Tuesday, April 9, 2019

NEWS SUMMARY-INTELLIGENCE REPORT TUESDAY 4/9-WEDNESDAY 4/10/2019


(WORK IN PROGRESS, UPDATES, EDITING ADDITIONS ETC. THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING)



When the voting in Israel's General Election was over with the polls closed at 10 pm local time, 3 pm Eastern US time, exit polls came out showing different notions of who finished first, with victory claimed by both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz.


But the math of the exit polling favored parties on the "Right" that are the natural allies of Netanyahu in forming  coalition government.


After 10 pm Eastern time in the US, 5 am in Israel the actual vote count at 95 percent giving both Likud and Blue and White 35 seats and 15 seats to two religious parties.


The vote count at 97 percent of the vote shows that Likud and its allies on the Right are capable of forming a majority government with 65 seats making Benjamin Netanyahu the winner of the election.


The votes of soliders remain to be counted and while Benjamin Netanyahu proclaims victory, Benny Gantz is saying the vote is not final yet.


During Tuesday some controversy with accusations of spoiled ballots and missing ballots under scrutiny by Israel's Central Elections Committee.

Also, Israeli Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melcer, chairman of the Central Elections Committee, filing a complaint with Israeli police about body cameras being used by activists outside Arab polling stations.

The presence of cameras reflects the statement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that cameras were needed at polling places to ensure a "kosher" election.    Police seized dozens of the cameras at the polling stations.

Late in the afternoon Netanyahu visited a beach urging people there to go out and vote.   He also said that turnout as "low" in Likud Party strongholds.

Netanyahu tweeted that the Blue and White Party of former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz was leading and that people needed to get to the polls to "close the gap".

The New Right Party led by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked accused both Likud and the Union of Right Wing Parties of attempting to steal votes from them, an accusation denied by the Union.


British Prime Minister Theresa May meeting Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday trying to delay the Brexit deadline now set for Friday.

An emergency European Union summit Wednesday will consider the extension.   May's Brexit plan and her latest push to delay Brexit are the source of increasing outrage and controversy in the UK.

She is accused of selling out her country and some go so far as to describe her as a traitor.

The President of the European Union, Donald Tusk, is suggesting a Brexit delay of up to one year.

President Trump has until Friday to decide on an appeal of a federal judge's ruling Monday that asylum seekers cannot be sent back to Mexico while their cases are decided.

The appeal would have to go to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Canada is tightening up on migrants seeking asylum.   An amendment in the Liberal Party's budget proposal says that anyone entering Canada with an asylum claim pending in other countries that share immigration information with Canada could be turned back at the border.

Counties that have such agreements with Canada include the US, Australia and the UK.

The vote in New Zealand's parliament Wednesday was 119-1.   Passing on third reading a new gun control law.    Passage of the law was expedited and it comes into force on Friday, a response to the mass murder attack on two mosques in Christchurch last month.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke on the floor of the parliament on the occasion.


In Syria a suicide bombing attack on an army position in Hama Province.   The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says ten killed.  Syria state media says three on their side were killed and all the attackers.   A tank also destroyed in the attack.

This is apparently the latest violation by the former Al-Qaeda now HTS jihadists of the deconfliction zone in the area.  The attackers disguised themselves as farmers.

In the Chinese administered territory of Hong Kong, nine pro-democracy activists have been convicted on a "public nuisance" charge and could face up to seven years in prison.

They participated in the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests and were leaders of the thousands of people who marched in favor of Hong Kong having the right to choose its own leader and for free elections in the territory.

Attorney General William Barr telling a House committee Tuesday that he is a week away from being able to release a redacted version of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's report..

"....it was clear to us beforehand that this (commission) would end so-as the saying goes 'the mountain gave birth to a mouse'".



Russian President Vladimir Putin's assessment of the Robert Mueller investigation.   Putin spoke before the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg.


The Russian president also said that the probe was:


".....total nonsense aimed mainly at the domestic audience and used in the domestic political struggle in the US itself."  (MORE ON THIS STORY AFTER THE ALGERIA STORY)   


Protesters still demanding major change in Algeria even as a new president was named.

Abdelkhader Bensalah, the speaker of the upper house of parliament, named president Tuesday for 90 days promising transparent presidential elections.

But the crowds of protesters in the street saying "Bensalah go" because he's seen as part of  the ruling clique of the resigned president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Police ended up using water cannons to break up the protest.

Meanwhile, the bureau chief of France's AFP news agency was expelled from Algeria on Tuesday.


Putin said he sees in the attacks of US political establishment on President Trump "a crisis in the US political system".      More on this from the Russian news agency Tass…...LINK

In Turkey, the ruling AK Party wants a whole new election for mayor in the country's largest city.
The AK Party says it has found irregularities in the election where it lost to the opposition CHP Party by more than 20,000 votes  (A 48.8 percent to 48.6 percent margin)

In a pre-recorded video former Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn says that the case being made against him is the result of a conspiracy by Nissan executives fearful of losing their independence in the merged company.

Japanese prosecutors have arrested Ghosn four times on accusations of financial wrongdoing related to the notion that he took company funds for personal use.

More on the story from the BBC.....LINK

And 77 years ago this month he was a lieutenant, co-pilot of Lt. Col James Doolittle, on the historic raid on Japan in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor.   Dick Cole died at the age of 103, the last veteran of the Doolittle raid to pass away.


And that's the way it really is on this Wednesday morning April 10th, 2019.


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