Puppet MastersS


Cruise Missle

Hezbollah fires hundreds of rockets at Israel


RT
Sun, 25 Aug 2024 12:23 UTC
contrails
© Scott Peterson/Getty Images/FileContrails of Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile defense system strikes Hamas rockets
The latest barrage came in retaliation for the killing of the group's commander Fouad Shukr last month.

The Islamic paramilitary group Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel to avenge the death of its top commander, Fouad Shukr, who was killed in an airstrike on Beirut last month. Meanwhile, the Israeli military has said it carried out preemptive strikes against the Lebanon-based militia after concluding that the attack was imminent.

Hezbollah said it fired more than 320 rockets at 11 Israeli military sites in a statement issued early on Sunday, including those in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It added that the attack came "within the framework of the first response to the brutal Zionist aggression on the southern suburbs of Beirut," in which Shukr was killed.

Israel had earlier claimed that it had targeted Shukr because he was responsible for a deadly shelling of a soccer field in the Golan Heights that killed 12 minors.


Comment: This was a bogus accusation. Israel confirmed the rocket that hit the soccer field was a misfire from Israel's Iron Dome. All retaliation by Israel was blatant aggression.


Comment: Who struck first? By its own confirmation: Israel.

Read More...
Star of David

Biden Taps 'Literal Arms Dealer' Mira Resnick for Top Israel Policy Post

Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams
Sun, 25 Aug 2024 10:14 UTC
Mira Resnick
U.S. State Department official Mira Resnick speaks during an official visit to Medellín, Colombia on July 13, 2023.
Peace advocates on Friday voiced alarm over the Biden administration's selection of a senior official who has worked to speed the shipment of U.S. arms to Israel as the State Department's point person on Israel-Palestine policy.

HuffPost reported that Mira Resnick, the deputy assistant secretary of state for regional security in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, has been tapped to oversee Washington's handling of issues related to Israel and Palestine. In her current role, Resnick's office supervises around $40 billion in annual U.S. arms transfers.
Using a critical nickname for U.S. President Joe Biden, journalist and podcast host Emma Vigeland said on social media Friday, "Genocide Joe's swan song is to institutionally entrench our support for Israel and make it as difficult as possible to disentangle it, which the old fool views as romantic and righteous."
Over the past 10-plus months, the Biden administration has approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel worth billions of dollars. Earlier this month, the administration greenlighted a new $20 billion arms package for Israel.

Comment: According to the Jerusalem Post, Mira Resnick is well liked in Israel:
No. 16 on The Jerusalem Post's Top 50 Most Influential Jews of 2022: Mira Resnick, US deputy assistant secretary of state for regional security in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
One wonders what kind of regional security she has achieved and if the average people in Israel now are feeling more secure. Perhaps only in a upside down world, where up is down and war is peace.

Read More...
Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Telegram CEO Durov arrested at French airport over apps 'lax moderation rules'; Top Russian MP calls for his release

Dan Woodland
Daily Mail
Sat, 24 Aug 2024 22:05 UTC
Pavel Durov
Telegram messaging app founder and CEO Pavel Durov has reportedly been arrested at a French airport after stepping off private plane
Telegram messaging app founder and CEO Pavel Durov has reportedly been arrested at a French airport after stepping off private plane.

Police swooped on the billionaire shortly after landing at the Bourget airport, outside Paris, following a flight from Azerbaijan, French outlet TF1 info reported, citing an unnamed source.

Durov was travelling aboard his private jet and had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France, the news site added.

The 39-year-old tech tycoon was reportedly arrested at around 8pm local time while accompanied by his bodyguard.

Despite being born in Russia, Durov has not lived there since Vladimir Putin's invasion of Crimea and the Donbas area of Ukraine in 2014.

Durov now lives in Dubai where Telegram is based and holds dual citizenship of both France and the United Arab Emirates.

Comment: RT reports on the call to release Durov:
Russia must demand the immediate release of Telegram founder Pavel Durov who has been reportedly detained in France, Deputy Speaker of the Russian State Duma Vladislav Davankov has said.

According to French media, the 39-year-old dual Russian-French national was detained on Saturday at the Paris-Le Bourget airport. The French authorities reportedly believe that the lax moderation rules and encryption technology had allowed the widespread use of the Telegram messager by criminals.

Writing on Telegram in the early hours of Sunday, Davankov defended Durov's record. "Hardly anyone else has done more for the development of digital services in Russia and the world," he argued.

"We need to get him out of there. I have urged Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to appeal to the French authorities to release Pavel Durov from custody," the politician wrote on Telegram. "His arrest could be politically motivated and used to gain access to personal information of Telegram users. We cannot allow this."

In case Paris refuses to release Durov, "everything must be done to transport him to the UAE or Russia - if he agrees, of course," the politician said.

He dismissed the allegations against Durov, saying that illicit activity can be found on all messaging platforms. "But nobody gets to arrest or jail their owners. And it shouldn't happen this time."

Durov was born in St. Petersburg. In 2006, he founded the social media platform VK, often described as 'Russia's Facebook.'
In just the last month the establishment's attack on free speech is picking up at a serious pace, with various 'dissidents' being arrested, harassed, and censored, including: Scott Ritter, The Cradle, Judge Napolitano, Richard Medhurst, TadghHickey, and X was forced to shut down its offices in Brazil: And that's not including the world leaders and politicians who have found themselves subject to assassination attempts. Then there are the numerous coups and colour revolution attempts.

Taken together, these are foreboding developments indeed: The following is a statement from a comedian who was also recently singled out by the establishment's tech giants:



Read More...
Alarm Clock

Violence against women considered for first time under government counter-extremism plans

Camilla Turner
The Telegraph
Sat, 17 Aug 2024 00:00 UTC
woman british politics
© Justin Ng/Alamy Live NewsThere are fears that the current Home Office guidance is too narrow
Extreme misogyny will be considered for the first time under Government plans to combat the radicalisation of young men online.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has ordered a review of Britain's counter-extremism strategy to urgently address gaps in the Government's stance, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

It will look at tackling violence against women and girls in the same way as Islamist and far-Right extremism, amid fears that current Home Office guidance is too narrow.

Comment: How Orwellian. See also:

Read More...
Target

"It's not OK any more": The United Kingdom cracks down on free speech

Jonathan Turley
jonathanturley.org
Thu, 22 Aug 2024 00:00 UTC
cuffs of freedom
© newyorker.com/KJNCrackdown on Free Speech
The crackdown on free speech continues in the United Kingdom as officials use recent rioting to justify a roundup of citizens who they view as "pushing harmful and hateful beliefs." The government is ramping up arrests of those with "extremist ideologies" in the latest wave of arrests. The crackdown includes those accused of misogynist views. In my book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, I discuss how difficult it is to get a free people to give up freedoms. They have to be afraid, very afraid. For that reason, governments tend to attack free speech during periods of public anger or fear.

That pattern is playing out, yet again, in the United Kingdom. The recent anti-immigration riots have given officials a renewed opportunity to use anti-free speech laws to target those with opposing views.

For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests. A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a "leprechaun." Yet another was arrested for singing "Kung Fu Fighting." A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a "cult." Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his "toxic ideology" based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
Read More...
Penis Pump

Harris pledges continued support for Kiev


RT
Fri, 23 Aug 2024 11:40 UTC
Zel Kam
© Kent Nishimura/ Angeles Times/Getty ImagesA US Vice President Kamala Harris greets Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to the US • December 2022
Donald Trump "encouraged" Russia's actions against Ukraine, the Democratic presidential nominee has claimed.

US Vice President Kamala Harris has vowed that Washington will "stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies," should she win the presidential election in November.

During her keynote speech on day four of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago on Thursday, the party's presidential nominee emphasized her intention to "strengthen, not abdicate our global leadership."

Harris touted her record of helping Biden to rally Western nations to funnel arms and money to Kiev.

Comment: This election is shaping up to be the one to almost die for.

Read More...
Arrow Down

Hungary again breaks with West: Ukrainian attack on Kursk is 'wrong'

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 23 Aug 2024 11:05 UTC
one hand missing
© Getty Images"Nothin' shaking here!" Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky
Hungary has broken with its NATO and EU allies in condemning Ukraine's Kursk incursion, calling it out as not purely 'defensive' but as part of needlessly provocative offensive operations against Russian territory.

Gergely Gulyas, top advisor and spokesman for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a Thursday press briefing that Budapest is staunchly "pro-peace" - and when asked about the ongoing Kursk invasion, he said: "Ukraine is not only defending, but also attacking. We want a ceasefire and peace."

Gulyas went on to explain that Hungary is against anything which thwarts potential diplomatic settlement to the war. He said this is "wrong" given the offensive includes a "spillover of the hostilities into Russian territory."

Ukrainian media noted of the briefing:
"The Hungarian government representative also called on Ukraine and Russia not to forget that they are also responsible for Europe's energy security. He was referring to the transportation of Russian oil and gas through Ukrainian territory."
The question of the EU's gas supply which is piped through Ukraine has come into sharp focus with the Kursk operation, given that early on Ukraine forces captured the Gazprom-administered Sudzha station.

Comment: The zero sum game? Lead picture says it all.

Read More...
Pharoah

Egypt hosting new round of Gaza ceasefire talks - Reuters


RT
Fri, 23 Aug 2024 10:11 UTC
Smoke rising
© File/Ali Jadallah/Getty ImagesSmoke rising in Gaza
Mediators will reportedly try to find a compromise on the conditions for ending hostilities in the Palestinian enclave.

Egypt is hosting US and Israeli delegations for talks on a Gaza ceasefire proposal, Reuters reported on Thursday. Israel has been fighting to eliminate the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the enclave since October.

The negotiations began in Cairo on Thursday, with officials seeking compromises on plans to provide security along Egypt's border with Gaza, which Israeli forces have occupied since May, the outlet cited two Egyptian security sources as saying.

"An Israeli security delegation arrived in Cairo with the aim of continuing negotiations for a hostage swap deal," the Israeli state broadcaster KAN also reported.

The new round of meetings, which is expected to last two days, comes after negotiations concluded last week in Qatar's capital, Doha, where the US presented what it called a "final bridging proposal" to end the ten-month conflict. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced after hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday in West Jerusalem that the Israeli leader had accepted the proposal.

Hamas, which did not attend the negotiations, has rejected the plan, claiming it aligns with Netanyahu's conditions, including "his insistence on continuing the occupation of the Netzarim Junction, the Rafah crossing, and the Philadelphi Corridor."

Comment: Progress remains an empty word.

Read More...
Folder

DOJ IG finds FBI systematically mishandled classified info

Ken Silva
Headline USA
Thu, 22 Aug 2024 00:00 UTC
FBIboxes
© DOJ-IGPallets of FBI boxes containing potentially classified information were found sitting in an unsecured warehouse.
Talk about irony: The FBI, which was willing to use deadly force over Donald Trump allegedly mishandling classified documents, has been systematically mishandling similar information for years, according to bombshell findings released Thursday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

The DOJ-IG said it discovered the FBI's mishandling of classified information while auditing a contract related to how the bureau destroys electronics containing "sensitive-but-unclassified" information, as well as classified national security information.

According to Horowitz's audit, the FBI labels computers that handle such information when it sends them to a facility to be destroyed. However, it does not label internal hard drives extracted from those computers. The FBI also doesn't properly track thumb drives and disk drives containing information of varying classification levels, according to Horowitz.

Compounding the security risk is the fact that those unmarked internal hard drives, thumb drives and disk drives often end up in a physically unsecured warehouse.

Comment: 'Do as we say, not as we do.'

Read More...
Sherlock

Italian prosecutors open manslaughter investigation into 'unsinkable' superyacht that resulted in death of tech, finance tycoons


Al Jazeera
Sat, 24 Aug 2024 17:50 UTC
Angela Bacares mike lynch
FILE: Mr Lynch is still missing. His wife Angela Bacares (right) was among the 15 people who were rescued from the yacht
Prosecutors in Italy have opened a manslaughter investigation after a superyacht capsized off the coast of Sicily, killing seven people on board.

Ambrogio Cartosio, a prosecutor in the town of Termini Imerese, said on Saturday that no suspect has currently been identified in the incident.

Seven people, including UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch, were killed in the sinking of the Bayesian, a 56m (184-foot) British-flagged luxury yacht that went down in a storm early on Monday.


Comment: It was initially reported as being a 'freak storm'.


The vessel was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew members.

Comment: The incident is all the more curious what with the death of Mr Lynch's business partner just days before: Businessman Mike Lynch missing after superyacht capsizes in freak storm, days earlier his codefendent in fraud case killed by car

Read More...