ItaliAnthro, “Mediterranean Sea as Genetic Barrier”, 16 June 2014:

This new study confirms that the Mediterranean Sea has acted as a strong barrier to gene flow through geographic isolation following initial settlements. Samples from (Northern) Italy, Tuscany, Sicily and Sardinia are closest to other Southern Europeans from Iberia, the Balkans and Greece, who are in turn closest to the Neolithic migrants that spread farming throughout Europe, represented here by the Cappadocian sample from Anatolia. But there hasn’t been any significant admixture from the Middle East or North Africa into Southern Europe since then.

Genes Mirror Geography Across the Mediterranean Basin

We first used principal components analysis (PCA) to visualize the genotypic distances between studied populations. Populations on the southern and northern coasts of the Mediterranean appear to be separated by the geographic barrier of the Mediterranean Sea. The role of the Mediterranean Sea as a barrier for gene flow among populations was also supported by our analysis using the BARRIER software, which implements Monmonier’s maximum difference algorithm. In accordance with this finding…the PCA distribution of the populations closely resembles the geographic map of the countries circling the Mediterranean Sea. On this PCA “map” of populations, the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea is appropriately occupied by the Palestinians and the Lebanese Druze. Yemenites and Bedouins branch out from the Mediterranean populations and are closer to the populations of the Near East.

  [...]

Seljuk Turks settled in Anatolia in the 12th century AD; however, the Anatolian Cappadocians we included in this study belong to the population that have kept the religion and the language of the pre-Seljuk Cappadocians and, therefore, most likely carry the genetic makeup of the ancient Anatolians. The only important gene flows from Near East to Europe must have occurred in prehistoric times and, as genetic evidence suggests, the most prominent migrations should have occurred during the Neolithic.

  [...]

Although the Southeastern Mediterranean islands seem to have acted as a bridge from Anatolia to Southern Europe, the relatively small degree of gene flow between the African and the European coasts shows that the Mediterranean Sea also had a barrier function as also suggested with studies of mtDNA polymorphisms. Thus, the Mediterranean seems to have facilitated the migrations of Neolithic farmers along its Southern European coast but it mostly acted as an isolating factor between its European and African coasts.

Adua del Vesco is from Messina, Sicily

Konbini, 11 May 2017: “Coverup? FBI Director Comey’s Firing Ignites Trump-Russia Suspicions.”

There are so many questions that need to be answered about the bombshell breaking news that shook Washington D.C. to its core on Tuesday. President Trump summarily dismissed FBI Director James Comey at the same time that Comey was leading an investigation into the Trump campaign’s shady connections (and possible collusion with) the Russian government’s meddling in the U.S. elections.

What are we to make of all the comparisons to the Watergate scandal? What does this all mean for the ongoing FBI, Congressional and Senate investigations into Trump-Russia? What does this mean for the functioning of the United States government - are we officially in a constitutional crisis?

If so, does America have the institutional integrity and fortitude to survive it?

No one is buying the official reasoning from the White House that FBI Director James Comey was dismissed by President Trump because of his “unfair” treatment of candidate Hillary Clinton last summer. No one is buying the implication that Comey simply had to be removed because the FBI was getting “too political” in recent months.

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly and vocally praised Comey’s actions in making disclosures about the investigation into Clinton’s email scandal. In October, then-Senator Jeff Sessions (now the Attorney General who wrote a letter recommending Comey’s firing) claimed Comey had “no choice” but to reignite the controversy surrounding Clinton’s emails just days before the election.

Based on the New York Times’ Michael Schmidt’s reporting, it seems Trump had a set outcome in mind, and tasked his attorney general with digging up some justifications for it:

Michael S. Schmidt
✔
@nytmike

WH and DOJ had been working on firing Comey since at least last week. Sessions had been working to come up with reasons.
12:28 AM - 10 May 2017

This is exactly the kind of dissembling, smoke screening and naked dishonesty that has churned up such distrust of this administration only 110 days into Trump’s presidency. If Sessions and Trump were so utterly appalled by Comey’s toe-dipping into the political arena, they could - and should - have fired him way back in January.

Oh, by the way, didn’t Attorney General Sessions recuse himself from all questions involving the Trump-Russia investigation..?

Here we are in May, with the FBI suddenly decapitated and with no replacement lined up ready to step in. As suspicion mounts that Trump is simply trying to make the FBI’s Russian meddling investigation go away, the comparisons to Watergate are growing louder by the second.

But are Richard Nixon’s actions during Watergate really the most apt comparison to shed light on current events? Or is this an entirely different political animal?

Diversity Macth Frei, “France’s Chief Rabbi urges Jews to work with Muslims against nationalists”, 10 May 2017:

France’s Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia has said that the country’s Jewish community must seek cooperation with French Muslims against far-right political forces in the country, Israel Radio reported on Wednesday.

“It is very important that we work also with the Muslims against National Front,” Korsia said, referring to the populist anti-immigration party led by defeated presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

Le Pen lost the second round of elections at the beginning of the week to centrist Emmanuel Macron, who will be sworn in on Sunday. Le Pen, 48, had portrayed the ballot as a contest between the “globalists” represented by her rival — those in favor of open trade, immigration and shared sovereignty — and the “nationalists” who defend strong borders and national identities.

Korsia’s comments came against a wider trend in which European Jewish and Muslim leaders are coordinating activities against anti-religious legislation in the continent. Arab religious leaders are also involved, including some from Saudi Arabia, the radio station said.

Among other efforts, Jewish and Muslim groups have held meetings and seminars in pursuit of an agreement on joint action against parliamentary motions banning ritual slaughter or religious symbols in public places. The talks have led some Muslim leaders to back action against Muslim attacks on Jews in Europe, the report said.

In Europe, the Jewish and Muslim slaughter customs have united opponents both from liberal circles who cite animal welfare as their main concern and right-wing nationalists who view the custom as foreign to their countries’ cultures.  Source

This is, of course, unsurprising, because, as I discussed the other day, the Jews created Islam as a weapon against Christians and are still using it as such to this day. Unfortunately, knowledge of this truth is confined to, most likely, a few thousand people in the world; at worst, a few hundred; at best, tens of thousands. Yet if we could successfully establish this idea in the public mind - that the Jews created Islam -, even just to the extent of making people aware of it as a “conspiracy theory”, as everyone is now aware of the claims of 9/11 truthers or birthers,  it could genuinely alter the world. 

First of all, it could unravel Islam itself if Muslims realised they had fallen for a 1400-year-old Jewish con trick. Second, it would weaken Jewish domination of our societies if recognition spread that the Jews and Muslims were working together against us. Third, and perhaps this is fanciful, but could it even sow self-doubt among Jewry itself, since I’m sure very few Jews know the role their people played in fostering the emergence of Islam?

If the Counterjewhad movement were really interested in undermining Islam, there is no more effective means of doing it than spreading awareness of the fact that Jews created it in the first place. Muslim antisemitism would then self-detonate, potentially taking Islam down with it, or, at the very least, significantly weakening it. Of course they won’t do that, however, because their primary interest is not weakening Islam but promoting the interests of Jewry and it is not in the interests of Jewry to be known as the authors of this monster.

Please help disseminate the meme that “Jews created Islam” on forums and comment sections you participate in. Use those exact words and link to the Hagarism post with those words. Because of the way search-engine algorithms work, this makes it much more likely that when someone types those words into Google, the Hagarism post will come up.

Italian reporter Francesca Parisella attacked

Breitbart, “Reporter Attacked Live on Air During Report on Immigration in Rome”, 9 May 2017:

An Italian TV reporter and her cameraman were assaulted during a live broadcast whilst covering the living conditions of African migrants hoping to break into northern Europe in search of higher welfare payments.

Matrix Channel 5 journalist Francesca Parisella was showing viewers scenes at Rome’s central train terminal, where dozens of migrants were sleeping outside the station. The reporter told viewers the migrants, who have been arriving in boats to Italy this year in record numbers, had gathered cardboard and other items “to protect them from the cold of the street”.

Noting that Italian volunteers had recently visited the site to bring the migrants hot food, Parisella said the men disperse during daylight hours then return to the station to sleep, “because their hope especially is to reach Milan and other cities in the north [of Italy] and then move to northern Europe”.

Just after the reporter told viewers that she and her team “don’t want to disturb [the migrants] further”, the camera was visibly shaken and appeared to have been turned on its side, causing Parisella to alert the Matrix host Nicola Porro that her party was under attack.

Following Porro’s warning to the TV journalist to “get out of there”, Parisella could be heard running from the station before the assailants caught up with her.

“What do you want? You’re crazy!” she said, and emitted screams of terror. “Oh God, Francesca, get out of there,” said Porro, before instructing the Matrix producer to alert police to the attack.

From the Matrix studio a few minutes later, the presenter explained that “Francesca is upset but well. [Assailants] destroyed the camera and beat up the cameraman. A situation like our show this evening should resemble reports from a war zone. Thanks to a taxi driver, a much worse outcome was avoided.”

Shortly after, Parisella confirmed this version of events on the programme by telephone.

“We were stood at a distance to report on the type of welcome [Italy] can give [migrants], but they were disturbed and then assaulted us. They chased me and grabbed me by the jacket,” said the journalist.

Police, who are investigating the incident, said: “This type of aggression is unacceptable and casts a haunting shadow on press freedom in our country, on security conditions in Italy’s largest station, and also on the possibility of violence towards a young woman working in the centre of our capital.”

Porro said he felt “guilty” for having sent a woman out to report from the station late at night, but said the case “raises serious questions” about how somewhere in the centre of Rome was able to become a “no man’s land” where attacks are commonplace, with no fanfare nor acknowledgement from the media.

According to local media, a 37-year-old man hailing from the Ivory Coast has been detained in connection with the attack. The alleged aggressor was known to police for a list of crimes including domestic violence and was ordered by the prefect of Rome last September to be deported.

Mix96, “Theresa May wants to bring back fox hunting”, 9 May 2017:

Theresa May wants to bring back fox hunting and has said she will renew the Tory pledge to hold a free vote on overturning the ban.

The Prime Minister says she has “always been in favour of fox hunting” and will recommit to the 2015 Conservative Manifesto promise to give Parliament the chance to make a decision.

During a visit to a factory in Leeds, Mrs May said: “This is a situation on which individuals will have one view or the other, either pro or against.

“As it happens, personally I have always been in favour of fox hunting, and we maintain our commitment, we have had a commitment previously as a Conservative Party, to allow a free vote.

“It would allow Parliament the opportunity to take the decision on this.”

:: Theresa May profile: the self-proclaimed ‘bloody difficult woman’

The Labour government banned fox hunting in England and Wales in 2004 but the issue has remained highly divisive.

David Cameron dropped the plan for a vote due to lack of support and in December 2015 sports minister Tracy Crouch said that Parliament “had better things to do than bringing back hunting foxes with hounds”.

Ms Crouch, patron of the Conservatives Against Fox Hunting group, said it was a “pursuit from the past” that should stay “consigned to history”.

A survey by Ipsos MORI in December 2016 found 84% of people were in favour of retaining the ban on fox hunting.

According to an email seen by the Mirror newspaper, pro fox hunting campaigners see a Conservative landslide win as their change to repeal the ban.

In the exchange, Conservative Lord Mancroft, chairman of the Council of Hunting Associations, said: “A majority of 50 or more would give us a real opportunity for repeal of the Hunting Act.”

He added: “While nothing in politics is certain, this is by far the best opportunity we have had since the ban, and is probably the best we are likely to get in the foreseeable future.”

He said he had been given “assurances” a parliamentary vote would be in the Conservative manifesto.

Vice, “Jared Kushner’s sister courted Chinese investors with a controversial visa program Trump just extended”, 8 May 2017:

Jared Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer, right

The $1.2 trillion spending bill President Donald Trump signed Friday extended the controversial EB-5 program, which grants U.S. visas to foreigners, mostly from China, who invest at least $500,000 in a domestic development project.

A day later, Jared Kushner’s sister stood at the Beijing Ritz-Carlton pitching the program to a ballroom-full of at least 100 wealthy Chinese investors. “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States,” a brochure for the event read, according to the Washington Post. The family business, Kushner Cos. LLC, needed $150 million in financing for a housing development in Jersey City, New Jersey, the New York Times reported.

While Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser at the White House, promised to fully divest from his family’s multibillion-dollar real estate empire, the presentation Saturday highlighted clear conflicts between his lingering business interests and policy decisions. Kushner has become a key diplomat in increasingly tense U.S.-China relations, among his many roles with the administration.

During the presentation, Nicole Kushner Meyer didn’t hold back linking Kushner Cos. to the current U.S. administration. She:

- mentioned that her brother left the company to work for Trump, according to the Post

- showed a slide that pictured Trump as the “key decision-maker” on the fate of the EB-5 visa, according to the Times

- encouraged attendees to invest early before the Trump administration decides to roll back the program — as Congress is pushing for, according to the Post.

Footage of U.S. President Donald Trump is shown on a video screen as workers wait for investors at a reception desk for a presentation at a Shanghai hotel. The event promoted EB-5 investment in a Kushner Companies development in the U.S., Sunday, May 7, 2017.

“It’s incredibly stupid and highly inappropriate,” Richard Painter, former White House ethics counsel for President George W. Bush, told the Post. “They clearly imply that the Kushners are going to make sure you get your visa. . . . They’re [Chinese applicants] not going to take a chance. Of course they’re going to want to invest.”

This isn’t the first family’s first ethically questionable brush with Chinese investors and the EB-5 program. Kushner Cos. could earn as much as $500 million in a planned real estate deal, which relies on the EB-5 program for funding, with a Chinese company that has close connections to the Chinese government. And loans obtained through the EB-5 program funded about one-quarter of a Trump Tower in New Jersey.

Kusher Cos. apologized “if that mention of [Meyer’s] brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors,” in a statement emailed to NPR.

Interlopers celebrate Macron victory

Visigrad Post, “French-Polish relations undermined by Macron’s presidential campaign”

Poland – “You know the friends of Madame Le Pen, her allies: these are the regimes of misters Orbán, Kaczyński, Putin. These are not open and free democracies. Many freedoms are violated every day and, by this, so are our principles.” (Extract from Emmanuel Macron’s speech of May 1). Which freedoms exactly? We do not know, but this phrase made the headlines throughout Polish media this week.

The candidate has already been widely talked about on the banks of the Vistula the previous week with his promise to introduce sanctions against Poland within the first three months of his investiture. The sanctions are based on the relocation of Whirlpool – Ed. in Poland - but would relate to alleged non-compliance by Poland with the EU’s “principles”: “Regarding the Whirlpool case, within three months after election, a decision will be taken on Poland. I put my responsibility on the table on this subject,” declared the replacement candidate of Voix du Nord –  on April 27 by mentioning the use of Article 7 of the EU Treaty which provides for the suspension of a country’s rights as a Member State.

Even before being elected, the candidate Emmanuel Macron [...] managed to quarrel with Poland and Hungary, the two leading countries in Central and Eastern Europe. His [...] election to the presidency of the French Republic promises therefore complicated relations with the former Eastern Europe.

[...]

Polish President Andrzej Duda made it very clear on May 3 in an interview with Polish television TVP: “He will have to start work on getting Poland back to trust him and France”. The Polish Foreign Ministry reacted to Emmanuel Macron’s speech on May 1 in an official statement: “We are following with interest the election campaign in France because of the importance of this country for the future of the EU. In this context, we regret to note that once again during this presidential campaign in France, an Allied country that belongs like Poland to NATO and the European Union, a candidate for the highest office uses unacceptable comparisons and intellectual shortcuts that mislead public opinion. […] The values ​​and principles of free democracy are respected in Poland. Among the fundamental values ​​that have been present in the Polish culture and tradition for several hundred years, there is respect and tolerance for those with different political views […]. We expect the French President [...] to carry out an in-depth analysis before making judgments on the policies of other States and to clarify any doubts in the context of bilateral contacts”.