TDB Top 5 International Stories: Saturday 14th January 2017

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5: Israel Lobby: Anti-Semitism battle in UK Labour Party

Members, activists and at least one MP of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party described as “anti-Semitic” a member who challenged their pro-Israel ideas, despite some uncertainty over whether the member’s comments were actually racist, an investigation by Al Jazeera has found.

The charges, made at September’s Labour Party conference, led to the member being suspended pending a full investigation.

In total, the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) said it had seen three cases of anti-Semitism during the first day of September’s Labour Party conference, with the group of Israel supporters later debating the validity of two of them.

The complaints came in the wake of the Chakrabarti Inquiry, an investigation during summer 2016 into anti-Semitism within the Labour ranks. That report had concluded racism, including anti-Semitism, was not endemic within Labour.

Aljazeera

4: James Mattis Calls for U.S. Military to Be More Lethal at Defense Secretary Confirmation Hearing

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, retired General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, testified Thursday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mattis’s 41-year career in the Marine Corps included field commands in the Persian Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. He led U.S. troops during the 2004 battle of Fallujah, earning himself the nickname “Mad Dog” Mattis. In May 2004, Mattis ordered an attack on a small Iraqi village that ended up killing about 42 people attending a wedding ceremony. He went on to lead United States Central Command from 2010 to 2013, but the Obama administration cut short his tour over concerns he was too hawkish on Iran. We host a roundtable discussion, starting with retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich, author of “America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History,” and Aaron Glantz, a senior reporter at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting whose latest investigation is headlined “Did defense secretary nominee James Mattis commit war crimes in Iraq?”

Democracy Now

 

3: Now That Two Thirds of New Zealanders Support Euthanasia, Is it Time To Change the Law?

Since the death of euthanasia campaigner Lecretia Seales, public opinion seems to have reached a tipping point but the political will is slow to catch up.

The majority of New Zealanders support euthanasia. A new University of Auckland study has found 66 percent of New Zealanders are in favour of doctors being legislatively allowed to end a person’s life if they’re suffering for a painful incurable disease. Only 12 percent said they are strongly opposed.

Vice News

2: French newspaper abandons opinion polls in run-up to election

France’s love-hate relationship with opinion polls is in the spotlight after a newspaper announced it would stop commissioning polls in the run-up to the French presidential election and instead do more on-the-ground reporting to sound out the public mood.

The unprecedented decision by the daily Le Parisien came after months of discussion in the paper’s newsroom following the UK’s vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s election in the US – both of which caught media and some pollsters by surprise.

The Guardian 

 

1: Obama Opens NSA’s Vast Trove of Warrantless Data to Entire Intelligence Community, Just in Time for Trump

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

WITH ONLY DAYS until Donald Trump takes office, the Obama administration on Thursday announced new rules that will let the NSA share vast amounts of private data gathered without warrant, court orders or congressional authorization with 16 other agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security.

The new rules allow employees doing intelligence work for those agencies to sift through raw data collected under a broad, Reagan-era executive order that gives the NSA virtually unlimited authority to intercept communications abroad. Previously, NSA analysts would filter out information they deemed irrelevant and mask the names of innocent Americans before passing it along.

The change was in the works long before there was any expectation that someone like Trump might become president. The last-minute adoption of the procedures is one of many examples of the Obama administration making new executive powers established by the Bush administration permanent, on the assumption that the executive branch could be trusted to police itself.

The Intercept