Rohingya Terrorists Want Islamic State In Arakan-North

(Htet Zaw’s article direct from The IRRAWADDY on 30 August 2017.)

NAYPYITAW — The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) has rallied illegal Bengali Muslims the so-called Rohingya in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships to establish a “Rohingya-only area” in Maungdaw District, northern Rakhine State, claimed Myanmar Army spokesperson Maj-Gen Aung Ye Win.

“Their [ARSA] main objective is to rally through fear, build strongholds, and declare the whole region as their liberated area,” Maj-Gen Aung Ye Win said at a Myanmar Army press briefing in Naypyitaw on Tuesday for military attaches of foreign countries and the media on attacks in northern Rakhine State.

“They managed to rally some 50 percent of Bengalis in Buthidaung and Maungdaw. They mobilized in different places for each household to send a person to participate in the attacks,” he added, referring to the stateless Rohingya population, which the Myanmar government and many in the country refer to as Bengali to infer that they are interlopers from Bangladesh.

Rohingya Muslim Terrorists Attack Burma Border Police

(Staff articles compiled from various sources on 25-26 August 2017.)

A burnt Burmese-police post by Burma-Bangladesh border.

Attacks in Myanmar’s Volatile Northern Rakhine State Leave 71 Dead, 11 Injured: Overnight attacks on police outposts by Rohingya Muslim "extremists" in Myanmar’s volatile northern Rakhine state have left at least 71 people dead, in the latest violence to grip the religiously and ethnically divided area, the government said Friday.

Among the dead are one security staffer, 10 policemen, a deputy township officer, and 59 extremists, according to a statement issued by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s office. Eleven people were injured in the attacks, three of them seriously, and one “terrorist” was arrested, it said.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) claimed responsibility for the attacks on 30 outposts in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung townships in a Twitter post, calling them “defensive action” against persecution of Rohingya Muslims by government forces.

Bannon: “Trump Presidency Is Over, But Fight Is Still On.”

(Peter Boyer’s article direct from The WEEKLY STANDARD on 18 August 2017.)

With the departure from the White House of strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who helped shape the so-called nationalist-populist program embraced by Donald Trump in his unlikely path to election, a new phase of the Trump presidency begins.

Given Trump’s nature, what comes next will hardly be conventional, but it may well be less willfully disruptive—which, to Bannon, had been the point of winning the White House. “The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Bannon said Friday, shortly after confirming his departure.

“We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else. And there’ll be all kinds of fights, and there’ll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over.”

Islamist Militancy On The Rise In Bangladesh

(Iftekharul Bashar’s article direct from The RSIS, Singapore, on 08August 2017.)

Islamist militant groups in Bangladesh are showing signs of revival. According to Bangladeshi authorities, militants from at least two banned outfits — Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) — are preparing for attacks in the country, including targeted assassinations involving individuals whom they consider apostates or obstacles to establishing an Islamic State in Bangladesh.

The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the launch of Al Qaeda’s South Asia chapter, known as Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), have led to increasing militant activism in Bangladesh.

Since ISIS declared the establishment of the caliphate in June 2014, Bangladesh has witnessed the emergence of pro-ISIS outfits, pledges of allegiances to ISIS and ISIS recruitment drives both online and on the ground. Many members of the existing local militant groups support ISIS and are recruiting fighters into the Syrian theatres.

GPS “Spoofing” Could Be Behind US Navy Collisions

(Tim Johnson’s article direct from The McCLATCHY DC on 21 August 2017.)

WASHINGTON  DC: The Pentagon won’t yet say how the USS John S. McCain was rammed by an oil tanker near Singapore, but red flags are flying as the Navy’s decades-old reliance on electronic guidance systems increasing looks like another target of cyberattack.

The incident – the fourth involving a Seventh Fleet warship this year – occurred near the Strait of Malacca, a crowded 1.7-mile-wide waterway that connects the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and accounts for roughly 25 percent of global shipping.

“When you are going through the Strait of Malacca, you can’t tell me that a Navy destroyer doesn’t have a full navigation team going with full lookouts on every wing and extra people on radar,” said Jeff Stutzman, chief intelligence officer at Wapack Labs, a New Boston, New Hampshire, cyber intelligence service.

3.5 Million Ghost Voters On U.S. Electoral Rolls

(Deroy Murdock’s article direct from The NATIONAL REVIEW on 11 August  2017.)

At least 3.5 million more people are on U.S. election rolls than are eligible to vote. Some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America’s adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud.

The Election Integrity Project of Judicial Watch — a Washington-based legal-watchdog group — analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011–2015 American Community Survey and last month’s statistics from the federal Election Assistance Commission. The latter included figures provided by 38 states. According to Judicial Watch, eleven states gave the EAC insufficient or questionable information. Pennsylvania’s legitimate numbers place it just below the over-registration threshold.

My tabulation of Judicial Watch’s state-by-state results yielded 462 counties where the registration rate exceeded 100 percent. There were 3,551,760 more people registered to vote than adult U.S. citizens who inhabit these counties. “That’s enough over-registered voters to populate a ghost-state about the size of Connecticut,” Judicial Watch attorney Robert Popper told me.

Steve Bannon The Populist Hero Is Out Of White house

(Bob Fredericks’s article direct from The NEW YORK POST on 18 August 2017.)

Top presidential adviser and nationalist bomb-thrower Steve Bannon is out of a job, the White House said Friday.

“Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

Kelly had earlier wrapped up a review of the West Wing staff and the former Breitbart editor, the voice of the alt-right who had the president’s ear, was the first casualty. “Bannon had one hell of a run,” tweeted Matt Drudge, who first reported the story.

Bannon had been on the outs with Trump before for grandstanding and stealing the spotlight, but the president suspected he was one of the main leakers in the administration, trashing his colleagues in news reports.

The notoriously thin-skinned president resented the publicity Bannon had been getting as the supposed mastermind of Trump’s campaign and upset victory. One White House source told Axios, “His departure may seem turbulent in the media, but inside it will be very smooth. He has no projects or responsibilities to hand off.”

Are Fat-Kim’s Nuke ICBMs Just An Elaborate HOAX?

(Postol-Schiller-Schmucker report direct from The BULLETIN on 11 August 2017.)

On July 3, 2017, while Americans were preparing for the 241st celebration of the Declaration of Independence, a lone rocket rose from North Korea on a near-vertical trajectory. After five to six minutes of powered flight, the second stage of the missile shut down and coasted to an altitude of about 2,720 kilometers.

It then fell back to Earth, reentering the atmosphere above the Sea of Japan some 900 kilometers to the east of where it had launched. The rocket’s upper stage coasted in freefall for about 32 minutes, and the overall time-of-flight, from launch to atmospheric reentry, was about 37 minutes. The launch occurred at 8:39 p.m., United States’ Eastern time.

Within hours, the news of the launch was trumpeted by the US mainstream press: North Korea had flown an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a missile that could carry nuclear warheads to Anchorage, Alaska, and to the continental United States as well!

Trump Quietly Appointing 158 Federal Court Judges

(Lydia Wheeler’s article direct from THE HILL on 14 August 2017.)

Trump-nominated High-court Judge Neil Gorsuch

President Trump has been quietly making lifetime appointments to fill more than 100 vacancies on federal courts across the country.

With five judges confirmed, another 30 pending and 123 seats left to fill, according to one group tracking the numbers, Trump has the opportunity to revamp the judiciary branch and carve out a legacy for himself that could stand the test of time.

“It can’t be overstated the impact the individuals he’s appointing will have on millions of people across the country and their children for a generation or two,” said Dan Goldberg, legal director at the liberal Alliance for Justice. “The Supreme court only hears about 80 cases a year. 99 percent of cases end in the federal courts of appeal or at the trial level.”