Politics

A BBC journalist has been stopped from travelling to the US with her family because of her dual Iranian-British nationality. Rana Rahimpour, a presenter for the BBC’s Persian service, was halted from boarding a flight to New Jersey at Heathrow airport yesterday. She was told she could not travel to the US because of the new visa waiver rules that prevents those with dual nationalities of certain countries from entering the US on its 90-day visa-free program. @ranarahimpour My fully #British daughter can’t attend her #American cousin’s bday cos her mum was born in #Iran.

Greg Sargent draws attention to a finding from a new Pew survey:

Fifty-six percent of Republican and GOP-leaning voters nationally think Donald Trump would make a great or good president. That’s higher than it is for any other GOP candidate.

Submitted by 'Thinker' via The Burning Platform blog,

Hitler came to power for a number of documented reasons, some of which are rational, others of which are emotional. Either way, the world continues to question how a vicious madman could rise to power in Germany during this time, most of all the German people who, to this day, will do almost anything to prevent another authoritarian movement.

On Tuesday evening Turkey deployed 1,000 troops into Syrian territory near Jarablus in order to keep Kurdish People’s Protection Units away from the Turkish border.  Turkish authorities are doing this under the cover of supposedly fighting ISIS militants in the area, but as yet they haven’t killed or captured any ISIS militants. Sputniknews.com reports: The troops have reportedly crossed into Aleppo province, according to Hawar News, along with military vehicles, heavy equipment, and mine detection gear to dismantle minefields installed by Daesh, also known as IS/Islamic State.

A senior Google director has unveiled a plan to thwart ISIS, using the power of the web.  Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, says that ISIS need to be locked out of the open web. Speaking at a talk on digital counterinsurgency, Cohen said ISIS’ main strength lies in its ability to use the web and social media to promote the organisation. Trustedreviews.com reports: “Terrorist groups like ISIS, they operate in the dark web whether we want them to or not,” the Google lead said. “What is new is that they’re operating without being pushed back in the same internet we all enjoyed.