What's in the news?

[Iniquitous]

^exactly how I am feeling at this moment.  I really do not want to see the fallout from this.

[ShadowFox89]

Drumpf has ordered a direct airstrike on Syria, on the Assad-operated airfield where the planes that delivered the brutal gas attack are supposed to have come from. He's crossed the red line that Obama once talked about but then stepped back from.

Morally it's the right thing to do, it was high time anyway. But how will Russia respond?

My educated guess? Putin will see it as a challenge to his power in the region and we can, to start, expect to see the Soviet Navy doing "training drills" dangerously close to US ships.

[gaggedLouise]

My educated guess? Putin will see it as a challenge to his power in the region and we can, to start, expect to see the Soviet Navy doing "training drills" dangerously close to US ships.

Yep, but somebody *had* to respond. Assad is literally slaughtering his own nation, he's treating his own people as expendables relative to his own power base (and IS are doing the same shit). Not just in this latest gassing but in the whole way he's mauling his own country. 

I doubt that the Russians are really going to risk a wider all-out war over this, but we'll see.

[gaggedLouise]

Hillary Clinton called for airstrikes too, in an interview published just an hour or so before Trump went on the air saying he had decided to act:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/06/hillary-clinton-interview-election-russia-misogyny

I think it had got to a critical point, just like in the Yugoslav war after the hideous Srebrenica massacre. After that, the US and others finallly stepped up their effprts to bring the war to a close (though I don't think Trump is close to forcing Assad to go, for now).

[Sara Nilsson]

/tinfoil

Duh it is obvious. The Russians made Assad drop the chemical weapons saying they would protect him but what they really are doing is sacrificing him so that trump can gain some much needed ratings boosts back home and deflect from all the scandals about his presidency. It is sooooo obvious!! Wake up Sheeple!

/tinfoil off

In all seriousness, I do not think that Putin will retaliate. Sure Syria holds a very important military base of theirs, but I am sure he is 100% confident that they will keep that no matter who is in charge. And while they probably want to keep Assad in power Putin isn't a moron and is cold enough to drop him at a moments notice when he is no longer useful.

[midnightblack]

^I agree. It's not worth to Putin to blow the whole world up for the smouldering ruins of Syria, where he will keep his assets anyway, just like it wasn't worth it for NATO to make a military intervention when he occupied Crimea and essentially gained control of Eastern Ukraine.

I think it's more likely for the situation to defuse itself, rather than have it turn into a new Lybia/Iraq.

[Beorning]

My opinion is that this is something that should've been done long time ago. Syria is a place that desperately needs an international military intervention. For me, it was madness that the whole world was watching idly, as this country was destroying itself and Assad was murdering his own nation.

I'm worried about Russia, though...

[gaggedLouise]

Somebody has driven a van (or a small truck) into the windows at a corner of a department store in central Stockholm. Massive rampage, blood on the pavement, possibly a bomb or a crate of explosives gone off. There are unconfirmed reports from Swedish public radio news of three persons killed and many injured.

The parliament building, which is just a few blocks away, is in police lockdown though there are no reports of any violence there.

Sounds like this country is just seeing its first full-scale and successful terrorist attack in modern times. 

[SlipperySue]

Interesting day for 'The Donald', launching missile strikes against Syria, which are unintentionally, at least I hope unintentionally beneficial to IS and it now seems having 'predicted' terrorism in Sweden.  Perhaps it is not just a Russian hand that needs to be investigated by the FBI.

[gaggedLouise]

Interesting day for 'The Donald', launching missile strikes against Syria, which are unintentionally, at least I hope unintentionally beneficial to IS and it now seems having 'predicted' terrorism in Sweden.  Perhaps it is not just a Russian hand that needs to be investigated by the FBI.

Nah, Trump didn't foretell anything. Not going to belittle what has happened but this sort of attack, sadly, could have happened in just about any country in northern and western Europe. There have been attacks in Copenhagen, Berlin - and much larger and more deadly ones in Brussels, London, Paris, Nice. We don't know yet who was behind this latest one but it looks a lot like some of the other ones, it's a generic type really.

[AmberStarfire]

I'm following the story of the truck attack in Sweden. Hairy and I have a friend over there, and we hope he's okay. The odds are against him being close to it, but it's sad to see this happen to Sweden too.

[Sara Nilsson]

Only now did I get the last confirmation of my relatives all being safe. Two of them got stuck behind police barricades and took hours before they could get out at least they are all safe.

My heart goes out to my countrymen and I hope we won't let this ruin the way of life we have enjoyed.

[Callie Del Noire]

My opinion is that this is something that should've been done long time ago. Syria is a place that desperately needs an international military intervention. For me, it was madness that the whole world was watching idly, as this country was destroying itself and Assad was murdering his own nation.

I'm worried about Russia, though...

The Russians were notified before the attack for that reason. To avoid misunderstandings '

[gaggedLouise]

Police in Stockholm hade arrested a man whom they think was driving the truck that crashed into the department store (and before that, drove through a crowd). The guy was arrested last night (meaning before midnight, local time) in a working-class/immigrants suburb north of the capital. Accoring to cops working on the case that the press have spoken to, he is from Uzbekistan and has voiced sympathy for IS, but those details are not officially confirmed yet.

The attack could have turend out even worse. According to the cops, a crate of explosives was found near or inside of the truck. They had not gone off, but were likely meant to.

[gaggedLouise]

Regular programming on two, possibly three of the four biggest tv channels here (not sure about TV3 which is mostly an entertainment and reality tv channel) seems to have been largely suspended to give way for non-stop coverage relating to the terrorist attack. I'm not sure I feel that's really motivated, because there isn't much news about it coming through so far, sometimes it's just live footage of the site with people lighting candles and paying their respect or vague interviews with various politicians. :( It could be handld in a much more concentrated form.

[Missy]

Regular programming on two, possibly three of the four biggest tv channels here (not sure about TV3 which is mostly an entertainment and reality tv channel) seems to have been largely suspended to give way for non-stop coverage relating to the terrorist attack. I'm not sure I feel that's really motivated, because there isn't much news about it coming through so far, sometimes it's just live footage of the site with people lighting candles and paying their respect or vague interviews with various politicians. :( It could be handld in a much more concentrated form.

24 hour news coverage is rarely of any value. It just gives way to becoming more about entertainment and ratings than news and journalism. When they do cover somethign worth mentioning its sloppy and its best to corelate your source elsewhere. Jon Stewart put it best: "24 hour news covergae is good for one thing only 9/11, for everything else it just becomes about ratings and they get lazy" (rough paraphrase). Its best if you don't encourage them, you're not going to benefit.

[Callie Del Noire]

24 hour news coverage is rarely of any value. It just gives way to becoming more about entertainment and ratings than news and journalism. When they do cover somethign worth mentioning its sloppy and its best to corelate your source elsewhere. Jon Stewart put it best: "24 hour news covergae is good for one thing only 9/11, for everything else it just becomes about ratings and they get lazy" (rough paraphrase). Its best if you don't encourage them, you're not going to benefit.

I remember CNN coming online back in the day. I saw a LOT more international news on it then than I do now.. shame that I can't get BBC America here.. I like BBC coverage better than most domestic units.

[Trigon]

In all seriousness, I do not think that Putin will retaliate. Sure Syria holds a very important military base of theirs, but I am sure he is 100% confident that they will keep that no matter who is in charge. And while they probably want to keep Assad in power Putin isn't a moron and is cold enough to drop him at a moments notice when he is no longer useful.

I wouldn't be so sure about that actually: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/08/russia-sends-warship-syrian-coast

Russia is more than willing to escalate tensions, it would seem...

[Missy]

I wouldn't be so sure about that actually: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/08/russia-sends-warship-syrian-coast

Russia is more than willing to escalate tensions, it would seem...

They had missiles close enough to striek berlin, that's two and a half countries, Belarus, Poland and half of Germany.

[gaggedLouise]

All four victims killed in the Stockholm truck attack have been identified by police: two Swedes, one UK citizen and one Belgian citizen. Two of the dead are children, one of them a Swedish girl aged 11, walking home from school, who was deaf and didn't hear the truck or the tumult around her. :( There are several badly injured still in hospital, two of them in intensive care.

The man arrested (coming from Uzbekistan) and supposed to have been the driver had been living in the country for some years and has a family here, but he had already had his residency permit expired and denied a new one, some time ago, so he was technically on the list of persons who should be expelled. He was also on the radar of the state security police for having made som pro-ISIS statements, but they hadn't acted upon it. In short, this looks much like the background to the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin: the perpetrator slipped between the fingers of the police agencies who should have got hold of him well before the fatal day.

Edit: The man had gone underground in February, when he had been given a final note that he would have to leave the country. The police here are not in the habit of actually retrieving illegal aliens or detaining them some days in advance of their being sent out. Unless they have committed some other crime they are not actively pursued in that way, even if there is a clear and final expiry.

It's been very difficult in the past to get clearance for police to set up live surveillance cams out on the town or near likely targets for terrorism and crime, unlike London or Paris where those cameras are ubiquitous (private business owners can set up cams but the police may only access the footage later, not live and from a command post as an event is unfolding). Laws against wiretapping have also been very strict, except in special cases. It's probably a safe bet that the police will be given more freedom to use this kind of effective live surveillance after the attack.

[Skynet]

A high-ranking official in the Trump White House called one of Trump's sons-in-law a globalist cuck unironically.

This is not an internet troll, nor a middle schooler, but a grown man.

Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner rarely see eye to eye, and apparently have been sniping at each other behind the scenes a lot to get the President's ear.

[Oniya]

Globalist is a bad thing? O_o

[TheGlyphstone]

Globalist is a bad thing? O_o

When you're a nationalist, I guess so.

[Beguile's Mistress]

A high-ranking official in the Trump White House called one of Trump's sons-in-law a globalist cuck unironically.

This is not an internet troll, nor a middle schooler, but a grown man.

Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner rarely see eye to eye, and apparently have been sniping at each other behind the scenes a lot to get the President's ear.

Supposedly, while they haven't kissed and made up, they have agreed to be less confrontational.

[Trigon]

They had missiles close enough to striek berlin, that's two and a half countries, Belarus, Poland and half of Germany.

They also have long range missiles that can strike the United States. The Russians are certainly no pushovers, despite what the media and the neocons/neolibs want you to believe...