Italian police make major heroin haul on ship from Iran

ROME (Reuters) - Italian police discovered 270 kg (600 lb) of heroin hidden in a container that arrived aboard a ship from Iran, the biggest such haul for at least 20 years in Italy, police said on Thursday.

The freighter had set sail from the Iranian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas and stopped off in Hamburg, Germany and Valencia, Spain before reaching the Italian port of Genoa on Oct. 17, where police discovered the heroin stashed away in a consignment of Bentonite clay.

A police spokesman said investigators were not sure when or where the drugs were brought onto the ship.

Police allowed a small portion of the illicit cargo to continue its planned journey by truck to the Netherlands.

They tracked the vehicle as it crossed Switzerland, France and Belgium before reaching the Dutch town of Roosendal.

When the vehicle pulled into a warehouse on Nov. 2, Italian and Dutch police raided the premises and arrested two men of Turkish origin. The truck driver apparently did not know heroin was in his rig, police said.

http://www.foreigndesknews.com/world/europe/italian-police-make-major/

Mueller Has Begun Writing “Final Report” On Trump-Russia Amid DOJ Shakeup

Via Zerohedge…

One day after Attorney General Jeff Sessions was announced out at the Department of Justice, CNN reports that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has “begun writing its final report,” according to “multiple sources.”

According to CNN, “all signs point to an investigation that is winding down.”

Rumors over Mueller’s final report comes as Democrats go into full panic mode over the appointment of Matt Whitaker – Sessions’ former right-hand man, as interim Attorney General. Whitaker will take over the Russia investigation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who signed off on a FISA surveillance warrant application and subsequent renewals for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Democrats have raised concerns over how Whitaker will handle the Russia investigation, with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demanding Whitaker recuse himself over previous comments about the special counsel, after he said that if Mueller investigates the Trump family finances beyond anything to do with Russia, “that goes beyond the scope of the special counsel.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) also called for Whitaker’s recusal, stating that “Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein should be allowed to continue to oversee the investigation, unhindered.”

In a Wednesday tweet, Pelosi said: “Given his record of threats to undermine & weaken the Russia investigation, Matthew Whitaker should recuse himself from any involvement in Mueller’s investigation. Congress must take immediate action to protect the rule of law and integrity of the investigation.”

http://theduran.com/mueller-has-begun-writing-final-report-on-trump-russia-amid-doj-shakeup/

EFF Unveils Virtual Reality Tool To Help People Spot Surveillance Devices in Their Communities

Law Enforcement’s Deployment of High-Tech Spying Tools On the Rise

San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched a virtual reality (VR) experience on its website today that teaches people how to spot and understand the surveillance technologies police are increasingly using to spy on communities.

“We are living in an age of surveillance, where hard-to-spot cameras capture our faces and our license plates, drones in the sky videotape our streets, and police carry mobile biometric devices to scan people’s fingerprints,” said EFF Senior Investigative Researcher Dave Maass. “We made our ‘Spot the Surveillance’ VR tool to help people recognize these spying technologies around them and understand what their capabilities are."

Spot the Surveillance, which works best with a VR headset but will also work on standard browsers, places users in a 360-degree street scene in San Francisco. In the scene, a young resident is in an encounter with police. Users are challenged to identify surveillance tools by looking around the scene. The experience takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.

The surveillance technologies featured in the scene include a body-worn camera, automated license plate readers, a drone, a mobile biometric device, and pan-tilt-zoom cameras. The project draws from years of research gathered by EFF in its Street-Level Surveillance project, which shines a light on how police use, and abuse, technology to spy on communities.

Created by EFF’s engineering and design team, the Stop the Surveillance VR experience can be found at https://eff.org/spot-vr.

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-unveils-virtual-reality-tool-help-people-spot-surveillance-devices-their

Mainstream Media Hides Farrakhan’s Attacks on America

Louis Farrakhan chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” in Iran on Sunday at a meeting that dealt with the sanctions President Trump re-imposed on the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

A video distributed by Iran’s two state news agencies shows Farrakhan talking to students at the University of Tehran law school.

He said, “Marg bar,” which means “death to” in Farsi, and the crowd responded “Israel.” He said it again, and the crowd responded, “America.”

Earlier, he told a meeting of Iran’s Expediency Council that America is “plotting” to undermine Iran’s interests.

“I understand how the enemies have plotted against the Iranian people and I would like to stay alongside you to stop their plots.

The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia is the “work of Satan, who seeks to divide Muslims and wants them to kill each other, while God tells us in the Quran to be united,” he said.

While Fox News covered the story, neither the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, HuffPost, Salon, Slate, ABC, NBC nor CBS covered. CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted a story from Tasnim News, one of the state news services.

CBS did a live report from Tehran about the sanctions being re-imposed but did not mention Farrakhan.

https://www.aim.org/aim-column/mainstream-media-hides-farrakhans-attacks-on-america/

Watch: Pelosi Already Babbling Incoherently, Just Hours After Taking House

As the Democrats took back control of the House of Representatives, who was front and center in that celebration but the gift that keeps on giving, Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Her babbling incoherence has been more and more noticeable recently. She’s been relentlessly mocked over it.

And despite all of this, Pelosi took center stage and gave her critics more to mock. Barely hours into the big win, she was back to babbling yet again.

If you pay close attention to the full clip, you can discern the context of what she is attempting to say. But her problem with getting a coherent thought out of her mouth seems to be getting worse.

https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/pelosi-babbling-incoherently-hours-taking-house/