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April 18th, 2016 
Awake Goy The voting process for Syria’s parliamentary elections has concluded and the counting work has begun amid peace talks between the Damascus government and opposition.
Staff at polling stations are opening the seal of ballot boxes and taking out the votes under the supervision of candidates’ representatives.
Preliminary estimates show that the voter turnout may far exceed the one recorded in the 2012 parliamentary polls.
“I was also in charge of the same region four years ago and there were a total of 900 votes in these two polling stations. Today there has been about 1,700 votes and I think this may be a common situation,” said Jamal Almouzen, manager of a polling station in Damascus.
According to local media, the elections started at 07:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) and ended at 12:00 p.m. local time (2100 GMT) while people actively took part in the voting across the government-held regions.
A number of opposition parties were running in the race, but armed opposition groups have boycotted the vote and called it illegitimate. The ruling Ba’ath party is expected to prevail.
The results of the polls are expected to be released in the near future.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the parliamentary polls intended to avoid a “legal vacuum” before early elections are held under a new constitution.
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Published time: 14 Apr, 2016 19:53
© Antonio Parrinello / Reuters
Poland will not be able to take in some 7,000 asylum-seekers it previously promised to accept and believes the whole EU refugee redistribution plan has fallen flat and is “dead,” Poland’s minister for EU affairs said.
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Published time: 14 Apr, 2016 16:36
U.S. President Barack Obama (R) and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. © Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the US against repeating the mistake it made in Libya in Syria, noting that Barack Obama’s confession about Libya being his “greatest mistake” shows the US President is a “decent person.”
“Firstly, it confirms once again that the current US president is a decent man – and I say this without irony, because it’s not easy to say such things,” President Putin said during his annual Q&A session.
He recalled that Barack Obama, while still a senator, had criticized the actions of the US administration on its 2003 Iraq campaign.
“Unfortunately, [Obama] himself made those mistakes in Libya. It is very good that my colleague has the courage to [admit it], not everyone can do it,” Putin said, adding that “only a strong man” can make such bold statements. But Putin stressed “the bad thing is that this series of errors continues. After all, the same mistake was almost made in Syria, and it is still not clear what the outcome will be.”
When asked by Fox News last week what his “worst mistake” as a president had been, the US leader answered: “Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.”
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Published time: 14 Apr, 2016 16:15
© Mohamad Torokman / Reuters
The US State Department has accused Israel of using “excessive force” against Palestinians, adding that the Israeli Army killed Palestinians even when they did not pose extreme danger. The statements were made in a newly released annual report.
“There were numerous reports of the ISF (Israel security forces) killing Palestinians during riots, demonstrations, at checkpoints, and during routine operations; in some cases they did not pose a threat to life,” the report states.
It goes on to say that while 149 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces in 2015, only 77 of those deaths occurred in the course of attacking Israelis.
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Naftali Bennett taking selfies with students at Bleich High School in the central Israeli city of Ramat Gan, Feb. 12 2015. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
American young people are rallying behind Jewish socialist Bernie Sanders. Their Israeli counterparts look more likely to back Jewish nationalist Naftali Bennett.
A poll of Jewish-Israeli teens released Wednesday by Israel Hayom, the free Israeli right-wing daily, portrays a generation that’s staunchly nationalist, pessimistic on peace and, in part, dismissive of Arab-Israeli civil liberties.
The survey’s full results will be published Friday. Israel Hayom didn’t provide the margin of error, the polling sample or dates.
According to the poll of 11th and 12 graders, 59 percent of Jewish-Israeli youths call themselves right-wing. Twenty-three percent self-define as centrist, while only 13 percent are left-wing. Eighty-two percent say there’s little to no chance of reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
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Donald Trump held a 20-minute question-and-answer session with Jewish reporters at his offices at Trump Tower, April 14, 2016. (Uriel Heilman)
NEW YORK (JTA) – There were a few things Donald Trump made clear when he met Thursday with a select group of Jewish reporters, almost all of them Orthodox, at his corporate offices in Manhattan.
Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was the one who initiated Wednesday’s one-on-one powwow with Trump to mend fences, not him. He’s a great friend of Israel. He has many Orthodox Jewish friends, including his chief lawyer, Jason D. Greenblatt. And he considers himself a very loyal boss.
But in a 20-minute question-and-answer session that touched on religious liberty in the workplace, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and federal education tax credits, Trump offered scant details.
On some substantive policy questions, the Republican front-runner for president didn’t answer at all, instead delegating the question to Greenblatt, a real estate attorney from Teaneck, New Jersey — one of two people he said he’d appoint as his White House Israel policy advisers.
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Iraqi forces recapture city of Hit from Daesh Takfiri militants
Iraqi forces have recaptured the city of Hit located in Anbar Province from Daesh Takfiri militants following weeks of fighting, the military says.
“Units from the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) completely liberated Hit,” Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said in a statement on Thursday.
CTS spokesman Sabah al-Noman said the recapture of the city was completed on Thursday, adding that Hit “is cleared of any Daesh gunmen.”
The recapture marks the latest defeat inflicted by the Iraqi forces on the Daesh Takfiri terrorists in the country.
Iraqi forces entered Hit, located northwest of the provincial city of Ramadi, on April 4.
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Turkey backsliding on democracy, warns European Parliament
The European Parliament has accused the administration of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of “backsliding” on democracy and the rule of law.
A resolution approved by Member of the European Parliament (MEP) said the European Union “is deeply concerned” that Ankara has been violating criteria needed to join the 28-nation bloc.
The resolution was passed with 375 votes in favor and 177 votes against.
The latest resolution comes amid growing worries among some European and Western countries over President Erdogan’s tightened grip on power.
The EU member states have faced accusations of selling out their principles by offering to speed up Ankara’s EU membership process in exchange for help on the refugee crisis.
On March 18, an agreement was clinched in Brussels between Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and the EU to curb the huge flow of asylum seekers and refugees heading to Europe.
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Israeli forces kill another Palestinian in West Bank
Israeli forces have shot and killed a Palestinian in the southern West Bank province of al-Khalil (Hebron) after he allegedly carried out a stabbing attack against an Israeli soldier.
The incident took place at the entrance of the al-Arroub refugee camp on Thursday.
The Palestinian, who was reportedly carrying an ax, succumbed to his injuries after Israeli forces prevented ambulances from reaching the scene.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the victim as Ibrahim al-Gharooz Baradeah, 45.
An Israeli military spokesperson said they were aware of the purported stabbing attack.
According to Israeli media reports, the Israeli soldier targeted in the alleged attack was lightly wounded.
Published time: 15 Apr, 2016 00:43
© Yves Herman / Reuters
Having once again asked the Ukrainian Parliament to accept his resignation, now ex-prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk left Rada waving his hand to a standing ovation. RT takes a look at some of his career lowlights.
READ MORE: Ukraine PM resigns 2 months after narrowly dodging no-confidence vote
“I was honored to serve our greatest Ukraine,” Yatsenyuk said in his final address to the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, on Thursday, before his resignation was approved. Having added that he would like to thank not only his supporters, but also enemies “for making me stronger,” the politician left the meeting, without waiting for President Poroshenko to deliver his speech at the stand.
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- Thursday 14 April 2016
Coca-Cola is among the companies named by Oxfam
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.. speaking at a town meeting at the Elmo High School gymnasium as he continues to campaign in Elko, Nevada, Feb. 19, 2016. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders tops the Time 100 readers’ poll of newsmakers who have appeared on the magazine’s cover and in its feature stories.
Sanders garnered 3.3 percent of the yes votes in online balloting over the past three weeks, the magazine said Thursday, a day after the voting ended. The Jewish Vermont senator was well ahead of his rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, who had 1 percent.
Time said Sanders led the poll from the start.
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Blair Hall at Princeton University (Wikimedia Commons)
WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — A Polish prosecutor interrogated a Jewish historian who researched Polish complicity in the Holocaust to determine if he had criminally insulted the nation.
Jan Tomasz Gross, a Polish-American professor based at Princeton University, published an article in the German newspaper Die Welt that said Poles “had killed more Jews than the Germans” during World War II.
Gross was questioned for five hours Tuesday in the district attorney’s office in Katowice. His article published by Die Welt last September concerned the Syrian refugee issue and the lack of consent to their absorption by Poland.
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Director Steven Spielberg, left, and actor Mark Rylance attending the 88th Annual Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, Feb. 28, 2016. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Steven Spielberg will direct a film about the struggle of 19th-century parents to regain their son who was forcibly taken to be raised as a Christian after secretly being baptized.
The script for “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara” was written by the Tony Award-winning American playwright Tony Kushner based on the nonfiction book by Pulitzer Prize winner David Kertzer.
The 1997 book tells the story of a 6-year-old boy who was seized from his family’s home in 1858 after his baptism as an infant by the family’s serving girl. The family went up against Pope Pius IX, who took a personal interest in the boy, in their efforts to have him returned in a case that became an international cause celebre.
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Published time: 13 Apr, 2016 22:48
© Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik
During his hours-long customary interactions with the public, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not only commented on the pressing issues of the day, but has also enjoyed inserting jokes in his well-known manner. Here are just some from his Q&As in recent years.
When asked a philosophical question about when everything will be well in Russia, Putin’s reply was no less philosophical: “You can’t drink all the vodka. But you should aim to do so.”
© Aleksey Nikolskyi / Sputnik
Raising a question about wealth taxes in the country, communist activist and writer Aleksey Prokhanov told Putin that it was probably time to impose more, as the “wives and loved ones of Russian oligarchs cover themselves with diamonds from head to toe.”
READ MORE: Top 10 memorable moments from Putin’s marathon LIVE Q&As
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Source Article from http://davidduke.com/bernie-sanders-stands-palestinians-hillary-clinton-backs-israel-ny-debate/
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