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UK Home Secretary: MI5 committed serious safeguard breaches with interception warrants

Owen Bowcott
The Guardian
Tue, 14 May 2019 18:34 UTC
gchq
MI5 has committed "serious" breaches of surveillance safeguards in the way it handles information obtained under interception warrants, the home secretary, Sajid Javid, has admitted.

So severe was the compliance failure that the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office (IPCO) sent a team of inspectors into the intelligence agency for a week to investigate, according to the human rights organisation Liberty.

Liberty is one of a number of NGOs taking legal action over what it alleges are excessively intrusive surveillance powers. The IPCO, chaired by the appeal court judge Sir Adrian Fulford, is the official body responsible for overseeing government surveillance practices.

In a written statement to parliament last week that was not widely noticed, Javid said he was notifying MPs of "compliance risks MI5 identified and reported within certain technology environments used to store and analyse data, including material obtained under the Investigatory Powers Act".
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Bad Guys

Researchers find coordinated anti-Trump campaign on Instagram

Emily Birnbaum
The Hill
Mon, 20 May 2019 18:24 UTC
instagram
Researchers have identified what they are calling a coordinated campaign to undermine President Trump on Instagram, an effort that bears hallmarks of the disinformation campaigns that proliferated on the platform in 2016.

A recently published study by Italian analytics firm Ghost Data identified a network of 350 anti-Trump accounts coordinating efforts to promote messages deriding the president, sometimes with graphic or violent language. The researchers found 19 suspicious Instagram accounts that took the lead in promoting anti-Trump content.

In total, the posts from the accounts generated have more than 35.2 million interactions, with 3.9 million of those interactions occurring in the last two months. The study concluded that the anti-Trump Instagram campaign has ramped up over the past several months, with the network's activities swelling "dramatically" since April.

"Most content shared by these users is identical, while other images are slightly altered in size, colors, filter, partial or missing text," the researchers wrote.

Comment: While conservative voices are being silenced across social media, anti-Trump social media accounts that violate terms of service are somehow given a pass. It's almost as if there is a coordinated campaign between the Left and Silicon Valley to control what social media users see on their platforms.

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Target

Iranian President Rohani seeking expanded executive powers to deal with West's economic war


RFE/RL
Tue, 21 May 2019 18:21 UTC
rouhani
Iranian President Hassan Rohani has said he is seeking expanded, wartime executive powers to deal with an "economic war" being waged against the country by the United States.

Relations between Tehran and Washington have plummeted since last year when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 nuclear deal that curbed Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from crippling economic sanctions.

Since then, Washington has stepped up its rhetoric and reimposed sanctions.

There have been growing concerns of a possible military conflict with the United States, which has warned of "imminent threats" from Tehran, a claim Iran has denied.
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Arrow Up

War with Iran could send oil prices to $250 per barrel

Vincent Lauerman
Oilprice.com
Mon, 20 May 2019 18:16 UTC
iran soldiers
© AFP / Behrouz Mehri
As tensions between Iran and the US continue to escalate, analysts have begun to consider the likelihood and consequences of an Iran war.

There has been much talk of an Iran War in recent weeks, but the likelihood of a war, whether intentional or accidental, is relatively small for the simple reason that the leaders of Iran and the US don't want one. President Donald Trump, who has been remarkably faithful to his campaign promises, to the chagrin of many, doesn't want another Iraq-like war - with a quick victory followed by a long defeat. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, doesn't want his revolution and country crushed by the massive military might of America.

This is not to say there aren't powerful individuals in the Trump administration - such as National Security Advisor John Bolton and possibly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - and regional allies - Israel, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) - who want a war to bring about regime change in Iran, and who are willing to stir the pot in an attempt to make it happen.

Trump's personal preference for Iran may also be regime change, with a negotiated neutering of the Islamic Republic his next best outcome. But he probably would settle for long-term containment of Iran through his "maximum pressure" campaign, accepting that the Iranian regime would likely be able to sustain itself though skirting sanctions.
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Dominoes

Venezuela to ditch Visa & Mastercard by early 2020


RT
Tue, 21 May 2019 18:14 UTC
credit cards
© Reuters / Maxim Zmeyev
The central bank of Venezuela will develop an independent national payment system to get rid of international giants Visa and Mastercard in response to US sanctions, according to local media citing the regulator.

The document, which also separately mentions multi-national debit card service Maestro owned by Mastercard, orders a suspension of debit card operations starting November 2019 and payments via credit cards from January 2020.

The joint order was reportedly issued on May 16 by the central bank and Superintendency of the Institutions of the Banking Sector of Venezuela (SUDEBAN), responsible for ensuring the country's banks comply with local regulations. It instructs the banks to create a "sovereign" system to process financial operations that will use clients' biometric data.
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Star of David

Austrian Chancellor on contrived tape scandal: 'Reminds me of Israeli political strategist Tal Silberstein'


RT
Tue, 21 May 2019 17:58 UTC
Sebastian Kurz (L) and Tal Silberstein (R)
© Reuters / Leonhard Foeger and Wikipedia
Sebastian Kurz (L) and Tal Silberstein (R)

Comment: Ouf, that's one way to mention the I-word!...


Following Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache's resignation amid a corruption scandal, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has hinted that Israeli political strategist Tal Silberstein may have orchestrated the debacle.

Strache resigned on Saturday, one day after a video surfaced in German outlets showing the vice-chancellor discussing a quid-pro-quo agreement with a woman presented by the media as a niece of a Russian oligarch, filmed in Ibiza in 2017. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz quickly condemned Strache's alleged misdeeds, and called for snap elections.

However, both Strache - who headed Austria's Freedom Party, the junior coalition partner to Kurz's Austrian People's Party - and Kurz alleged dirty tricks were afoot.

Strache called the surreptitiously recorded tape a "targeted political assassination," and Kurz compared the scandal to a "dirty campaign" waged against him in 2017 by Austria's Social Democrats, via political adviser Tal Silberstein.

Comment: Kurz is stalking them back!

He's only 32, but he has balls of steel.

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Chess

Kremlin: Putin will laud Zelensky if he ends war & mends ties with Russia


RT
Tue, 21 May 2019 17:53 UTC
Volodymyr Zelenskiy
© REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
Vladimir Putin will send formal greetings to Volodymyr Zelensky but not until the new Ukrainian President succeeds in ending the war in Donbass and repairing ties with Russia, the Kremlin said.

Until "success in solving the domestic conflict in Eastern Ukraine" is achieved and Russia-Ukraine relations are normalized, congratulating Zelensky makes little sense, the Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Zelensky, formerly a well-known comedian and television star, was sworn in on Monday in Kiev. During his inaugural speech to Ukrainian lawmakers, he promised to attempt to reclaim "lost territories," namely Crimea and the east of the country. "Our first objective will be to achieve a ceasefire in Donbass," he said, referring to the eastern industrial region controlled by rebels.
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Pirates

Russian FSB chief: 5,000 terrorists gathered in northern Afghanistan, preparing to infiltrate former Soviet countries


RT
Tue, 21 May 2019 17:34 UTC
terrorists
© Reuters / Stringer
An Islamic State offshoot has amassed around 5,000 militants in northern Afghanistan on the border of post-Soviet republics of Central Asia, the director of Russia's FSB has warned, adding that many of them have fought in Syria.

"Especially worrying is re-deployment of terrorist groups into northern provinces of Afghanistan,"Alexander Bortnikov told chiefs of ex-Soviet intelligence services in Dushanbe. He warned that 'Wilayat Khorasan', a local Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) affiliate, had managed to gather 5,000 fighters in the area.

Terrorist cells are now infiltrating into former Soviet countries where they are forming ties with organized crime. To keep a low profile, they try to pose as refugees and migrants, according to Bortnikov.

Comment: This, of course, is exactly what large pools of Islamic terrorists are for: threatening rivals with.

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Snakes in Suits

EU establishment cries 'Russia!' in desperate bid to defeat critics

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Sat, 18 May 2019 20:20 UTC
eu leaders
© Reuters/Alessandro Garofalo
With European Parliament elections looming, the establishment parties and mainstream media are reaching for the playbook of US Democrats and hyping the specter of 'Russia' to drive voters away from the rising tide of populism.

One of the most outspoken liberals in the European Parliament, former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt, openly accused five populist politicians of being "paid by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin" and plotting to destroy the EU. Challenging Italian Deputy PM Matteo Salvini to a debate on Monday, Verhofstadt also name-checked Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, French opposition politician Marine Le Pen, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and freshly resigned Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache.

In another tweet, Verhofstadt framed the coming election in terms of voting for "pro-European"parties or "letting our continent become a playground for Trump & Putin's puppets," citing an EuroNews report about former Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon praising Le Pen's campaign in france.

Actually reading past the clickbait headline, however, quickly makes it apparent that Verhofstadt didn't bother: namely, the article clearly spells out that Bannon is in no way involved with Le Pen's campaign, and was commenting as a private person. It even quotes Le Pen's remarks to the French media complaining about the press "dragging" Bannon into the election.
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Chart Bar

Giant oligopoly: Monopolistic concentration of US corporate ownership is at unprecedented levels


Jon Hellevig's Blog
Mon, 13 May 2019 00:00 UTC
wall street money
A close-knit oligarchy controls all major corporations. Monopolization of ownership in US economy fast approaching Soviet levels

Starting with Ronald Reagan's presidency, the US government willingly decided to ignore the anti-trust laws so that corporations would have free rein to set up monopolies. With each successive president the monopolistic concentration of business and shareholding in America has grown precipitously eventually to reach the monstrous levels of the present day.

Today's level of monopolistic concentration is of such unprecedented levels that we may without hesitation designate the US economy as a giant oligopoly. From economic power follows political power, therefore the economic oligopoly translates into a political oligarchy. (It seems, though, that the transformation has rather gone the other way around, a ferocious set of oligarchs have consolidated their economic and political power beginning from the turn of the twentieth century). The conclusion that the US is an oligarchy finds support in a 2014 by a Princeton University study.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has not seen these levels of concentration of ownership. The Soviet Union did not die because of apparent ideological reasons but due to economic bankruptcy caused by its uncompetitive monopolistic economy. Our verdict is that the US is heading in the same direction.


Comment: To be fair, the Soviet Union had plenty of 'help' from its so-called 'friends'. For some background, see: Grand Deception: The 1990s Raid on Russia


Comment: Chris Hedges: The deadly rule of the oligarchs
Oligarchs accelerate social, political, cultural and economic collapse. The unchecked plunder leads to systems breakdown. The refusal to protect natural resources, or the economic engines that sustain the state, means that poverty becomes the norm and the natural world becomes a toxic wasteland. Basic institutions no longer work. Infrastructure is no longer reliable. Water, air and soil are poisoned. The population is left uneducated, untrained, impoverished, oppressed by organs of internal security and beset by despair. The state eventually goes bankrupt. Oligarchs respond to this steady deterioration by forcing workers to do more for less and launching self-destructive wars in the vain attempt to restore a lost golden age. They also insist, no matter how bad it gets, on maintaining their opulent and hedonistic lifestyles. They further tax the resources of the state, the ecosystem and the population with suicidal demands. They flee from the looming chaos into their gated compounds, modern versions of Versailles or the Forbidden City. They lose touch with reality. In the end, they are overthrown or destroy the state itself. There is no institution left in America that can be called democratic, and thus there is no internal mechanism to prevent a descent into barbarity.


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