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Bad Guys

Latvian defense minister praises Waffen-SS legion as 'heroes'


RT
Tue, 01 Oct 2019 18:25 UTC
Latvian Waffen
© The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia / okupacijasmuzejs.lv
In a disturbing example of revising the role of Nazi collaborators in World War II, a Latvian minister said veterans, his compatriots who fought in the Waffen-SS, were "heroes" and memories of their sacrifice must be cherished.

"It is our duty to honor these Latvian patriots from all the depths of our souls," Defense Minister Artis Pabriks told the crowd during a memorial event on Saturday.

He then called the Latvian legionnaires - Nazi collaborators now praised as freedom-fighters for their anti-Soviet alignment - "heroes" and "the pride of the Latvian nation and state."
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Headphones

Best of the Web: Julian Assange's lawyers were placed under surveillance. But that's not the whole story

Tom Coburg
The Canary
Sun, 29 Sep 2019 17:49 UTC
assange
© Flickr/Cancillería del EcuadorJulian Assange at the Embassy of Ecuador, London
A private security company organised 24/7 surveillance of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during his stay at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. This included confidential meetings between Assange and members of his legal team. The surveillance was provided directly to the CIA. These revelations could possibly jeopardise the viability of the US extradition case.

But within this story there lies another that raises serious questions about the establishment media and allegiances.

CIA streaming

According to El Pais, Spanish security firm UC Global was responsible for the surveillance of Assange when he was a guest of the Ecuadorian government at their London embassy. UC Global, a firm with an address in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), was hired by Senain, the former Ecuadorian intelligence service, ostensibly to provide protection for Assange.

Comment:

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Mr. Potato

Poroshenko fails to show up for tax-evasion lie detector test


RFE/RL
Tue, 01 Oct 2019 17:50 UTC
Poroshenko
"I'm Petro 'Ukronazi' Poroshenko, and I approve this message"
Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has failed to show up for a polygraph test at the Kyiv Forensics Research Institute in a tax evasion case.

A representative for the institute, Yuriy Irkhin, told reporters on October 1 that Poroshenko's questioning was scheduled for the morning but the former president never turned up.

Irkhin added that even several hours after the appointed time, the institute was ready to perform questioning with a lie detector. However, that chance never materialized.

A court in Kyiv granted permission for authorities to administer a polygraph test to Poroshenko in August.

The former president told reporters on August 12 that he is ready to answer questions with the use of a polygraph, but only in the studio of the Pryamiy (Direct) television channel, adding that he did not trust the State Bureau for Investigations (DBR).

However, Irkhin told journalists that it was impossible to conduct polygraph questioning in a live broadcast.
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Russian Flag

Four years of Russian counterterrorism operations in Syria: Key facts to know


Sputnik
Mon, 30 Sep 2019 17:18 UTC
Assad putin Shoigu Syria
© Sputnik / Michael KlimentyevPresident of Russia Vladimir Putin, President of Syria Bashar al-Assad (left) and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the Hmeymim Air Base in Syria
Monday marks the fourth anniversary of the counterterrorism operation the Russian Armed Forces carried out in Syria at the latter's request.

The Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011, continues to this day. The Daesh* and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as the Nusra Front), have been the most active extremist groups during the conflict.

Since September 2014, an international coalition led by the United States has been attacking Daesh positions in Syria. However, the operation is being conducted without the approval of the UN Security Council or Damascus.

By the fall of 2015, the situation in Syria was critical. As of September 30, 2015, only 8 percent of the country's territory was under government control.

Comment: No country has done more to advance the overall cause of peace in the Middle East. Russian diplomacy is a gift to the world.

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Dollar Gold

Ex-MI6 chief sez Saddam Hussein 'bribed Jacques Chirac' to oppose the US-led Iraq war

Abdul Taher and Peter Henn
Daily Mail
Sat, 28 Sep 2019 02:54 UTC
Jacques Chirac
© AFP/Getty imagesFormer French President Jacques Chirac (pictured in 2007) died at the age of 86 'surrounded by his family', according to his son in law. During his time in office Chirac had led an alliance of France, Germany and Russia against plans by the US and Britain to invade Iraq
Jacques Chirac was paid millions of pounds in bribes by Saddam Hussein to oppose the US-led war in Iraq, according to intelligence revealed for the first time by Britain's former spy chief.

Sir Richard Dearlove - head of MI6 in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 - spoke out as recent obituaries for the former French President cited his principled opposition to US President George Bush's plans for military action.

But the former spymaster, speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, revealed that Chirac's true motive for opposing the Gulf War was because he accepted 'substantial amounts' of cash from the Iraqi tyrant for his election

Comment: Dead men tell no tales! RT aptly states:
The chemistry between Chirac and Saddam is no secret and dated back to the 1970s, when the former was prime minister of France and the latter was vice president of Iraq. At that time, France supplied Iraq with technology for the Osirak nuclear plant, which the Iraqis dubbed O-Chirac after the Frenchman, and which was obliterated by a presumed Israeli air raid in 1981.

People have long been talking about dark money allegedly flowing from Saddam's personal pockets to Chirac's campaign coffers, but they were always unsubstantiated rumors. Now Dearlove has promoted the allegation to the level of US and UK intelligence services - which doesn't do much for its credibility, considering that the faulty basis for the 2003 Iraq war came from the same source.

Neither does the fact that Dearlove is taking a swing at Chirac's reputation when the late statesman is no longer capable of responding.
The Guardian from 2016 states:
Blair responded that the intelligence was clear: Saddam had revived his WMD programme. However, the French president, Jacques Chirac, had a different view. He told me and the International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, that he thought there were no WMD and that the various national intelligence agencies had "intoxicated" each other when sharing information. They had. In addition, the cautionary question marks they sometimes provided had been replaced by exclamation marks at the political level.

Blair and other leaders misrepresented reality, urging a war over the faulty picture they had created.


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Gold Bar

Chinese authorities find 13.5 tons of gold piled in corrupt ex-governor's home


RT
Tue, 01 Oct 2019 16:27 UTC
gold
One Chinese official has some serious explaining to do after investigators came across mounds of gold in his house in Haikou City, Hainan province.

Zhang Qi, a member of provincial and municipal party committees, was reportedly undergoing a disciplinary review and being investigated for possible illegality when the enormous stash was uncovered.


Authorities found some 13.5 tons of gold, as well as millions of yuan in cash and antiques, plus evidence of a huge portfolio of luxury real estate. According to local reports, the disciplinary commission announced in early September that they were looking into the ex-governor's affairs.

Officials convicted of 'economic crimes' or corruption can face the death penalty in China.

Comment: That's around $650 million in gold, give or take. Graft is one of the perks of political power, no matter what the political system may be. But as RT notes, China has the death penalty for economic crimes of this sort. Politics may have the potential for obscenely high - and highly unethical - payoffs, but the stakes are equally high. And they have been throughout history, the power elites' acquisitiveness bounded only by the hands of their equally powerful peers (and competitors). For more on this history, see:

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MIB

Best of the Web: Our man on Twitter: Senior Twitter exec Gordon MacMillan outed as British Army information warrior

Kit Klarenberg
Sputnik
Mon, 30 Sep 2019 13:50 UTC
gordan macmillan 77th brigade twitter psyops
Gordon MacMillan, a senior Twitter staffer with editorial responsibility for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, joined the social media giant's UK office in April 2013 - however it's unclear when he was recruited to 77th Brigade, the British army's shadowy psychological warfare unit.

Nonetheless, an official army notice published July 2018 notes Gordon MacMillan was appointed "Second Lieutenant (on probation)" in Reserve Group 'A' in February 2016 - and somewhat ironically given 77th Brigade's undercover nature, MacMillan for some time made no secret of his involvement, openly advertising on his LinkedIn that he was "a reserve officer in the British Army serving in 77th Brigade, which specialises in non-lethal engagement". Since his very public exposure by Middle East Eye, all references to the Brigade have been expunged from his profile - although 'Royal Military Academy Sandhurst' is still listed under 'Education'.

Comment: More on Gordan MacMillan and the activities of the 77th Brigade psyops.

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Newspaper

Jihadists 'storm' US air base, bomb EU military convoy, in surprise Somalia attacks

Tareq Haddad
Newsweek
Mon, 30 Sep 2019 10:27 UTC
Somalia attack
Somalia suicide bombing rips through Mogadishu market, killing 39, injuring 50
Jihadists in Somalia have attacked a U.S. military base in the southern Lower Shabelle region of the country on Monday, while a second attack targeted a European peace-keeping envoy in the capital of Mogadishu.

In the first attack, two cars packed with explosives were driven towards the Balegdole air base before being detonated at its gates. Bursts of gunfire then followed as jihadists tried to breach the base.

Al-Shabab, Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked insurgent group, said it was responsible for the attack in a statement and claimed its fighters had been successful in entering the base.

Comment: See also:

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Bullseye

Best of the Web: Israel is the origin of modern terrorism - Malaysia's PM delivers scathing UN speech

Joseph Raj
Malaysia Mail
Sat, 28 Sep 2019 08:30 UTC
Mahathir Mohamad
© Bernama picPrime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad delivering his statement at the General Debate of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York September 28, 2019.
The creation of Israel by seizing Palestinian land and expelling its 90 per cent Arab population is the root cause of terrorism, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.

"Since then, wars have been fought in many countries, many related to the creation of Israel. And now we have terrorism when there was none before, or at least none on the present scale.

"Military action against acts of terrorism will not succeed. We need to identify the cause and remove it. But the great powers refuse to deal with the root cause," he said in his statement at the General Debate of the 74th UN General Assembly here.

Comment: You can watch the full speech below. It starts at the part relevant to the above:


See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Footprints

Ukraine mystery: Schiff staffer made August visit for think-tank backed by Hunter Biden's old employer

Aaron Klein
Breitbart
Mon, 30 Sep 2019 16:17 UTC
schiff
© Alex Wong/Getty ImagesAdam Schiff
A staffer for Rep. Adam Schiff's House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence took a trip to Ukraine last month sponsored and organized by the Atlantic Council think tank.

The Atlantic Council is funded by and routinely works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

The Schiff staffer, Thomas Eager, is also currently one of 19 fellows at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Congressional Fellowship, a bipartisan program that says it "educates congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region."

Eager's trip to Ukraine last month was part of the fellowship program and included nine other House employees. The bi-partisan visit, from August 24 to August 31, was billed as a "Ukraine Study Trip," and culminated in a meeting with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

The dates of the pre-planned trip are instructive. Eager's visit to Ukraine sponsored by the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council began 12 days after the so-called whistleblower officially filed his August 12 complaint about President Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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