NEWS SUMMARY-INTELLIGENCE REPORT THURSDAY 7/18-FRIDAY 7/19/2019

(WORK IN PROGRESS THROUGH EARLY FRIDAY)

"I  disagree with it by the way.......I was not happy with it.   I disagree with it.... I didn't say that, they did"

Part of what President Trump had to say about his supporters shouting "Send Her Back" at Wednesday night's campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina.

The President suggesting to the media that they go to North Carolina and ask the people down there what they meant by the chant.

The video of the media questioning Trump from a mainstream media source,  "The Guardian"......LINK

Comments of condemnation coming from the President of the European Council of the European Union, Poland's Donald Tusk, speaking in Montreal Thursday.

Tusk noting:   

"In Montreal I didn't hear anyone shouting 'send him back'"

In stronger terms than that at the Montreal news conference was Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying:

"The comments made were hurtful, wrong and completely unacceptable.....I want everyone in Canada to know those comments are completely unacceptable.....should not be allowed or encouraged in Canada."

The Tusk and Trudeau comments on this video from "Global News" in Canada....LINK

In Japan 33 have died in an arson attack on an anime studio in Kyoto.

36 were injured.

The attacker entered the building and poured gasoline yelling "die" before the fire was ignited.

The police arrested a suspect said to be a man in his 40's after he walked away from the building with a witness describing the man lying on the ground with singed hair and a path of bloody footprints behind him.

Police took him to a hospital.

More on the story from NHK in Japan.....LINK

And from the Syrian war the claims from various sources related to it.

Syrian opposition forces backed by Turkey from the National Liberation Front claim Russian special forces are on the ground participating in the war in the northwestern part of the county.   

The Syrian Network for Human Rights claims that Russian aircraft are bombing medical clinics in northwestern Syria.   The Russian UN envoy says the issue was brought up during a closed door meeting of the UN Security Council by the United Kingdom and Kuwait.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says that the US is replacing troops its pulling out of Syria with mercenaries from private contractors.

And Iranian media claiming that Turkey is preparing to attack US backed Kurdish units of the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria.

Also from the war in Syria the horrible story of an atrocity committed by the jihadist Jabhat al-Nusra organization fighting the Syrian government of Bashar Assad.

An Armenian Christian woman living in Idlib province, 60 year-old Suzan Der Kirkour, found dead outside her village.

The International Christian Concern organization says that the autopsy revealed she was tortured, raped repeatedly and then stoned to death.

President Trump has decried the notion of civilian casualties in Idlib caused by Syrian and Russian airstrikes against jihadist opposition forces like those implicated in this brutal atrocity.

More from the "Jerusalem Post".....LINK

On the island nation of Cyprus, 12 young Israelis are being held in connection with the alleged rape of a 19 year old British woman.

The rape said to have occurred at a hotel at the Ayia Napa resort, a tourist spot for younger people.

The accused covered their faces when they entered a Cypriot courtroom Thursday.   All but one of the suspects are 18, the other aged 16.   Because one of the suspects is a minor, their hearing was not open to the public.

The accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein will remain in jail pending his trial.

A federal judge in New York rejecting Epstein's bid to be freed on 100 million dollars bail under house arrest at his New York mansion.

The US Navy shot down an Iranian drone that came too close in the Persian Gulf.

The amphibious ship USS Boxer taking defensive action when the drone approached to within 1,000 meters of the ship and refused calls to stand down.

President Trump said that the drone was "threatening the safety of the ship and the ship's crew".

Iran denying any knowledge of such an incident.

No official word from the Pentagon but mainstream media reporting that 500 more US military are on their way to the Persian Gulf region.

The 500 US military personnel expected to be stationed at the Prince Sultan Air Base near the Saudi capital Riyadh. 

The "Jane's Defense Weekly" reporting through its website that the US military deployment involves a Patriot missile battery.

Iranian media says a "foreign tanker" and its crew were seized for smuggling fuel.

The Iranian report  says this happened on Sunday.

The tanker seizure announcement comes after reports of an oil tanker from the United Arab Emirates drifting into Iranian waters and its tracking system being turned off late Saturday night.

Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif making what he calls "a substantial move" regarding the impasse with the United States.

Speaking in New York on a visit to the United Nations' Zarif said Iran is willing to allow enhanced and permanent inspections of its nuclear facilities in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions.

More from "The Guardian"......LINK

"Politico" reporting that US Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is being allowed to be a "back channel" of communication with Iran for President Trump.

The report says that the President signed off on the notion when asked by Senator Paul during a round of golf last weekend.

Here is the story......LINK

"Unfortunately, Turkey's decision to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems renders its continued involvement with the F-35 impossible"

That's part of the statement from White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham confirming that Turkey is being cut out of the F-35 aircraft program in retaliation for its purchase of the Russian S-400 system.

The first parts of the Russian air defense system arrived in Turkey within the last week.

Turkey had said any sanctions against it would be met in kind.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemning attempts to impede Russia's export of natural gas to Europe and to sell more expensive US produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to European countries.

Lavrov told a German newspaper in part:

"We expect that when partners in Germany and other European countries will make decisions on gas and other issues, they will focus on the interests of their people rather than on instructions from overseas"

Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to Germany needs permission from Denmark to go through its territorial waters and that country is delaying the process.

Last year former US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told the Consumer Energy Network group in Pittsburgh that a blockade of Russian energy exports was a possibility.

More on the Lavrov comments and the Nord Stream project from Russia's Tass News Agency.....LINK

President Trump nominating a new Secretary of Labor.   He is Washington lawyer Eugene Scalia.

Scalia is the son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.

In Israel the pro-family movement with a message for Rabbi Rafi Peretz, the country's Education Minister:

"Stop the persecution and intimidation"

of pro-family forces.

The message follows Peretz's U-turn on conversion therapy for gay people.   He expressed his support for it in a media interview last weekend causing widespread outrage with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling those comments "unaccepable"

Now Peretz telling school principals that he condemns conversion therapy.

More on this story from "Israel National News".....LINK

The Battle of Brexit with the House of Commons approving an amendment Thursday to block the suspension of Parliament.  Opposition parties joined 17 Conservatives to support it.   Other Conservatives abstained in the vote, some 30 MP's.     The vote 315 to 274 in favor.

The amendment preventing proroguing (suspension) of Parliament between October 9th and December 18th seen as an attempt to prevent the new Prime Minister, likely Boris Johnson, from using that as a tactic to force through a "No Deal" Brexit supported by Pro-Brexit activists.

While the amendment hampers Johnson, it does not completely block him from such an action.

As Tommy Robinson's first week of imprisonment comes to an end, the story of Tommy Robinson is being explained world wide by those who know him like Ezra Levant of "Rebel Media".

Levant told the story to Glenn Beck on his radio show this week and Beck noted how Tommy Robinson is being banned in social media and that his side of his story deserves to be heard....LINK

And finally the outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May going into her last week attacking the recent comments of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin said that the liberal idea in the West was "becoming obsolete" in his "Financial Times" interview with notions like mass immigration, multiculturalism and denial of traditional values being in contradiction with the views of the overwhelming majority of the people in the West.

Mrs. May took Putin to task speaking at the Royal Institute of International Affairs saying in part:

"...the fact that he feels emboldened to utter it today indicates the challenge we face as we seek to defend our values..."

Commenting on her comments was Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov who said in part:

"These discussions (on the liberal idea) look not that acute from here"

More on all this from the Tass News Agency.....LINK

And that's the way it really is as we enter Friday July 19th, a week since Tommy Robinson was sentenced and entered captivity for a second time in the United Kingdom.