When the Empire (it's dying, yes ... but its sting from its deathbed is just as deadly as ever) decides to "regime change", terrible things happen to countries and citizens of those countries.
The US political commentator Michael Parenti once observed that:
'Bias in favor of the orthodox is frequently mistaken for
"objectivity". Departures from this ideological orthodoxy are themselves
dismissed as ideological.'
Once you understand the truth of that remark, seeing the daily biases
and distortions of the corporate media becomes obvious. Thus, there is
plenty of space on the BBC News website, and plenty of time on the BBC's
airwaves, to discuss the Venezuela migrant crisis, hyper-inflation and food shortages. Rob Young, a BBC News business correspondent, wrote:
'Venezuela, now in its fourth year of recession, has joined a sad
list of other countries whose economies imploded as hyperinflation tore
through them.'
Young quoted a senior official of the International Monetary Fund:
'The situation in Venezuela is similar to that in Germany in 1923 or Zimbabwe in the late 2000s.'
A BBC News clip headlined, 'Begging for food in Venezuela', emphasised:
'Food has become so scarce in Venezuela after the economy collapsed that people are getting desperate.'
Likewise, there has been ample heart-wrenching coverage
of Venezuelans fleeing to other countries. But you will struggle to
find any substantive analysis of the severe US sanctions and
long-standing threats to bring about a US-friendly government in
Caracas, including an attempted coup in 2002 to remove Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's then president. On August 19, BBC South America correspondent Katy Watson reported for BBC News at Ten:
'President Nicolas Maduro is doing little to stop his country's
economic freefall. Last week, he announced plans to devalue the
country's currency; an attempt to rein in inflation that the
International Monetary Fund says could hit one million per cent by the
end of the year.'
But there was next to no context. BBC viewers were led to believe
that the blame for the crisis in Venezuela lay squarely at Maduro's
door. By contrast, consider the analysis of
Gabriel Hetland, an expert academic on Latin America. He stated that
the Venezuelan government's actions – and inactions – have made the
crisis 'far worse'. But crucially:
'the government has not acted in a vacuum, but in a hostile domestic
and international environment. The opposition has openly and repeatedly
pushed for regime change by any means necessary.'
On August 4, there was even an attempt to assassinate President Maduro, with responsibility claimed by a clandestine opposition group made up of members of the Venezuelan military. Hetland continued:......
Now that the USA has elected a president the BBC is not in love with, out comes its claws all of a sudden to show the world something of what's happening in the dying empire. All this was prevalent the last so many decades, but BBC, like most of the MSM, had a lid on anything that showed America in a bad light..until now. BBC betrayal?
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli 2) I cannot recall the BBC showing anything anti USA during Obama's reign. Were there no child brides or women dying in childbirth then dear @BBCNews? Your bias is showing!https://t.co/UWJOPw52mv
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli 3) BBC was wholly in Obama n Hillary camp while education standards in USA were just as bad as they r now. But surprise, surprise, BBC now finds its long lost tongue on stuff anti USA as present prez not liked by BBC's PTB https://t.co/MwtyBjH6nI
From InfomationClearingHouse (video) Duterte Says 'Bye Bye America' We Don't Need Your Money Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told the United States on Saturday to prepare for repeal of an agreement on deployment of troops and equipment for exercises, declaring "bye-bye America", and we don't need your money....
As Aleppo has been almost entirely liberated from militants by the Syrian Army, the daunting task of rebuilding people’s lives lies ahead. RT’s Lizzie Phelan met with orphaned children from the city whose harrowing stories epitomize the horrors of war.
Over the past few days, some 100,000 civilians, including 40,000 children, have left eastern Aleppo, according to the Russian Reconciliation Center.
The UN says one in four children have been affected by the Syrian war. In Aleppo, that figure appears a gross understatement, Phelan reports.
Children such as Moussa, who is around eight, Jamil, 14, and Asma – around the same age – shared their chilling experience of watching their parents and siblings killed by terrorists before their eyes while they had to flee the fighting on their own.
“My father was killed five days ago,” says the tearful Asma, who’s been left to fend for herself with her five younger brothers and sisters. The Red Crescent picked them up as it did countless other children from what was the rebel-held Aleppo. Dirty, hungry and too traumatized to talk about their ordeal, they were dropped off at an orphanage a few days ago....
AKP’s police and soldiers have captured more than 400 Kurds alive and executed them during the genocidal attacks of 2016. The number of people executed by the police and the army under enemy law just this year has surpassed 400 according to data from the Human Rights Association (Insan Haklari Dernegi – IHD). A small sample from AKP’s political murders are as follows:
Sêvê Demir, Pakize Nayir and Fatma Uyar were murdered by state forces in Sirnak’s Silopi district on the evening of January 4. It was later found out that the person murdered alongside with the female politicians was Islam Atak (20).
In Van’s Edremit district, 12 HPG members were executed on January 10 in a house raid by the special operations units with the claim that “there was a clash”. Access to the file and autopsy reports on the massacre was barred.
In Mardin’s Kiziltepe district, 4 people lost their lives when special operations police opened fire on a vehicle in Turgut Özal neighborhood on January 12. Witness accounts say the vehicle with the license plate 63 F 1579 was in motion when suddenly it was raked by the police armored vehicles. After the attack, 4 unidentified persons were killed in the vehicle and dozens of bullet holes were seen on the vehicle. Later it was found out that one of the people who were executed was DBP administrator Cengiz Erdem, brother of Aydin Erdem who was murdered by the police in a student protest in Amed in 2009.
In Van, a young man named Nadir Tezgel was executed during a raid by the special operations units on January 21.....
Jing Cao at Bloomberg IBM Lays Out Plans to Hire 25,000 in U.S. Ahead of Trump Meeting IBM Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty said she plans to hire about 25,000 people in the U.S. and invest $1 billion over the next four years, laying out her vision for filling technology jobs in America on the eve of a meeting of industry leaders with President-elect Donald Trump....
From VoltaireNet Yet again Washington allows Palmyra to be occupied by Daesh Once again, Daesh has seized Palmyra following a surprise attack in the period 9 - 12 December 2016.
The “High Representative” of the “Syrian Opposition”, Riad Hijab, has denounced the forces of the Syrian “regime” who pounce on “unarmed civilians” at Aleppo but “jump ship like rats when confronted by the jihadists of the Islamic State at Palmyra.” The reality is a very different story.
In a synchronized [manoeuvre], 5,000 jihadists arrived at Rakka and Mosul to catch in a vice, the thousands of Syrian soldiers defending the city. The Syrian Arab Army had barely enough time to evacuate the civilians and to destroy its arsenal before retreating.
The United States has pushed Daesh to invade the Sunni part of Iraq in June 2014, in order to cut land communications between Tehran and Damascus, the final stage in the “Silk Route”. Once Mosul (Iraq) has been taken, Daesh moved on to Palmyra (Syria) in May 2015. Its troops had then crossed the border under the watch of the US forces who had not intervened and had not even sounded an alert. However, the town had been liberated in March 2016.....
An immediate broadcast ban was issued by the Turkish government.
According to eye-witness reports a car ploughed into the bus, exploding immediately.
Reuters has said the bus, carrying off duty soldiers and civilians was hit by a car laden bomb outside Kayseri University.
Other reports say the bus was carrying special forces soldiers going on leave.
Andrea Germanos at CommonDreams Amid Finger Pointing at Russia, US Brings Tanks Back to Cold War Depot 'We need to take action,' says President Obama
As President Barack Obama vows that the United States will take "action" in response to the allegations that Russia interfered with the November election, the U.S. army has started to bring tanks back to a Cold War site in the Netherlands as a show of its "commitment to deterrence in Europe."
The U.S. and Dutch military reopened the Eygelshoven site on Thursday. It will contain "strategically prepositioned critical war stock" including M1 Abrams Tanks and M109 Paladin Self-Propelled Howitzers.....
Depravity has another name "Art" given to it by those who want to make depravity seem normal behaviour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLbFugaFyAA
From ConsortiumNews As the hysteria about Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. election grows, a key mystery is why U.S. intelligence would rely on “circumstantial evidence” when it has the capability for hard evidence, say U.S. intelligence veterans.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity MEMORANDUM Allegations of Hacking Election Are Baseless A New York Times report on Monday alluding to “overwhelming circumstantial evidence” leading the CIA to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin “deployed computer hackers with the goal of tipping the election to Donald J. Trump” is, sadly, evidence-free. This is no surprise, because harder evidence of a technical nature points to an inside leak, not hacking – by Russians or anyone else Monday’s Washington Post reports that Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has joined other senators in calling for a bipartisan investigation of suspected cyber-intrusion by Russia. Reading our short memo could save the Senate from endemic partisanship, expense and unnecessary delay.
In what follows, we draw on decades of senior-level experience – with emphasis on cyber-intelligence and security – to cut through uninformed, largely partisan fog. Far from hiding behind anonymity, we are proud to speak out with the hope of gaining an audience appropriate to what we merit – given our long labors in government and other areas of technology. And corny though it may sound these days, our ethos as intelligence professionals remains, simply, to tell it like it is – without fear or favor.
We have gone through the various claims about hacking. For us, it is child’s play to dismiss them. The email disclosures in question are the result of a leak, not a hack. Here’s the difference between leaking and hacking:
Leak: When someone physically takes data out of an organization and .....
From RT ‘Lies are their agenda’: Canadian journalist blasts MSM Syria coverage at UN event (VIDEO) Western mainstream media’s coverage of the Syrian war is “compromised” as their local sources are “not credible” and, in the case of Aleppo, not even there, a Canadian journalist said in an emotional speech at the UN.
“I’ve been many times to Homs, to Maaloula, to Latakia and Tartus [in Syria] and again, Aleppo, four times. And people’s support of their government is absolutely true. Whatever you hear in the corporate media is completely opposite,” Eva Bartlett, a Canadian journalist and rights activist, told a press conference arranged by the Syrian mission to the UN.
“And, on that note, what you hear in the corporate media, and I will name them – BBC, Guardian, the New York Times etc. – on Aleppo is also the opposite of reality,” she added. The mainstream media narrative, she argued, is meant to mislead the public about what is really happening in Syria by demonizing President Bashar Assad’s government and altering the facts on Russia’s support for Damascus.......
Alex Christoforou at TheDuran Watch Stephen Colbert spread fake news, blast Rex Tillerson, and expose his bigotry towards Russian people If Stephen Colbert made fun of any other culture in such a manner, it would be blasted as racism and bigotry.
.......Colbert uses that power to spread his liberal religion on to the masses. It’s a religion that has Hillary Clinton as savior, Trump as the devil, and all Russians as lower than life, bumbling Soviet fools, controlled by a strong man dictator.
Colbert seems to always ignore that his liberal ideology has destroyed millions of lives in Iraq, Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria…while his savior knowingly rigged the primary election against Bernie Sanders, and is now ready to lie about Russian hackers in order to create a constitutional crisis in the USA.
Never mind the small little fact that the RNC was never hacked, that Craig Murray and Julian Assange have both met the individual who leaked the Podesta emails, and that the FBI refuses to corroborate the CIA’s “Russia election hack” story because of lack of evidence.
Evidence and fact are like kryptonite to liberal minds. Its all about holier than thou values, that today’s hollywood forces upon you at gun point......
The scapegoating of Russia is now so widespread, Dirty Wars author and investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill took to The Intercept to call the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on its bluff.
In the article, “Obama Must Declassify Evidence Of Russian Hacking,” Scahill and Jon Schwartz called out U.S. intelligence agencies for their record of deceit, asserting that the American people are not going to simply “take their word for it.”
“U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly demonstrated that they regularly both lie and get things horribly wrong,” the article argues. But when it comes to the CIA’s case against Russia’s alleged interference with the latest U.S. presidential elections, it’s impossible to claim the hearsay is based on facts if evidence is not made available to support the agency’s claims.
Nevertheless, Scahill and Schwartz argue, it’s possible that Russia may have pulled some strings. But even if the Kremlin had its reasons and acted on them, America is the country with the long history of election meddling — not Russia.
Take Hillary Clinton’s comments on the Palestinian elections, for instance. A leaked audio recording from 2006 revealed then-senator Clinton advocated doing “something to determine who was going to win” in Palestine’s elections. And yet here she is, hoping to use the “Russia did it” talking point to give censorship a boost. The CIA has its own history of meddling in foreign elections.
In order to give Barack Obama’s administration that extra push to release any “proof” the CIA has that the 2016 U.S. elections were “rigged,” the Intercept’s duo encouraged feds or whistleblowers to use the publication’s secure drop link, where a “patriotic whistleblower” within the U.S. intelligence community may drop the leak that proves Russia is behind President-elect Donald Trump’s win. “[W]e will verify its legitimacy and publish it,” they added.......
Ok...she is a bad girl, she lied. But what about the parents. They shaved off her hair and eyebrows as punishment? They need to face some sort of punishment for that abuse. It's more than possible the teen lied because she wanted to stop wearing the hijab and this made-up incident was to make her parents see that wearing the headwear was dangerous for Muslim girls.
Isabella Mackie at VICE The ongoing Yemeni civil war has pushed the country closer to collapse and to the brink of famine. New figures released by children’s charity UNICEF show that more than 462,000 children there are coping with severe acute malnutrition and are at risk of starvation — a staggering 200 percent increase since 2014 — and 2.2. million children require urgent care.
“Malnutrition in Yemen is at an all-time high and increasing,” said Dr. Meritxell Relano, a UNICEF representative in Yemen. “The state of health of children in the Middle East’s poorest country has never been as catastrophic as it is today.”....
San Francisco, Calif. — December 12, 2016 was a historic day, marking the first time that a U.S. court heard argument related to the actions of senior Bush-era officials who were responsible for the planning and waging of the Iraq War.
Circuit court judges Andrew Hurwitz and Susan Graber and District Court judge Richard Boulware (sitting by designation on the 9th Circuit), heard argument that the immunity granted to former President George W. Bush and other officials by the federal district court related to their conduct in waging the Iraq War should be overturned. This immunity was provided in December 2014, resulting in the current appeal.
The judges spent most of oral argument focusing on the nature of the domestic immunity, questioning both counsel for the Iraqi plaintiff, Sundus Saleh, as well as counsel for the United States about where immunity ends for government officials.
The judges will issue their opinion as to whether the immunity should be overturned in the coming weeks.....
Junaid Ghoto at GlobalResearch The Myth of India as an Upcoming Asian Economic Powerhouse. Rising Poverty and Social Inequality A common myth around the world is that, India is developing country at a very rapid pace and going to be a powerhouse in Asia soon. Some even argue we should learn from them and some argue independence should have never happened and we would have been a better off with India rather than independent. And even some pessimist especially Pakistani and Bangladeshi people regret the independence in 1947 and common chorus can be heard “look where India has reached today and where we are”.
Regret or not, but it is important to see where India stands today, the idea to write regarding this is to differentiate the illusion from fact and give reason so the sane understanding follows. A nation is called developing not because of its population, or defense budget, but how good the people fare in that country; it is about the human development and economic growth which include improving education and health by having less people as possible under the poverty line and high incomes per capita of citizen in the country, this will come when the state will have a sound economic system.
India is no doubt one of the biggest democracy in the world; because it has the highest population, Simple! (China highly populist, and officially “communist”). India is the second biggest nation in the world in terms of population and seventh largest in terms of area. According to the IMF as of 2015, the Indian economically nominally worth US$ 2.182 trillion, it, it’s the eleventh largest economy in terms of market exchange rates at US$ 8.027 trillion, third largest by PPP, with an annual GDP growth of last decade’s 5.8%.[1]...
Long before he was a contender for the US presidency, Donald Trump was America's most famous and colourful billionaire.
Once considered a long shot, Trump is now the next president of the United States.
Scepticism over Trump's candidacy stemmed not only from his controversial platform on immigration and outrageous campaign style, but from his celebrity past.
But the 70-year-old businessman had the last laugh when he defied all predictions to beat much more seasoned politicians in the Republican primary race.
And he has now gone a step further by winning the presidential election, after one of the most divisive and controversial contests in living memory against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.....
What's BBC up to by giving us a long article on what's happening in Libya? I presume, this is how brainwashing of the sheeple is done these days. We have known about all the atrocities listed, including the posters put up all over Libya instructing Libyan women to cover themselves in black shrouds ... but we have learned about those mainly through the alternative media. I suspect the MSM has been instructed by the powers-that-be, that they can now go ahead and bombard us with the facts of the jihadi crimes in Libya BECAUSE the powers-that-be want the public to be softened up to the level of malleable putty we become just before USA and NATO are ready to invade a country to save "those good people from the bad guys" by pulling at our heart strings. So, while reading the stuff below from one of the main brainwashers of our time, the BBC, keep that in mind. Look at the last pic. According to the article that's where the new jihadis are "re-educated" on how to become satan's disciples.
Control and crucifixions: Life in Libya under IS Five years after the violent uprising that brought down Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, fighters from so-called Islamic State (IS) have established a base in the coastal city of Sirte.
With an estimated 1,500 fighters in the city, they have started to impose their own rule of law, with dress codes for men and women, segregation in school classrooms and the establishment of a religious police.
Punishments inflicted on residents, for crimes ranging from theft or alcohol production to "spying", include imprisonment, amputations, public crucifixions and beheadings. The group has set up its own "police force" and is reported to be carrying out house to house searches and forcing people to attend Islamic re-education classes.
The head of intelligence in nearby Misrata says most of the IS fighters who control Sirte are foreigners - from Tunisia, Iraq or Syria. Access to the city is dangerous for journalists and there is limited communication with people who live there - often for fear of retributions. We spoke to people who have been forced to leave the city, to escape Islamic State....
....Leaflets and letters have been distributed to shopkeepers and public sector workers inviting them to "re-education" courses run by Islamic State.
...There are also other nationalities in the ranks of IS that we either noticed from their accents or looks. They included Tunisians and Egyptians. They were not just Arabs. In April 2015, there was a special parade welcoming people they said were Boko Haram fighters from Nigeria.....
....IS have their command centre next to the domed, marble-clad Ougadougou Conference Centre - built by Muammar Gaddafi to host pan-African summits.
The centre is now used for courses where IS members instruct employees in the importance of adhering to their version of Islamic law.
The letters warn: "Whoever does not attend will be liable to questioning." ....
...I saw at least one myself being crucified. Later, I heard and read about 17 more, including my friend Sharaf Aldeen and his brother (the salafi cleric) sheikh Meftah Abu Sittah. Both were killed then crucified.....
......Daesh attacks have never stopped. They know they don't have the resources to overpower the oil port. So they're resorting to hit and run tactics, including setting fuel containers on fire. Their very last attack was on Saturday (30 January).
We're not living in a state of full war, yet it's not completely peaceful. People are trying to live some sort of normal life. That's why schools have reopened after they were closed at the start of January.
I was in Sirte myself in late December. I still have friends there. Communication is hard because lines have been cut. Those who left went out through the west of the city towards Misrata. ....
....The Islamic State group is estimated to have no more than 2,000 to 3,000 fighters across the country, according to a United Nations report published in December 2015. Their fighters are mainly split between Derna and Sirte - with around 1,500 of them in Sirte - where they have taken control of the state-run radio station and broadcast speeches by IS religious leaders. ....
...IS numbers in the capital, Tripoli, are believed to be marginal - with only 12 to 24 operating as a cell in the city, the report suggests. However, they have been able to carry out high-level attacks, including a strike on the Corinthia Hotel in January 2015, which left eight people dead, and an assault on a prison inside Tripoli's Mitiga airbase in September.
IS militants having been trying to push eastwards from Sirte and have carried out a number of attacks on the oil facilities at Sidra and Ras Lanuf since the start of January 2016....
The MSM in USA, UK, Canada, Australia and the EU has lost every iota of shame that they might have ever had to begin with.
Greenwald's article below highlights how the USA and its closest allies are supplying tonnes of arms to terrorist groups even now at this stage in the conflict when the parts of the world that have not gone insane - are hoping the conflict will come to an end with Russia now entering the scene. Mind you, the arming has been going on for years. Watch the vid below, it's from almost 4 years ago and even as far back to that time, the terrorists were armed and trained by the West for a "Libya II" as Pepe Escobar states.
The BBC loves to boast about how “objective” and “neutral” it is. But a recent article, which it was forced to change, illustrates the lengths to which the British state-funded media outlet will go to protect one of the U.K. government’s closest allies, Saudi Arabia, which also happens to be one of the country’s largest arms purchasers (just this morning, the Saudi ambassador to the U.K. threatened in an op-ed that any further criticism of the Riyadh regime by Jeremy Corbyn could jeopardize the multi-layered U.K./Saudi alliance).
Earlier this month, the BBC published an article describing the increase in weapons and money sent by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf regimes to anti-Assad fighters in Syria. All of that “reporting” was based on the claims of what the BBC called “a Saudi government official,” who — because he works for a government closely allied with the U.K. — was granted anonymity by the BBC and then had his claims mindlessly and uncritically presented as fact (it is the rare exception when the BBC reports adversarially on the Saudis). This anonymous “Saudi official” wasn’t whistleblowing or presenting information contrary to the interests of the regime; to the contrary, he was disseminating official information the regime wanted publicized. This was the key claim of the anonymous Saudi official (emphasis added):
The well-placed official, who asked not to be named, said supplies of modern, high-powered weaponry including guided anti-tank weapons would be increased to the Arab- and western-backed rebel groups fighting the forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies.
He said those groups being supplied did not include either Islamic State (IS) or al-Nusra Front, both of which are proscribed terrorist organizations. Instead, he said the weapons would go to three rebel alliances — Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Southern Front.
So the Saudis, says the anonymous official, are only arming groups such as the “Army of Conquest,” but not the al Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front. What’s the problem with this claim? It’s obvious, though the BBC would not be so impolite as to point it out: The Army of Conquest includes the Nusra Front as one of its most potent components. This is not even in remote dispute; .................
They want those ratings, remember? It's a competition between the various ghouls at the MSM. So, of course they are rooting for more and more bloodshed. Human blood running in long neverending rivulets and body parts looking like charred blocks of wood, make for exciting news coverage.Why stop to think that the instigators themselves or their loved ones might suffer the same fate as the present victims at the other side of the world? The wars and suffering is meant for others over there, far, far away. It can never reach us, right?
USA, UK, Canada, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Australia, France with (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad ) Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Albania, Estonia, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Japan, Republic of Korea, Ireland, Spain, Slovakia, Norway, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, New Zealand, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Novorussia, Ukraine, Chechnya, Somalia ....
From BBC: Turkish police tear-gas BBC team near Syrian border A BBC team filming tensions on the Turkish-Syrian border has been tear-gassed by Turkish police as it left protests by local and Syrian Kurds. Police fired two canisters towards the team, one of which smashed into their car, filling it with gas. The incident occurred near Kobane, the scene of fierce fighting between advancing Islamic State (IS) militants and Syrian Kurds defending the town.........
From BBC: Pakistan Taliban vow support for IS in Syria and Iraq The Pakistani Taliban have expressed their support for Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria and Iraq. In a statement marking the Muslim festival of Eid, the group appealed to Islamists there to unite against the "enemy" - the US-led alliance. IS has taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq, but has also been battling al-Qaeda-linked rival militant groups. The Pakistani Taliban has been waging its own insurgency against the Islamabad government since 1997......... Children of Kobane, kept even a short while in ISIS/ISIL/IS/xyz captivity, are brainwashed to think that the deeds of the monstrous jihadi army are justified and what they are doing is right. Let's build more madrasas in Canada and the USA so Muslim kids here can be brainwashed .... it's the way of the future.
From AlAkhbar: Armed militants attack Hezbollah at eastern Lebanon checkpoint Clashes took place in eastern Lebanon on Sunday afternoon, as a group of militants attacked a Hezbollah checkpoint, the Lebanese National News Agency reported. There were conflicting media reports on Sunday evening over the number of wounded and killed in the attack in the outskirts of Britel, in the Baalbek region. According to the NNA, there were several casualties on the side of the armed militants. News channel LBCI, which identified the militant gunmen as members of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, said there were injuries on both sides, while radio station Sawt Lubnaan said at least two Hezbollah fighters had been killed..... According to tweet below, Hezbollah has managed to kill a leader of the terrorist scum. Some are reporting that as many as 31+ have been killed in the battle with Hezbollah who also lost a number of their own fighters, 3+ reportedly.
Reports: Al-Nusra front leader Mohammed Khalid Hamza Suhaib was killed during clashes with Hezbollah militants earlier in Brital, #Lebanon. — Brooklyn Middleton (@BklynMiddleton) October 5, 2014
Sheesh and double Sheesh!! After apologizing to Turkey, now USA in the person of Biden, apologizes to the UAE. Why is the mightiest country on planet Earth bowing to the freaks of the Middle East hellhole? From TodaysZaman: After Turkey, Biden also apologizes to UAE over Syria comments The United Arab Emirates said on Sunday that US Vice President Joe Biden had apologised to the Abu Dhabi crown prince for "any implications" made in a speech indicating that the UAE had supported Islamist militants in Syria.......... Elizabeth May wants to stem the flow of arms to terrorists. She is right about that and other things she says here in respond to Canada's decision to drop missiles on the terrorist scum.
From RussiaInsider: MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that more than 400 bodies have been discovered in mass graves near the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, in what he described as "horrific" evidence that pointed to a war crime. “This is obviously a war crime. Already more than 400 bodies have been discovered in [mass] graves outside Donetsk and we hope that western capitals will not hush up these facts [because] they’re horrific,” Lavrov said, adding there was an apparent blackout of the incident in Western mass media. Last week, several mass graves filled with bodies of massacred civilians and independence supporters, killed execution-style, were unearthed 35 kilometers northeast of Donetsk. "I expect [to hear] a clear, unbiased and responsible response from international organizations. OSCE is already working at the scene. We will make the truth known and, of course, make sure that the justice is done," Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference.........
Destroying heritage sites of both Muslims and Christians in the lands where Christians long ago used to be the majority. From NYTimes Antiquities Lost, Casualties of War In Syria and Iraq, Trying to Protect a Heritage at Risk Yasser Tabbaa, a specialist on Islamic art and architecture, remembers taking many trips to a 13th-century shrine dedicated to the Imam Awn al-Din, in Mosul in northern Iraq. The building was one of the few to survive Mongol invasion, never mind the destructive effects of weather and time. And this shrine had a stunning vaulted ceiling, like a honeycomb. “It is a beautiful pyramidal tower at the edge of the Tigris,” said Mr. Tabbaa, who taught at New York University Abu Dhabi and lives in Ann Arbor, Mich. His heart fell this summer, however, when he saw an online video of the shrine exploding in a cloud of dust, blown up by the militant group the Islamic State. “It is just gone,” he said, his voice trailing off. Tracking the cultural treasures of Syria and northern Iraq has become a heartbreaking task for archaeologists and antiquity scholars. And the list of destroyed, damaged or looted works has only grown longer as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, which seeks to create a caliphate, has pushed into northern Iraq. Sunni extremists like the Islamic State and others are deliberately wrecking shrines, statues, mosques, tombs and churches — anything they regard as idolatry......... One of the last bastions of Al Shabaab terrorists likely to be rid of them soon.
I don't think I like this at all. Suicide bombing is a plague of Sunni Muslims and I wish Kurds would not resort to such measures .... no matter what. Going down to their level of madness won't serve the overall cause. From France24: Kurdish woman suicide bomber attacks IS in Syria: monitor A female Kurdish fighter carried out a suicide bomb attack against jihadists from the Islamic State group outside the embattled Syrian border town of Kobane on Sunday, a monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the woman blew herself up at an Islamic State position east of the city, killing a number of jihadists who have surrounded Kobane and are battling to seize it. "The operation caused deaths, but there is no confirmed number," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said. He said it was the first reported instance of a female Kurdish fighter carrying out a suicide bombing against the Islamic State group, which has itself often favoured the tactic...... Hmmmmm .... From McClatchy: Sources: U.S. air strikes in Syria targeted French agent who defected to al Qaida A former French intelligence officer who defected to al Qaida was among the targets of the first wave of U.S. air strikes in Syria last month, according to people familiar with the defector’s movements and identity. Two European intelligence officials described the former French officer as the highest ranking defector ever to go over to the terrorist group and called his defection one of the most dangerous developments in the West’s long confrontation with al Qaida. The identity of the officer is a closely guarded secret. Two people, independently of one another, provided the same name, which McClatchy is withholding pending further confirmation. All of the sources agreed that a former French officer was one of the people targeted when the United States struck eight locations occupied by the Nusra Front, al Qaida’s Syrian affiliate. The former officer apparently survived the assault, which included strikes by 47 cruise missiles........
From GuardianUK: Air strikes against Isis are not working, say Syrian Kurds Isis fighters have pushed to the edge of Kobani and evade western strikes, says spokesman for Kurdish fighters Air strikes against Isis targets in northern Syria have failed to stop the militants from advancing towards the centre of the city of Kobani, Kurds have said, in the latest indication that aerial power alone may not defeat the jihadists. Fighting between the Islamist militants and Syrian Kurds continued unabated despite another volley of coalition air strikes in and around the Kobani enclave, Idris Nassan, Kobani’s “foreign affairs minister”, told the Guardian....
that total and utter failure there is primarily because the satanic forces in NATO want to break up break up countries whose leaders are considered not to be bending to the will of the satanic ones. Why only Libya, BBC also expunges all the suffering and the utter horror going on in Syria. We all know that the UK was instrumental in training anti-Gadhafi elements just as we all know that the USA and her allies are responsible for the wahhabi terrorist army now rampaging in the Middle East.
From PIPR BBC Expunges Libya’s Suffering. On 27 August 2014, Tarek Mitri, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, delivered a farewell address to the Security Council. Mitri began his remarks with ‘[c]onservative figures for those displaced … estimated at over 100,000, with at least another 150,000, including many migrant workers, [who] have sought refuge abroad and fled the country’. That’s the per capita equivalent of 2.5 million Britons driven from their homes by violence. ‘There is a general deterioration of living conditions. Food, fuel, water and electricity are in short supply. The departure of foreign medical staff and shortages in medical supplies has rendered the plight of civilians more critical’, Mitri continued. ‘The damage inflicted on public installations in Tripoli’s southern and western sections – including the airport, the main oil depot, roads and bridges – is nothing less than tragic’....... .....Britain has a pivotal role in Libya’s suffering, having secretly trained and armed anti-Gaddafi elements as early as October 2010 in preparation for the dictator’s overthrow. Until 2010, Gaddafi was an ally, but his refusal to implement ‘reforms’ in—i.e., privatisation of—the energy sector meant that his days were numbered. Islamic terrorist groups featured in, but were not the focus of, Mitri’s address. The much bigger critique was the collapse of the State, resulting from NATO’s 2011 illegal, ‘humanitarian’ bombing. The BBC’s report, however, is centred around the Islamic groups, as if they are the sole cause and origin of the current crisis. The BBC’s article, ‘UN to impose sanctions on Libyan militia leaders’, makes absolutely no mention of the 250,000 displaced persons, the ‘general deterioration of living conditions’, or the ‘critical … plight of civilians’ noted by Mitri. See, instead how the BBC reports Mitri’s address:
‘Recent clashes have centred on the international airport in the capital, Tripoli, which is now under the control of militias from Misrata and other cities operating under the banner Libya Dawn, including some Islamist groups.
They took it from the hands of a Zintan-based militia, despite alleged air strikes carried out by Egypt and the UAE targeting the Islamist-linked group’ Notice in the BBC’s rendering the absence of humanitarian context, the omission of State crimes, and any mention of the refusal of both militias and government to adopt ceasefire proposals. Prior to and during ‘Operation Unified Protector’, the BBC championed NATO’s destruction of Libya, in which 50,000 people died, according to figures given by the Western-installed puppet regime (see note 2). That is the per capita equivalent of 500,000 Britons. Thus it is only to be expected that the BBC’s report would expunge Mitri’s rendering of Libya’s new ‘democracy’. Mitri said: ‘Many Libyans continue to be sceptical of the political process in their country and frustrated with their political elites. Low participation in the two recent elections is an indication of such erosion of credibility’. This defies media lies concerning Libyans’ supposed appreciation of NATO..........
Captured Kiev soldiers were marched through Donetsk and the residents looked ready to pounce on them and tear them to pieces and probably would have if the separatists had not held them at bay.
And, of course, wouldn't you know it, according to the hypocritical BBC this kind of thing is "against the Geneva Conventions" but laughably when Israel is slaughtering Gazan children and committing genocide on Palestinians, "Geneva Conventions" is AWOL from the BBC's dictionary ... these people at the BBC simply refuse to realize the kind of hypocrites they have become and that those fully awake among us can see them for what they are.
I had no idea Ukrainians, whether pro-Russia or not, were this violent and this aggressive. Sheesh!! Rumour has it that the separatists had taken over a govt. building in Odessa and it was set on fire by the pro-Ukraine crowd.. When the separatists starting escaping the fire or jumping off from balconies, the pro-Ukraine folks brutally assaulted them. So, this is a country that our wonderful PM Stephen Harper and his Cons, along with the mighty Obama and his gang, have helped to get rid of their old govt and replaced it with a better one, eh? Nice going! BBC is trying to spread the story that :
...militants had barricaded themselves inside the building and were firing at the crowds below when petrol bombs set it on fire....
However, see how beautifully the BBC has worded that paragraph without telling you that the pro-Ukraine crowd starting throwing petrol bombs to set the building on fire (as seen in the 2nd vid) or how the pro-Ukraine paid hooligans beat up the already injured and burned victims as seen in the first vid below.
From BBC: Ukraine crisis: Dozens killed in Odessa fire amid clashes. At least 31 people have been killed in a fire in an official building amid violence in the city of Odessa in south-west Ukraine, local police say. The deaths came as pro-Russian protesters clashed with Ukrainian government supporters in the city. Officials said some people were overwhelmed by smoke and others died after they jumped from the building. Earlier President Oleksandr Turchynov said many separatists had been killed in a government offensive in Sloviansk...... .......The exact sequence of events is still unclear, but reports suggest the militants had barricaded themselves inside the building and were firing at the crowds below when petrol bombs set it on fire. The interior ministry gave a toll of at least 31 dead, revising down an earlier tally of 38 killed....
but it was still not able to prevent UK from being Caliphated because the only thing the Israeli lobby and the billionaire Jews are concerned about is the health and well being of Israel and not the health and well being of their benefactors. The Western countries that give Israel deep support in any and every way possible, are useful as long as they can be used for Israel's benefit, nothing more, nothing less. In fact, Israel must be deliciously happy that millions of Muslims from their neighboring countries (most of whom migrate here based on their qualifying on merit points) are leaving for the West ... that means less brain power in those countries which equals to less enemies for Israel.
West has been taken for a ride. Trust the smartest people in the world to hoodwink the less smart of the world. And, why not? Isn't it their privilege for being the smartest on this our good Earth? Would I have done the same if I was Jewish and ultra rich and powerful? Short answer: Yes! But only if I held one passport and that passport said I was a citizen of Israel. You cannot serve two masters at the same time because the screw up can be gigantic and irreversible.
If this chemical attack was done with their blessing, then I am willing to bet that the sarin gas incident which would have taken us into WW3, was also their work. What ghouls we have for our leaders!
From BareNakedIslam blog: ....Did the media help stage a phony chemical attack in Syria which was blamed on Bashar Assad?..........
Warning: very graphic video Or is the world going to turn a blind eye just because they are the leaders of the bully countries? The massacre of civilians execution style and the large scale kidnapping (people still held hostage) of the Alewite community in the Latakia area of Syria is nothing short of ethnic cleansing. The Judas countries of the West are responsible for these horrible crimes, including Canadian PM Stephen Harper. Every country that is involved in either funding, arming or giving any other kind of support to the "opposition" in Syria are responsible for the deaths of Syrian civilians. Notice how the Human Rights Watch, another biased organization, did not come out with its report of this atrocity until now more than 2 months later. Only the pro-regime side were screaming about what happened in the Alawite villages of Latakia but the world had ignored them. Why the sudden turnaround now HRW??? I am stunned to see that the BBC has changed a lot of the wording at the same link I had saved in the wee hours of last night. What you read below is what I had read, copied and pasted for input to my blog later on. Then when I accessed the link just now to read more, lo and behold, a lot of it has been changed. I have not bothered to go line by line to see what could have got someone's panties in a twist to demand that BBC change the first output.
From BBC (as seen at between 1 - 2 AM Oct 11) ... Syrian rebel forces killed as many as 190 civilians and seized more than 200 hostages during a military offensive in August, Human Rights Watch says. In a report, HRW says the deaths occurred in pro-government Alawite villages in rural Latakia governorate. It said the findings "strongly suggest" crimes against humanity were committed. Rebels and government forces have both been accused of abuses since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began more than two years ago. Syrian opposition forces comprise many groups, some of which are allied to al-Qaeda. HRW says it conducted an on-site investigation and interviewed more than 35 people, including survivors and fighters from both sides of the offensive. In its 105-page report, it says that in the early hours of 4 August opposition fighters overran government positions in the Latakia countryside of northern Syria and occupied more than 10 Alawite villages. This operation was a co-ordinated, planned attack on the civilian population in these Alawite villages”
Joe Stork Human Rights Watch The New York-based rights group says it appears the civilians were killed on the first day of the operation. Women and children "Witnesses described how opposition forces executed residents and opened fire on civilians, sometimes killing or attempting to kill entire families who were either in their homes unarmed or fleeing from the attack," the report said. HRW says about 20 opposition groups took part in the offensive and that five were involved in the attacks on civilians. Those five do not include the main rebel forces, the Free Syrian Army. The report says two groups which were involved in the attack - the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham and Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar - are still holding the hostages, most of them women and children.
The government launched a counter-attack the next day and regained control of the area on 18 August. Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at HRW, said the abuses were "not the actions of rogue fighters". "This operation was a co-ordinated, planned attack on the civilian population in these Alawite villages," he said. HRW says evidence including witness statements ..........
Shame on Anne Barnard of the New York Times and Lina Sinjab of the BBC. Why are female reporters more dumb than their male counterparts? Stupid females will believe anything they are told because they would rather exercise their bodies than their minds. Ugh! Below is a very good account of what really happened and you need to go to the link to access all other links to gauge the historical value of this heritage site. Here are some extracts:
Timothy Heckenlively writing at LevantReport: ...Veneration of the two saints spread rapidly through the region. Their tomb grew into a fortified basilica and the city became Sergiopolis, an important pilgrimage center. Its ruins still stand in the desert. It enjoyed the patronage not only of Justinian I and other Byzantine emperors, but also of Persian Sassanids and Ommyad caliphs. One of the more important churches in Constantinople was dedicated to their memory as was a later church in Rome. One of the earliest and most important churches dedicated to their memory lies in the village of Maaloula. The locals call it Deir Mar Sarkis (St. Sarkis Monastery). Its very name suggests its age, for it uses the ancient Aramaic word mar instead of qadees, the Arabic word for “saint”. The church itself was built over the remains of a temple to Apollo that had fallen into disuse when the village became Christian, sometime in the mid-late 1st century. It was almost certainly built within a few years of the death of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, between the legalization of Christianity in AD 313 and the Council of Nicea in AD 325. A bishop Eutychius, from St. Sergius in Maaloula, is listed among the roll of bishops who participated in the council. Its marble altar was semi-circular with a raised lip around the outside. The design came from pagan practice, where it was necessary to drain the blood of sacrificial animals. It was clear, however, that this altar had always been Christian. It had a plain border instead of one with sacrificial processions and reliquary instead of a drainage hole. Such altars were banned at the Council of Nicea, a further indicator of the church’s early date. .........
.........Soon the propaganda war began. The FSA posted videos to YouTube claiming that the Assad regime was shelling churches in Maaloula and started promoting them on Twitter using various aliases. This was soon followed by a video in which a wahabi-bearded “liberator” gave a tour of the supposed damage. Their efforts soon met with the desired reward. On September 10, the New York Times ran an article by Anne Barnard giving credibility to such videos and portraying public outcry about Maaloula as potential misperception. Eight days later, Lina Sinjab of the BBC used such materials to portray the whole event as an unfortunate scuffle with few deaths and no particular damage to local churches..........
........The next video showed a tour of Mar Sarkis, but something was out of place. I could not recognize any element of the sanctuary. Then I realized that we were not examining the sanctuary at all. We were in the former gift shop, all of its merchandise now looted or destroyed, supposedly by troops who, to judge from RT and the BBC, had not yet even advanced to the lower village square. The subsequent articles by Barnard and Sinjab emphasized one more bit of evidence. They rest on video of Mother Pelagia of St. Thekla’s Monastery as evidence that no harm was done to people or nuns. The man to the left is clearly tapping something as she speaks and it gives an audible metallic noise. Another man hides his face just out of camera view behind the nun on the right. As the “Assad shelling” video shows, one could practically walk to the edge of the cliff and drop bombs on St. Thekla’s convent by hand from the position held by al-Nusra. There is every reason to think her assurances were coerced by threat of violence. Subsequent events proved these suspicions correct. Maria Finoshina of RT was of the few English speaking journalists daring enough to report from the actual combat zone. Her videos show the black jihadist flag (not the Syrian opposition flag) flying over the buildings they had occupied. The parties responsible for the chaos also posted celebratory videos (note again the the black flag in the upper right corner). Finally, this past week, a reporter for ITAR-TASS news agency was able to survey the actual damage to Mar Sarkis: http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/895365.html. Granted, this is a Russian news agency and therefore pro-Assad in slant. That said, the nature of the damage – targeted destruction of the altar and of Christian religious art – justifies the sensational headline. This is behavior characteristic of Islamic extremists. One might recall the Buddhas of Bamiyan as an instructive example..........
I won't be surprised if in the near future we learn that the BBC has been heavily infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood of the UK. That particular branch of the MB is the smartest of the lot. No one should ever underestimate the UK group. The UK's Muslim Brotherhood group lost Libya to a rival MB group.... that's a whole big nest of snakes story and right now, I don't have the stamina to go further into it.
Paul Joseph Watson writing at PrisonPlanet: ....BBC Caught Staging Syria Chemical Weapons Propaganda? UPDATE: Within 2 hours of posting this story, the BBC filed a copyright claim with YouTube to get the 45 second clip removed. This shows how nervous the BBC is about this information coming to light. News organizations routinely rely on dubious copyright claims to censor damaging revelations. An copy of the video via LiveLeak is embedded below.
A video of a BBC interview with a doctor in Syria in the aftermath of a napalm-style attack appears to have been artificially dubbed to falsely make reference to the incident being a “chemical weapons” attack, a clip that represents “a stunning bit of fakery,” according to former UK Ambassador Craig Murray. The news report was first released on August 29, just days before an attack on Syria seemed inevitable, and served to further the narrative that military action was necessary to halt atrocities being committed by President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces. The first clip is from the original interview with British medic Dr Rola Hallam, from the Hand in Hand for Syria charity. She states; “..It’s just absolute chaos and carnage here, erm we’ve had a massive influx of what looks like serious burns, er seems like it must be some sort of, I’m not really sure, maybe napalm, something similar to that..” However, in the second clip, which is from the exact same interview, her words are slightly altered. “..It’s just absolute chaos and carnage here, erm we’ve had a massive influx of what looks like serious burns, er seems like it must be some sort of chemical weapon, I’m not really sure..” The second clip seems to have been artificially dubbed to characterize the event as a “chemical weapon” attack rather than an incendiary bomb attack. Hallam’s mouth is hidden by a mask, making the dub impossible to detect without referring to the original clip............
IMO, a CW attack to kill terrorists lodged in Maaloula (Malula) would be justified If one wants to preserve the world heritage city of Maaloula, then one would have to use CWs .... or would you rather that killing the rebels/terrorists by mortar fire and bullets is a better death for the scum than death by CW? I vote for CW. I hope Assad does not give up all the CWs. Maaloula is a clear instance where CWs would be most effective. The vids show BBC talking to Maaloula residents who have fled Maaloula to the safety of Assad's stronghold in Damascus.
From BBC: Battle for Syria Christian town of Maaloula continues. A BBC correspondent in Syria has said the battle for an ancient Christian town is continuing, despite reports that government forces had retaken it. Jeremy Bowen said that a heavy gunfight with rebels was continuing in Maaloula, with smoke rising into the sky. He added that he had not seen evidence confirming religious sites had been damaged by al-Qaeda-linked jihadists. Fighting over the town, 55km (34 miles) north of Damascus, began last week after rebels attacked a checkpoint..... ........Since then, most of the town's 3,300 residents have fled to safer parts of the country including Damascus, where some told the BBC that three people had been killed and six kidnapped. They said al-Nusra fighters had desecrated churches and statues........
......The rebels declared on Tuesday that they would withdraw from Maaloula provided that pro-government forces did not take their place. "To ensure no blood is spilt and that the properties of the people of Maaloula are kept safe, the Free Syrian Army announces that the town of Maaloula will be kept out of the struggle between the FSA and the regime army," a spokesman said in an online video. But heavy fighting was continuing on Wednesday afternoon when our correspondent arrived in Maaloula. He said both government soldiers and local members of the National Defence Forces, a pro-government militia, were still exchanging fire with al-Nusra fighters inside the town. He also saw half a dozen government casualties being taken away for treatment. The fighting in Maaloula has highlighted the delicate position of Syria's Christian minority.......
