October 3, 2015

U.S. Kurdish allies welcome Russian airstrikes in Syria

But there were signs that U.S. influence over events in Syria was eroding, with the Kurdish militia that has been Washington’s closest ally on the ground there extending a public welcome to Russia and offering to fight alongside Russia against the Islamic State. It also asked Moscow for weapons.

“We will fight alongside whoever fights Daesh,” Salih Muslim, co-president of the Democratic Union Party, the Kurdish political party whose militia, the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, have closely coordinated its operations with the United States, told the online magazine Al Monitor in an interview. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL.

“We want Russia to provide us air support as well as weapons in our fight against the ISIL militants,” a YPG commander, Sipan Hemo, was quoted as telling the Russian Sputnik news portal. “We can organize an effective cooperation with Russia on the issue.”

The United States and the YPG have been close allies for the past year after their coordination broke an Islamic State siege of the Kurdish city of Kobani, and U.S. airstrikes are credited with helping the YPG seize an estimated 6,800 square miles of northern Syria from the Islamists in recent months. U.S. officials in recent weeks have pointed to the YPG as the most effective anti-Islamic State group in Syria.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article37394991.html

October 3, 2015

Putin Has His Own No-Fly Zone in Syria

After years of debating a U.S.-led no-fly zone inside Syria to protect rebels and civilians, Vladimir Putin has established his own no-fly zone in a matter of days -- to protect his new base there.

In the U.S. there is an increasing bipartisan call for the U.S. to move toward some form of a no-fly zone or humanitarian buffer zone in Syria. Hillary Clinton said Thursday that if she were in office, she would be advocating for a no-fly zone to protect civilians and stem the flow of refugees. Putin made it look easy.

NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, General Philip Breedlove, was the first top Western official to publicly state that Russia’s new military infrastructure inside Syria, which includes anti-aircraft defense systems, was a de facto no-fly zone. He warned on Tuesday that Russia had created a new anti-access/area-denial bubble in Syria where U.S. planes could no longer travel.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-02/putin-has-his-own-no-fly-zone-in-syria

October 3, 2015

Australian Teenager’s Attack on Police Worker Called Act of Terrorism

Source: NY Times

15-year-old boy fatally shot a civilian police employee in a Sydney suburb on Friday and was killed by responding officers, the New South Wales police commissioner said, describing the boy’s act as terrorism.

The teenager, who was of Iraqi-Kurdish descent and was born in Iran, killed Curtis Cheng, a 17-year employee of the New South Wales Police Force who worked in the finance department, Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said at a news conference on Saturday.

The shooting took place just after 4:30 p.m. on Friday outside Police Headquarters in Parramatta, a western Sydney suburb, as Mr. Cheng left work. Police officers responding to the shooting said the teenager fired shots. The officers then shot and killed him. The police have not yet made his name public.

“We are a long way from establishing a full picture of this man, his exact motivations still remain a mystery to us,” Mr. Scipione said at the news conference, held with the state’s premier, Mike Baird. “We believe his actions were politically motivated and therefore linked to terrorism.”

Mr. Scipione said the boy had no criminal record. “We have no information that this individual posed this type of threat,” he said, adding the teenager was not under police surveillance.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/world/asia/australian-teenagers-attack-on-police-worker-called-act-of-terrorism.html

October 3, 2015

happier than ever after fulfilling lifelong wish of becoming blind

simming’, which is pretending to be blind, but the idea kept coming up in my head and by the time I was 21 it was a non-stop alarm that was going off,” she told Barcroft TV.

Her need to lose her sight increased as she got older, and by 2006, she claims she found a psychologist who was willing to help her.

Shuping says the psychologist put numbing eye drops into her eyes, and then a couple of drops of drain cleaner.

“It hurt, let me tell you. My eyes were screaming and I had some drain cleaner going down my cheek burning my skin,” she said. “But all I could think was ‘I am going blind, it is going to be okay.”

The woman says it took about half a year for the damage to take full effect.

http://kfor.com/2015/10/01/woman-says-she-is-happier-than-ever-after-fulfilling-lifelong-wish-of-becoming-blind/

October 3, 2015

U.S. will not directly confront Russia in Syria, Obama says

Source: Washington Post

President Obama has decided not to directly confront Russia over its new air offensive in Syria, believing that President Vladi­mir Putin will soon find himself in a Syrian “quagmire,” but he has approved a new escalation of U.S. efforts against the Islamic State.

Obama laid out the U.S. response to Russia’s actions during a meeting with senior aides Thursday evening. Details were firmed up in a meeting Friday morning among national security principals at the White House, senior administration officials said.

At the same time, the president also approved proposals, made prior to this week’s Russian actions, to strengthen the U.S. fight against the militants. Those measures were recommended by Obama’s new Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr.

They include direct U.S. weapons shipments, overland from Iraq, to Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters who in recent months have pushed the Islamic State from a major portion of northern Syria along the Turkish border.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/2015/10/02/44c1f7fc-6932-11e5-9223-70cb36460919_story.html

October 3, 2015

Russian Planes Make First Incursion into Islamic State Stronghold in Syria

Source: WSJ

Russian warplanes made their first incursion into Islamic State’s home base, as Moscow continued a bombardment of Syria that one official said Friday could last for months.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported 18 sorties Thursday and overnight, and a further 14 during the day Friday. The strikes hit a total of 18 Islamic State positions, destroying command centers, weapons stores and a communication hub, according to the Defense Ministry.

Despite hitting some areas held by Islamic State on Friday, Russian planes continued to pound for a third consecutive day areas in northwest Syria where the extremist group isn’t present. These areas are controlled by a mix of Islamist and moderate rebel factions as well as the al Qaeda linked Nusra Front. Hitting these areas is consistent with what appears to be Moscow’s main goal: bolstering the defenses of the western coastal strongholds of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Alawite minority sect.

For instance, some of the targets listed by the Russian Ministry of Defense as being hit on Friday were a “militants’ underground HQ” and two bunkers in the town of Latamneh in the northwestern tip of Hama province adjacent to the coastal region.

Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-says-airstrikes-in-syria-to-last-a-few-months-1443777347

October 2, 2015

Former Gov. Dick Lamm concerned about Hillary Clinton’s chances

Former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm is expressing concern about Hillary Clinton’s candidacy amid the controversy about her handling of classified emails as secretary of state — suggesting there is a good chance it gets worse and costs her the Democratic nomination.

In reading a recent New Yorker piece about how retired Army Gen. David Petraeus and former Bill Clinton aide Sandy Berger pleaded to misdemeanors for divulging classified information, Lamm said “all the sudden it dawned on me — there’s an FBI study out there.”

The three-term governor and his wife, Dottie Lamm, are close to the Clintons. Though often outspoken, the Democrat’s thoughts on the race offer an insight into the nervousness among party’s leaders regarding the 2016 election.

“What are they to do? My poor wife. We’ve know the Clintons — we’ve served with the Clintons. Dottie and Hillary are really very close and she’s just shattered,” Lamm said in a recent interview with The Denver Post, published in Sunday’s edition. He quickly added that his wife is “not discouraged” and “still very much on board.”

http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2015/09/28/colorado-governor-dick-lamm-hillary-clinton-email-scandal-2016-election/123094/

October 2, 2015

Germany wants migrants with no hope of asylum to be turned away at border

Source: Reuters

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere wants to turn away migrants at the border if they clearly have no chance of gaining asylum, a regional newspaper reported, citing a draft bill from his ministry.

Passauer Neue Presse cited the draft bill as saying that like at airports, transit zones should be set up at land border crossings so that the asylum process can be carried out before a decision is made on whether migrants can enter Germany or not.

"That should create the possibility to deny entry at land borders as well in cases of inadmissibility or where an asylum application is clearly unfounded," the newspaper cited the draft bill as saying.

In cases where an asylum application was not clearly unfounded, the migrant would be allowed in, it said, and in cases where a decision on entry could not be made within a week or accommodation could not be provided at the border, the migrant would be allowed in, according to the draft bill.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/10/02/uk-europe-migrants-germany-idUKKCN0RV4CX20151002

October 2, 2015

Iraqi prime minister says he would ‘welcome’ Russian airstrikes in Iraq

Source: Washington Post

As Moscow deepens its military involvement in the region, Iraq appears to be increasingly looking east for assistance in its fight against Islamic State extremists, with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi indicating Thursday that he would welcome a Russian bombing campaign.

In an interview with France 24 television, Abadi accused the U.S.-led coalition of a lack of support and questioned the will of Western leaders to defeat the Islamic State. He said Russian strikes were a “possibility” but had not been discussed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, however, that there are no plans for Russia to strike Islamic State militants in Iraq.

The U.S.-led coalition has been bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq for more than a year, but Iraqi officials have repeatedly complained that the efforts are insufficient to decisively turn back the militants. The United States has spent more than $25 billion to train and equip Iraq’s military, but Abadi’s comments Thursday were the latest indication that the country is increasingly seeking support from other partners — particularly traditional U.S. rivals Russia and Iran.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqi-prime-minister-says-he-would-welcome-russian-airstrikes/2015/10/01/4177cf3c-684b-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html

October 2, 2015

A Conversation with the Guy Who Just Epically Trolled Cable News

Jon Hendren spent an entire segment talking about Edward Scissorhands instead of Edward Snowden. No one noticed.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a38421/edward-scissorhands-hln/