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Binoculars

All fakers are equal, but some are more equal than others: Browder, Magnitsky, Panama Papers, and fake news

Andrei Kenkrasov
magnitskyact.com
Sat, 27 Apr 2019 17:55 UTC
magnitsky
The case of Claas Relotius, an award winning Spiegel writer, who was caught writing fiction and selling it as true stories, seemed to be a game changer in the world of journalism. Yet it soon became just yesterday's news. And, as Thomas Beschorner of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, wrote, it was surprising in the first place that people found the lying in the media so surprising. "Scientists manipulate results of research, managers lie. We know all that happens. Everywhere, but not in journalism?"

Somewhat paradoxically, given his suggestion that lying was routine and common, the same Prof. Beschorner continued: "Whether this is an isolated case, or the problem is systemic and therefore widespread, we don't know yet."

Then a similar case was discovered. An award winning contributor to Sueddeutsche Zeitung Magazine, Dirk Gieselmann, had invented a main protagonist in a story he wrote. The SZ stated the forgery had taken place, but revealed few details, while suggesting the case was not as severe as that of Relotius.

One way or another, do two known recent cases of fictitious journalism in Germany make the problem systemic?

But what about the infamous fake news? And alternative facts? Those have been around for a while. Is that something totally different from making up plots and characters as in the above mentioned cases?

Even though it was Donald Trump who was credited with creating the fake-news brand, it was largely applied to his own statements, as well as various stories, posts and tweets coming out of Russia, on its behalf, in favour of its perceived friends, and against its perceived enemies.
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Russian Flag

Rachel Maddow flips out after YouTube allegedly recommends an RT video


RT
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 17:46 UTC
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow
© Global Look Press
Russiagate guru Rachel Maddow has caught wind of the latest Kremlin-linked outrage: YouTube recommended an RT video about the Mueller report! And now social media users have lined up to laugh at her.

The MSNBC host ascended her Twitter pulpit to share a shocking Washington Post article detailing how YouTube allegedly recommended an RT video "hundreds of thousands of times" to users seeking information about the recently released report by special counsel Robert Mueller.


"Death by algorithm," a despondent Maddow commented.

The video in question - an episode of On Contact, which is hosted by Pulitzer prize-winning American journalist Chris Hedges - features an interview with Canadian journalist Aaron Mate. A fierce critic of the Trump-Russia collusion theory promoted by mainstream media, Mate recently received an Izzy Award for his contrarian reporting on Russiagate.
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Star of David

Netanyahu, Rivlin condemn US shooting, urge more education against anti-Semitism

Michael Bachner
Times of Israel
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 16:53 UTC
netanyahu rivlin
© Marc Israel Sellem/PoolPresident Reuven Rivlin (right) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a memorial service marking 23 years since the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, at Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem, on October 21, 2018.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin were among leaders in Israel and abroad who reacted Sunday to a deadly shooting a day earlier at a US Chabad synagogue in Poway, California.

Local authorities say 19-year-old John Earnest opened fire with an assault rifle on worshipers during morning services on the last day of Passover, killing 60-year-old Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounding three people: the rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein; Israeli Noya Dahan, 8, who was hit by shrapnel in the face and leg; and her uncle Almog Peretz, 31, who was shot in the leg. All three are in stable condition.

The attack happened exactly six months after a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue killed 11 people in the deadliest attack on Jews in US history.

"I condemn the abhorrent attack on a synagogue in California; this is an attack on the heart of the Jewish people," Netanyahu said in a statement. "We send condolences to the family of Lori Gilbert-Kaye and our best wishes for a quick recovery to the wounded. The international community must step up the struggle against anti-Semitism."


Comment: Not just anti-Semitism. This comes hot on the heels of major attacks on churches and mosques. The mentality of the attackers is the same, whether they're Jewish, Christian, Muslim. But identity-politics-obsessed leaders like Netanyahu are only concerned about their own tribe.


In light of an upsurge in anti-Semitic attacks around the world, Netanyahu "will this week convene a special discussion of all elements dealing with the issue," the Prime Minister's Office added.

Comment: See also:

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Bad Guys

Iranian FM Zarif says quitting nuclear proliferation treaty is an option amid renewed US sanctions


RT
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 15:56 UTC
Zarif
© Reuters / Carlo AllegriIran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, April 24, 2019
Iran may pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as part of retaliatory measures to a renewed sanctions push from Washington, Iran's foreign minister has said.

Mohammad Javad Zarif said that quitting the agreement designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons was among "numerous options" available to Tehran, state broadcaster IRIB reported on Sunday. The move comes after the Trump administration announced new efforts on Monday to cut Iranian oil exports "to zero" by removing exemptions from sanctions for US buyers of Iranian crude.
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Pyramid

Best of the Web: Managing Russia's dissolution: How disinformation works to divide and conquer


South Front
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 15:33 UTC

Comment: This is a longer-form video report from South Front. And an exceptionally good one at that. Though focusing on the Western elites' hare-brained schemes to break up Russia to 'save it', the methods it describes are at work globally as part of the One World Government's desire to control 'manage' all life on Earth...



Transcript

At the start of the year, on January 9, The Hill, a leading US political newspaper, as if setting the year's agenda put out an article entitled "Managing Russia's dissolution". The article reviews the measures needed to dismantle Russia and instigate civil conflicts on the territory of Eurasia. The author, Bugajski, describes Russia as "a declining state that disguises its internal infirmities with external offensives". He further claims that "Russia is heading toward fragmentation" under "rising social, ethnic and regional pressures" and simultaneously blamed the federal government both for failing "to develop into a nation state with a strong ethnic or civic identity" and for working to centralize control over the regions.

The article continues with speculations that "regions such as Sakha and Magadan in the far east, with their substantial mineral wealth, could be successful states without Moscow's exploitation" and that "emerging states will benefit from forging closer economic and political contacts with neighboring countries rather than depending on Moscow". Siberia and Russia's far east are also named among the regions that "will become" separated from the center "thus encouraging demands for secession and sovereignty".
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Hardhat

Best of the Web: Muslims and the working class: France's marginalized and natural Yellow Vest allies

Ramin Mazaheri
The Saker
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 14:06 UTC
gilets jaunes pairs protest
© Kamil Zihnioglu | APYellow Vests protesters march on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, March 2, 2019.
Yellow Vests and Muslims are the two largest groups in France which suffer from socioeconomic marginalization - and there is no doubt that they will be open political allies, eventually.

Even though the Yellow Vest anti-government movement is historic in scope, duration and intensity, and even though Muslims comprise 5-10% of France's population, there has been almost zero media coverage of the interplay between these two forces.

Check Google in French or English and you truly find almost nothing. I have been waiting and waiting to do a story on this angle for Iran's PressTV - I am their Paris correspondent - but there is simply no "news peg" from which we can start any report.

The reasons for this silence are due to four key reasons but, mostly, it's because the plight of Muslims and Yellow Vests are so obviously similar: just as French media ignores the Muslim community to promote violent misrepresentations instead, so they ignore the true substance of the Yellow Vests in favor of tabloid coverage.

Comment: The author may wish for more, but just the fact that this protest movement is taking place in France - the Western country with the largest Muslim majority - tells us a lot about its overall resilience against the decades of 'clash of civilization' brainwashing, and the utter failure of the 'Global War on Terror' to atomize this particular population into total submission...

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MIB

Best of the Web: Suspicious timing: Sunday Times interviews 'New IRA' terrorists

John Mooney
Sunday Times
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 11:49 UTC
New IRA Sunday Times
Original Sunday Times headline
The New IRA has said the political fallout from Britain's decision to leave the European Union has presented it with an opportunity to recruit young supporters as Brexit has underlined the presence of the border and partition.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, which took place after the murder of Lyra McKee in Derry on April 18, representatives from the group's army council acknowledged there was no public support for their campaign of violence but said they would continue to mount attacks in Northern Ireland for propaganda reasons.


Comment: So, this newly constituted terrorist group kills someone, then has a free pass to be interviewed by the British security services' favourite newspaper? Hmmm...


"Our armed actions serve one purpose. They are symbolic. They are propaganda. They let the world know there is an ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland," said one of the dissident leaders.

"Condemning the IRA is nothing new. We are not interested in being popular. Republicanism has always been a small core of people."

The dissident added: "Brexit has forced the IRA to refocus and has underlined how Ireland remains partitioned. It would be remiss of us not to capitalise on the opportunity."

Comment: The return of Irish 'nationalist' terrorism in Northern Ireland (and in Britain) in recent years has only one real winner: the British security state. (Well, two winners: the pro-Anglo-American ultra-liberal Dublin government gets to rag on again about the evils of nationalism).

A fundamental reason why Sinn Fein/the Provisional IRA gave up terrorism in the 1990s was because their organization was by then thoroughly riddled with British (and even some American) spies. For decades, their man in charge of deciding who was or was not a British spy (and executing them)... was a British spy.

With the game rigged at that level, Sinn Fein/IRA settled for playing politics and the long game. It took a little longer than they anticipated, but indeed an opportunity for Irish reunification has opened up: Brexit. But they have to play it right. And, as any actual Irish nationalist will have obviously by now figured out, playing it violently is the surest way for reunification to NOT happen.

What better way to thwart the leverage the EU currently has over London, whereby it risks 'losing' Northern Ireland to Dublin/the EU in the event of a hard Brexit, than by reigniting a spiral of terror which justifies the re-imposition of a hard border?

"Sorry, we would have allowed you to govern yourselves, whole and free, but you're clearly not civilized enough for that yet..."

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Bomb

OPEC oil cut agreement clashes with end of US waivers on Iranian oil, 'hard to imagine how market will react' - Putin


RT
Sat, 27 Apr 2019 13:26 UTC
iran oil
© FILE PHOTO REUTERS / Raheb Homavandi
It's hard to foresee how US efforts to bring Iranian oil exports to zero will play out in future, Vladimir Putin admitted, saying OPEC members should live up to their obligation to keep output as low as possible if it comes true.

Russia has an agreement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut their output by 1.2 million barrels per day, which remains in effect until July of this year, Putin said. But the US waivers - which gave a host of countries an exemption from the existing anti-Iran sanctions - expire much earlier, he reminded.

"I don't imagine how the global energy market will react to that."

In November, the US re-imposed sanctions on Iran's energy, shipbuilding and banking sectors in a bid to deprive Tehran of its main sources of revenue. But it simultaneously issued waivers to China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey - the main importers of Iranian crude - so that they can find alternative vendors of oil.

Comment: The US, being completely unprincipled will, if they can't coerce the Saudi's into breaking the deal, do whatever it needs to do to maintain some semblance of control, even if that means, yet again, extending the waivers. After all, they were shamelessly importing Venezuela's oil while threatening other nations with sanctions for doing the same, and, at the same time, failing to overthrow the government there: What sanctions? US imports of Venezuelan oil surge five-fold

See also:

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Document

So, whatever happened to the Swedish warrant?

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk
Sat, 27 Apr 2019 10:24 UTC
Assange
© Reuters/Daniel Tapia
If the Swedish allegations against Julian Assange were genuine and not simply a ruse to arrest him for extradition to the United States, where is the arrest warrant now from Sweden and what are the charges?

Only the more minor allegation has passed the statute of limitations deadline. The major allegation, equivalent to rape, is still well within limits. Sweden has had seven years to complete the investigation and prepare the case. It is over two years since they interviewed Julian Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy. They have had years and years to collect all the evidence and prepare the charges.

So where, Swedish prosecutors, are your charges? Where is your arrest warrant?

Julian Assange has never been charged with anything in Sweden. He was merely "wanted for questioning", a fact the MSM repeatedly failed to make clear. It is now undeniably plain that there was never the slightest intention of charging him with anything in Sweden. All those Blairite MPs who seek to dodge the glaring issue of freedom of the media to publish whistleblower material revealing government crimes, by hiding behind trumped-up sexual allegations, are left looking pretty stupid.

Comment: See also:

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X

'What you're doing is insincere': Angry volunteer says Trudeau's virtue signalling delayed sandbagging amid Ottawa flooding


Global News
Sat, 27 Apr 2019 10:57 UTC
volunteer berates trudeau
© Global News
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was confronted by an unidentified man who accused him and his people of blocking the roads and slowing down sandbagging operations on Saturday - though his office later said that traffic had not been blocked.

The confrontation came as the prime minister picked up a shovel Saturday to lend a hand with sandbagging efforts, as he and his two sons visited a west-end Ottawa community hit hard by rising flood waters.

Trudeau was briefed by officials in charge of the fight against the flood at a community centre before filling sandbags and thanking those who came to the aid of local residents.

Comment: Silly of this volunteer to assume efforts to save property was more important than Trudeau's virtue signalling. Nothing stands in the way of the Prime Minister's photo op!

See also:

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