Catalonia’s government says 337 people have been injured, some seriously, during a police crackdown on the independence referendum this Sunday.

Nine police officers and 2 members of the Guardia Civil have been injured in the disorder, according to the Spanish interior ministry.

The voting has been marred by a brutal police crackdown in which several instances of violence against voters have been recorded. Videos show police dragging voters from polling stations by their hair, unprovoked attacks on protesters and Spanish police attacking Catalan firefighters.

There have been several calls for Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy to resign over the police response from Catalan politicians and opposition MPs.

Separately, on Saturday Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged for the first time that the US is in direct communication with the government of North Korea over its missile and nuclear tests – a stunning revelation considering that administration officials have until this point insisted that there has been only limited, indirect contact between the White House and the Kim regime. According to the New York Times, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson revealed as much during a speech at the residence of the US ambassador to Beijing after a meeting with Chinese leaders. Tillerson is in China on Saturday for what the NYT described as a “brief visit.”

“We are probing, so stay tuned,” Tillerson said when pressed about how he might begin a conversation with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, that could avert what many government officials fear is a significant chance of open conflict between the two countries.

Several North Korean missiles were recently spotted moved from a rocket facility in the capital, Pyongyang, South Korea’s Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) reported late Friday amid speculation that the North was preparing to take more provocative actions.

The report cited an unnamed intelligence source saying South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials detected missiles being transported away from North Korea’s Missile Research and Development Facility at Sanum-dong in the northern part of Pyongyang.

The report did not say when or where they had been moved.

The missiles could be either intermediate range Hwasong-12 or intercontinental Hwasong-14 missiles, according to the report, though the missile facility at Sanum-dong has been dedicated to the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

A source from South Korea’s Defense Ministry said he could not confirm details of the report or whether there has been any unusual activities in the area mentioned.

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has finally admitted that the “gender pay gap” is caused primarily by women’s choices, not discrimination.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to approve the construction of 3,300 new settlement units during the next meeting of the Civil Administration’s High Planning Committee, which is set to be held on 16 October, Israel’s Channel 7 has reported. Netanyahu made his pledge during a closed meeting on Wednesday with the leaders of the Yesha Council of the West Bank Settlements.

Although all of Israel’s settlements are built on occupied Palestinian territory and are illegal under international law, Netanyahu claims that the Trump administration is prepared to “tolerate” limited settlement building. He told the settlers’ group that he has succeeded in convincing Trump to drop its distinction between settlement blocs and so-called isolated settlements. The US President is, he added, almost ready to present a plan for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Canadian police have issued an arrest warrant for a high-ranking Vatican diplomat suspected of uploading child pornography from a church in Ontario last Christmas holidays.

According to police in Windsor, Ontario, Carlo Capella,50, allegedly uploaded the child porn to a social networking site while visiting a place of worship last December.

"In February of 2017, the Windsor Police Service Internet Child Exploitation Unit received information that originated from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police National Child Exploitation Coordination Center indicating that a suspect in the city of Windsor had allegedly uploaded child pornography using a social networking website," police explained.

Read more
Pope Francis, Portugal May 13, 2017. © Pedro NunesPope Francis: Vatican had 2,000 sex abuse cases backlog, sluggishness complaints justified

Iraq plans to take control of the borders of its autonomous Kurdistan region “in coordination” with Iran and Turkey, the Iraqi Defence Ministry said on Friday.

The statement did not give more detail or indicate specifically whether Iraqi forces were planning to move toward the external border posts controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) from the Iranian and Turkish side.

The move to seize the border posts is a response to a Kurdish referendum on Monday that produced a vote in favor of secession from Iraq.

Following the vote, Iraq, Iran and Turkey demanded that the KRG relinquish control over its external border crossings with Turkey, Iran and Syria.

Backed by Ankara and Tehran, the Iraqi government has demanded that the Kurdish leadership cancel the result of the referendum or face the prospect of sanctions, international isolation and possibly a military intervention.

People crossing into Denmark from Germany will now be greeted with the sight of armed soldiers. And a new European Union proposal means border controls could be extended.

The soldiers are meant to reinforce the police checks that are still in place on the border with the German state of Schleswig Holstein near the city of Flensburg. Border controls were introduced in January 2016 in the wake of the refugee influx into Europe.

Danish officials said the new soldiers would only work in the background and would not directly check cars. Their main role was to help transport suspects and perform guard duty, Brian Fussing of the southern Jutland special border police unit told reporters. The soldiers would initially be deployed for three months.

South Korean banks and utility companies are drawing up plans to construct shielding and potentially move operations overseas to protect against North Korea as further provocation from Pyongyang is expected on October 10.
South Korean banks and vital infrastructure facilities, including nuclear power plants and government ministries, have reportedly been hacked by Pyongyang in the past. And as tensions in the region escalate, many now fear the North Korean regime will conduct an atmospheric nuclear test to coincide with the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea on October 10.

The South Korean government warned Thursday that its northern neighbor was "highly likely" to continue military provocations in the build up to the October celebrations.

LAST FRIDAY, most major media outlets touted a major story about Russian attempts to hack into U.S. voting systems, based exclusively on claims made by the Department of Homeland Security. “Russians attempted to hack elections systems in 21 states in the run-up to last year’s presidential election, officials said Friday,” began the USA Today story, similar to how most other outlets presented this extraordinary claim.

So what was wrong with this story? Just one small thing: it was false. The story began to fall apart yesterday when Associated Press reported that Wisconsin – one of the states included in the original report that, for obvious reasons, caused the most excitement – did not, in fact, have its election systems targeted by Russian hackers:

Sometimes stories end up debunked. There’s nothing particularly shocking about that. If this were an isolated incident, one could chalk it up to basic human error that has no broader meaning.

Supporters of Catalan independence began occupying polling stations on Friday, setting up a possible confrontation with police who have been ordered to clear them out by Sunday morning to ensure a referendum cannot go ahead.

The central government, which has sent thousands of police reinforcements to stop people voting and has attempted to dismantle the infrastructure needed to conduct the referendum it says is illegal, insisted it would not go ahead.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont told Reuters in an interview, however: “Everything is prepared at the more than 2,000 voting points so they have ballot boxes and voting slips, and have everything people need to express their opinion.”

Trump got heat Friday after Massachusetts school librarian Liz Phipps Soeiro declined several Dr. Seuss books donated by the first lady, claiming the material was "cliché" and based on "racist propaganda."

Mysterious metal towers are popping up at local tunnels, and soon they’ll start appearing at bridges, too.

But even people on the MTA board in charge of the towers can’t say why they’re being used or what’s in them, CBS2’s Dave Carlin reports.

Jose Lugo said the tall metal towers quickly appeared up after the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel tolls booths came down.

The British think tank RUSI believes that a US-North Korea war is "a real possibility."

The war could be started by either side. It "will not be surgical or short," the think tank said, and there would be "scenes of carnage."
Even without nuclear weapons, such a war could kill hundreds of thousands of people in a week, produce millions of refugees, and wreck the global economy.
The UK should refuse to unconditionally support the US in this war, RUSI said.
An acclaimed British defence think tank has warned that war between North Korea and the United States is "now a real possibility" and that peaceful talks may no longer work to bring down tensions.

In a report Thursday, the Royal United Services Institute said a war could start in two main ways: Either Pyongyang could strike if it believes the US is planning a surprise attack, or Washington could strike if North Korea fires test missiles near Guam or California.

Lieutenant-General Valery Asapov, of the Russian armed forces, was killed after coming under shelling from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants near Deir ez-Zor, the Russian Defense Ministry has announced.

Immediately after his death, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the “two-faced policy” of the United States was to blame for the death of Russian Lieutenant-General Valery Asapov in Syria, the RIA news agency quoted him as saying.

Asapov, commander of the 5th Army in Russia’s Eastern Military District, one of the four strategic commands in the Russian Armed Forces, is the highest-ranking Russian officer to be killed in the Syrian campaign.

The Spanish government reiterated its angry rhetoric this morning that the "Catalan referendum won't happen" with Íñigo Méndez de Vigo saying "organizers will be held responsible," after they unveiled the ballot boxes and discussed the 2,315 polling stations to be used.

In a sign that large crowds are again expected on the streets on Sunday, department store chain El Corte Ingles said it would shut three stores in central Barcelona. The central government said airspace above the city would be partly restricted.

Lines of tractors draped in the red-and-yellow striped Catalan flag left provincial towns on Friday, planning to converge on Barcelona in a sign of support for the referendum.

n what looks like a naked coverup meant to obscure the fact that the Department of Justice's decision to launch a criminal investigation into possible Russia-Trump collusion was based on a lie, Reuters reports that the DOJ and FBI are resisting a Congressional subpoena from to turn over documents that would reveal details about how the infamous "Trump dossier" factored into their decision to launch said investigation.

Despite receiving the subpoena from US Intel Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, the FBI is steadfastly refusing to turn over the documents because the agency says they would purportedly compromise an ongoing criminal investigation (the FBI’s investigation into Mueller). More likely, the agency’s intransigence stems from fears that the one Russia collusion narrative that Democrats have actively worked to suppress could come back to haunt them.

Catalonia’s High Court on Friday ordered Google to delete an application that it said Catalan separatists were using to spread information about a disputed independence vote this Sunday, Reuters reported. The court also ordered Google to block any future applications developed by the gmail address “[email protected]”, according to a written ruling.

The app, which was available on Google Play until just before 7 p.m. on Friday, helps people to find their polling station via their address and shows the closest polling stations on Google Maps via GPS, the name of the town or keywords. It also allows users to share links to polling station locations, according to The Spain Report.

Google told The Spain Report that: "we remove content from our platforms when we receive a court order or when it violates our terms and conditions". The app no longer appears to be available from Spain.

The lack of prosecution of US bankers responsible for the great financial crisis has been a much debated topic over the years, leading to the coinage of such terms as "Too Big To Prosecute", the termination of at least one corrupt DOJ official, the revelation that Eric Holder is the most useless Attorney General in history, and of course billions in cash kickbacks between Wall Street and D.C. And, naturally, the lack of incentives that punish cheating and fraud, is one of the main reasons why such fraud will not only continue but get bigger until once again, the entire system crashes under the weight of accumulated theft, corruption and Fed-driven malinvestment. But what can be done? In this case, Vietnam may have just shown the way - sentence embezzling bankers to death. Because if one wants to promptly stop an end to all financial crime, few things motivate as efficiently as a firing squad.

We've frequently warned that Obamacare is locked in an inescapable death spiral that will result in its inevitable failure. The problem is that the folks who make too much to qualify for subsidies (currently defined as roughly $80,000 for a family of 3) are increasingly being priced out of the market for individual insurance by Obamacare's 30%+ price hikes that consistently come year after year. Meanwhile, those "rich" families making $80,000 a year are the ones expected to overpay for their health insurance so that a portion of their premiums can be "spread around a little bit" (as Obama likes to say) to subsidize the premiums of others. Of course, it's easy to see the circularity here as higher premiums equals less "full-paying" customers and less subsidies equals higher premiums...until the whole system collapses.