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Best of the Web: Yemeni officials allied with West-UAE-Saudi coalition ditch 'UN recognised gov't' to join the defenders of Gaza

Mohammed Moqeibel
The Cradle
Sun, 04 Feb 2024 18:57 UTC

The Gaza war and renewed US-UK strikes on Yemen are shattering what remains of the UAE-Saudi-led coalition. Now Yemenis of all stripes are flocking to embrace the Sanaa government and its resistance stance.

While the Red Sea military operations of Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah have shaken up geopolitical calculations of Israel's war on Gaza, they have also had far-reaching consequences on the country's internal political and military dynamics.

By successfully obstructing Israeli vessels from traversing the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Ansarallah-led Sanaa government has emerged as a powerful symbol of resistance in defense of the Palestinian people - a cause deeply popular across Yemen's many demographics. Sanaa's position stands in stark contrast to that of the Saudi and Emirati-backed government in Aden, which, to the horror of Yemenis, welcomed attacks by US and British forces on 12 January.

The US-UK airstrikes have offended Yemenis fairly universally, prompting some heavyweight internal defections. Quite suddenly, Sanaa has transformed into a destination for a number of Yemeni militias previously aligned with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, now publicly declaring their allegiance to Ansarallah.

Comment: See also: Arab states helping Israel bypass Yemen's Red Sea blockade

Best of the Web: The Rise of Techno-Authoritarianism

Adrienne LaFrance
The Atlantic
Tue, 30 Jan 2024 07:00 UTC

Silicon Valley has its own ascendant political ideology. It's past time we call it what it is.

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.

If you had to capture Silicon Valley's dominant ideology in a single anecdote, you might look first to Mark Zuckerberg, sitting in the blue glow of his computer some 20 years ago, chatting with a friend about how his new website, TheFacebook, had given him access to reams of personal information about his fellow students:

Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuckerberg: Just ask.
Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
Friend: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuckerberg: People just submitted it.
Zuckerberg: I don't know why.
Zuckerberg: They "trust me"
Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks.

Best of the Web: CIA staffer behind Wikileaks' US hacking revelations gets 40 years

RT
Fri, 02 Feb 2024 14:12 UTC

Comment: 40 years!!!

A former CIA software engineer who allegedly gave a massive trove of classified information to WikiLeaks has been sentenced to 40 years in prison by a New York judge.

US District Court Judge Jesse Furman handed down the sentence against Joshua Schulte on Thursday, falling short of the life prison term that federal prosecutors had requested. Schulte, who was accused of carrying out the largest theft of US secrets in the CIA's history, was convicted on charges of espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and possessing child pornography.

Schulte, 35, was the source behind the so-called Vault 7 release by WikiLeaks in 2017, which revealed the methods used by the CIA to hack smartphones and other devices. The bombshell report exposed how the US spied on foreign governments, terrorism suspects, and other targets. The release also reportedly triggered a secret CIA plot to kidnap or assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Comment: Indeed, this was the leak that drove the deep state psychos over the edge, and committed them to abducting Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Prior to his arrest in 2018, Schulte had helped create the hacking tools that he later revealed to WikiLeaks. The CIA tactics included efforts to turn so-called smart TVs - televisions with online connectivity - into listening devices. Prosecutors claimed he was behind "the most damaging disclosures of classified information in American history."

Comment: Whether or not Schulte is 'guilty', he's being punished while the departments and government agencies which carried out the illegal operations the leaks in question exposed are free to continue doing as they please. The US is now well and truly like the USSR, when it was at its worst.

Best of the Web: Neil Oliver: Watch Out - it's lies & forever fear!

Neil Oliver
YouTube
Thu, 01 Feb 2024 15:45 UTC

Neil Oliver

'...instead of honest reporting we have a legion of lackeys & establishment toadies!'

Best of the Web: International Court of Justice REJECTS most of Ukraine's case against Russia

PBS
Wed, 31 Jan 2024 12:30 UTC

The United Nations' top court on Wednesday rejected large parts of a case filed by Ukraine alleging that Russia bankrolled separatist rebels in the country's east a decade ago and has discriminated against Crimea's multiethnic community since its annexation of the peninsula.

The International Court of Justice ruled that Moscow violated articles of two treaties — one on terrorism financing and another on eradicating racial discrimination — but it rejected far more of Kyiv's claims under the treaties.

It rejected Ukraine's request for Moscow to pay reparations for attacks in eastern Ukraine blamed on pro-Russia Ukrainian rebels, including the July 17, 2014, downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that killed all 298 passengers and crew.

Comment: Russia was not responsible. This point is all the more glaring considering how, in just the last few days, Ukraine shot down a plane carrying 65 of its own troops.

Comment: It's telling that the ICJ has issued an order against Russia, but it has yet to do so against Israel over its genocide in Gaza.

Insight from journalist Kit Klarenberg:

Best of the Web: Pakistani ex-PM Khan, wife, sentenced to 14 years in prison for 'corruption'

RT
Tue, 30 Jan 2024 19:58 UTC

Comment: This is completely outrageous. He's really being locked up because Pakistan has elections next week and Khan keeps talking about how the CIA ousted him - a wildly popular and democratically-elected prime minister - from power...

A Pakistani court has sentenced former prime minister Imran Khan to ten years behind bars. He has been charged with leaking state secrets, according to the spokesman for the politician's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI).

On Tuesday, Zulfiqar Bukhari said, as quoted by AP, that the verdict was announced at a prison in the northern city of Rawalpindi, not far from the capital, Islamabad. The same sentence was also imposed on former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

The charges relate to the so-called cipher, a classified cable sent to Islamabad by the Pakistani ambassador to Washington in 2022, shortly after the start of the Ukraine conflict. The document allegedly suggested that the US wanted to remove Khan over his neutrality regarding the hostilities.

The ex-Pakistani PM called the cipher case on Tuesday "false," adding that it "is being completed in violation of constitutional requirements and legal regulations.""This is not a trial but a fixed match outcome of which was predetermined," he added.

Comment: This is exactly what they'd love to do to Trump. Khan thought he could stave off the CIA's maneuvering to oust him by exposing a cable documenting their efforts. Then, at the outset of the Russian SMO in Ukraine, Khan flew to Moscow in a show of support for Putin and to secure major energy deals because Khan figured, correctly, that energy markets were about to go haywire as the West imposed sanctions on Russia. At that point, Washington's stooges within Pakistani military-intelligence pounced, contriving first a 'vote of no- confidence', then criminal charges, finally his arrest, and now his incarceration.

All because he wanted to finally make Pakistan a real country and not some 'wild frontier outpost' for the Anglo-American empire.

See also:

Best of the Web: Karaganov: An Age of Wars?

Sergei A. Karaganov
Russia in Global Affairs
Wed, 31 Jan 2024 17:31 UTC

"And black, earth's blood

Promises us, inflating the veins,

Destroying all borders,

Unprecedented changes,

Unprecedented riots..."[1]

Alexander Blok "Retribution", 1911.

I begin this article with the words of my best-loved Russian poet Alexander Blok, who is comparable in his gift of clairvoyance to the greatest Russian genius Fyodor Dostoevsky. I have long been watching the world inexorably moving towards a wave of military conflicts threatening to develop into a third world thermonuclear war that can in all likelihood destroy human civilization. This prognosis was one of the main reasons why I published a series of articles about why it is necessary to restore the credibility of nuclear deterrence, which kept the world safe for more than fifty years.

Best of the Web: Fire tears through huge egg farm in Texas

Emma Richter
Daily Mail
Tue, 30 Jan 2024 15:59 UTC

A massive fire broke out at Feather Crest Farms in Bryan, Texas at about 5pm Monday

Huge column of black smoke rises over burning chicken farm in Texas as officials warn the inferno will take days to extinguish - with locals told to stop pulling over to take photos

A massive fire is tearing through a chicken farm in Texas sending a huge plume of smoke into the sky.

The blaze has since been contained between two buildings and tanks but officials have warned that it could take days to put the fire out.

It is unclear how the fire started and how many chickens were injured, but no injuries have been reported as the farm is located in a rural area with few homes nearby.

Comment: By this point, it's clear that there is a concerted attack on supply chains with a focus on food plants and processors, as well as energy suppliers and infrastructure; and it's global in scope.

Just last week: Explosion & major fires at food plant in Italy, shopping centre in Serbia, gas supplier in Mongolia, factory in Kazakhstan

See also: Predatory Sparrow: The terrorist attacks of an Israel-linked hacker group

Best of the Web: Tower 22: Smoke & mirrors

Julian MacFarlane
News Forensics on Substack
Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:57 UTC

The "Attack on the Tower"

The attack on US forces in Syria and Jordan is getting a lot of attention. Biden has vowed a response which many assume means war with the Iran.

We will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing. Genocide Joe

That is, US response is likely to be asymmetric to avoid a larger war - at this time anyway.

Moon of Alabama notes:

At least 6 U.S. Air Force KC-135 Aerial-Refueling Tankers, most from March Air Reserve Base in Southern California, are heading Northeast across the United States and preparing to Transit the Atlantic towards the U.K. and Europe.

He thinks that these tankers are intended for the Middle East to protect the US airbases by keeping fighter jets in the air!

Ummm ...this would require air assets to be airborne 24/ 7.

Each tanker can refuel only a few jets at a time and there a lot more airbases in the Middle East than these six tankers! In addition, tankers are big, slow, and vulnerable - rather easy targets — should push come to strike.

No matter, these tankers' stated destination is the UK and Europe.

Best of the Web: Predatory Sparrow: The terrorist attacks of an Israel-linked hacker group

Andy Greenberg
WIRED
Thu, 25 Jan 2024 19:00 UTC

From repeatedly crippling thousands of gas stations to setting a steel mill on fire, Predatory Sparrow's offensive hacking has now targeted Iranians with some of history's most aggressive cyberattacks.

About eight minutes after 3 am on June 27, 2022, inside the Khouzestan steel mill near Iran's western coastline on the Persian Gulf, a massive lid lowered onto a vat of glowing, molten metal. Based on footage from a surveillance camera inside the plant, the giant vessel was several times taller than the two workers in gray uniforms and hardhats standing nearby, likely large enough to carry well over a hundred tons of liquid steel heated to several thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

In the video, the two workers walk out of frame. The clip jump-cuts forward 10 minutes. Then suddenly, the giant ladle is moving, swinging steadily toward the camera. A fraction of a second later, burning embers fly in all directions, fire and smoke fill the factory, and incandescent, liquid steel can be seen pouring freely out of the bottom of the vat onto the plant floor.

Comment: Notably, this escalation is also in line with the WEF's threat of a looming 'cyber pandemic', and it comes amidst an increasing number of serious cyberattacks:

"Thuc Dho is a name created to represent a typical one." - That's not the only thing that was 'created' in this story. I flew Hueys on my first...

Spur

This parasite needs to be careful when he goes back out into the world because some people in Blighty ain't so forgiving. He could end up dead...

Peter Jennings

Unaware that they abandon future prospects for a short-term gain. Or, to quote the famous Mr. Ulyanov : The capitalists will sell us the rope with...

codis

Warsaw wants to host NATO arms under the bloc's sharing scheme. Who is that „Warsaw”? All the Warsaw's inhabitants, maybe? Really? Or perhaps...

Zbigniew

Moscow describes it as a proxy war being waged by Washington and its partners, using Ukrainians as "cannon fodder" to further Western interests....

Zbigniew

Best of the Web:

Best of the Web: Yemeni officials allied with West-UAE-Saudi coalition ditch 'UN recognised gov't' to join the defenders of Gaza

Best of the Web: The Rise of Techno-Authoritarianism

Best of the Web: CIA staffer behind Wikileaks' US hacking revelations gets 40 years

Best of the Web: Neil Oliver: Watch Out - it's lies & forever fear!

Best of the Web: International Court of Justice REJECTS most of Ukraine's case against Russia

Best of the Web: Pakistani ex-PM Khan, wife, sentenced to 14 years in prison for 'corruption'

Best of the Web: Karaganov: An Age of Wars?

Best of the Web: Fire tears through huge egg farm in Texas

Best of the Web: Tower 22: Smoke & mirrors

Best of the Web: Predatory Sparrow: The terrorist attacks of an Israel-linked hacker group

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