Das Kernkraftwerk Brokdorf musste für kurze Zeit geräumt werden
dpa/Christian Charisius
Because of an interrupted radio contact to an aircraft in the German airspace, five North German nuclear power plants were temporarily vacated on Friday morning.
Only emergency occupations remained in the works. In addition, interceptors of the Luftwaffe rose and accompanied the aircraft, which, according to information from the Luftwaffe, was a machine operated by Air India. The situation was soon under control again, informed the nuclear power authority in Schleswig-Holstein responsible Energiewende ministry in Kiel. The alarm was canceled after 22 minutes. Schleswig-Holstein’s Environment Minister Robert Habeck tweeted at 11.34 clock: “Location is under control, situation under control.”
The nuclear power stations Brunsbüttel, Brokdorf and Krümmel in Schleswig-Holstein as well as Grohnde, Lingen and Unterweser in Lower Saxony were affected. Krümmel, however, had not been evicted, but the employees had gone to shelters. The Brunsbüttel, Krümmel and Unterweser plants have been shut down for some time and the works in Brokdorf and Grohnde are currently being scaled down for revision.
The nuclear power stations Brunsbüttel, Brokdorf and Krümmel in Schleswig-Holstein as well as Grohnde, Lingen and Unterweser in Lower Saxony were affected. Krümmel, however, had not been evicted, but the employees had gone to shelters. The Brunsbüttel, Krümmel and Unterweser plants have been shut down for some time and the works in Brokdorf and Grohnde are currently being scaled down for revision. Contact about Hungary aborted
According to the Luftwaffe, the radio contact with the aircraft, which was on its way to London, had already broken off via Hungary. The machine had been accompanied by Czech interceptors and taken by two Eurofighters of the Luftwaffe when flying into German airspace and then handed over to Belgian combat aircraft at Cologne, a spokesman said. In such cases, visual contact checks that there is no unusual situation on board.
Why the radio contact was interrupted, the German air traffic control and the Luftwaffe could not say. It could have a crew fault or a technical fault. This always happens again. The airline was initially unable to reach an opinion. Nuclear power plants cleared quickly
It was a so-called Renegade pre-alarm, explained the ministry in Kiel. Renegade cases are those in which an aircraft of terrorist or other motives might be used as a weapon. The alarm was issued by the National Location and Management Center for Safety in the Airspace in the municipality of Uedem (North Rhine-Westphalia). It was established in 2003 to protect the airspace from such threats. The background is the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in the USA.
A standardized procedure begins with such an alarm. However, the operators of the plants would have a margin of discretion as to how specifically they assessed the danger. If, for example, an airplane turns off in the direction of London to the north, then it does not necessarily have to react in the south, it was said from operators.
The nuclear power plants were cleared quickly, they said. In Brokdorf the police released a blockade demonstration on the same day before the two entrances. After the alarm was over the protest was continued.
The rule strikes at the very center of free speech, namely that of elected politicians, which the European Court of Human Rights has deemed in its practice to be specially protected. Members of the European Parliament are people who have been elected to
The rule strikes at the very center of free speech, namely that of elected politicians, which the European Court of Human Rights has deemed in its practice to be specially protected. Members of the European Parliament are people who have been elected to make the voices of their constituents heard inside the institutions of the European Union.
The rule can only have a chilling effect on free speech in the European Parliament, and will likely prove a convenient tool in trying to shut up those parliamentarians who do not follow the politically correct narrative of the EU.
By lifting Le Pen’s immunity while she is running for president of France, the European Parliament is sending the clear signal that publicizing the graphic and horrifying truth of the crimes of ISIS, rather than being received as a warning about what might soon be coming to Europe, instead ought to be punished.
Where does this clearly totalitarian impulse stop and who will stop it?
The European Parliament has introduced a new procedural rule, which allows for the chair of a debate to interrupt the live broadcasting of a speaking MEP “in the case of defamatory, racist or xenophobic language or behavior by a Member”. Furthermore, the President of the European Parliament may even “decide to delete from the audiovisual record of the proceedings those parts of a speech by a Member that contain defamatory, racist or xenophobic language”.
No one, however, has bothered to define what constitutes “defamatory, racist or xenophobic language or behavior”. This omission means that the chair of any debate in the European Parliament is free to decide, without any guidelines or objective criteria, whether the statements of MEPs are “defamatory, racist or xenophobic”. The penalty for offenders can apparently reach up to around 9,000 euros.
“There have been a growing number of cases of politicians saying things that are beyond the pale of normal parliamentary discussion and debate,” said British EU parliamentarian Richard Corbett, who has defended the new rule. Mr. Corbett, however, does not specify what he considers “beyond the pale”.
In June 2016, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, addressed the European Parliament in a speech, which drew on old anti-Semitic blood libels, such as falsely accusing Israeli rabbis of calling on the Israeli government to poison the water used by Palestinian Arabs. Such a clearly incendiary and anti-Semitic speech was not only allowed in parliament by the sensitive and “anti-racist” parliamentarians; it received a standing ovation. Evidently, wild anti-Semitic blood libels pronounced by Arabs do not constitute “things that are beyond the pale of normal parliamentary discussion and debate”.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas receives a standing ovation at the European Parliament in Brussels on June 23, 2016, after falsely claiming in his speech that Israeli rabbis were calling to poison Palestinian water. Abbas later recanted and admitted that his claim had been false. (Image source: European Parliament)
The European Parliament apparently did not even bother to publicize their new procedural rule; it was only made public by Spain’s La Vanguardia newspaper. Voters were, it appears, not supposed to know that they may be cut off from listening to the live broadcasts of the parliamentarians they elected to represent them in the EU, if some chairman of a debate subjectively happened to decide that what was being said was “racist, defamatory or xenophobic”.
The European Parliament is the only popularly elected institution in the EU. Helmut Scholz, from Germany’s left-wing Die Linke party, said that EU lawmakers must be able to express their views about how Europe should work: “You can’t limit or deny this right”. Well, they can express it (but for how long?), except that now no one outside of parliament will hear it.
The rule strikes at the very center of free speech, namely that of elected politicians, which the European Court of Human Rights has deemed in its practice to be specially protected. Members of the European Parliament are people who have been elected to make the voices of their constituents heard inside the institutions of the European Union. Limiting their freedom of speech is undemocratic, worrisome and spookily Orwellian.
The rule can only have a chilling effect on freedom of speech in the European Parliament and will likely prove a convenient tool in trying to shut up those parliamentarians who do not follow the politically correct narrative of the EU.
The European Parliament lately seems to be waging war against free speech. At the beginning of March, the body lifted the parliamentary immunity of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen. Her crime? Tweeting three images of ISIS executions in 2015. In France, “publishing violent images” constitutes a criminal offense, which can carry a penalty of three years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros. By lifting her immunity at the same time that she is running for president of France, the European Parliament is sending the clear signal that publicizing the graphic and horrifying truth of the crimes of ISIS, rather than being received as a warning about what might soon be coming to Europe, instead ought to be punished.
This is a bizarre signal to be sending, especially to the Christian and Yazidi victims of ISIS, who are still largely ignored by the European Union. European parliamentarians, evidently, are too sensitive to deal with the graphic murders of defenseless people in the Middle East, and are more concerned with ensuring the prosecution of the messengers, such as Marine Le Pen.
So, political correctness, now effectively the “religious police” of political discourse, has not only taken over the media and academia; elected MEPs are now also supposed to toe the politically correct line, or literally be cut off. No one stopped the European Parliament from passing this undemocratic anti-free speech rule. Why did no parliamentarian out of the 751 MEPs raise red flags about the issue before it became an actual rule? Even more importantly: Where does this clearly totalitarian impulse stop and who will stop it?
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis March 11, 2017, 10:50 AM (IDT)
US Marines in northern Syria
Two close US allies, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, traveled to Moscow on Thursday and Friday (March 9-10), to press very different cases relating to Syria before Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Netanyahu chose to tackle the Russian leader on Iran, although he was recently welcomed at the White House as a close friend of US President Donald Trump and leader of a country strongly supported by the United States. He is regarded by the administration as the only Israeli politician capable of taking Israel through to a breakthrough in ties with the Arab world and a deal with the Palestinians. Whether this support will survive the personal attacks on Netanyahu and the investigations conducted against him remains to be seen.
Erdogan’s case is quite different. Trump originally viewed him as a partner in his plans for Syria. But the removal of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser – and strong pro-Turkey advocate – undercut Erdogan’s influence in the White House. Flynn now turns out to have acted as a paid Ankara lobbyist licensed by the Justice Department during the Trump campaign.
In any case, the Turkish president lost much of his value as a useful partner when US generals awarded the Turkish army’s operations against ISIS in northern Syria a low grade, specifically its prolonged four-month siege on Al-Bab.
It was on the US generals’ recommendation that the Turkish army was substituted as spearhead for the main US offensive against the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa by the 55,000-strong Syrian Democratic Forces. Two-thirds of the SDF are fighters of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which has exhibited exceptional prowess in winning battles against ISIS.
After this change of partners, the Americans embarked on a build up of the SDF’s weaponry. The Russians quickly followed suit. Erdogan was incensed. He tried arguing that the YPG was a terrorist group, a branch of the Turkish Kurdish PKK, and US-Russian backing would bring about the rise of an independent Kurdish state in northern Syria next door to Turkey.
When this complaint fell on deaf ears, Ankara threatened Thursday, March 9, to attack the Kurdish emplacements at the northern Syria town of Manbij. Washington reacted by stressing US support for the SDF, although the threat was hollow: Turkish troops were not about to confront the wall of US and Russian troops in their path.
Erdogan’ traveled to Moscow for a last attempt to persuade the Russian president to at least promise to prevent Kurdish self-rule. Although Putin lavishly praised their deal for jointly brokering a ceasefire in Syria and a peace conference, the Turkish president’s journey was wasted. He was fobbed off by Putin whose first priority at this time is to keep in step with the Trump administration’s head-spinning decision for direct military intervention in Syria – rather than look after Turkish interests.
Saturday, Kremlin sources confirmed: “The Russian-Turkish talks resulted in almost nothing.” They disclosed that the Turkish leader’s main concern was the Manbij standoff in northern Syria.
A day earlier, the Israeli prime minister may not have fared much better when he taxed the Russian president with security concerns about the entrenchment of Iranian and Hizballah forces in southern Syria ominously close to the Israel border. Putin greeted him with affection, but made it clear that his overriding concern was coordinating with Trump’s new initiatives in Syria and Israel’s security concerns were a side show. He advised the Israeli leader to look at the big strategic picture now unfolding in the war-torn country.
From the Kremlin’s viewpoint, a large-scale US-0Russian-Krudish military campaign against the Islamic State in Syria would additionally frustrate Iran’s main objective, which is to create a land bridge through northern Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean. Putin believes that, once Tehran realizes that Trump will never let this plan take off, the Iranians will pull their forces out of Syria, because their only link with home base would still be by air or sea, both of which routes are exposed to Israeli attacks.
Netanyahu appears to have indicated to Putin that, for want of any other options, Israel would consider a direct attack on he Iranian and Hizballah forces in Syria. The Russian President listened but did not comment. Judging from the past, the prime minister would almost certainly bid for a green light from Washington before going through with such a plan – unless, of course, Netanyahu decides that the IDF can go it alone.
(Trump is clearly a vile, Mexican-hating beast to try to close our borders and drive these wonderful Sinaloa Cartel people out of business or at least keep their stuff out. The other Mexican cartels are probably just bringing in bibles. Right? Unfortunately, the long video is in Spanish. — DM)
Filmmaker Beriain (left) and one of his subjects
A new documentary provides a detailed look at the inner workings of Mexico‘s Sinaloa Cartel, from mules loaded down with sacks of marijuana to the methamphetamine cooks working on the outskirts of Culiacán.
Spanish journalist David Beriain spent weeks in northwest Mexico, documenting his interactions for the Discovery en Español show “Clandestino.” The result is three 45-minute episodes, which are available on Youtube, that take him from the capital of Sinaloa to just north of the US border, always in the company of his cameraman and one or more members of what has long been considered Mexico‘s most powerful criminal organization. (The full series is embedded below)
Beriain emphasizes at the outset of his documentary that some unnamed authority within the organization has blessed his project. Armed with that endorsement, he accompanies a seemingly endless stream of cartel members as they go about their jobs, and engages each of them in an interview lasting five or eight minutes. The subjests aren’t intimate friends with Jesus “El Mayo” Zambada or Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, though their jobs are demonstrably impacted by the recent attacks on the group’s leadership.
Beriain’s method as an interviewer is simple and effective: He asks each of the employees about what exactly they do, and then he asks them why they do it. Many of Beriain’s queries are quite basic: “What is that stick for?” he asks the keeper of a safe house at one point. He focuses a great deal on the sequences of their chores, and also on the consequences of the mistakes. This provides viewers with an extremely granular understanding of precisely what it entails to serve as the Sinaloa Cartel‘s armament technician, or as the cultivator of a heroin field, or as a torturer.
“Clandestino” also shines when it tackles the moral compromises of working in the drug trade. Beriain does not shy away from asking people if they are personally responsible for harming others. He asks virtually all his interviewees how they feel about the uglier side of their trade, from beating people and risking their lives to profiting off of addiction and enabling murder.
The answers are often illustrative. Some recoil from the choices they’ve made, while others embrace their ability to inflict pain. At least two describe the Sinaloa Cartel in moralistic terms, as the one gang that refuses harm the civilian population. One of the most affecting portions of the film was a dirty cop, expressing some mixture of resignation and shame, explaining how he came to work for the group he’s theoretically paid to combat.
Virtually all of the members of the cartel point to money as their chief motivator. This line of questioning tends to lead to further disclosures about their pay scale. A woman charges $4,000 to fly with a half kilogram of heroin, contained in a tube hidden in her vagina, to Tijuana from points further south in Mexico. The leader of a team that drives a truck laden with drugs through the Tijuana border crossing receives $6,000. For the mule who carries loads of marijuana through the desert on foot, a trip that could last up to eight days, $2,000 awaits.
The data about salaries is just one of a series of unusually penetrating insights about the economics of the Sinaloa Cartel‘s operations revealed in “Clandestino.” Beriain observes early in the program that the gang’s privileged position derives from its control of the western half of the US border, similar to the way a legitimate company seeks to exploit its own unique assets, from productive oil fields to irreplaceable computer processors. Controlling access to the world’s largest drug market has made the Sinaloa Cartel the single most important gatekeeper in the world of organized crime.
Viewers also learn that the cartel operates as a sort of regulator for all manner of illegal activities. It fixes the retail and wholesale price for drugs within its territory, and it prohibits certain activities like extortion, kidnapping, and rape, we are told.
The Sinaloa Cartel is striking in its employees’ degree of specialization. Each member has one basic task: physically moving drugs across a single route, maintaining weapons, producing a single drug, guarding a safe house, picking up drugs in the United States, patrolling Culiacán in search of rival bands, or executing rivals. The members profess little awareness of other elements of the gangs’ operations, but all know their own work quite well.
The organization is in some senses like an assembly line stretching across the whole of northwestern Mexico. This makes it both extremely productive and extremely resilient. The individuals who appear in “Clandestino” are capable of moving hundreds of pounds a day of heroin, marijuana, and cocaine across the US border, something approaching industrial scale. They operate essentially in unison, forming one single organism.
But the gang is largely cellular in its operation, and attacking one part of the organism — for example, the gunmen in Culiacán — has little impact on another, like the specialists who prepare hidden compartments for cars.
Despite its many positive qualities, it is fair to lodge a few criticisms of “Clandestino.” The pulse-pounding music and the constant reminders of danger would not feel out of place in a low-budget thriller movie. And as effective as it is, Beriain’s formula in dealing with this succession of gangsters grows slightly redundant over the course of the two hours of filming. Moreover, while the breadth of the Sinaloa Cartel‘s portrayal is perhaps unprecedented, as characters, none of the people who appear before Beriain’s camera quite come alive. There is no one, for instance, who will etch themselves into viewers’ memories the way José Manuel Mireles did in “Cartel Land.”
Nevertheless, “Clandestino” is incisive, original, informative, and entertaining. It is among the most thorough cinematic treatments that one of the world’s most important criminal groups has ever received.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas receives a standing ovation at the European Parliament in Brussels on June 23, 2016, after falsely claiming in his speech that Israeli rabbis were calling to poison Palestinian water. Abbas later recanted and admitted that his claim had been false. (Image source: European Parliament)
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