Cuba's new president meets with US senator, Google exec

HAVANA (AP) - New President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Monday held his first official meeting with visitors from the U.S., discussing increased internet access for Cuba with Google executive Eric Schmidt and Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Google and Cuba have been discussing how the company can help connect Cuba to undersea fiber-optic cables that run relatively near to the island, which would allow Cubans faster access to data stored around the world. Cuba now uses a cable that runs under the Caribbean to Venezuela.

Flake and Schmidt said no agreement was reached at the meeting, but Flake described the session with the new president as positive and an important step toward an eventual deal.

“I think it moved the needle in the extent that it needed to,” Flake said.

https:// www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/4/cubas-new-president-meets-with-us-senator-google-e/

>>1633211

You know where it concerns these 2 it can't be anything good, just looking for their next all important clown country.

>>1633251 @ >>1633227

Republicans Pick New Candidate For VA District Vacated By Tom Garrett

Virginia Republicans selected a candidate to replace Rep. Tom Garrett on Saturday after he announced he was not running for re-election last month.

The 5th Congressional District Republican Committee selected distillery owner Denver Riggleman as the nominee.

Thank you to everyone for the overwhelming support and congratulations. I’m honored to be your nominee. Big thank you to all the other candidates who fought so hard, let’s come together as Republicans and keep the 5th red!

— Denver Riggleman (@Denver4VA) June 2, 2018

Riggleman was an Air Force intelligence officer, a consultant for the Department of Defense, and is currently the owner of Silverback Distillery. Riggleman also briefly campaigned for governor of Virginia in 2017.

The 37-member committee went through multiple rounds of balloting to narrow the race to Riggleman and Cynthia Dunbar. Dunbar previously tried to get the GOP nomination in a different Virginia district last month.

Riggleman will be going up against Democrat Leslie Cockburn in the general election.

My new opponent in the 5th District is Denver Riggleman. He vows to continue Tom Garrett’s “pristine conservative voting record” in DC. Riggleman has pledged to join the Freedom Caucus. On the issues, he is Tom’s twin.

— Leslie Cockburn (@LeslieCockburn) June 2, 2018

Rep. Garrett announced that he would not run for another term after acknowledging he needs help for alcoholism on May 28. (RELATED: Congressman Won’t Seek Reelection After Revealing He’s An Alcoholic)

There were also rumors that he made inappropriate requests of his aides, asking them to do things such as pick up his groceries and clean up his after his dog.

http:// www.dailycaller.com/2018/06/04/republicans-new-candidate-va-district/

Pope Urges Mafia-Ruled Town To Break Code Of Silence And Help Police

Pope Francis urged the citizens of a Roman suburb ruled by the Mafia to forsake the criminal code of silence called Omerta and help police.

Francis gave the exhortation during a Sunday evening mass that he led for the seaside town of Ostia, according to The Associated Press. He urged citizens to stand on the side of law and to forsake the traditional Italian code of Omerta by speaking with police and denouncing crime lords and others associated with organized crime. He exhorted them to “knock down” the barriers of social codes like Omerta.

Francis urged citizens to embrace “justice, decorum and lawfulness,” and decried arrogance and abuses of power.

The law of Omerta originated with the Sicilian mafia, who rose to power during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is defined as “the obligation never, under any circumstances, to apply for justice to the legal authorities and never to assist in any way in the detection of crimes committed against oneself or others.” The word itself is derived from umiltà, which means humility and implies submission.

The Italian government assumed direct control of the municipality of Ostia in 2015 to wrest it from the control of local Mafia clans who had infiltrated the local government. Mafia members have threatened journalists who cover their activities in the area. Authorities also claim that the mafia in Ostia are responsible for drug trafficking, loan-sharking, murders, and extortion.

In the face of all this, Francis urged the citizens of Ostia to reject “fear and oppression.”

http:// www.dailycaller.com/2018/06/03/pope-mafia-code-of-silence/

The EU’s GDPR: A Balancing Act Between Privacy And Prosperity

European Union rules aimed to protect personal data and force companies to increase online privacy measures — known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — are already affecting those based beyond its jurisdiction, as most websites operate with those around the world in mind.

The set of regulations, described by many as lengthy but also ambiguous, are engulfing companies based in the U.S. and elsewhere. Initial costs to prepare and eventually comply with GDPR, which officially took effect May 25, are already significant, or at least projected to be.

Some studies estimate Fortune 500 companies will end up spending a combined $7.8 billion to avoid triggering the ire of European regulators, equaling an average cost of almost $16 million each.

“EU privacy laws have a history of being costly to the economy as a whole,” said Will Rinehart and Allison Edwards of the American Action Forum. “When the E.U. adopted the e-Privacy Directive in 2002, venture capital investment in online news, online advertising, and cloud computing dropped by between 58 to 75 percent.”

The increased expenses are at least partially due to hiring extra staff to legally decipher all the stipulations and to ensure they are being followed to the best of their ability.

While 82 percent of 302 C-level security executives surveyed by Netsparker, a web application security firm, said their respective companies have a data privacy officer (DPO), 77 percent expect to hire a new one to help with corporate GDPR compliance. Roughly 19 percent have felt the need to hire at least 10 DPOs.

But is complete compliance even possible?

“No. Full stop,” Ryan Hagemann, director of public policy at the Niskanen Center, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “It also is not possible to be in compliance with GDPR given the competing and contradicting statutes at member-state levels within the EU, to say nothing of compliance with the laws of non-EU countries.”

Hagemann said counsels at big tech firms are probably really confused, like “everyone else,” and that “the only winners from GDPR are going to be the privacy lawyers.”

Several others TheDCNF spoke to agree, such as Ryan Radia of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute.

“GDPR is the latest example of an overbearing, unnecessary regulation from the European Union,” he said. “Even if GDPR modestly increases consumers’ perception of privacy by restricting innocuous forms of information sharing, consumers may still end up with less privacy if they respond to GDPR by sharing more sensitive data online based on the false notion that new regulations will meaningfully protect that data.”

Not everyone is so pessimistic. Both the Center for Democracy Technology (CDT) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) — which tend to be allies in the policy arena — are fairly supportive, with the latter less so.

“It’s a thoughtful, detailed attempt to update privacy law for the digital age,” Danny O’Brien, the EFF’s international director, told TheDCNF. “It’s not the first or last word on modern privacy law: but it’s the first that’s really woken up many tech companies to the risks, as well as the benefits, of stockpiling and trading in private, personal information.”

http:// www.dailycaller.com/2018/06/03/gdpr-european-union-privacy-law/

>>1633296

He stepped down as CEO, but he must be retaining another role, or he lied.

Aiding Abusers

Planned Parenthood’s cover-up of child sexual abuse MAY 2018

https://www.liveaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Planned%20Parenthood%20Sexual%20Abuse%20Report%202018.pdf

Citizenship for sale: how tycoons can go shopping for a new passport

Citizenship-by-investment programmes offer the super-rich an opportunity to acquire a new nationality

It’s the must-have accessory for every self-respecting 21st-century oligarch, and a good many mere multimillionaires: a second – and sometimes a third or even a fourth – passport.

Israel, which helped Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich out of a spot of bother this week by granting him citizenship after delays in renewing his expired UK visa, offers free nationality to any Jewish person wishing to move there.

But there are as many as two dozen other countries, including several in the EU, where someone with the financial resources of the Chelsea football club owner could acquire a new nationality for a price: the global market in citizenship-by-investment programmes – or CIPs as they are commonly known – is booming.

The schemes’ specifics – and costs, ranging from as little as $100,000 (£74,900) to as much as €2.5m (£2.19m) – may vary, but not the principle: in essence, wealthy people invest money in property or businesses, buy government bonds or simply donate cash directly, in exchange for citizenship and a passport.

Some do not offer citizenship for sale outright, but run schemes usually known as “golden visas” that reward investors with residence permits that can eventually lead – typically after a period of five years – to citizenship.

The programmes are not new, but are growing exponentially, driven by wealthy private investors from emerging market economies including China, Russia, India, Vietnam, Mexico and Brazil, as well as the Middle East and more recently Turkey.

The first launched in 1984, a year after young, cash-strapped St Kitts and Nevis won independence from the UK. Slow to take off, it accelerated fast after 2009 when passport-holders from the Caribbean island nation were granted visa-free travel to the 26-nation Schengen zone.

https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/02/citizenship-by-investment-passport-super-rich-nationality

Gingrich: We’re Closer to a ‘Red Wave’ Than a ‘Blue Wave’ in November

Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted a “red wave” in the 2018 midterm elections.

Gingrich said, “For everybody in America who thinks that the cost of living is too low the Democrats are a great party for them, because they will raise taxes as they have in California with this huge gas tax increase. I actually believe we are closer to a red wave than a blue wave.”

He added, “Now if you went back to December, frankly I was concerned. The huge generic gap we had not yet passed the tax cuts. Things didn’t feel right. People were upset that they had a year and things hadn’t been accomplished but starting with passing the tax cuts, with what President Trump has done consistently on conservative judges, on deregulation, on trade negotiations, what he’s done with North Korea. I think people now have a sense that we’re moving in the right direction and as a result for example, in the Senate, I think — I can’t imagine I don’t know of anybody who’s a serious student who believes the Democrats have any hope of winning the Senate.”

http:// www.breitbart.com/video/2018/06/04/gingrich-were-closer-to-a-red-wave-than-a-blue-wave-in-november/

Italian Populist: We’re Going in the ‘Right Direction’ If Soros Is Worried

Globalist financier George Soros’s “concern” over the new Italian government is a good sign because it means the populists are on the right track, League party deputy Claudio Borghi Aquilini has said.

“Soros worried by the Italian government? So it means we are going in the right direction,” Mr. Borghi said in response to allegations made by the open borders advocate at the Trento Festival of Economics in Italy on Sunday that there is a “close relationship” between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Italy’s new Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, League leader Matteo Salvini.

“We understand that those who have been speculating for years off of the skin of immigrants, financing NGOs and smugglers to invade Italy, are now aware that the good times are over and they will take any pretext to attack,” Borghi added.

In his own defence, the League’s Salvini responded: “I never received a lira, a euro, or a ruble from Russia, I think Putin is one of the best statesmen and I am ashamed of the fact that an unscrupulous speculator like Soros is invited to speak in Italy.”

BRUSSELS BEATEN: Populist Coalition Takes Office in Italy, Eurosceptic Savona Returns as EU Affairs Minister https://t.co/sCRuSgohIx

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 1, 2018

Soros has lost ground in Europe in the past 12 months following conservative, populist, and patriotic victories in Hungary, Italy, the Czech Republic, and Austria, where citizens voted to reject mass migration and ‘ever closer union’ with the EU.

It has become vital for the ‘progressive’ billionaire to keep Italy, a founding member of the EU’s earliest predecessor, the European Coal and Steel Community, and keystone to the globalist project, in the bloc.

http:// www.breitbart.com/london/2018/06/04/populist-deputy-right-direction-soros-worried-italy/

>>1633716

It definitely needs to, if for no other reason than to keep the bad actors such as these 2 and other's out of there. The Cuban population doesn't need more of the same.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEOS: Civilians Take Cover During Cartel Firefight near Bridge to Texas

PHARR, Texas — A fierce gun battle between rival factions of the Gulf Cartel immediately outside the Reynosa-Pharr International Bridge zone forced a panicked motorist to run for cover as the cartel gunmen unleashed a barrage of gunfire.

Breitbart Texas obtained exclusive video captured from inside the offices of the Reynosa-Pharr International Bridge that shows the moments when panicked travelers parked their vehicle and ran inside the building to avoid gunfire.

The gun battle took place over the weekend in Reynosa, immediately south of the border from Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge. The fighting went on for more than one hour and moved from the refuge closer toward the international bridge connecting Reynosa and Pharr, Texas. The area serves as one of the busiest points of entry for commercial traffic into the state.

The battle advanced close enough to the international bridge that Mexican authorities deployed a convoy of police officers to seal the area.

As Breitbart Texas reported for more than a year, two factions of the Gulf Cartel are fighting for control of Reynosa and its lucrative trafficking routes.

http:// www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/06/04/exclusive-videos-civilians-take-cover-during-cartel-firefight-near-bridge-to-texas/