He's right...and its not just Google. Yahoo also rigs searches. These search engines have gone off the rail n v know what happens to such vehicles, don't v?
"Very Serious Situation": Trump Accuses Google Of Rigging Search... #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/a0W1hJOsl9
Behold an example of the gift of "democracy" benevolent USA bestows around our planet. This gift was given to the Libyans by Obama n Hillary.
"Libya Erupting Into New Civil War As Rival Factions Battle On Streets Of Tripoli.. #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/X6cq70Pg27
"..there are present-day elements in the US military-security apparatus that seem to be just fine about being wedded to the mayhem in Afghanistan....
That war is officially the longest...
"Why US Imperialism Loves Afghan Quagmire.. #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/2B8ARnhgLX
The unsavory r making money fm dimwits' hatred of Trump, by making the dimwits shell out $s 2 folks who r more hateful than Trump.
"..There may be little more grotesque than a man who has just pled guilty to tax evasion, bank..#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/NwPB67ubSA
"..The unspoken truth is that the US and its allies including Israel are largely intent upon sabotaging the peace process in Syria....https://t.co/Q02Rta9ttP
Yup, NAFTA's other face few know about!
"NAFTA’s investor protections incentivize offshoring production and jobs. Since taking effect on January 1, 1994, around a million US jobs were lost from this deal alone....
"Abominable New.. #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/ZzTbVRI4Ig
"Now listen, you people of NATO," Gaddafi said on the eve of NATO's invasion of Libya in 2011. "You're bombing a wall which stood in the way of African migration to Europe...."
"..Grim Prophecy for Europe is Coming True: #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/bSJQFoJ7mo
"..If 'Dirty Dossier' author Christopher Steele deserves protection under the 1st Amendment but WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange doesn’t, then the concept of a free press is merely a distant memory....#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/1WKASJFe1S
Here's how the two main WMDs makers r planning to destroy Planet Earth.
"Visualizing World Arms Sales: US Vs Russia, 1950-Present #cdnpoli#tcot#Tzopoli. https://t.co/R3FsNGBTsQ
".. McCain did actually serve in the military. But the same could be said for nearly all top Nazis including Hitler and Goering; they fought in a war and they loved war...
"The Fallacy of Calling McCain or Anyone Else a War Hero"#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/VDxtJCYkwv
"..Van didn't want another GI sent to Nam because he knew that would be one more person coming back traumatized. "I don't want my little brother Sam, or anybody's little brother, to go and see what I saw or do what I did." #cenpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/ULrrreKlK6
FACT!
"..The inconvenient truth is that these bad decisions by MbS were not taken because Uncle Sam does not matter, but precisely for the opposite reason....
"Why Americans Can't Understand The Middle East"#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Hedge https://t.co/GJRqETqxFo
Yup..India has the most potential of a very bloody civil war, thus the crackdown on free expression.. "Mapping The Countries Shutting Down The Internet The Most #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/gfkRim1yqu
".According to the Geneva Conventions, McCain is a war criminal.
"The Geneva conventions...specifically forbid indiscriminate bombing that could cause incidental loss of civilian life or damage
"On the Death of the“Hero" John McCain#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/9HmaSiSdER
"..By eulogizing McCain as a "patriot", the anti-Trump news media are trying to set up a standard by which to undermine the president. That standard is, of course, a travesty given McCain's record of endorsing war crimes...#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/tiicFDdg4s
Why NYT is mother of all fake new. "..The article is so astonishingly bad on so many levels that it could have been featured in Marvel Comics instead of the Gray Lady. First of all, if American intelligence truly has in the Kremlin..#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/MZrWXUbaiK
"To get their names off the blacklist, some victims write messages of “repentance”,which Canary Mission posts on its site. These anonymous confessions, whose writers explain that they were “deceived”,are much like those... #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/jGlJ3dlhAn
Get ready for USA/UK/France doing the dirty on Syria while ignoring the steaming messes of civil unrest in their own countries. "Global Network for Syria: "Statement on impending US, UK and French military intervention in Syria" #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/Z1v0DJq7M3
This is nothing but good news! The more extended warlord empire gets, the quicker the fall. Recall how Rome collapsed?
"US Military Presence In Africa: All Over Continent And Still Expanding #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/z2IVl1je9n
AHA...sooo, all the dirty stuff done by Obama under guise of an angel was kept under thick carpets by the MSM n now MSM makes it look like this is something new n #Trump's alone, eh? Any wonder why MSM is sinking, n sinking fast? #cdnpoli#tcot#TOpolihttps://t.co/96LXt21w6y
Expect even more deadlier new wars and present ones to continue neverending. Hope against hope that your sons and daughters, your spouses, your dads and moms, your brothers and sisters, sent to those far away lands, to fight and die on behalf of other nations, come back alive both in body and mind.
...A dividend of our protracted negotiations with Iran is the increased knowledge we now have about the Islamic Republic and the population it rules over. It’s a luxury we didn’t enjoy in 2003, when exiled figures like Ahmad Chalabi were able to convince the Bush administration they could help transition Iraq into a thriving democracy.
We know enough about Iran that we can’t fool ourselves into thinking that the MEK could ever provide a viable alternative to the current regime.
The MEK is the type of fringe group that sets up camp across the street from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and hands out fliers filled with unsubstantiated claims. This is America — we let crazy people talk. That’s their right, and I would never suggest that they be prohibited from doing that. But giving the MEK a voice in the White House is a terrible idea.
In John Bolton they have someone who will do it for them.
John Bolton helped lie our country into an illegal war of aggression that killed several hundred thousand Iraqis, wounded over a million, and displaced 4 million from their homes, helped deliver Baghdad into the hands of Iran, and helped create ISIL, which blew up Paris. In a just world, Bolton would be on trial at the Hague for war crimes. Instead, he has been promoted into a position to do to Iran what he did to Iraq.
He is also in the back pocket of the MEK Iranian terrorist organization, which despite its violent and smelly past has proved so useful to those plotting the apocalyptic destruction of Iran that the Washington elite decided to take it off the list of terrorist organizations in 2012.
`Take up the white man’s burden’ Rudyard Kipling, poet laureate of British imperialism
The British Empire, which at the end of the 19th century ruled one quarter of the earth’s land surface, is long gone. But its robust successor and heir, the United States, has set about enlarging it.
As I sought to explain in my last book ‘American Raj – How the US Rules the Muslim World,’ the US imperium exerts its power by controlling tame, compliant regimes around the world and their economies. They are called ‘allies’ but, in fact, should be more accurately termed satrapies or vassal states. Many states are happy to be prosperous US vassals, others less so.
The US power system has successfully dominated much of the world, except of course for great powers China, Russia and India. Germany and much of Western Europe remains in thrall to post WWII US power. The same applies to Canada, Latin America, Australia, and parts of SE Asia.
There is one part of the globe that has remained free from heavy US influence since 1945, sub-Saharan Africa. But this fact is clearly changing as the US military expands its operations the width and breadth of the Dark Continent.
We are seeing a rerun of the fine old 1930’s film, ‘Beau Geste’ which was taken from a cracking good 1924 Victorian novel by C. Percival Wren. Set in French North Africa, Wren’s dashing French Legionnaires end up defending a remote fort against masses of hostile Arab and Berber tribesman.
The novel and film negatively shaped western attitudes to the Arab world and its peoples but glorified the French Foreign Legion. Wren claimed to have been a member of the Legion which was the primary enforcement arm of France’s African colonial empire...........
As the recent PBS documentary on the American War in Vietnam acknowledged, few American officials ever believed that the United States could win the war, neither those advising Johnson as he committed hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, nor those advising Nixon as he escalated a brutal aerial bombardment that had already killed millions of people. As conversations tape-recorded in the White House reveal, and as other writers have documented, the reasons for wading into the Big Muddy, as Pete Seeger satirized it, and then pushing on regardless, all came down to “credibility”: the domestic political credibility of the politicians involved and America’s international credibility as a military power.
Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the 1954 Geneva Accords and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die was cast. The CIA’s support for the repressive Diem regime and its successors ensured an ever-escalating war, as the South rose in rebellion, supported by the North. No U.S. president could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited from them.....
....U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1955 to 1964, managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and around the world. Fletcher Prouty’s book, The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher sent to Australia. But Prouty’s book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role of the CIA in U.S. policy....
....The U.S. justifies the deployment of 6,000 U.S. special forces and military trainers to 53 of the 54 countries in Africa as a response to terrorism. But the U.N.’s Journey to Extremism in Africa study makes it clear that the U.S. militarization of Africa is in fact the “tipping point” that is driving Africans across the continent to join armed resistance groups in the first place.
This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on a continental scale....
Yup ... you bet it will. Nick Turse on Niger, Somalia ... USA's deadly rampaging all over in Africa and getting ready to invade certain countries on the pretext of a terror attack ( false flag attack) on New York's tunnel.
Let's get ready to welcome African refugees to USA, Canada, Australia. There's not enough room for them in EU.
USA and France doing their upmost to undo the peaceful economic progress of China in Africa which would be beneficial to both Africa and China. Anyone surprised?
Lately, the one in Niger is kind of making a public appearance ... but only visible to a mere 10% of Americans ... maybe even less. The rest are busy watching Kim Kadashian's boobs or talking about her butt.
Three weeks after four US special forces soldiers were killed in a firefight in the landlocked West African nation of Niger, information has surfaced indicating that the American troops and their Nigerien counterparts were involved in a “capture-kill” mission aimed at the leader of a local Islamist militia operating on the Niger-Mali border.
The White House and the Pentagon has provided only a trickle of information about the abortive October 4 operation. The incident came to the public eye largely because of President Donald Trump’s initial failure to say anything about the largest loss of US military personnel since he took office, along with his subsequent lies about contacting families of slain troops and his shameful public confrontation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the four Green Berets killed in Niger, over a callous condolence call. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Monday that the Green Berets had been engaged in a “simple reconnaissance mission,” and described the overall purpose of deploying some 1,000 US special operations troops in Niger as a “train, advise and assist mission” to support the Nigerien security forces.
It appears that Dunford’s comments were deliberately misleading on both counts.
NBC News Tuesday cited “multiple US officials” as recounting that the US detachment of 12 US special forces troops and 30 Nigerien soldiers had been on what was effectively an assassination mission, aimed at killing a senior leader of a local Islamist militia.
NBC reported: “One theory, said an official with direct knowledge of the military’s investigation, is that the soldiers were gathering information about the target, and, after learning his whereabouts, decided to pursue him. A big question would then be whether the unit got authorization, and whether the risks were assessed.”
It added that the ill-fated Niger mission was conducted under the mantle of Operation Juniper Shield, a program begun under the Obama administration and continued under Trump, which is directed at using US military force to “disrupt or neutralize” organizations deemed connected to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State across the Sahel region of central west Africa.
This military intervention is being conducted in coordination with the French military, which is waging an even more intense.......
or perhaps this country is even more dear to the guy who claims that America comes first. If America came First would he use US citizens as fodder in the Middle East wars fought on behalf of Israel?
Israel's New Racism: The Persecution of African Migrants in the Holy Land
Bombshell at ZeroHedge on Trump's "alleged" past misbehaviour. Will this derail him? If Cruz gets the nomination, take it for granted that either Clinton or Sanders will win big time against that weirdo.
Submitted by SM Gibson via TheAntiMedia.org, As Donald Trump inches closer to the Republican nomination, GOP insiders scramble to put a halt to the billionaire’s run for the White House. A new lawsuit filed in the state of California could prove to be the ultimate act of desperation by a frantic establishment willing to go to any lengths to end Trump’s bid for the Oval Office. However, if the allegations contained within the court documents are found to be true, they would not only spell the end of Trump’s presidential aspirations, but most likely his brand as a whole.
On April 26, a woman residing in California named Katie Johnson filed a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein – for the amount of $100 million – accusing the two billionaires of “forcing her to engage in various perverted and depraved acts by threatening physical harm.” The plaintiff, who describes herself as Trump and Epstein’s “sex slave” in the papers, also accuses the pair of having threatened to kill her family if she told anyone of their crime.
The incidents alleged to have taken place over a four-month span in 1994 in New York City, when Johnson was only 13-years-old....
Juan Cole at Informed Comment The End of American Iraq: Poor Shiites invade Parliament over corrupt Spoils System
Baghdad is under a state of emergency on Sunday a day after members of the Sadr Trend stormed the Green Zone and invaded the parliament building, briefly imprisoning parliamentarians in the chamber (and some in a basement) before letting them go. Some apparently were beaten as they left. Most of the protesters, though, were relatively peaceful and had been ordered to avoid violence by their leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. As at Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2011, of which the invasion of the Green Zone was a distant echo, they chanted “peacefully, peacefully” ( silmiyyah, silmiyyah).
When George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 he established blast walls around central government offices, establishing a four square mile Green Zone (i.e. one that was safe and which the US controlled, with the rest of the country being a Red Zone; more or less, that situation never changed). The parliament building and Western embassies were in the Green Zone. I visited it in 2013. You enter through a narrow entranceway and can only really go in by foot (this measure stops car bombs from getting in). The security people who checked us in were international– Ghana and Peru or something. I doubt they would die for the cause. There were Iraqi troops on the outside of the blast walls. Apparently some of them sympathized with the Sadr Trend and let the crowd pull down a couple pylons of the blast wall, after which they streamed in.
Who were the protesters? The Sadr Movement is particularly popular in East Baghdad or Sadr City, a dense slum where a plurality of Baghdadis live. The father of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s secret police in 1998. Young Muqtada survived underground. He reemerged in 2003 to oppose the US military occupation of his country, forming the Mahdi Army, which more than once fought US troops. His was a movement of the poor and the street. After the US withdrew, al-Sadr adopted a lower profile. But now that President Obama has reestablished a US military command in the country, al-Sadr has come back out to protest the renewed US presence and the al-Abadi government, which the US props up.
What were they protesting?
The spoils system.....
.....The Bush administration in its years of military occupation of Iraq presided over the installation of an Iraqi spoils system more rowdy and rapacious than anything Andrew Jackson ever imagined. ....
Eric Zuesse at StrategicCulture Seymour Hersh Says Hillary Approved Sending Libya’s Sarin to Syrian Rebels In an interview with Alternet.org, the independent investigative reporter Seymour Hersh was asked about Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi Libya consulate’s operation to collect sarin from Libyan stockpiles and send it through Turkey into Syria for a set-up sarin-gas attack, to be blamed on Assad in order to ‘justify’ the US invading Syria, as it had invaded Libya.
He said: «That ambassador who was killed, he was known as a guy, from what I understand, as somebody, who would not get in the way of the CIA. As I wrote, on the day of the mission he was meeting with the CIA base chief and the shipping company. He was certainly involved, aware and witting of everything that was going on. And there’s no way somebody in that sensitive of a position is not talking to the boss, by some channel».
This was, in fact, the Syrian part of the State Department’s Libyan operation, Obama’s operation to set up an excuse for the US doing in Syria what they had already done in Libya.
The interviewer then asked:....
From DemocracyNow Sy Hersh's Book on Bin Laden Killing Rejects U.S. Story, Says Saudis Financed Hiding of Qaeda Leader AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We’re on a 100-city tour marking Democracy Now!'s 20th anniversary, today broadcasting from Santa Fe, from New Mexico's state Capitol building known as the Roundhouse. Our guest for the hour is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. Next week will mark the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Osama bin Laden. This is President Obama announcing the news of his death five years ago.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was President Obama speaking in May 2011. Sy Hersh, your new book, titled The Killing of Osama bin Laden, you argue the official account of how bin Laden was found and killed was deceptive. Explain what you think really happened, and talk about the role of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and, of course, the United States.
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, one of the myths that was created was that we discovered where he was living. Abbottabad is about 50 or 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. It’s a hilly, higher elevation. And in the summer, it’s a resort place for many of the people who go—many of the people in the government and the military take their vacations there. It’s sort of a Pakistani Martha’s Vineyard, if you will. And anyway, he was there.
What I know, as in "know," is there was a walk-in, that in August of 2010, a Pakistani—I can say right now, he was a colonel in the regular army, not in the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service, which is a very tough bunch, a separate group. He was an officer who had been passed over for general or whatever, and was—came into our embassy. We have a station chief there who’s quite—quite competent guy named Jonathan Bank. And he went in to him and said, "We’ve had bin Laden for four years." ISI got him. The Pakistani intelligence service picked him up probably in the Hindu Kush area, in the areas—the mountain area between Pakistan and Afghanistan—where we thought he was. He had been on the run for—let’s see, since late 2011, when we drove him out of Afghanistan into the mountain region. And we finally got him. We looked for him. We thought we had him in '02. There was a firefight that nobody knows about yet, with the SEALs. But anyway, we finally got him because of a walk-in. And you have to know, in the business of the CIA, protecting a walk-in is the most important thing. And so, a walk-in. And so, if you have a bunch of people somewhere in the basement, intelligence officers working on trying to track him through couriers, you may let them think that they did do it, because that's just the way it works in the CIA. You know, they don’t always tell the truth to their people that work for them, when it comes to protecting a source, somebody who walks in.
And where I was dumb—you know, this story, I initially wrote much of ....
Author and journalist Rick Salutin tells the Real News that Duffy, "a phony, populist man of the people," has served the historical purpose of bringing Harper down
Snowden ... the movie, schedule to open in September.
The Scourge of Africa and Her Savior Complex In Batman Vs. Superman, the intrepid reporter Lois Lane (played by Amy Adams), tries to expose a dastardly villain and gets herself into a deadly predicament from which Superman must save her. This has been the Lois Lane formula since 1938. But in this case, the rescue has blowback. The villain in question was an African warlord/terrorist. And the intervention of Superman (and the CIA) somehow precipitates a massacre of local civilians. Lois’s efforts end up leading to the very kind of atrocity she was crusading against.
This also aptly describes the Africa policy of Samantha Power, the most strident “humanitarian interventionist” in the Obama administration. Power’s career was encapsulated in a single awful moment last week. A New York Times story relates that:
“As the convoy barreled through a village in northern Cameroon on Monday, a 7-year-old boy darted to the road, excited to see the chain of white S.U.V.s carrying Samantha Power, the first cabinet-level American official to visit the country since 1991.
Distracted by a thundering noise, the boy glanced up at the helicopter providing security from above. Suddenly, he was struck dead — killed by the same convoy that had brought officials to showcase American efforts to help protect West Africa’s women and children.”
Running over one of those children with a car may seem a botched “showcase.” However it quite accurately, if tragically, exemplified the sort of “protection” that the U.S. government, and Ms. Power in particular, has provided the people of the African continent. The Times continues:
“…Ms. Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, had come to West Africa to help raise awareness and win people over. It was planned as part of an effort to convince residents who are terrorized by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram — but who are also disenchanted by the heavy-handed tactics of their governments — that their paths lie with the American-backed state, not with the militants.”
While stumping for the region’s brutal and predatory presidents-for-life, Power probably failed to mention that Boko Haram was boosted by her own policy. As The New Yorker recalled in late 2014:
“Power was ‘the first and most decisive advocate for aggressive actions in Libya, and she was a consistent voice before anybody else was,” a senior official involved in the Libya actions told me. “She really put on the agenda the use of military power to respond to what was happening there, at a time when the President wasn’t sure.’ Dennis Ross, then Obama’s top Middle East expert, said…”
Power, then a National Security Council....
Corey Schink at Sott (all relevant links at link below) Back in 2015 the Journal of Evolutionary Psychological Science published a study that provided yet more evidence that "individuals with psychopathic traits may be able to express fraudulent emotions that appear genuine to the people around them." The authors added, "individuals involved in predatory behavior need to appear to be cooperative and 'normal' to successfully take advantage of others."
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the common emotional rhetoric of Israeli politicians. In the past week Netanyahu has claimed 'outrage' that the UN would dare support Syria's claim to its territory in the Golan Heights, and Israel's representative to the UN, Danny Danon, claimed in a heated debate that it is fine for Israel to abduct children because "'terrorists' deserved no other treatment."
But of course Israel's minister of defense would think otherwise. He opined just a few months back that the IDF and Sunni terrorists in Syria were on the 'same page'. Therefore, applying Israeli political logic, if they're 5 years old they're a target for illegal abduction. But if they're a group of drugged-out head-choppers selling Israel stolen oil, then they're 'just fine by us'.
So perhaps it's time to step in and issue a reminder of what is truly 'outrageous' in this situation. What is outrageous is a sadistic regime which steals the land of its neighbors, openly sides with terrorists to steal those neighbors' resources, and proceeds to torture and murder an entire ethnic group while claiming 'defense against terrorism'. All this while Netanyahu has the gall to say, with a straight face, "Israel, [is] the only true democracy in the Middle East."
What is outrageous is video after video after video showing terrified Palestinian children (as young as 5 years old) shaking and sobbing as they or their loved ones are being abducted by Israeli military. And no, they are not being arrested; they are being abducted. An arrest process involves some form of judicial process that leads to evidence being presented in court, but in Israel it is the military that decides what to do with the children, in secret, without oversight. .....
Greg Hunter at USAWatchdog Very Big Correction for All Markets Coming-Alasdair Macleod Financial expert Alasdair Macleod says the most important economic news concerns the U.S. dollar. Macleod explains, “I think the most important point is actually the dollar has turned. The panic move into the dollar by miners and producers of raw material . . . was driving the dollar up. That has now ceased. China has now started buying those raw materials, base metals, oil and so on and so forth. So, the result is the commodity crisis is over. That, actually, is the biggest driver of the dollar, which is pushing it down.”
On the U.S. economy having a huge recession, Macleod contends, “Actually, the underlying business conditions are not good. What we have seen for considerable time is U.S. corporations have increased their borrowing, to invest in production—no, to buy back shares to artificially inflate their earnings. There comes a point that if you don’t have the underlying cash flow, you can’t do that anymore. I think there is a concern in the markets we are getting near to that point.”
Macleod predicts when the market turns, it will crash big-time. Macleod contends, “Whenever markets get mispriced, the correction is always very sudden, unexpected and hurts a lot of people. Now, we don’t have it in just one market, we have it in all markets. So, I would expect on that basis alone, that when the thing starts sliding, it’s going to be very, very big and actually could be systemically big.”........
James DiEugenio at ConsortiumNews How CBS News Aided the JFK Cover-up In the mid-1960s, amid growing skepticism about the Warren Commission’s lone-gunman findings on John F. Kennedy’s assassination, there was a struggle inside CBS News about whether to allow the critics a fair public hearing at the then-dominant news network. Some CBS producers pushed for a debate between believers and doubters and one even submitted a proposal to put the Warren Report “on trial,” according to internal CBS documents.
But CBS executives, who were staunch supporters of the Warren findings and had personal ties to some commission members, spiked those plans and instead insisted on presenting a defense of the lone-gunman theory while dismissing doubts as baseless conspiracy theories, the documents show. Though it may be hard to remember – amid today’s proliferation of cable channels and Internet sites – CBS, along with NBC and ABC, wielded powerful control over what the American people got to see, hear and take seriously in the 1960s. By slapping down any criticism of the Warren Commission, CBS executives effectively prevented the case surrounding the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy from ever receiving the full airing that it deserved.
Beyond that historical significance, the internal documents – compiled by onetime CBS News assistant producer Roger Feinman – show how a major mainstream news organization green-lights one approach to ........
When the US and NATO war of aggression was launched against Syria, Dr Nabil Antaki could have abandoned Aleppo to ensure his own safety. Instead he decided to remain and to serve the besieged people of his City, working with various local charities. Above all, he wanted to bear witness to the destruction caused by Western support for the foreign armed groups who have been systematically destroying Syria and terrorising its people for the last 5 years. Yesterday Silvia Cattori recorded this report from Dr Antaki on the recent amplification of propaganda surrounding events in Aleppo. It has been translated from the French by Vanessa Beeley.
“With regards to recent events in Aleppo, I state very clearly that the mainstream media are lying by omission. Since the beginning of the war in Aleppo that began 4 years ago, they have consistently failed to report all the facts.
All of us here in Aleppo are disgusted by their lack of impartiality and objectivity. They only ever talk about the loss of life in the east of Aleppo which is entirely controlled by Al Nusra, a terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda. These are their “moderate rebels” a title that affords them an unmerited degree of respectability.
This same media remains silent on the daily losses and suffering endured in the Western areas of Aleppo living under the rain of mortar fire from these terrorist factions. This media never mentions the terrorist blockade upon our people or the electricity cuts and water shortages inflicted upon us by their “moderate rebels”....
Foreign Policy Diary from SouthFront
From MoonOfAlabama Syria - Russia Rejects Kerry's New Attempts To Shield The Terrorists The U.S. admits that the upcoming Aleppo offensive by the Syrian government and its allies is designed to hit al-Qaeda and associated terrorist forces and not primarily the "moderate" unicorns the U.S. propaganda blushes about. But the openly U.S. supported forces will also be hit as they are very much integrated with al-Qaeda. The U.S. has for long considered al-Qaeda a secret ally in its attempt to destroy the Syrian state. The French magazine L'Orient Le Jour sees the U.S. relation with al-Qaeda in Syria as part of the attrition strategy the U.S. is waging against Syria (and Russia).
Secretary of State Kerry tried to convince the Russian that al-Qaeda should not be attacked during the cessation of hostilities. But the Russian's did not agree. Al Qaeda is a UN recognized international terrorist organization which, under UNSC resolutions, must be fought. The U.S. only succeeded in downgrading the permanent ceasefire the Russians had preferred to into a temporary cessation hostilities. It thought to use the time to rearm and to regroup its proxy forces.
But then thing went wrong. An offensive along the Turkish border to push away the Islamic State and to seal the border between the Islamic State and Turkey failed. Al-Qaeda convinced other groups, including directly U.S. supported CIA assets, to prematurely attack Syrian government forces south of Aleppo on Tal el-Eis. The attack mad only little progress before it was stopped.
Now al-Qaeda and the U.S. proxies are heavily targeting the government held western arts of Aleppo city:...........
Felicity Arbuthnot at GlobalResearch Death and Destruction in Iraq, Extensive US War Crimes: Apocalypse in Mosul in the Guise of Bombing ISIS “The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.” (Albert Camus 1913-1960.)
On 1st May 2003, George W. Bush stood in a dinky little flying suit on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and in a super stage managed appearance told the lie of the century: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.” (1)
The illegal occupation and decimation of Iraq continued until December 2011. In June 2014 they returned to bomb again in the guise of combating ISIS. As the thirteenth anniversary of Bush’s ridiculous appearance with a vast “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him, Iraq is largely in ruins, Iraqis have fled the murderous “liberation” and it’s aftermath in millions and there are over three million internally displaced.
The nation is pinned between a tyrannical, corrupt US puppet government, a homicidal, head chopping, raping, organ eating, history erasing, US-spawned ISIS – and a renewed, relentless US bombardment. So much for the 2008 US-Iraq State of Forces agreement, which stated that by 31st December 2011: “all United States forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory.”
On the USS Abraham Lincoln Bush stated: “In this battle, we have fought for....
Ron Donaghy at MiddleEastEye Sacked workers in Saudi Arabia set fire to buses in protest over unpaid salaries - See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sacked-workers-saudi-arabia-set-fire-buses-over-unpaid-salaries-372554115#sthash.KYd07TFd.dpuf
50,000 foreign labourers have been sacked by the Binladin Group and some have not been paid salaries in at least four months Workers at one of Saudi Arabia’s largest employers set fire to buses on Saturday amid protests at being laid off and told to leave the kingdom without being paid for several months work.
Footage uploaded to YouTube showed employees of the Binladin Group protesting outside the construction company’s offices in Mecca province, and setting fire to several buses. Saudi daily Okaz reported that fires on seven buses in Mecca had been extinguished without any fatalities, adding that local authorities had launched an investigation into the incident.
However, the newspaper did not mention the cause of the fire, which was by angry former Binladin employees. The protesting workers are among 50,000 foreign labourers who have been sacked by the private company as the kingdom’s revenues have declined due to low oil prices, which have forced government spending cuts.
Saudi daily al-Watan reported on Friday that Binladin had given the sacked foreign workers a permanent exit visa to leave the country but many of them do not want to leave because they claim not to have been paid properly.....
it's embedded deeply and firmly into and learn what's been going on in Libya and the new "about to happen" in Libya, listen/watch the vid below. If you are happy to continue being the govt's mouthpiece, please kindly vamoose from these pages.
Lots more info can be found at the Moriatys' website here. More info at Sott.net here
The countries in it, either in major or minor roles: USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Jordan, UAE, Qatar,Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Yemen, Nigeria,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, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Novorussia, Ukraine, Russia, Chechnya, Somalia, Iran, India, South Korea, North Korea, Central African Republic, Kenya, Tunisia, ThePhilippines, Egypt, Albania, Serbia, China, Sudan, South Sudan, Bukina Faso, Palestine,Georgia, Chad, Spain, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Nepal, Congo, Uganda, Romania,Mexico, Gambia, Haiti, Cameroon, Chad, Algeria, Venezuela, Thailand, Argentina, Vietnam,Myanmar, Georgia, Burundi, Senegal, Macedonia, Armenia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala
From FirstLook Yemen’s Hidden War: How the Saudi-Led Coalition Is Killing Civilians IN THE ISLAMIC CONCEPT of qadar, your divine destiny is inescapable. If you try to cheat death it will find you. For two women on a dusty road in mid-June on the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula, their repeated attempts to dodge fate ended in tragic failure. Leaving the war zone of Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on June 10, the women headed north in a Toyota Cressida driven by a male relative. The pair were escaping the violence that had already turned entire streets in Aden to rubble, left hundreds dead and thousands of civilians under siege, struggling to find food, water and medical care. Driving ahead of them was a family of four in a Hilux pick-up truck, slowing at the numerous checkpoints along the road and weaving around potholes in the asphalt. Between 4:30 and 5 p.m., seemingly from nowhere, the first missile struck. The Hilux flipped into a cartwheeling fireball, killing the two children and their parents inside. Before the women in the Toyota had a chance to compose themselves an ominous whistle........
A third explosion in China! Again at the chemical factory in Dongying City.
And, all after devaluation and dumping.
https://t.co/Cjgkz1KFKr
From Bangkokpost 19 killed, 123 hurt as bomb blast rocks Bangkok tourist attraction A bomb explosion inside one of Bangkok’s most popular tourist attractions killed at least 19 people and injured 123 others – mostly foreign tourists – on Monday. Of the 19 dead victims, 12 died at the scene. The figures were based on information released by the Royal Thai Police Office as of 11.20pm on Monday.....
From NPR Thai Prime Minister Says 'Main Suspect' In Bangkok Bombing Arrested Police in Thailand have arrested a second foreign man — who Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said is the main suspect — in connection with the deadly Bangkok bombing on Aug. 17, Michael Sullivan reports for NPR. Prayuth told reporters the man arrested Tuesday was taken into custody in eastern Thailand, near the border with Cambodia, and that the suspect may have been attempting to flee the country, Sullivan reports. "Prayuth said the man is not Thai and is believed to be the main suspect in the bombing" Sullivan says. But officials don't know whether he is the yellow-shirted man seen on surveillance video leaving a backpack at Bangkok's Erawan Shrine on the day of the bombing.
From VICE VICE News Condemns Turkish Government Over Detention of Its Journalists on Terrorism Charges A Turkish court leveled formal charges of terrorism at two VICE News journalists and their colleague on Monday, as global rights groups have called for the reporters to be released. The two British journalists, Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury, have been detained since late Thursday evening local time in Turkey. The two were taken into custody in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir along with their fixer — a local journalist who serves as a translator and guide — and a driver. The driver has now been released. Kevin Sutcliffe, VICE's Head of News Programming in Europe, condemned the detention of the journalists in a statement Monday. "Today the Turkish government has leveled baseless and alarmingly false charges of 'working on behalf of a terrorist organization' against three VICE News reporters, in an attempt to intimidate and censor their coverage," he said. "Prior to being unjustly detained, these journalists were reporting and documenting the situation in the southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakir......
Germany and EU's migrant problem
From CNN ISIS claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack that wounded at least 29 people in Cairo early Thursday, saying it was retribution for the execution of six men in May. The car detonated near the National Security Building in the northern suburb of Shubra al-Kheemag, Egypt's Health Ministry said. The driver had parked it then was picked up by a motorcycle and fled before the explosives went off. Among the 29 wounded were six police officers, the Interior Ministry said. The blast echoed through the capital for miles, waking residents in predawn hours, London Times reporter Bel Trew told CNN. Video revealed at least one building facade nearly defaced, cars mangled, and heavy concrete street barriers knocked over near the bomb site. ........
From NYTimes Saudis Said to Kill More Than 65 Civilians in Yemen Bombing Doctors Without Borders said that Saudi-led airstrikes killed more than 65 civilians early Friday in Yemen’s southwest province of Taiz, including 17 people from one family. If confirmed, it would be one of the largest tolls from airstrikes by Saudi Arabia and its military coalition partners since they began bombing Yemen five months ago in a campaign to crush the Houthi insurgency in the country, the Arab world’s poorest. A statement posted on the website of Doctors Without Borders, the international medical charity that works in many conflict zones, said the bombings left extensive damage in the area, with a population of 600,000. “Those who survived the bombings are searching through the rubble with their bare hands in the hope of finding survivors, as well as the bodies of victims of the attack,” Salah Dongu’du, the Doctors Without Borders coordinator in Taiz, said in the statement. He said many survivors, as well as the charity’s staff, had been unable to reach the seven hospitals still functioning in the area, which originally had 20. “These seven hospitals are totally overwhelmed with wounded patients and have run out of essential medication,” he said..........
From Guardian Libya urges Arab allies to launch air strikes against Isis Foreign minister asks for arms but does not expect Britain or other western countries to intervene militarily in north Africa Libya’s internationally recognised government is calling on fellow Arab states to carry out air strikes against Isis targets but it does not expect Britain or other western countries to intervene militarily, its foreign minister has said. Mohamed al-Dayri requested arms supplies to help the Tobruk-based administration fight “barbaric terrorists” who have crucified and beheaded Libyans and Egyptians as the north African country continues to suffer “catastrophic violence” four years after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. Dayri told the Guardian in an exclusive interview that he had asked Philip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, to expedite the delivery of ammunition and night-vision equipment, which are banned under the current UN arms embargo.........
From Reuters Saudi-led warplanes hit Yemeni port, aid group sounds alarm Warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition hit Yemen's Red Sea port of Hodeida on Tuesday, and officials there said the raids destroyed cranes and warehouses in the main entry point for aid supplies to the north of the country. Hodeida, controlled by Iranian-allied Houthi forces, has become a focal point of efforts to resupply the impoverished Arab state, battered by five months of war that has killed over 4,300 people.
From AntiWar Saudi Airstrike Hits Yemen Neighborhood, Killing 17 Civilians Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners are facing yet another round of condemnation today after an airstrike against northern Yemen’s Amran Province killed 17 civilians, including 13 teachers and four children. 20 other civilians were wounded in the strike. The attack hit a building which houses the teachers union offices for the region, and staff were preparing make-up exams for students who had missed final exams because of the ongoing Saudi war. The children at the site were the children of teachers, who were playing outside when the strike hit.....
From SCMP Ten days a fter Tianjin blasts, nine injured in explosion at chemical plant in eastern China A chemical factory in a village in eastern Shandong province exploded on Saturday night, injuring nine people, local media and police reported. The blast shattered windows of houses less than a kilometre away. ........... The explosion occurred at about 8.50pm at a chemical plant owned by Ruixing Chemical in Dongfu village near Zibo city, the Qilu Evening News reported on Weibo. Zibo city police said nine people were injured. The incident occurred just 10 days after a series of blasts at a chemicals factory in Tianjin, 120km east of Beijing, resulted in 121 casualties, including 67 dead firefighters and 54 people still unaccounted for.
From CBSNews Blast at U.S. Army depot in Japan lights up night sky An explosion at a U.S. Army depot outside of Tokyo set off a large blaze that lit up the night sky early Monday morning, but there were no reports of injuries. The blast happened after midnight at the Sagami Depot in Sagamihara, a city about 25 miles southwest of Tokyo, Pentagon duty officer Navy Commander Bill Urban said.......
From CounterPunch Ukrainians are Voting With Their Feet Against War and Economic Disaster The people of Ukraine are finding new and innovative ways to avoid compulsory military service and the vigilante military recruiters who enforce it. Deepening resistance to the draconian measure is now a significant impediment to the very prosecution of the war. Battle over public spaces Recruiters are routinely raiding public spaces to hunt down and grab men of conscription age (20-26) who fail to answer the call to war. They block exits to shopping centers, transit vehicles, parks and other public spaces and then conduct identification checks. Those found to have dodged service or whose call-up dates are approaching are hauled away or given strict instructions of when and where to report for duty. Vesti.com reports on the new phenomenon by Ukrainians of creating online maps to mark the public places where recruiters commonly hunt. Men and their families use the maps as a guide to public spaces to avoid. The first map appeared in the city of Dniepropetrovsk, reports Vesti. The phenomenon has quickly spread across the country.......
Boko Haram kills 79 people in three recent attacks in northeast Nigeria, local militia and residents say. http://t.co/OF6lwUp2ur
From VICE What We Learned While Embedded With Kurdish Forces Clearing the Islamic State From Hasakah Everyone was silent as we watched the flare spiral slowly to the ground, burning brightly, high above the smoke, noise, and flame of the burning oil refinery on the flat horizon. The Kurdish fighters then seemed to waken suddenly, shouldering their weapons and firing bursts of hot red tracer into the Islamic State (IS) positions just ahead. Six weeks earlier the jihadist group had launched a shock offensive on the city of Hasakah, northeast Syria, capturing almost half of it and initiating a bloody three-way struggle between IS, the Syrian regime and the Kurdish YPG forces, as well their allied militias. On this August night, however, the next few hours would see IS finally expelled from the city, and the YPG in almost total control of their first provincial capital in Syria.
Hasakah is the commercial and political center of the northeastern governorate of the same name, one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse in Syria. Thinly populated before French colonial rule in the early 20th century, the flat and dusty region is home to the majority of Syria's Kurdish population, as well as Assyrian and Syriac Christians, and Sunni Arab tribes, many of whom were planted in the region in the 1960s and 70s by the Syrian regime in an act of colonial settlement to dilute the region's Kurdish majority.........
From VICE Tens of thousands of Malaysian protesters turned out in the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak following the discovery of millions of dollars worth of clandestine deposits made to his personal bank accounts. An internal probe uncovered more than $700 million that had been deposited into Razak's accounts from entities linked with the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). .........
From RT 'Make it a revolution!’ : Lebanon protesters give 72-hour ultimatum to government Thousands of street protesters in Beirut are demanding the resignation of two government ministers, after hundreds were injured in a similar demonstration last week. RT's Paula Slier reports that violence has again broken out. The organizing movement behind the street protests, ‘You Stink!,’ said it would “escalate” its public protests unless the interior minister responsible for alleged police brutality was replaced along with the minister of the environment who is in charge of the ineffectual rubbish collection service that has left the streets of Beirut lined with trash. Its spokesman Rasha Halabi went further, however, telling a crowd that the movement will be pushing for new national elections.......
Trouble brewing in Guatemala which might erupt into a civil war. Note that the present criminal of a president has been there from the Reagan era and supported by the US govt.
From AP One-day record for migrant rescues in sea near Libya: 4,400 Italy's coast guard says it coordinated the rescue of some 4,400 migrants in a single day, a record-setting number, as smugglers took advantage of ideal sea conditions off Libya to launch a fleet of overcrowded, unseaworthy boats. The coast guard on Sunday said 22 rescue operations were carried out a day earlier for motorized rubber dinghies and fishing boats, all crammed with migrants desperate to reach Europe's southern shores. Italian coast guard, navy and border police boats pitched in, as did Norwegian and Irish naval vessels deployed in a European patrol-and-rescue force. Boats in distress use satellite phones to call coast guard rescuers or are spotted by patrolling Italian military aircraft. So far this year, some 110,000 migrants have been rescued off Libya and brought to southern Italian ports........
From PressTV At least 30 killed in huge explosion near hospital in Syria’s Rif Dimashq Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in a huge bomb explosion targeting pro-government forces in southwestern Syria. The bomb attack on Wednesday hit a hospital in Harasta, a town located around 10 kilometers from the capital Damascus in Rif Dimashq, killing at least 30 people and injuring tens of others, Sky News Arabia reported.........
From JapanTimes EU-bound refugee wave rolls through Macedonia, Serbia, threatening bloc’s ‘soul’ PRESEVO, SERBIA – Thousands of migrants, mostly Syrian refugees, traveled through Macedonia and Serbia on Sunday toward Western Europe, as Italy’s foreign minister said the escalating crisis threatened the bloc’s “soul. More than 7,000 men, woman and children crossed into southern Serbia from Macedonia overnight Saturday to Sunday alone, the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said, with many more still expected to arrive. The mass movement came after Macedonian police on Saturday finally reopened the border with Greece after three days of trying to hold back streams of migrants.
Macedonia had on Thursday declared a state of emergency and sealed off its border to halt the influx, leaving thousands stranded in no-man’s land. After a tense standoff on the border, hundreds of stranded refugees, many carrying small children, forced their way through barbed wire fences in dramatic scenes on Saturday as police hurled stun grenades. By Saturday evening, border guards stood aside to allow 1,500 migrants through unhindered, with many heading straight for Serbia, the next stop on their journey to reach the European Union.........
From Reuters Rockets fired by Houthi militiamen killed 14 civilians, most of them children, as fighting intensified for control of Yemen's third largest city, Taiz, residents said on Monday. The Saudi-led coalition opposing the Houthis also launched air raids on military bases and Houthi positions in the southwestern city during the fighting, residents said, but no casualties were reported. Fighters loyal to Yemen's exiled government have been contesting control of Taiz - Yemen's cultural capital - with the Houthis since April. Hundreds of combatants and civilians have been killed..........
From ICRC Yemen: ICRC office in Aden attacked The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) strongly condemns an attack which has taken place on its offices in the city of Aden in Yemen. Unidentified gunmen stormed the building on Monday (24 August, 2015) and held staff at gunpoint. Cars, cash and equipment were subsequently stolen. As a result, fourteen international staff members have been relocated. "This is not the first time that we have had a security incident in Aden," said the ICRC's head of sub-delegation in the city, Samer Jarjouhi. "There have been at least ten such incidents recently. This is not acceptable and we have relocated staff until the situation improves." It is not clear who the gunmen were but the security situation in Aden has deteriorated in recent months. The ICRC will remain in contact with the authorities in the city to discuss safety considerations.........
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Russia has begun its military intervention in #Syria, deploying an aerial contingent to a permanent Syrian base pic.twitter.com/us1Z1SS5Tt
From Anadolu Germany, Turkey 'coordinated' Patriot's withdrawal Germany has denied reports that its withdrawal of Patriot anti-missile system from eastern Turkey is due to Turkish military strikes against PKK Germany has denied reports that its decision to end its deployment of Patriot anti-missile systems in southern Turkey is a reaction to recent Turkish military operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Defense Ministry spokesman Ingo Gerhartz said Monday that Germany’s decision to end its contribution to NATO's Patriot system in Turkey was taken after a review within the alliance in June, which concluded that the threat against Turkish territories by Syrian ballistic missiles was very low........
From AlMonitor Oman’s diplomatic bridge to Syria Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem’s recent visit to Oman signals Damascus’ heightened interest in negotiating an end to its 4½-year-old civil war, an interest rendered more urgent by a series of on-the-ground setbacks for the Syrian army. Moallem met Aug. 6 with his Omani counterpart, Yusuf bin Alawi in Muscat, Oman, to discuss “constructive efforts” aimed at ending the Syrian crisis. Syria’s state-run news agency reported the two diplomats “agreed to continue cooperation and coordination to achieve the shared goals of their peoples and governments.” Moallem’s visit, which came at Muscat’s invitation, marked his first trip to a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011. As early as 2011, Omani leader Sultan Qaboos bin Said hosted American and Iranian officials for talks, which laid the groundwork for last month’s historic nuclear agreement. Since the six world powers and Tehran signed the deal, numerous actors have signaled greater interest in pursuing diplomatic steps to resolve the Syrian crisis and in working together to counter the Islamic State (IS).........
FromTelegraph Nato launches largest airborne drills in Europe since end of Cold War 5,000 troops from 11 Nato allies are taking part in exercises across Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania The US said Tuesday it has launched the biggest allied airborne drills in Europe since the Cold War ended, as fighting involving pro-Russian separatists escalated in eastern Ukraine. Nearly 5,000 soldiers from 11 Nato allies are taking part in four weeks of "simultaneous multinational airborne operations" across Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania that began on Saturday, the US army said in a statement. "Swift Response 15 is the largest Allied airborne training event on the continent since the end of the Cold War," according to the statement from the US army in Grafenwohr in southern Germany. ..........
From RT: Diamonds are not just a girl’s best friend, but for decades they were a dictator’s best friend. Despotic leaders used the income from the lucrative trade to fuel savage conflicts in Africa, while those buying the shiny gems thousands of kilometres away, had little idea what they were funding. Alex Yearsley, who is today’s guest on Sophie&Co, has been leading a campaign against the ‘blood diamond’ trade.........
Some of the countries in it, either in major or minor roles: USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Yemen, Nigeria, 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, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Novorussia, Ukraine, Russia, Chechnya, Somalia, Iran, India, South Korea, North Korea, Central African Republic, Kenya, Tunisia, The Philippines, Egypt, Albania, Serbia, China, Sudan, South Sudan, Bukina Faso, Palestine, Georgia, Chad, Spain, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Nepal, Congo, Uganda, Romania, Mexico, Gambia, Haiti, Cameroon, Chad, Algeria, Venezuela, Thailand, Argentina, Vietnam, Myanmar, Georgia, Burundi, Senegal, Macedonia, Armenia, Dominican Republic From Reuters Exclusive: In turf war with Afghan Taliban, Islamic State loyalists gain ground Fighters loyal to Islamic State have seized substantial territory in Afghanistan for the first time, witnesses and officials said, wresting areas in the east from rival Taliban insurgents in a new threat to stability. Witnesses who fled fighting in Nangarhar province told Reuters that hundreds of insurgents pledging allegiance to Islamic State pushed out the Taliban, scorching opium poppy fields that help to fund the Taliban's campaign to overthrow the Afghan government. They also distributed directives purportedly from Islamic State's Middle East-based chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, although it was not clear whether he issued them for the Afghan theater or if previous edicts may have been translated......
From WSJ To Many Iraqis, U.S. Isn’t Really Seeking to Defeat Islamic State American military response is criticized as too weak. In a tent city under a highway overpass in Baghdad, refugees from Iraq’s Sunni province of Anbar were unanimous about whom to blame for their misery. “I hold Americans responsible for destroying Anbar,” said former policeman Wassem Khaled, whose home was taken over by Islamic State, or ISIS, after the Iraqi army fled from Anbar’s provincial capital of Ramadi last month. “We all know that America is providing ISIS with...
Warmonger Samantha Powers' song and dance routine continues to continue.
From NBC ISIS Anniversary: The Year Since Caliphate Was Declared One year after a caliphate was declared spanning Syria and Iraq, there is little to celebrate — unless you're ISIS. Despite a massive international campaign to defeat the the brutal militants, ISIS has not only managed to hold onto the territory but has expanded its reach beyond those borders over the last 12 months.
"It's been a great year for ISIS," according to Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center. "This would be close to a best-case scenario for them." Majeed Al-Hamadani, a 43-year-old high-school teacher in Baghdad, agreed. "Nothing was changed during the past year," he told NBC News. "ISIS lost some territories but they were able to take over other areas. The Iraqi soldiers do not have the will to fight." The group burst onto the international stage when fighters bearing the black flag of ISIS seized control of Mosul, Iraq, in early June 2014. The Sunni militants had been mostly fighting in Syria before then, but the fall of Iraq's second city signaled the militants had bigger plans. ............
Unbelievable stuff is happening in the Dominican Republic, but hey ...you won't find the powers-that-be being too concerned nor our MSM losing sleep over the dirt poor of the DR who happen to be of Haitian origin. No rich Arabs in the DR nor any precious Israelis are being threatened ... just some thousands of blacks who were unfortunate enough to be born so and are either Christian or into voodoo .... so all's fine and dandy, let them eat dirt.
From ABC Militant Bombings Kill 2 Soldiers in Southern Philippines Two Philippine soldiers have been killed and three others wounded in bomb attacks by Abu Sayyaf militants in a southern province, the military said Wednesday. The bombings came a week after a pipe bomb killed a soldier and wounded eight others on Basilan, one of the southern island provinces where the militants operate. The first blast Tuesday morning killed two soldiers and wounded two others while they were on a road patrol in Sumisip township, a military report said. Another soldier was wounded during a gunbattle between troops and about seven militants following the second blast in Tipo-Tipo municipality. No one was hurt in the third blast in Lamitan city close to midnight. The military believes those involved in the bombings belong to an Abu Sayyaf faction led by Furuji Indama, who is suspected of providing refuge to Malaysian terror suspect Abu Anas, according to spokesman Lt. Col. Harold Cabunoc........
From SaharaReporters Chad Arrests Boko Haram Leader In N’Djamena A Chadian Public Prosecutor, Alghassim Khamis, said on Tuesday that one of the key Boko Haram leaders, Baana Fanay, who has been coordinating trafficking of weapons in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad was arrested on Sunday in N’Djamena. .... .....Khamis said Fanay alias Mahamat Moustapha, was arrested by security forces after a fierce resistance. He said Fanay, who was arrested with two other terrorists, was responsible for the purchase of weapons and recruitment of fighters for Boko Haram. The prosecutor said the a search in the suspect’s house led to the seizure of different weapons and documents written in Arabic by Boko Haram leader, Aboubakar Shekau, targeting the sect’s recruits.....
A viral picture of how powerful the bomb attack on the Egyptian general prosecutor's convoy was. #Egyptpic.twitter.com/CM5iF9l3yI
From Independent Isis recruiting 'highly trained foreigners' to produce chemical weapons The extremists had already used deadly gases in attacks in Iraq and Syria The terrorist group Isis is recruiting “highly trained professionals” to make chemical weapons – and has already used them in an attack. The Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, said the group was now undertaking "serious efforts" to develop their chemical weapons arsenal. Speaking to the Australia Group, which is composed of nations against chemical weapons, she said: “Da’esh [Isis] is likely to have amongst its tens of thousands of recruits the technical expertise necessary to further refine precursor materials and build chemical weapons,” Ms Bishop added. Ms Bishop’s speech is the latest concern that Isis is attempting to acquire nuclear and chemical and biological weapons, after India warned the extremists could obtain a nuclear weapon from Pakistan. .....
BREAKING: Clashes at prison in central #Yemen lead to escape of around 1,200 prisoners, among them al Qaeda suspects, officials say
From BBC Kuwait Shia mosque attack: Bomber 'was Saudi' Kuwait says the attacker who carried out Friday's suicide bombing at a Shia mosque was a Saudi citizen. The interior ministry named the bomber as Fahd Suleiman Abdulmohsen al-Qaba'a, according to state media. The ministry said he flew into Kuwait on Friday just hours before he detonated explosives at the mosque, killing at least 27 people.
The Islamic State group - which regards Shia Muslims as heretics - says it was behind the attack. Last month, an IS branch in Saudi Arabia carried out bombings on consecutive Fridays on Shia mosques there. These attacks have brought home the growing threat posed by the jihadists to the Gulf, says the BBC's Sebastian Usher. Arrests More than 200 people were injured in Friday's bombing at Imam Sadiq Mosque in Kuwait City - the bloodiest ever attack on Shia Muslims in the country's recent history. Kuwaiti officials said the Saudi suspect was in Kuwait illegally. Several people have been arrested in connection with the attack - including both the owner and driver of the car in which the bomber arrived at the mosque..........
From Telegraph Tunisia attack: gunman's links to Britain Seifeddine Rezgui was inspired by a fanatic who ran a global terror network from London, it emerges The gunman who massacred British tourists on the beach in Sousse was inspired by a fanatic who ran a global terror network from London, it has emerged. Seifeddine Rezgui’s mentor was Saifallah Ben Hassine, a founding leader of Ansar al-Sharia, the main terror group in Tunisia, it was reported. Ben Hassine, 49, arrived in Britain in the late 1990s and became a follower of hate preacher Abu Qatada, who was then also based in London. ....
From GlobalVoices Bahrain Takes Security Measures Following ISIS Threat Bahrain announced it is taking precautions to thwart an ISIS threat targeting the country's Shia community next Friday. Observers are skeptic and wonder how will the same regime which has continued to wage a fierce crackdown on the country's Shia population for the previous four years following anti-government protests be entrusted to protect them today. Following two separate attacks on Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia last month and an attack in Kuwait two days ago, the Al-Qaeda affiliate which has carved itself its own state which spans across Syria and Iraq, promises its next target will be Bahrain on July 3, 2015.......
NEWS: $300 million worth of antiquities are flooding the market through Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. http://t.co/OikpWXxGzD
From Independent Bradford fathers of missing children beg wives to come home amid fears they have joined Isis The husbands of two women who are feared to have taken their children to Syria have begged their families to come home during an emotional press conference in Bradford. With the ordeal of the last eight sleepless days since they last spoke to their children etched on their faces, Akhtar Iqbal and Mohammed Shoaib used the conference to tearfully urge their wives - both sisters - to get in touch after arriving in Turkey six days ago, from where they are feared to have travelled to Syria and territory controlled by the Islamic State.........
Today's publication comprises seven top secret documents detailing how the US has had a decade- long policy of economic espionage against France, including the interception of all French corporate contracts and negotiations valued at more than $200 million. The documents demonstrate that the US National Security Agency, far from being a rogue organisation, is carrying out an economic espionage policy created by the US Director of National Intelligence. The documents detail the intelligence process, from the tasking of the NSA with collection of desired economic information to the production of developed intelligence reports, which are sent to "Supported Elements" of the US government, including the US Department of Commerce, the US Trade Represenative, the US Treasury and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Central within the cache of documents are two long-term spying orders ("collection requirements") which define the kinds of intelligence the NSA is tasked with collecting in its surveillance operations against France. The documents make clear that the NSA has been tasked with obtaining intelligence on all aspects of the French economy, from government policy, diplomacy, banking and participation in international bodies to infrastructural development, business practices and trade activities. The documents establish that the US economic intelligence operations against France have run for more than a decade and started as early as 2002. Some of the documents are authorised for sharing with the "Five Eyes" partners – the group of Anglophone countries in close intelligence co-operation with the United States: Canada, New Zealand, Australia and France's fellow member state of the European Union, the United Kingdom, strongly suggesting that the United Kingdom has also benefited from the United States' economic espionage activities against France.
The cache also includes five TOP SECRET intelligence summaries from US spying on the conversations and communications of French officials. The documents show US spying on the French Finance Minister, a French Senator, officials within the Treasury and Economic Policy Directorate, the French ambassador to the United States, and officials with direct responsibility for EU trade policy. The intercepts reveal internal French deliberation and policy on the World Trade Organization, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the G7 and the G20, the 2013 French budget, the decline of the automotive industry in France, and the involvement of French companies in the Oil for Food programme in Iraq during the 1990s.........
#Kobane documented so far by M.Ebdi: 290 martyrs, incl. 22 whole families,79 women/girls,100 children. Deaths by knife,gun,bomb,bleeding out
From Reuters Islamic State kills at least 145 civilians in Syria's Kobani Islamic State fighters killed at least 145 civilians in an attack on the Syrian town of Kobani and a nearby village, in what a monitoring group described on Friday as one of the worst massacres carried out by the hardline group in Syria. Islamic State pressed a separate assault to capture government-held parts of the northeastern city of Hasaka, blowing up a security building and triggering a government appeal for all residents to take up arms. The United Nations said 60,000 people were reported to have fled the attack. Islamic State's twin attacks which began on Thursday showed the group returning to the offensive in Syria after two weeks of defeats at the hands of Kurdish-led forces, supported by U.S.-led air strikes. Earlier this week the Kurds advanced to within 50 km (30 miles) of Raqqa city, the group's de facto capital......
From Yahoo French beheading selfie 'sent to Syria' The gruesome "selfie" taken by a man who has confessed to beheading his boss during an attack on a gas factory in France was sent to Syria, sources close to the investigation said Sunday. The news emerged as Yassin Salhi, 35, was being transferred from France's second city of Lyon to Paris for questioning by specialised anti-terrorist police. Salhi confessed to the grisly crime earlier Sunday and has also given "details about the circumstances" surrounding the killing, according to sources close to the investigation.....
From DailyStar In first, ISIS beheads two Syria women for 'sorcery': activists BEIRUT: ISIS has beheaded two women in eastern Syria accused of "witchcraft and sorcery," activists said Tuesday, in the jihadis' first decapitations of female civilians. The extremist group has become infamous for gruesome executions and mass killings, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the two women were the first female civilians to be beheaded by ISIS. "The Islamic State group executed two women by beheading them in Deir al-Zor province, and this is the first time the Observatory has documented women being killed by the group in this manner," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. The Britain-based activist group that monitors the war said the executions took place Monday and Sunday and involved two couples. In both cases, the women were executed with their husbands, with each pair accused of "witchcraft and sorcery.".......
From Ahram Car bomb kills 3 near police station in Egypt's 6 October city Two were killed inside the car, while the third was a passerby Two explosive devices detonated inside a private car in greater Cairo's 6 October city on Tuesday, killing three people inside the car, next to the Nakheel shopping center near the 6 October police station, health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar told private channel CBC Extra. The ministry announced that three people were also injured during the blast, state-news agency MENA reported. Eye witnesses said the car was on its way to the police station, 1.1 km away from the Nakheel shopping centre. According to security investigations, the car was blocked by a fight between two tok-tok drivers in Gamal Abdel-Nasser street. They then drove faster, triggering the explosion as the bomb went off after being shaken by the car's sudden move, according to Ahram's Arabic news website. When it went off, a passerby approached the car and was killed by the second device's explosion, according to eyewitnesses........
From WarOnTheRocks The Islamic State’s Varying Fortunes in North Africa The jihadist group that calls itself the Islamic State has increasingly set its sights on expanding into North Africa. The eighth issue of the group’s English-language magazine Dabiq was suggestively titled “Shari’ah Alone Will Rule Africa,” with the cover displaying a photograph of the Great Mosque in the Tunisian city of Kairouan. This signaling left no room for doubt about the Islamic State’s designs on the region.
The Islamic State has devoted considerable resources to its expansion, whether through mergers and acquisitions with existing jihadist groups or by encouraging splinter groups and defections from rival jihadist entities. Several reasons exist for the Islamic State to expand its territorial holdings outside of Syria and Iraq. First, expansion serves its propaganda needs, as it blunts any territorial losses that the group may experience in Syria and Iraq, and allows the Islamic State to maintain the image of momentum and strength that is so integral to its recruitment strategy. Second, expansion improves the group’s resilience. Just as al-Qaeda’s affiliate strategy has complicated U.S. counterterrorism efforts, the Islamic State’s movement into new arenas allows the group to withstand counter-network operations against one of its nodes. Abu Arhim al-Libi, an Islamic State propagandist, acknowledged this in a long analytical piece posted in January 2015 discussing the group’s expansion into Libya. Al-Libi noted that “the strategic location of Libya means that it could relieve the pressure being felt by the State of the Caliphate in Iraq and ash-Sham.” Third, the Islamic State’s expansion into North Africa and other arenas legitimizes the group’s claim to be a caliphate. Its defining and most appealing characteristic (to jihadists) is its control over, and governance of, territory. This is evidenced by the group’s slogan, baqiya wa tatamaddad, or remaining and expanding. Fourth, expansion into new theaters strengthens the Islamic State’s hand against al-Qaeda in the competition for leadership of the transnational jihadist movement. With every new gain, the Islamic State reinforces the perception that it is ascendant while al-Qaeda stagnates and declines.
North Africa is among the most promising theaters for the Islamic State’s expansion, with an appealing location at the ..............
From AlMonitor Did Ankara-backed group attack Turkish Kurds? In January, a deputy from Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) submitted an intriguing parliamentary question to the interior minister. Ali Ozgunduz wanted to know whether militants from Syria and Iraq were being trained in Turkey to be used in crackdowns on anti-government protest movements. The written question, shown to Al-Monitor, began with the following introduction: “At a time when Turkey is already the subject of international debate … for [allegedly] providing weapons, logistical support and training to radical elements in the Middle East, among them the Islamic State [IS], allegations are being made through various platforms that certain militants have been brought to Turkey as well. Allegedly, those people are being given military training with the purpose of thwarting popular opposition movements like the Gezi Park resistance and violently suppressing such protests. The media have recently reported that Jamal Maarouf, a Free Syrian Army [FSA] leader who fought in Aleppo and had the complete support of the [Turkish] government, has crossed into Turkey together with most of his 14,000 armed elements. This lends credibility to the allegations.” The former lawmaker then posed the following questions: Is it true that civilian and armed elements, who came or were brought in ..........
