s air raids in Syria, launched from Iranian territory this week, were received by Washington with a mixture of consternation and disappointment. Understandably, too. It marks a breakthrough in Russia’s standing in the Middle East.

Russia is working closely in a quartet that includes Iran, Iraq and Syria. We can add Lebanon because of the cooperation on the ground in Syria with Hezbollah, which is one of the governing coalition partners in Beirut. 

Even Middle East countries, thought of as Washington’s partners, are showing a newfound appreciation of Russia and the leadership provided by President Vladimir Putin. The notably conciliatory relations between Turkey and Russia – in the wake of a failed coup that Ankara implicates a cleric who lives in the US in – speaks of a tectonic shift in regional geopolitics.

Despite deep differences over Syria, Russia has managed to retain cordial relations with other states normally considered American proteges and enemies of Moscow’s ally in Syria. Putin has over the past year warmly received Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while also respectfully hosting Saudi leaders in Moscow. Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was recently welcomed in the Persian Gulf’s Qatari capital, Doha, for high-level talks on Middle East conflict resolution. 

Contrast this all-round respect for Russia with America’s increasingly dismal reputation. Decades of US-led destructive wars, failed nation-building schemes and regime-change machinations have diminished Washington’s standing in the region, even among its supposed partners. Privately and publicly, the Israelis, Turks and Saudis seem to harbor contempt towards their American patron in spite of official designation as allies. 

When Russian long-range Tu-22M3 bombers took off from western Iran this week to conduct missions in Syria it signaled that Moscow is the emerging dominant player in the region after decades of presumed American hegemony. 

The very fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran for the first time since the 1979 revolution made the unprecedented provision to its constitution to allow a foreign power to use its territory for military purpose is testimony to Russia’s sway in the sensitive region.

Even official enemies of Iran – Israel and Saudi Arabia – cannot but acknowledge the significance. Iran, which has defied decades of Western-imposed sanctions out of principle for its sovereign rights, is willing to trust Russia’s military with territorial access. 

This must be seen as a measure of Russia’s integrity in conducting international relations. Unlike Washington which is mired in double dealing and treachery as even its supposed closest allies all too well know. In short, Washington has a trust deficit. 

Whereas Russia – whatever some states may feel about its allies in Syria and Iran – can nevertheless be seen for genuinely sticking by its commitments.

Before Vladimir Putin ordered Russian military intervention in Syria at the end of last September, the government of President Bashar Assad was on the ropes. Rebels and foreign-backed militants were threatening to topple Assad in accordance with the objective of regime change supported by Washington and its NATO allies, Britain and France, and partners across the region – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel.

Putin’s bold intervention in defense of Russia’s longtime ally in Damascus completely reversed the tide of war. In less than a year, the Syrian state has recovered much of its territory, and it is the foreign-backed militants who are now facing defeat. 

The recent about-turn by Turkey – once a gung-ho backer of the militants in Syria – to call for closer cooperation with Russia and Iran in settling the Syrian conflict is tacit admission that the covert war for regime change is all but over. And it is Russia’s power that achieved the outcome. 

A New York Times report earlier this month was candid in its assessment of Russia’s strategic success in Syria. 

Alluding the wider geopolitical ramifications, the newspaper editorializes: “For the first time since Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Russian military for the past year has been in direct combat with rebel forces trained and supplied by the CIA. The American-supplied Afghan fighters prevailed during that Cold War conflict. But this time the outcome – thus far – has been different.”

The NY Times added: “Russia’s battlefield successes in Syria have given Moscow, isolated by the West after its annexation [sic] of Crimea and other incursions into Ukraine, new leverage in decisions about the future of the Middle East.”

This is why Washington’s reaction to Russia’s breakthrough military cooperation with Iran in the Syrian war was weirdly downcast.

The US State Department described the more effective deployment of Russian air power in Syria as “unfortunate”. And it decried the closer liaison between Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria as “doubling down” to prop up the Assad “regime”.

Russia had notified the US of its overflights from Iran through Iraq to Syria in accordance with their “deconfliction procedure”. But it was evident that Russia was not seeking consultation from Washington. Moscow had determined the plan and was going ahead with it regardless of Washington’s misgivings.

American disquiet over the Russian-Iranian move was revealing. At first, Washington tried to quibble about legalities, claiming that the Russian military flights contravened a UN Security Council resolution barring “supply, sale or transfer of combat aircraft to Iran”. 

But as Russia’s Sergey Lavrov pointed out the arrangement involved none of these. 

“These military aircraft are used by air forces after Iran’s authorization for taking part in the anti-terrorist operation in Syria after a legitimate request from its government,” he said on Wednesday.

Then Washington objected with the threadbare trope that the Russian air raids on Deir ez-Zor, Aleppo and Idlib were striking “moderate rebels”. State Department spokesman Mark Toner assured reporters that the Russian targets were not extremists belonging to Islamic State or Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (rebranded from Al-Nusra), but rather were “predominantly moderate” rebels supported by the United States. 

Strangely though in his press conference response to the Russian operations, US military spokesman for Syria and Iraq, Colonel Chris Carver said that he did not know where the proscribed terror groups were located in the targeted areas.

So how come the State Department knows it was “moderates” that the Russians were hitting but the Pentagon can’t say where the “terrorists” are?

While Russia is winning the war in Syria on behalf of the sovereign authorities with the majority support of the Syrian people, Washington is seen doubling down on double talk and double think in its collusion with terrorist proxies.

Washington is losing all credibility in the strategically pivotal region because it has for too long pivoted between criminal schemes and duplicity. Even traditional partners and clients can see this unedifying spectacle of sordid US conduct. Feckless, unreliable American power is something to disdain, if not dread. 

Russia has stood firm with its allies, and, as Syria attests, has carried out the mission it said it would, without mendacity or intrigue. That integrity is surely worthy of respect among allies, non-aligned states and foes alike. 

For too long Russia witnessed the Americans carve up and mutilate the Middle East with wars and subversions, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya and Syria. Syria has marked a historic turning point in Washington’s depredations in the Middle East.

And Russia has emerged as a serious countervailing force to be reckoned with. Fortunately.

Thailand finally mulls to reign in illegal prostitution...

This initiative should have been taken long time ago...

Sex tourism crackdown targets brothels and underage prostitutes
Kirrily Schwarz

August 4, 2016

SEX TOURISM is more prolific than you think.

And although prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand, the nation has more than 123,000 sex workers, who contribute up to 10 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians crowd into the steamy streets each year, and while some prefer the beach or the buzzing nightclubs, others make a beeline for Thailand’s dark underbelly. They seek out the neighbourhoods where women are bought and sold like meat, where even their most sordid sexual desires can be satisfied if the price is right.

However, that could all be about to change.

‘SEX CAPITAL OF THE WORLD’

Damien May has been living in Thailand for five years. Originally a plumber from central Queensland, he now spends his days rescuing underage sex workers.

“There’s no text book for a rescue, and a lot of it’s trial and error,” he said. “We found posing as a customer, as a paedophile, was the best way to get in and start building a relationship with the girls.”

He says it’s critical to earn their trust before offering them a way out.

He works as the International Rescue Manager at Destiny Rescue, an Australian charity that specialises in saving children from human trafficking and sexual exploitation. It operates in five countries across Asia, and has rescued an estimated 1400 children since 2011.

Based in Chiang Mai, most of his work is done in southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle.

“A lot of the kids come from hill tribes,” he said. “Most of them have no identification. They’re stateless. They have no way of making an income.”

He says a lot of them go to cities looking for work, and have no idea what they’re getting into.

“They’re told they’ll work at a restaurant, and serve drinks, but a lot of them get raped,” he said, adding that most feel compelled to stay so they can send money home.

“They take a bullet, so to speak, for the family.”

Once Damien and his team establish a connection, they offer a rehabilitation program — teaching children skills, and helping them find legitimate jobs. They also work with a range of authorities, including the Australian Federal Police, to help put the paedophiles behind bars.

“We’ve done a lot in five years,” he said.

Destiny Rescue is also making progress in other parts of the country.

“Pattaya is the sex capital of the world,” he said. “But we’re seeing a huge drop in underage workers because of what we do. People don’t want to hire them, and we actually struggle to find them now, in Bangkok and Pattaya. That’s good, that’s really good.”

‘WE WANT THE SEX INDUSTRY GONE’

It’s not just underage workers who are being removed. A recent government crackdown, led by Thailand’s first female tourism minister, has seen late-night raids and mass arrests across a large number of brothels and clubs in the resort city of Pattaya — and she’s not stopping there. She wants to shut it down all together, meaning ladyboys, go-go dancers and Thailand’s infamous ping-pong shows could become relics of the past.

“We want Thailand to be about quality tourism,” she said recently. “We want the sex industry gone.”

Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul was educated in the United States, and she’s a successful businesswoman in her own right. She wants rich holiday-makers to visit Thailand for its culture and beauty, not its seedy red light districts.

With that in mind, she declared August to be “women traveller’s month”. Ostensibly, it’s about splashing the airports in pink, adding female-only immigration queues and parking spaces. Realistically, it’s about diversifying the pool of tourists, and attracting travellers more likely to hit the beach or sample the local food than indulge in sex tourism.

‘THE MILITARY SEXUAL COMPLEX’

However, a clampdown could devastate the economy, which is still reeling from a massive recession in 2014. Some prostitutes make 5000 Baht (A$189) in a single night, which is sixteen times the minimum wage, and many send their income to relatives in rural parts of the country. If the industry is dissolved, thousands could find themselves out of work.

However, some researchers suggest sex tourism is an entrenched part of Thai society, and that it links all the way back to the Korean and Vietnam wars. Manpavan Kaur, a research analyst at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, calls it the “military sexual complex”.

“Military personnel stationed in Korea and Vietnam frequented the cities of the Philippines and Thailand,” she wrote for the charity Safe World For Women. “Impoverished local women migrated to these cities to offer sexual services to these servicemen.”

She said although military presence decreased with the end of the wars, sex businesses continued to grow. They capitalised on the tourist boom of the 1970s, which continues today.

Therefore, try as it might to shut down brothels, end ping-pong shows and lock up ladyboys, Thailand’s government could be fighting an impossible battle.

“The sex industry will always be there, it will just go further underground,” said Damien. “But the laws are there. It’s just a matter of getting the right people to uphold them.”

Fidel Castro turns 90 and counting...

A resolute man who defied numerous CIA/MSM coup & assassination attempts...

Many Happy Returns Fidel. Long Live Fidel Castro

By Steven Walker

Global Research, August 13, 2016

Morning Star 13 August 2016

Fidel Castro, the revolutionary icon of the latter 20th century, is 90 today. Steven Walker looks back over his momentous life

Fidel Castro is 90 years old today, and unlike other 90-year-olds, this former Head of State will not receive much acknowledgement in the mainstream media this year but his achievements cannot be overstated.

The fact he is alive at all is testimony to his resilience and fortitude and the failed attempts by the CIA to assassinate him.

He is probably the most iconic revolutionary figure of the 20th Century and the story of his fight to liberate Cuba from external control and American mafia influence in the 1950’s is a shining example of resistance and determination.

Castro decided to fight for the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista’s military junta by founding a paramilitary organisation known as The Movement.

In July 1953, they launched a failed attack on the Moncado Barracks during which many militants were killed and Castro was arrested.

Placed on trial, he defended his actions and provided his famous “History Will Absolve Me” speech, before being sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment.

Renaming his group the 26th July Movement (MR-26-7), Castro was pardoned by Batista’s government in May 1955, who no longer considered him a political threat.

Restructuring the MR-26-7, he fled to Mexico with his brother Raul, where he met with Argentine Che Guevara, and together they set up a small revolutionary force intent on overthrowing Batista.

In November 1956, Castro and 81 revolutionaries sailed from Mexico aboard the Granma and crash-landed near to Los Cayuelos. Attacked by Batista’s forces, they fled to the Sierra Maestra mountain range, where the 19 survivors set up an encampment from which they waged guerrilla war against the army. Boosted by new recruits that increased the guerilla army’s numbers to 200, they co-ordinated their attacks with the actions of other revolutionaries across Cuba.

The Cuban revolution was completed in January 1959 following the final victory led by Che Guevara over government troops in Santa Clara.

Fidel Castro’s 90th birthday offers a chance to consider where he drew inspiration from and the ideas which prompted his band of guerillas to mount a campaign against overwhelming odds.

On the advice of those who noted his passion for argument, Fidel enrolled at the University of Havana in 1945 to study law. A world divided ideologically between Capitalism and Communism stimulated a febrile political atmosphere in university. Two of his earliest university friends belonged to the Communist Youth and he made his first overtly political speech in 1946, criticising the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado, Batista’s predecessor.

Fidel was aligned with two main political groupings at university – the Movimiento Socialista Revolucionario (MSR) led by Rolando Masferrer and the Union Insurreccional Revolucionaria (UIR) led by Emilio Trio.

This was where his revolutionary apprenticeship was refined, where he learned much about the nature of Cuban institutions and how steeped in corruption and violence they were.

The two groups jostled for prominence on campus, while outside the corrupt President Ramon Grau San Martin — installed as an American puppet in 1944 — was running Cuba.

Two of the key historical and political events dominating students at Havana University and influencing their beliefs, ideas and perceptions of Cuba’s past and future were the independence struggles of 1868 to 1898 led by Jose Marti, and the revolutionary movement of 1927 to 1933 involving former army officers, students and government officials that had led to the overthrow of President Machado in 1933.

But Fidel recognised that these were incomplete shifts in fundamental power — simply replacing varieties of colonial rulers and corrupt American puppet dictators.

Fidel vowed to succeed in creating a truly independent Cuba, a proper self-determining country led by those on the side of the many rather than the few.

In early 1947 Fidel became increasingly politically active, openly criticising President Grau and Batista for their failed leadership and corruption. His political profile was growing and he was seen prominently as a leading mourner at the funeral of the much-respected communist labour leader Jesus Menendez, who had been shot dead by an army captain in Manzanillo.

In 1948 the Cuban presidency passed to Carlos Prio, who with the influential army officer Batista, gave unparalleled freedom to the American Mafia who accelerated the degeneration of Cuba into what became widely renowned as America’s brothel, where casinos, gambling and gangsterism flourished and the proceeds of organised crime were stashed away from mainland American tax authorities.

The pattern of Fidel’s journey to later succeed in overthrowing the Batista dictatorship in 1959 was being hardened.

What seems to have been of much more significance was to identify with those fellow students and historical Cuban heroes, such as Jose Marti, and satiate his appetite for revolution and insurrection.

Fidel was by now immersing himself in student politics and actively supporting the fight for independence in Puerto Rico and demonstrating solidarity with other student movements in Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama, which were demanding an end to American colonial rule via financed puppet dictatorships.

Eduardo Chibas left the Autentico, the Authentic Revolutionary Party of Cuba, and in 1947 founded the Partido Popular Cubano (PPC- Cuban People’s Party) quickly becoming better known as the Ortodoxo party. Fidel joined immediately, finding in Chibas yet another hero, who he followed with great enthusiasm, regarding him as a man of the future destined to pave the way to Cuba’s independence.

The Ortodoxo party soon established itself as the first serious opposition to the government, fully adopting the principles and values of the revered nationalist martyr Jose Marti for anti-imperialism, socialism, economic independence, political liberty and social justice.

Although the attack on the Moncado barracks in 1953 failed, the trial in the Santiago de Cuba Palace of Justice began on September 21 1953 and ended on October 6 1953, after eleven sessions.

The Cuban civil code of justice, based on the Napoleonic code practiced in Europe and Latin America, had the verdict determined by a panel of three judges rather than by a jury of peers as under common law in the U.S. and Great Britain.

After the accused heard the charges against them, they were called to testify on their own behalf. The defendants were represented by 24 attorneys but Castro, a trained lawyer, assumed his own defence and lied under oath to avoid implicating rebels on trial.

In May 1955 Fidel was released after pressure from his supporters.

Four years later he was in power and now, nearly six decades on, we can raise a glass to him on his 90th despite all the efforts of the CIA.

Steven Walker is the author of Fidel Castro: From Infant to Icon ebook: www.amazon.co.uk/Fidel-Castro-Infant-Steven-Walker-ebook/dp/B00QM7GH4S

The original source of this article is Morning Star

Copyright © Steven Walker, Morning Star, 2016

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Fidel Castro Is a True Internationalist

By Telesur

Global Research, August 14, 2016

teleSUR 13 August 2016

TeleSUR looks at a few of the anti-colonial and revolutionary movements Castro has inspired and supported throughout his life, and his ongoing legacy throughout the world.

1. Liberation of Southern Africa

While Angola won its independence from Portugal on Jan. 15, 1975, inner political conflicts escalated between the leftist People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA, the National Liberation Front of Angola, FNLA, and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, UNITA. According to declassified documents, the U.S. sought to gain hegemony through a CIA operation which resulted in US$30 million in funding and support for the FNLA and UNITA. Apartheid South Africa supported the CIA operation by carrying out invasions, incursions and sabotages against Marxist forces within Angola.

Under Fidel’s leadership, more than 25,000 troops and military advisers were deployed to Angola during the war and ultimately helped win the independence of the country.

In 1988, the MPLA, with Cuban support, finally defeated the South Africans at the village Cuito Cuanavale after a six month battle. This battle was so vital to South Africa that the apartheid government considered using nuclear weapons against the MPLA and their Cuban allies.

By defending the MPLA’s control over large parts of Angola and supporting neighboring Namibia’s independence, Cuba curbed the ambitions of white supremacist South Africa. And after the fighting, Cuba continued to assist Angola with teaching programs like “Yes, I can,” which has taught more than a million Angolans how to read and write, as well as provided medical and exchange programs.

2. Apartheid South Africa

While he was still alive, Nelson Mandela cited Cuban support for the war against C.I.A.-backed South Africa in Angola as a great anti-apartheid victory. According to the iconic South African leader, Castro’s Cuba helped destroy the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressor and inspired the Black population of his own country.

“We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious, imperialist-orchestrated campaign,” Mandela said when he visited Cuba in the early 1990s. “We, too, want to control our own destiny.”

It was for this reason that Cuba was the first country outside of the African continent that Mandela visited after his release from prison.

“Cubans came to our region as doctors, teachers, soldiers, agricultural experts, but never as colonizers. They have shared the same trenches with us in the struggle against colonialism, underdevelopment, and apartheid,” said the legendary South African leader.

When Mandela visited the U.S.in June of 1990, he was criticized for his support for Fidel by right-wing protesters from the Cuban-American community. He was told that if he supported communism he should go back to Africa. Mandela’s African National Congress party would never become communist, but his affection toward Fidel and the Cuban Revolution, “a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people,” was unwavering.

Hundreds of Cubans have given their lives, literally, in a struggle that was, first and foremost, not theirs but ours. As Southern Africans we salute them. We vow never to forget this unparalleled example of selfless internationalism.

3. Salvador Allende’s Chile

During the 1970s, the left-wing Salvador Allende took power in Chile and began to transform the economic and social foundations of the country, nationalizing natural resources, building homes for the poor and improving access to health and education.

In 1971, Chile under Allende defied the United States and an Organization of American States protocol which prohibited states in the western hemisphere from having diplomatic relations with Cuba.

This resulted in Fidel taking a month long journey to Chile where he developed ties with Allende while also meeting workers, students, peasants and attending left-wing rallies.

Later in 1973, Fidel told Allende to beware of fascism in Chile, warning him against placing too much trust in the military.

Castro had advised Allende to arm the workers. “If every worker and every peasant had had a rifle like that in their hands, there would never have been a fascist coup,” he remembered later. “That is the great lesson to be learned for revolutionaries from events in Chile.”

It was around this time that Fidel famously gave Allende an AK-47, which he would reportedly use to defend the La Moneda presidential palace during the last moments of his life.

Fidel and Allende kept close correspondence up until 1973, when the latter was deposed in the infamous C.I.A.-backed coup led by Augusto Pinochet. The two wrote letters to each other on how to improve the political process in their respective countries. Fidel is known to have advised members of the Popular Union, Allende’s political party.

After the Sept. 11 coup that toppled Allende, Fidel delivered a speech in which he praised the left-wing leader for having “more dignity, more honor, more courage and more heroism than all the fascist military together.”

4. Sandinistas Against Imperialism

The success of the Cuban revolution in the 1960s sparked a surge in leftist social movements and guerrilla movements who fought against right-wing dictatorships and U.S. imperialism in Central America. Many of these groups were not only inspired by the Cuban example but received direct support from Fidel’s Cuba including groups in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Panama—and of course, Nicaragua.

Formed in the 1960s, Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front overthrew Anastasio Somoza’s U.S.-backed dictatorship in 1979, instituting campaigns of mass literacy and health care and drastically improving gender and economic equality in the country. But as with so many other examples in Latin America, by the early 1980s the C.I.A. had begun funding right-wing death squads in the country, known as the Contras.

Fidel’s Cuba had begun assisting the Sandinistas in the late 1960s, training guerilla leaders. In the post-revolution period, this support increased to the spheres of education and health care. With U.S. involvement and right-wing violence increasing, Cuba also provided arms and logistical support to the Sandinistas in the fight against imperialism.

5. Bolivarian Revolution

Late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez helped bring Latin America into the 21st century. After becoming president in 1999, Chavez was key in the region’s so-called “Pink Tide,” delivering radical social policies that transformed millions of lives while opposing U.S. imperialism across the continent.

The Bolivarian Revolution led by Chavez spread rapidly throughout Latin America, inspiring the world’s first Indigenous president in Evo Morales and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, among other progressive leaders. And crucially, Chavez once described Fidel as his “mentor.”

Today, Cuba and Venezuela have bilateral relations in virtually all industries and sectors, from energy management to cooperation in social programs in health, education and agriculture. One such program that perfectly illustrates the ideals of the Cuban—and now Bolivarian—revolution is Operation Milagro. Launched in 2004 by the governments of both countries, Operation Milagro has provided free medical treatment for people with vision impairment in both countries as well as 34 others across the Global South.

“This is such a powerful mission, which has become so widespread across the continent and beyond, including in Africa, that the goal set by Fidel and Chavez of 6 million patients is a goal that we are close to meeting,” said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro back in 2015.

In 2008, Maduro, then serving as foreign minister, echoed Chavez’s sentiments when he described the Cuban Revolution of 1959 as influencing “the path” for “real political, economic, social and cultural independence” in both the 20th and 21st centuries.

Maduro made the comments as he led a delegation in Cuba as part of the Cuba-Venezuela Political Consultation Body. “Our relation is a profound, longstanding, strategic fraternity by which we have become a single people, a single nation, as dreamed by the liberating fathers.”

The original source of this article is teleSUR

Copyright © Telesur, teleSUR, 2016

Proof that Saudi & other GCC members had been funding and fighting under the cover of terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front (now cunningly renamed Fatah Jabhat Al-Sham), Ahrar Al-Sham, and a garden variety of other terror groups...

Saudi Arabia stops women from joining Syria war

Three sisters and their children were detained by Lebanese authorities in Beirut and flown back to Saudi Arabia

Gulf News, August 12, 2016

Saudi Arabia said on Friday it had prevented three Saudi women and seven children from traveling through Lebanon to join the conflict in neighboring Syria, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported.
The three sisters and their children were detained by Lebanese authorities in Beirut and flown back to Saudi Arabia on Thursday after the husband of one of the women told police they planned to join the war, SPA quoted an interior ministry spokesman as saying.
Police said the husband, who was the father of three of the children, had tipped them off on Monday that his wife had left and was a “takfiri”, a term Saudi authorities use for Islamist militants. The children were aged between one and 10 years old, the statement added.
The Saudi public has grown increasingly angry at bloody images broadcast of Syria’s violence and the government has sought to stop its citizens from joining what some of them see as a holy war against the Syrian government.
Riyadh has backed the rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Al Assad while being mindful of the blowback it previously suffered after radicalised Saudi nationals returned home from foreign conflicts ready to wage war on their own government.
Many of the foreign fighters flocking to Syria to join groups like Daesh are Arabs from the Middle East and Africa, although militants have attracted fighters from across different countries ranging from Norway to Uzbekistan.
A former British spy chief said in December that Syria had become the pre-eminent global incubator for a new generation of militants after Islamist groups there more than doubled their recruitment of foreign fighters to as many as 31,000 over the past 18 months.

Technology & art imagine Japan's crystal universe

feast your eyes with these very creative work ...

Japan's crystal universe: A magical installation from another planet
By Amanda Sealy, CNN
August 5, 2016

Technology and art collide in DMM. Planets Art is one of Japan's largest art exhibitions to-date. Tokyo-based teamLab (http://www.team-lab.net/) -- an artist collective made of self-described 'ultratechnologists' -- is behind the otherworldly showcase this summer. The elaborate exhibition features four main interactive installations, one of which imagines a "crystal universe". By employing a mix of mobile devices, sensors and computer renderings, visitors can become a part of each world. Walk through one room's pond, for example, and a projection of Koi fish swim away, detecting your movement. Below, teamLab member Kuda Takahashi describes each installation room as a different planet and likens the experience to traveling through space.
 
What was the overall concept of this exhibition?

The concept is more about the feeling in the body or a physical thing using the five senses at the same time with other people. We wanted to have this completely immersive huge installation, more than 3,000 square meters. There is no right order when people wander through the whole installation -- planet to planet as they like.

What's the difference between looking at a painting in a museum versus experience art this way?

The biggest difference is we can make people participate in the artwork or we can make people part of this artwork and that is very important. I'm not against the Mona Lisa, but if I see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, the relationship is one-by-one. So it's a bit negative toward other people's existence because I want to see it by myself. Here, if I see it by myself not as much happens, but if I see it with other people, more effects will happen. It's more of a beautiful experience we are going to have, so we can be a little bit positive toward the other people.

How would you describe the current relationship between art and technology?

For us, technology is only a tool or a material. It's important for us at the beginning to have a concept and we have something we want to do and then we use the tool of technology. If you compare it with some old artworks, our artwork is light and our canvas is everything. We want to expand past the physical work itself, so when we create that kind of space we need new technologies. We cannot make it by ourselves, we need many, a team. So that's the reason why we have 400 people in our office. You wanted this experience to be so immersive, you even went as far as creating unique smells for each room. Yes, for example, in "Wander Through the Crystal Universe," we actually made a special scent by working with an astronaut. We asked her to remember the smell of space and we tried to make that smell or its sense and we put it inside this artwork.

So maybe people can feel space through the smell also. The budget to create this special installation is huge, but it's actually much cheaper than to creating a rocket to travel to different planets. DMM.Planets Art by teamLab runs through August 31, 2016.

10 fun facts about 1st man in space, Gagarin

may not sound fun to everyone...

10 fun facts about 1st man in space Gagarin
RT, 11 Apr, 2016

On April 12 Russia marks 55 years since cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin set off on his mission and became the first man in space. Yuri Gagarin was born in Klushino, in the Smolensk Oblast which is in Russia.

10 facts about the legend behind the man.

1) Let's Go

"Poyekhali!" ("Let's go!") was Gagarin's iconic phrase at take-off from the Baikonur cosmodrome on April 12, 1966, when he became the first man to travel to space. However, according to protocol he was meant to say "Crew, taking off!" His informal approach signalled the beginning of the Space Age in human history.

 

2) The letter

Before his space flight, Gagarin wrote a farewell letter to his wife and daughters. Luckily his safe return meant that the letter was of no use. However, seven years later Gagarin's wife, Valentina, had to open it when Yuri lost his life during a routine training flight in a fighter jet.

3) Collectors’ items

The Vostok 3KA-2 Spaceship Capsule was sold at a Sotheby's auction five years ago on April 12, 2011, for US$2,882,500. This is the only Vostok spaceship outside of Russia and the only one in private hands; all other surviving Vostok capsules are in permanent Russian museum collections.

4) Prized underwear

For his bravery Gagarin received many perks from the Soviet government, including an apartment and a car. But the list was so detailed that every single item was on protocol, such as "six pairs of silk undergarments" and "six pairs of socks."

5) Are you for real?

When Gagarin flew to Moscow to meet then-leader Nikita Khrushchev, the crowds of journalists and officials were stunned that he was a regular person because of one small detail: his shoe laces were untied.

6) Love hurts

The scar on Gagarin's brow has become a fruitful source of myths and tales of love, violence, bravery and whatnot. It seems, however, that he earned it when he was caught by his wife in a room with another woman, a nurse named Anna who had aided him after a boating incident earlier in the day, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961. He attempted to escape by jumping out of the window, which resulted in him hitting his face hard on a kerbstone.

7) Kremlin tomb

Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died in a MiG-15UTI crash near the town of Kirzhach. Their bodies were cremated and the ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin on Moscow's Red Square.


8) Gagarin had 2 daughters

His elder daughter Yelena Gagarina (in the photo) is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001, and his younger daughter, Galina Gagarina, is department chair and a professor of economics at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.


9) Hometown honor

Yuri's hometown, Gzhatsk, was renamed after him when he died in 1968. It's now called Gagarin. The house in the photo is where Gagarin lived during his school years.


10) Cosmonautics Day

The day when Gagarin committed the first manned flight into space has become widely celebrated in Russia as Cosmonautics Day – in 2011, April 12 was declared International Day of Human Space Flight by 60 countries at a UN General Assembly.

French mayor bans burqinis on Cannes beaches

Heading to hypocritical secularism or seclusion ?!

French mayor bans burqinis on Cannes beaches

AFP/Cannes (France)

August 12, 2016

"Beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation, when France and places of worship are currently the target of terrorist attacks."

The mayor of Cannes has banned the wearing of burqinis -- full-body swimsuits -- on the beaches of the French Riviera resort famous for its annual film festival, officials said Thursday.

Mayor David Lisnard signed off on the ruling that "access to beaches and for swimming is banned to anyone who does not have (bathing apparel) which respects good customs and secularism," which is a founding principle of the French republic.

"Beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation, when France and places of worship are currently the target of terrorist attacks, is liable to create risks of disrupting public order (crowds, scuffles etc) which it is necessary to prevent," it says.

Thierry Migoule, head of municipal services for the town, sought to clarify the ruling's intent. "We are not talking about banning the wearing of religious symbols on the beach ... but ostentatious clothing which refers to an allegiance to terrorist movements which are at war with us," he said.

On July 14 the nearby Riviera city of Nice was the target of an attack claimed by Daesh which killed 85 people, when a truck ploughed into seafront crowds celebrating the French national holiday.

On July 26 a priest was killed in his church in northwestern France by two attackers who had proclaimed their allegiance to Daesh.

Islamic dress is a hot-button issue in France, where the full-face veil is banned in public places. But there is no ban on wearing religious symbols or clothing.

Migoule said that no burqini had been seen on any beach in Cannes since the ruling was signed into force on July 28 by Lisnard, a member of the centre-right Les Republicains party.

Earlier this week a waterpark in nearby Marseille cancelled plans to host a private event for Muslim women wearing burqinis after they sparked outrage, including from politicians on both the right and left.