Puppet MastersS


Star of David

Israeli Supreme Court rules shield border police - open-fire regulations to be kept secret from public

Israeli border police
© Dan CohenIsraeli border police officer aims rifle, Aida refugee camp
A press release by the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah) revealed on Sunday that Israel's Supreme Court has overturned a lower court's decision ordering police to publish regulations on open-fire policy.

The ruling, made in June, will be a major obstacle in bringing Israeli officers involved in shooting incidents to justice.

The Adalah Attorney who filed the petition seeking the publication of the open-fire regulations, Mohammad Bassam, told Mondoweiss that Adalah found the case of particular importance because he believes making Israeli police open fire-regulations available to the public would "limit the use of deadly gunfire on the part of officers."

In late 2015, Adalah had petitioned the courts seeking to require the police to make public sensitive sections of its open-fire regulations after new regulations were rumored to have been put in place, following a renewed wave of violence in Israel and Palestine.

While a lower court had initially ruled partially in favor of Adalah's petition, compelling police to publish the official regulations governing the use of fatal gunfire, an appeal filed by the Israeli police asked the court to impose a publication ban on the sensitive parts of the regulations Adalah was fighting to uncover.

Passport

White House lists immigration demands that could derail DACA deal

Trump speech
© Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump's immigration priorities include a call for Congress to build a wall along the U.S.'s southern border. |
The list will certainly turn off Democrats and even Republicans - many of whom have endorsed providing a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors.

President Donald Trump laid out his immigration principles for Capitol Hill on Sunday - a list of hardline policies that could seriously complicate the prospects of striking a deal with Democrats over the future of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants.

"The priority for Congress ought to be to save American lives, protect American jobs and improve the well-being of American communities. These reforms accomplish that," a senior administration official told reporters on Sunday night. "They live up to the president's campaign commitment to have an immigration system that puts the needs of hardworking Americans first."

The broad parameters of the immigration wish list have been telegraphed in recent days. But some of the key provisions run counter to an agreement Democratic leaders believed they'd struck with Trump during a White House dinner last month.

Comment:


Footprints

Russia accuses US of 'simulating' an anti-ISIS fight as terrorists slip into Syria from Iraq

ISIS trucks
© Al-Masdar NewsISIS slips into Syria, oops!
The Russian Defense Ministry has accused the US-led international coalition of "simulating" the fight against ISIS in Iraq. The coalition conducted fewer airstrikes in Iraq in September while well-armed terrorists crossed into Syria, Moscow added.

For the past week, the focus of the Russian-led air campaign in Syria has been to annihilate terrorists in the city of Al-Mayadeen, one of the terrorists' last strongholds southeast of the city of Deir ez-Zor.

Despite being almost encircled by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in Al-Mayadeen, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists continue to replenish their ranks and supplies in the Euphrates Valley, where the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are conducting their own operation against terrorists in the resource-rich region of Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

According to last week's estimates the Syrian military, with Russian air support, had liberated over 90 percent of Syria from IS forces.

Stressing that no one really doubts the inevitable defeat of IS terrorism in Deir ez-Zor, the Defense Ministry on Tuesday has questioned the US-led coalition's anti-terrorist effort in Iraq. "The ongoing fueling of terrorists from Iraq raises serious questions about the real objectives of anti-terrorist operations conducted in the region by the US and the so-called 'international coalition' jets," the ministry's spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, noted in Tuesday's statement.

Konashenkov wondered if the US-led anti-IS coalition had changed its priorities in Syria "to complicate as much as possible" the Syrian Army's operation to liberate the territory east of the Euphrates River, or if the US plan envisages driving all IS terrorists into Syria where the Russian Air Force will "take care" of them.

Comment: Occam's razor: All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.


Cell Phone

Russian tally: 1M+ evacuated within a month, telephone bomb scares continue

St Petersburg
© megapolisonline.ru / Global Look PressSt. Petersburg shopping mall evacuation
As bomb threat calls continue to inundate public locations across Russia, the number of evacuees has already hit over a million people since the start of the worrying trend a month ago, a source in the emergency services revealed.

Some 1.04 million people had to be evacuated starting from September 11, an unnamed source in emergency services revealed to RIA Novosti the scale of the epidemic, deemed 'telephone terrorism' by the authorities. Telephone calls have caused mass disruptions in 170 Russian cities, with bomb threats targeting more than 2,400 sites, the source said.

On Monday alone, nearly 80,000 people were affected by the alerts in seven cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. Airports, railway stations, educational facilities, hotels, shopping malls and offices have been targeted by the spate, with none of the threats turning out to be real.

As first calls started to flood Russian Far East, they quickly spread over to Siberia and the western part of the country. All 15 Russian cities with populations over 1 million have suffered from the evacuation epidemic, according to numbers by Meduza news outlet. The mass disruptions have cost an estimated 300 million rubles ($5.1 million) in economic damage over the first days of the calls, according to Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Aleksandr Bortnikov.

Comment: Whether there are real bombs or not, these threats take their toll. Craziness is spreading on a global scale.

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Handcuffs

Madrid threatens Catalan leader: Alludes to predecessor's fate of jail and execution

Carles Puigdemont
© RTECarles Puigdemont, Catalan leader
Just ahead of a highly anticipated speech in which the Catalan leader is expected to declare the region's independence from Spain, the Spanish ruling party has resorted to making threatening allusions to a previous independence bid.

"History should not be repeated. Let's hope that nothing is declared tomorrow because perhaps the one who declares it will end up like the one declared it 83 years ago," spokesman for Spain's ruling People's Party (PP) Pablo Casado said on Monday. The statement came less than 24 hours ahead of Carles Puigdemont's address to the Catalan parliament, where he is widely expected to defy the Madrid authorities and declare the region's secession from Spain.

Casado was apparently referring to Lluis Companys, president of Catalonia in the 1930s who proclaimed a 'Catalan State within the Spanish Federal Republic' in 1934. Companys had to flee after the Spanish Civil War to France, where he was later captured by the Nazis and handed over to Franco's regime. In 1940, Companys was tried for military rebellion and executed.

The comparison that came from a central government official has fueled tensions between Madrid and Barcelona. Casado's statement drew controversy and condemnation from Spanish and Catalan officials alike.


Comment: According to the given figures: "90.09% of the 2.26 million Catalans who voted, voted in favor of independence." The region has 5.3 million voters, which means 3.04 M potential voters outright did not vote. To say 90.09% were in favor gives the impression that this decision to secede was a slam dunk.


Stock Up

McAfee: World governments fear Bitcoin - they can't tax it

McAfee
© Jorge LopezSoftware pioneer John McAfee
Cryptocurrencies have captured the attention of investors and world governments alike, especially given Bitcoin's meteoric rise over the past 12 months. Cybersecurity expert John McAfee believes they may encompass the sum of all fears for governments the world over.

The blockchain technology that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are built on helps to solve the problems that plague traditional banking, by cutting out the middleman, thus reducing fees for consumers, while also decentralizing and securing transactions.

With no centralized exchange to control or influence, national authorities around the world will find it increasingly difficult to determine a given citizen's income and thus their income tax owed, undermining a critical source of government revenue, according to technology pioneer and head of MGT Capital Investments John McAfee.

"Our income taxes are the greatest source of revenue, but if everybody's using Bitcoin, the government doesn't know what your income is. They can't tax it, and if you choose to say I didn't have anything, they cannot prove otherwise," McAfee told CalvinAyre.com.

"It will eventually frighten every nation state, but it doesn't matter what they do, there's no way you can create a law or to legislate something that will stop Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency because technically, you cannot," he added.

Comment: A 'bit' of advice from someone who knows...to 'coin' a phrase.


Pirates

Erdogan: 'Western shadow' behind all terrorist groups, Daesh, al-Qaeda, PKK...

Erdogan
© AFP2017/STR/Turkish Presidential Press OfficeTurkish President Erdogan
A day after the Turkish president announced a new military operation in Syria's Idlib, he again lashed out at the West over its alleged "support" of terrorist groups.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the "West's shadow" is behind terrorist groups, including Daesh and al-Qaeda. He yet again accused the US-backed Syrian Kurds, Ankara believes to be linked to the PKK (outlawed in Turkey), of attempts to create a "terrorist corridor from Afrin to the Mediterranean" on the border with Turkey and vowed to defend his country's security.

"Islamic State [Daesh, ISIS, banned in Russia], al-Qaeda, PKK - behind all these organizations you will see the shadow of the West. All of them find refuge in the West. Where is FETO? Also in the West. They receive very serious financial support," President Erdogan said as quoted by RIA Novosti on Sunday, speaking to activists of the ruling Justice and Development Party.

Commenting on the upcoming military operation by the Turkish army to support Free Syrian Army rebels' fight against al-Nusra Front in Idlib, Erdogan said that the situation on the border with Syria is a threat to Ankara and "if we didn't take our measures, bombs would fall on our cities," referring to a deal on the creation of a de-escalation zone in the area brokered by Moscow, Tehran and Ankara.

Our efforts in Idlib are going on, in cooperation with the Free Syrian Army, without problems at the moment," he said, adding that Ankara's actions are in line with decisions made at the last round of the Astana talks on the Syrian settlement backed by Russia, Iran and Turkey.

Comment: Have to give Erdogan credit for his reality check, changing Turkey's alignment and loyalty.

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Headphones

Moscow: Radio Liberty may be deemed 'foreign agent' to counter US crackdown on Russian media

RFE/RL
© The Daily Signal/RFE/RLAmerican propaganda outlet.
Several services of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) might be restricted in Russia, the Russian Justice Ministry has warned the broadcaster, saying the measure comes in response to Washington's recent moves against Russian media in the US.

Russian authorities have warned the Washington-funded organization that its activity falls under Article 2 of the Russian Federal law on NGOs, which regards its operations as those of a foreign agent.

By law, Moscow "might impose restrictions" on the activities of the broadcaster in Russia, RFE/RL reported Monday, citing a letter from the Justice Ministry.

Several services of the broadcaster, including its Russian-language network Current Time television, run in cooperation with Voice of America, as well as RFE/RL's Russian service Radio Svoboda, might be subjected to certain restrictions.

"Current Time, Radio Svoboda, and Idel Realii [website run by RFE/RL Tatar-Bashkir service] are journalistic organizations. We trust we will be able to continue our work," the broadcaster's vice president and editor-in-chief, Nenad Pejic, said in a statement Monday.


Comment: Media Wars: US demanded RT register as a 'foreign agent; or leave the country. Russia has responded in kind. Turn-about is fair play. Is this just bad posturing duels or are there stories the US trying to hide?

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Attention

Rousseff: Trump's interference in Latin America 'criminal', may cause civil war

Rousseff
© Ueslei Marcelino / ReutersFormer Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff
Washington's attempts to interfere in politics in South America, including in Venezuela, are "extremely dangerous" and "may lead to civil war," former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has told RT. She added that the US has already made mistakes in the Middle East, which only led to the strengthening of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

"Our continent has been living in peace for 140 years. Any attempt to interfere in the legitimate constitutional process in Venezuela, including by forcing a presidential election, is extremely dangerous, as it might lead to a civil war," the Brazilian politician said in an interview with RT in Moscow.

Venezuela has been subjected to new sanctions from Washington under President Donald Trump, who has called its government a "dictatorship." Amid massive opposition protests in the Latin American state, the US claims the Venezuelan government is cracking down on democracy. In August, the US leader also mentioned a "military option" against the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro.

Caracas has in turn accused Washington of meddling in its internal affairs, calling the US an "aggressor" wanting a regime change in a foreign country through "political and psychological terrorism."

Comment: Rousseff has spoken from an informed perspective, having had outside influence cause disruption within her country, which ultimately lead to her early departure as president. The meddling of the US in Venezuela's affairs is a condition with which she is all too familiar.


Attention

UK inquiry told that Cyril Smith abused kids for perverted amusement, MI5 may have covered it up

Cyril Smith
© REXA number of allegations of child sex abuse emerged after MP Cyril Smith's death.
The late Liberal Party politician Sir Cyril Smith treated a children's home as his "personal fiefdom" where he abused residents for "perverted amusement," an inquiry has heard, as it is claimed top-level officials lied to protect him from prosecution.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) is examining how Smith was able to carry out his alleged offences at a number of institutions, including the Cambridge House children's hostel and Knowl View residential school, of which he was a governor.

Laura Hoyano, representing eight alleged victims, said at the second day of the hearing on Tuesday that the late Liberal MP was a "puppet master" who escaped justice, according to the BBC.

She said MI5 intelligence on the allegations "raises a spectre of collusion" over his activities. A dossier of information held by MI5 on Smith, including claims that prosecutors had lied to the press about the existence of a Smith child abuse file, was disclosed to the hearing on Monday.

Hoyano asked in her opening statement to the inquiry: "Why was MI5 involved at all?"

Comment: More on this monster: