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Star of David

Israeli PM's telecom cronies busted as corruption scandal continues to unfold


Sputnik
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 17:24 UTC
netanyahu
© Associated Press / Matt DunhamIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
The Israel Securities Authorities has opened an investigation into allegations that the country's largest telecommunications company Bezeq received benefits so as to deal with positive media coverage of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Several senior executives from the Israeli telecommunications giant Bezeq, including two close associates of Benjamin Netanyahu, have been arrested as part of the corruption probe into the Israeli Prime Minister's alleged corruption activities.

The detainees include Communications Ministry Director General Shlomo Filbert, who is accused of handing confidential documents to Bezeq to add to the company's favorable treatment and provide positive media coverage of Netanyahu.

Police also nabbed Shaul Elovitch, the controlling shareholder of Bezeq, who is suspected of communicating with the Israeli Prime Minister.

Comment: Even Israelis are getting fed up with Bibi

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Map

Staffan de Mistura: Break-up of Syria may lead to 'Balkanization' of Middle East


Sputnik
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 17:19 UTC
Staffan de Mistura
© REUTERS/ Xu Jinquan/Pool
The unity and sovereignty of Syria must be preserved to avoid the process of fragmentation into smaller parts, the so-called Balkanization, in the Middle East, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said Sunday.

"The biggest danger in Syria at the moment is fragmentation. And that it is terribly dangerous because, if we go into leaving it as such and not maintaining... the sovereignty of the country in a unified way, we may get a thing to Balkanization or a chronic Balkanization [of the region]," de Mistura said at the 54th Munich Security Conference.

According to de Mistura, he sees for the first time in four years that large countries are directly involved in the conflict in Syria, and "this can lead to incidents," adding, "there are large movements of troops, but these are responsible countries and I am sure they will behave responsibly," he added.

"We need a comprehensive political process, we are talking about elections under UN supervision," Mistura said. "This will prevent [the emergence of] a new Daesh as a result of fragmentation, this will give a chance to the political process."
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Bulb

Trump: FBI could have prevented Florida mass shooting if they weren't so obsessed with hunting Russians


RT
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 16:49 UTC
florida shooting
© Jonathan Drake / ReutersA family sits around one of 17 crosses at a memorial for the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, U.S. February 16, 2018
US President Trump has accused the FBI of being too obsessed with Russian interference to see the clues that could have prevented the recent mass shooting in a Florida school. Seventeen people died in Wednesday's massacre.

US President Donald Trump tweeted that it's "very sad" the FBI failed to notice all of the signs the Florida shooter exhibited before the tragedy. Instead, the Bureau was hunting for ways to prove Trump had Russian help in his 2016 presidential election victory.

On Wednesday, a teenager armed with an AR-15 arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and proceeded to kill 17 people and injure over a dozen more. Nikolas Cruz, 19, who was apprehended shortly after the shooting, has confessed to the killings.

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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Florida School Mass Shooting: Gun Control, Mental Illness and the Criminal Mind


Sott.net
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 17:00 UTC
students florida shooting
Finer and finer orders of control
Another mass shooting took place in the US last week, this time at a high school in south Florida. The gunman was apparently 19-year-old dropout Nikolas Cruz, who waltzed into the school with an AR-15 rifle and some spare clips of ammo, then slaughtered 17 students and teachers in cold blood. He escaped the shooting scene by hiding among the fleeing students, but was later picked up by law enforcement.

Cruz was associated with a White Nationalist group in Florida, suggesting that his motive was revenge at society. He also said he heard voices telling him to do it. The important thing is that he has plead guilty to committing the crime, the NRA and Putin are being accused of somehow conspiring to make him do it, gun control is back on the agenda, and the US can now move on and mourn as One (Nation Under God).

This week on Behind the Headlines, we examined the criminal mind that can do such crazy things.

Join us this Sunday 18 February, from 12-1:30pm EST / 5-6:30pm UTC / 6-7:30pm CET.

Running Time: 01:50:28

Download: MP3

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MIB

Ex-CIA operative says US has long meddled in elections but it's OK since they are the 'good cops'


RT
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 16:04 UTC
People carry the U.S. flag
© Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
As Democrats indict Russians over "election meddling," former CIA officers say the US has been interfering in foreign elections for decades and "hopefully" will keep doing so because it has the moral high ground.

In an article published in the New York Times on Saturday, former CIA officers and several researchers, who have been studying covert US intelligence operations for years, say that the while methods allegedly used by Russians to meddle into the US elections might slightly differ from the old school CIA operations overseas, there is nothing in the allegations against Russians that Americans haven't done themselves.

"If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all," retired CIA veteran Steven Hall told NYT's Scott Shane.
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Compass

Wasserman-Schultz urges Florida shooting vigil attendees to 'hold elected officials accountable'

Diana Stancy Correll
Washington Examiner
Thu, 15 Feb 2018 20:26 UTC
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
© AP/Richard Drew, file
Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla., urged those present at a vigil honoring victims of a mass shooting at a high school in her home state on Wednesday to hold elected officials responsible.

"We must hold other people's elected officials accountable. We must make sure that they hear us," she said at the vigil Thursday evening.

"We will help lead you to help other communities elect people who will do the right thing, who will make sure no one's families ever have to go through this again," she added.

At one point, the crowd chanted "no more guns" during the vigil, according to reports.

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Mr. Potato

Mueller's investigation is a farce - Files joke indictment against Russian trolls

Elizabeth Vos
Disobedient Media
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 13:44 UTC
Robert Mueller
If one needed proof that Mueller's investigation was an utter farce, they were in for a treat this morning when the Deputy Attorney General announced the indictment of thirteen "Russian trolls," for allegedly interfering in the 2016 Presidential election by posting on social media accounts.

Laying Mueller's disregard of the First Amendment aside, the indictment is blatantly hypocritical in light of active social media intervention by pro-Clinton David Brock and his multi-million dollar efforts to 'Correct The Record.'


Comment: Internet trolls are a dime a dozen these days. But Robert Mueller needed Russian ones to keep his charade alive. And so far he has only been able to come up with thirteen. Pathetic!

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Handcuffs

ICC has over 1 million testimonies from Afghans suing US government over war crimes


teleSUR
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 09:29 UTC
An Afghan boy works at a construction site behind a US Army soldier in Logar province, Afghanistan.
© ReutersAn Afghan boy works at a construction site behind a US Army soldier in Logar province, Afghanistan.
The International Criminal Court began collecting material three months ago for a possible war crimes case involving armed actors Afghanistan.

More than one million statements from Afghan people and organizations have been submitted to the International Criminal Court alleging war crimes were committed by several actors in the country including the U.S. military, the CIA, Afghan forces and the Taliban, local groups working with the Hague-based tribunal said Friday.

Abdul Wadood Pedram, an official at the Kabul-based Human Rights and Eradication of Violence Organization, told the Associated Press Friday that his group has knowledge of the groups and individuals who submitted the 1.17 million statements to the court over the past three months.

Comment: See: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: From the invasion of Iraq to the refugee crisis: 'Reshaping' the planet through phony terror

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Bullseye

Russian Foreign Ministry Zakharova dismisses Mueller's charges on election meddling as absurdity


TASS
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 13:26 UTC
Maria Zakharova
© Mikhail Japaridze/TASSThe official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova
The official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova wrote about it at her page in Facebook

Moscow - The official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, has dismissed the charges with interference in the U.S. electoral processes, brought on by the special counsel Robert Mueller, as an absurdity.

She wrote about it at her page in Facebook.

"It turns our the U.S. Department of Justice believes there were thirteen of them," Zakharova wrote. "Thirteen individuals interfering in the U.S. election? Thirteen individuals versus the budgets of the security agencies that are measured in billions of dollars? Versus the intelligence, counterintelligence and top-notch technologies? Isn't it absurd? Well, that's the US political reality nowadays, you know."

Comment: Indeed, initially the indictments made big headlines, but as time goes by people will realize that this is mere nonsense. See also:

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Stock Down

"Slow burn": Low pay and record debt signal apocalypse for Britain's retailers as economic downturn continues

Sarah Butler
The Guardian
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 16:00 UTC
UK shoppers face declining real pay and debt problems, but there is also a structural shift in the way people spend their time and money.
© Simon Dawson/ReutersUK shoppers face declining real pay and debt problems, but there is also a structural shift in the way people spend their time and money.
"Who'd be a retailer now?" That was the comment from City economist Jeremy Cook when the latest set of grim retail sales data was released by the Office for National Statistics last Friday. "The average Brit," he added, "has spent the past few years living by the mantra 'When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.'"

After a grim December, many had been hoping for a bounceback, but the figures showed that consumers were not as hardy as they once were, said Cook, and the retail sector was facing a long-term, continuing slowdown.

Shoppers are being hit by declining real wages, record levels of consumer debt and the prospect of higher borrowing costs. But the wider problem is a structural shift in the way consumers spend their money. This is threatening famous retailers and forcing a rethink about how high streets will look in years to come, and what might be done with retail parks and malls when retailers shut up shop.

Comment: This article refuses to acknowledge the main driver that, regardless of how people shop, when wages are stagnating, debt and inflation are sky-rocketing, people have no money to spend. Like other western countries, the UK economy is on the brink of collapse - and it has been for years but financial fiddling, like printing money (aka 'QE'), postponed reality, for a little while:

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