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Eye 2

Best of the Web: Der Spiegel finds Browder's Magnitsky narrative riddled with lies: Anti-Russian sanctions are based on fraudster's tales


RT
Mon, 25 Nov 2019 03:58 UTC
browder magnitsky
© Bill Browder / AFP / Drew Angerer; Sergey Magnitsky / AFP / Hermitage Capital ManagementBill Browder and Sergey Magnitsky (inset)
British investor Bill Browder has made a name for himself in the West through blaming Moscow for the death of his auditor, Sergey Magnitsky. Der Spiegel has picked apart his story and uncovers it has major credibility problems.

For years Browder - Russian President Vladimir Putin's self-proclaimed "enemy number one" and head of the Hermitage Capital Management fund - has been waging what can only be described as his personal anti-Russian campaign.

The passionate Kremlin critic relentlessly lobbied for sanctions against Russian officials everywhere from the US to Europe - all under the premise of seeking justice for his deceased employee, who died in Russia, while in pre-trial detention, where he'd been placed while accused of complicity in a major tax evasion scheme.

Comment: The MSM seems to be slowly getting up to speed on fraudster Browder. Andrei Nekrasov has been shouting the same facts from the rooftops for years, after discovering the truth while making a documentary that was initially sympathetic to the Magnitsky affair. It has had very few public screenings and was banned from Youtube due to Browder's legal threats. Alex Krainer wrote a book which Browder got banned from Amazon. Browder has so far been successful at shutting down anyone conducting a serious investigation into his criminal enterprises. Will the Der Speigel report break the mainstream media silence?

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Better Earth

Best of the Web: The road toward Greater Eurasia

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Sat, 23 Nov 2019 15:58 UTC
Eurasia
© Asia TimesKazakhstan's first president has road map for 21st century: global alliance of leaders for nuclear-free world
The Astana Club is one of the most crucial annual meetings in Eurasia, alongside the Boao forum in China and the Valdai discussions in Russia. China, Russia and Kazakhstan are all at the forefront of Eurasia integration. No wonder, then, that the 5th meeting of the Astana Club had to focus on Greater Eurasia - synonymous, it may be hoped, with a "new architecture of global cooperation."

Astana Club congregates a fascinating mix of Eurasia-wide notables with Europeans and Americans. Virtually all relevant shades of the geopolitical spectrum are represented. Panels are very well structured (I moderated two of them). Discussions are frank and non-denial denials are heavily discouraged. Here is just a taste of what was discussed in Nur-Sultan, under the spectacular shallow dome designed by Norman Foster.

Great stabilizer

Comment: See also:

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USA

Best of the Web: The Day John Kennedy Died

Edward Curtin
OffGuardian
Fri, 22 Nov 2019 20:16 UTC
John F Kennedy
© Off Guardian Org
There is a vast literature on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who died on a November 22nd Friday like this in 1963.

I have contributed my small share to such writing in an effort to tell the truth, honor him, and emphasize its profound importance in understanding the history of the last fifty-six years, but more importantly, what is happening in the U.S.A. today.

In other words, to understand it in its most gut-wrenching reality: that the American national security state will obliterate any president that dares to buck its imperial war-making machine. It is a lesson not lost on all presidents since Kennedy.

Unless one is a government disinformation agent or is unaware of the enormous documentary evidence, one knows that it was the CIA that carried out JFK's murder. Confirmation of this fact keeps arriving in easily accessible forms for anyone interested in the truth.

A case in point is James DiEugenio's recent posting at his website, KennedysandKing, of James Wilcott's affidavit and interrogation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, declassified by the Assassinations Record Review Board in 1998.

In that document, Wilcott, who worked in the finance department for the CIA and was not questioned by the Warren Commission, discusses how he unwittingly paid Lee Harvey Oswald, the government's alleged assassin, through a cryptonym and how it was widely known and celebrated at his CIA station in Tokyo that the CIA killed Kennedy and Oswald worked for the Agency, although he did not shoot JFK.

I highly recommend reading the document.
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Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: Grenfell Tower contractor's hiring for new project in London highlights neoliberal outsourcing nightmare

Neil Clark
RT
Fri, 22 Nov 2019 18:56 UTC
grenfell tower
© ZUMAPRESS.com
News that the principal Grenfell Tower contractor won a new contract worth almost £100 million to redevelop a London council estate might seem shocking, but really it's unsurprising given the way the system operates in the UK.

You couldn't make it up, could you?

Despite the secretary of state saying it should not bid for public works until investigations into the Grenfell fire had been completed, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan signing an order to that effect, Rydon - the principal contractor for Grenfell - has just been awarded a new contract worth almost £100 million ($129 million) for more redevelopment work from Ealing Council in London.

Ealing says it selected Rydon as a 'partner' for their project to demolish the 264-home High Lane estate and replace it with 450 homes in April 2017, i.e. two months before the Grenfell Fire. But why couldn't they have put the decision on hold until after the inquiry into the fire which, lest we forget, caused the death of 72 people?

What this highlights is how outsourcing in the neoliberal era allows councils and companies to evade proper responsibility. Only last month, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the judge in charge of the Grenfell Inquiry, said in his report into the first phase of the fire that the aluminium composite material cladding on the outside of the tower was the 'primary cause' of the flames spreading up the building. He said the external facade failed to comply with building regulations.
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Bullseye

Best of the Web: Caitlin Johnstone: Bitter, joyless told-you-sos - notes from the edge of the narrative matrix

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Thu, 21 Nov 2019 03:09 UTC
assange arrest
Julian Assange
Real change won't come until people rise up. People won't rise up as long as they're successfully propagandized. People will remain successfully propagandized until they evolve minds which can't be manipulated. Our world will change when our relationship with narrative changes.

It only takes a rudimentary understanding of human psychology to manipulate someone. Bernays was recruited by the US government to study the science of modern propaganda in 1917. This science has been in research and development for over a century. Don't underestimate its power.

The "Epstein didn't kill himself" thing is an interesting example of a grassroots, populist narrative control campaign. By that I mean that people wanted it to remain a high-profile feature in the news, and they knew the mass media wouldn't do that for them, so they've collectively forced it into mainstream attention and held it there by sheer collaborative force of will.
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Cow

Best of the Web: Adventists say Bible favors vegetarianism, but Mayo paper on dairy and prostate cancer raises question of religious bias in nutrition research

Paul John Scott
Inforum
Thu, 21 Nov 2019 07:00 UTC
vegetarian bowl
© James Sutton/Stocksnap
If you are a doctor and devout person of faith, and if your religion says vegetarianism is the diet endorsed by the Bible, can you be expected to study the science of food and health without bias?

It's an emerging question for the communities waging battle over methodological weaknesses in the dietary sciences, one highlighted by a recent, widely reported Mayo Clinic clinician-authored paper on the association between diet and prostate cancer.

The publication, a Journal of the American Osteopathic Association study by the Mayo oncology and hematology fellow Dr. John Shin and four Mayo Clinic Scottsdale colleagues, reviewed 47 studies dating back 11 years. It rendered a timely, vegan-friendly conclusion that diets high in dairy products "may be associated" with increased prostate cancer risk, and diets high in plant-based foods "may be associated" with decreased prostate cancer risk. The study was reported in new outlets across the U.S., U.K. and Australia.

Comment: An interesting question with a rather obvious answer. As stated in the comment above, any studies should include a full disclosure of who it is doing the research and what is informing their worldview. This of course goes for nutritional studies, but also any other scientific research. The 7th Day Adventist church has had an enormous influence on shaping worldwide government dietary guidelines, pushing them further and further toward a plant-based recommendation. People have the right to know that the dietary advice that they're receiving comes from a religious sect of dubious origins.

See also:

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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Ukraine's missing $7 billion: US denies Ukrainian authorities opportunity to present evidence of Democrat meddling in 2016 elections

John Solomon
The Hill
Sun, 07 Apr 2019 07:30 UTC
clinton Ukraine
© Brendan Smialowski / AFPHillary Clinton met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday, September 12, 2016.

Comment: A reminder that nearly seven months ago, Ukraine itself tried to bring evidence of outside interference in US elections, but were blocked by the U.S. Embassy in Kiev then headed by Marie Yovanovitch.


Ukrainian law enforcement officials believe they have evidence of wrongdoing by American Democrats and their allies in Kiev, ranging from 2016 election interference to obstructing criminal probes. But, they say, they've been thwarted in trying to get the Trump Justice Department to act.

Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Prosecutor General's International Legal Cooperation Department, told me he and other senior law enforcement officials tried unsuccessfully since last year to get visas from the U.S. embassy in Kiev to deliver their evidence to Washington.

"We were supposed to share this information during a working trip to the United States," Kulyk told me in a wide-ranging interview. "However, the (U.S.) ambassador blocked us from obtaining a visa. She didn't explicitly deny our visa, but also didn't give it to us."

Comment: So the Russia-gate ruse and the US-backed coup in Ukraine appears to have served more purposes than just baselessly vilifying Russia and Trump: UPDATE: On October 11, 2019 John Soloman gave a not widely publicized interview to Glen Beck regarding the efforts of the US embassy to thwart the Ukrainian officials:



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Eye 2

Best of the Web: Serbian arms are being trafficked to Ukraine: Evidence of contraband mortars used against Donbass

Dilyana Gaytandzhieva
Arms Watch
Thu, 21 Nov 2019 17:33 UTC
serbian arms donbass
© DNR Ministry of Defense, 9 November 2019This Serbian mortar shell 60 mm M73 HE manufactured by the Serbian arms factory Krusik in 2016 was found on the front line in Donbass.
New evidence has emerged of Ukraine's Army using contraband Serbian weapons in the war in Donbass. Serbia officially has not exported weapons to Ukraine since the beginning of the armed conflict between Ukraine and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR). However, Serbian weapons manufactured in 2016 appear to be used by Ukraine's Army in the war in Donbass.

This is not the first documented case of alleged Serbian mortar shells being fired by the Ukrainian Army.

Comment: Another great investigative effort by Dilyana Gaytandzhieva and Arms Watch. Here are some of her other reports holding illegal arms manufacturers and traffickers to account:

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Hourglass

Best of the Web: Now that Assange is safely locked up, Sweden drops its 'investigation'

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Thu, 21 Nov 2019 13:21 UTC
hands off assange
Now that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is safely locked up in Belmarsh prison awaiting a US extradition hearing, Sweden has, for a third time, dropped its rape investigation.

"After conducting a comprehensive assessment of what has emerged during the course of the preliminary investigation I then make the assessment that the evidence is not strong enough to form the basis for filing an indictment," said deputy chief prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson at a press conference in Stockholm on Tuesday.

This decision comes days after the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer began making noise about the Swedish government's refusal to answer his questions on the many enormous, glaring plot holes in the investigation which began in 2010. These plot holes include "proactive manipulation of evidence" with the testimony of the alleged victim, a condom provided as evidence that had neither the DNA of Assange nor of the alleged victim on it, complete disregard for confidentiality rules and normal investigative protocol from the earliest moments of the investigation onward, disregard for conflicts of interest, Sweden's refusal to provide assurance that Assange would not be extradited to the US if he went there to answer questions, statements made by the alleged victims which contradict the allegations, unexplained correspondence between Swedish prosecutors and the FBI, and many others.

Comment: Assange's father, after a recent visit, reported that he needed to face the bitter truth that his son may die in jail. So if we want to help Assange (and what thinking, feeling human wouldn't?) we must act NOW, before it's too late.

Let's share articles about him, write to him to support him, write to our governments, write to everyone in power in the UK where he is being held, sign petitions... Time is running out.

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USA

Best of the Web: Veterans to Congress: End forever wars

Hunter DeRensis
The National Interest
Mon, 18 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
Veteran for peace
George W. Bush's War on Terror began eighteen years ago, with no initiative on the part of the U.S. government to bring it to a conclusion. In those two decades, Americans have spent $6.4 trillion and lost seven thousand soldiers.


Comment: See: The cost of war: The so-called 'war on terror' has killed over 801,000 people and cost taxpayers $6.4 Trillion


While the U.S. House of Representatives played domestic politics with the first open impeachment inquiry hearing last Wednesday, a new veteran's organization, Bring Our Troops Home, held its first conference in Washington, DC. After a series of panels and speeches, 120 veterans traveled to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Force and end the "forever wars."

George W. Bush's War on Terror began eighteen years ago, with no initiative on the part of the U.S. government to bring it to a conclusion. In those two decades, Americans have spent $6.4 trillion and lost seven thousand soldiers. Polling this year indicates that a majority of War on Terror veterans now feel that it, and its military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, were not worth fighting at all.

Comment: Good on these devoted men and women for having the courage to speak out against what is probably the biggest crime of this or any other generation: the 'war on terror'.

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