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Star of David

Israel raids Palestinian media, RT provider shut down


RT
Wed, 18 Oct 2017 07:16 UTC
ShutdownTransMedia
© idf.il
RT's broadcasting provider in the West Bank, Pal Media, has been sealed off following raids by Israeli security forces on Palestinian outlets. The raids led to the closure of some broadcasting stations suspected of inciting terrorism.

Eight Palestinian media organizations, which Israel suspects of distributing and broadcasting materials inciting terrorism, were raided in a joint operation of the IDF, the Israel Security Agency security (Shin Bet) and Civil Administration operating in the West Bank on Tuesday night.

The military also closed broadcasting stations including Pal Media, one of the biggest Palestinian companies providing services to RT, as well as many other media outlets operating in the region such as TransMedia, the BBC, France 24 and the Lebanese Al Mayadeen.

The Israeli forces sealed off Pal Media's office at dawn, confiscating all equipment and materials, according to RT correspondent on the ground Yafa Staty. An IDF official told the correspondent that the closure is aimed at the Al-Quds, Al-Aqsa and Palestine Today channels.

Israel said in a statement that they seized equipment and documents of companies Al-Aqsa and Al Quds TV channels, which were providing services to Hamas considered illegal by the IDF Central Command.

Comment: When you have something to hide or something to promote, you control the message to the exclusion of all independent media, hopefully without the public noting the addition of bias or elimination of trusted sources.

See also: Palestine: Israeli soldiers arrest 24 journalists, 6 sentenced to long jail terms

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Bomb

US security chief warns 'severe threat': 9/11-style 'big explosion'


RT
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 09:53 UTC
Elaine Duke and ISIS
© Daily Express
Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS, ISIL) and Al-Qaeda terrorists are plotting to take down a plane and carry out a devastating explosion on the scale of 9/11, senior US security official Elaine Duke warns.

"The terrorist organizations, be it ISIS or Al-Qaeda or others, want to have the big explosion like they did on 9/11. They want to take down aircraft, the intelligence is clear on that," the acting US secretary of homeland security said during a visit to the UK, as cited by British media. On September 11, 2001, (aka 9/11) terrorists hijacked aircraft and carried out the deadliest attack in history, killing almost 3,000 people.

"The threat is still severe," she stated on Wednesday in London following her meeting with Home Secretary Amber Rudd, where the officials discussed terrorist content online.

The terrorist groups are using smaller attacks to keep their members "engaged," remain visible and provide the flow of finances, according to Duke. At the same time smaller plots can be followed with major ones, she warned.

"Creating terror is their goal. A bladed weapon attack causes terror and continues to disrupt the world, but that does not mean they have given up on a major aviation plot," she said.

Comment: The outgoing message to the public: More plots mean it is becoming "harder to detect" every attack being planned. (Translate: Those that actually occur stand the best chance of being a controlled inside job.)

See also:

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Footprints

IPU Conference: Kuwaiti's official orders Israel to get out


Middle East Monitor
Wed, 18 Oct 2017 04:15 UTC
Israel delegation
© forex-mx.comTold to leave.
A Kuwaiti official yesterday told the Israeli delegation to leave the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) conference which is being held in Russia.

Speaker of Kuwait's National Assembly Marzouq Al-Ghanim told the Israeli delegation:
"You should pack your bags and get out of the hall after you saw the reactions of the world's honourable parliaments. Get out of the hall right now if you have an atom of dignity ... You occupier, child killers." He continued: "I say to the brutal occupier, if you do not feel shame, then do as you please."
Al-Ghanim said the Israeli delegate "represents the most dangerous form of terrorism; state terrorism".

The head of the delegation of the Palestinian National Council at the IPU, Azzam Al-Ahmad, said Al-Ghanim's words expressed the thoughts of all the Arab nations. "Al-Ghanim's words in front of the delegates shine a light on the wounds Palestinians have suffered," Al-Ahmad said.

He added that international parliaments have now been made aware of the Palestinians' suffering in their quest for their "right to self-determination, to end the Israeli occupation and to establish an independent Palestinian state."


Comment: Applause to Kuwait. Expect a blow-back of 'Israel Anti-semitism' whining and an increase in US support. Israel turns any and all criticism to its favor.

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Bomb

Iran supreme leader Khamenei: 'Foul-mouthed' Trump suffers from 'retardation'


RT
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 20:15 UTC
Donald Trump
© ReutersUS President Donald Trump
Iran's supreme leader has pilloried Donald Trump with degrading epithets in his latest speech following the US President's refusal to recertify the nuclear deal. Trump is, according to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, "foul-mouthed", uttering "nonsense," and "suffering from retardation".

"The President of the United States displays nonsense; however, this should not lead us to ignore the mischief of the US regime," Khamenei told a group of students and academic elites on Wednesday, according to his website.

Khamenei declined to comment on Trump's "irrational behaviour towards Iran," saying that it would be "a waste of time to respond to such blatherings and nonsensical remarks by the foul-mouthed US President."

The supreme leader claimed that the US President and his team were "suffering from retardation because they do not understand the developments in Iran and the region."

Comment: See also: Predictable: America's betrayal of the Iran Deal - always meant to be broken

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X

Brazil: MPs toss out multimillion-dollar bribery charges against President Temer


RT
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 05:09 UTC
Temer
© The ApricityPresident Michael Temer
The Brazilian parliament's congressional committee voted to dismiss the graft charges leveled at the country's president, Michel Temer, for his alleged role in a multimillion-dollar corruption scheme, involving Brazil's meatpacking giant.

The Committee on Constitution and Justice (CCJ) voted to spare Temer from being prosecuted for obstruction of justice and allegedly being a member of a criminal organization, as it approved a report prepared by Congressman Bonifácio de Andrada earlier this month.

In the report Andrada recommended to drop the charges, denouncing the probe into Temer as an attempt to criminalize "political party activities," and warning that the president's ouster will plunge the country into a deep political crisis. Thirty-nine members of the commission voted in favor of the report, 26 against and one abstained, ANSA reported.

At the same time, only 13 members of the 66-member body voiced support to Temer, while others who backed the report argued that the evidence was not compelling enough for a criminal investigation to be based upon it.

Some opposition members were up in arms over the vote.

Comment: Brazil's 'good-ol'-boy's club' is alive and well. And because of this, odds are there has never been a corrupt politician that didn't continue exercising optional corruption when in office.

See also:

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Attention

Tillerson offers wobbly 'no war' assurance


Sputnik
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 21:29 UTC
tillerson
© The Hill/KJN
It doesn't inspire confidence when US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attempted to give assurances that the American government is not seeking war with North Korea.

After weeks of numerous menacing messages from President Donald Trump warning the "total destruction" of North Korea, the White House's top diplomat was obliged to go public and calm growing concerns about a war breaking out. Tillerson told American news outlet CNN: "President Trump wants to avoid violence... He is not seeking to go to war."

He said Trump was committed to diplomacy, contrary to recent comments made by the president saying that Tillerson was "wasting his time" in pursuing diplomatic efforts with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Following that earlier snub to his top diplomat, Trump then added that "only one thing will work!"

Rex Tillerson's assurances of no war plans are not very convincing. With a curious choice of words, he said at one point in his interview with CNN: "Those diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops."

Those cryptic words "... until the first bomb drops," strongly suggest that there are indeed concrete plans for military action by the US against North Korea; and that the diplomacy - the little of it there is up to now - is but a prelude for eventual war.

Comment: Peace is not absence of conflict (Trump), it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means (Tillerson).

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Eye 2

Declassified docs reveal US had detailed knowledge and actively supported Indonesia's mass killings in 1960s


RT
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 18:11 UTC
suharto
© WikipediaMajor General Suharto attended the funeral of five generals assassinated during the failed coup that sparked the massacre
Newly declassified documents reveal not just the US government's "detailed knowledge" of the Indonesian Army's mass killings of members of the Communist Party (PKI), but its "active support" of the slaughter.

The documents, posted Tuesday by the National Security Archive at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, show that US officials "actively supported Indonesian Army efforts to destroy the country's left-leaning labor movement," according to the independent research and archival institution.

The 39 new documents, from a cache of some 30,000 pages of daily record files taken from the US Embassy in Indonesia's capital from 1964-1968, were declassified and digitized in collaboration with the National Declassification Center. The move came following a growing number of requests from US and Indonesian human rights groups.

The files include State Department letters, telegrams, situation reports and confidential communications between US consulates and the US embassy. However, the cache does not include any CIA documents, which remain classified. Human Rights Watch has called for all remaining files to be unclassified.
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Beaker

Russia presses US to expedite elimination of its chemical weapons


RT
Wed, 18 Oct 2017 10:13 UTC
chem weapon military
© The Hill
A senior Russian diplomat has urged the US and other nations to follow Russia's example and decommission their chemical arsenals. "We have inherited the world's largest arsenal of such weapons of mass destruction, and we carried out a plan for its elimination in good faith," said Vladimir Yermakov, deputy head of the Foreign Ministry's Department for Weapons Control and Non-Proliferation.

Speaking before a session of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, the diplomat reaffirmed Russia's commitment to honoring its obligations under international agreements. "We call upon all nations that still possess chemical weapons to immediately follow Russia's example," said Yermakov.

"This concerns primarily the state that had initiated the convention and has always been the promoter of its ideas and now for some reason remains the owner of the largest stocks of chemical weapons," he added, apparently referring to the US. He also expressed bewilderment at the fact that the US, while possessing the world's largest chemical-weapons arsenal, had attempted "to cast a shadow on the great achievements of other countries, such as Syria."

Yermakov also thanked several nations that had financially contributed to the Russian chemical weapons destruction program, such as the US, the UK, Italy, Poland Germany and France.

Russia destroyed the last of its chemical-weapon stockpiles in late September. President Vladimir Putin personally monitored this process via TV link and called it a historic event. On October 9, Putin ordered the dissolution of the State Commission on Destruction of Chemical Weapons, as this body no longer had a purpose to serve.

In late September, the US announced plans to destroy their own stockpiles of chemical weapons by late 2023.

Comment: The US has portable decontamination centers that destroy chemical weapons in bulk with destruction efficiency of 99.9% and up to 25 metric tons per day. Why wouldn't the US follow suit, unless it is going to 1) use them, 2) sell them, or 3) it has so many it will actually take six years to complete destruction.

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Passport

Normalizing a police state: France approves restrictive anti-terrorism law to replace 2-year state of emergency


RT
Wed, 18 Oct 2017 17:52 UTC
French police
© Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters
The French parliament has approved a new controversial anti-terrorism law, replacing the soon-to-expire two-year state of emergency. The new legislation has prompted fears it will severely limit civil liberties.

The French senate approved the new anti-terrorism law on its second reading on Wednesday. The new law, set to increase law enforcement powers in the fight against terrorism, was supported by 244 senators, with only 22 voting against it. The bill was overwhelmingly approved by the lower chamber of parliament earlier in October.

The state of emergency was imposed in France to combat terrorism in the wake of the deadly 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, and has been extended six times since. It is set to finally expire on November 1.

Its key points include allowing the authorities to search homes of those suspected of terrorist links, while holding them for up to four hours and seizing data, items and documents. It also allows the authorities to confine suspects to their town or city for up to a year and have them report to police every day. Any movement beyond that requires them to wear a tracking bracelet.

Top regional officials will be allowed to shut down places of worship for up to six months, if they deem preachers have incited attacks or glorified terrorism. This can be done without any hard proof obtained by police, but simply on the basis of "ideas and theories" shared by the preachers' devotees.

Police are also granted the authority to stop and search people at vulnerable areas such as borders, train stations and airports.

Comment: Normalization of Emergency Powers: French parliament adopts tough new anti-terror bill

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Yoda

Putin on Catalan crisis: EU triggered rise of separatism by supporting Kosovo independence


RT
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 19:51 UTC
Russian President Vladimir Putin
© Grigoriy Sisoev / Sputnik
EU countries bolstered separatist sentiment in Europe when they bowed to US pressure and supported Kosovo breaking away from Serbia. They now face such consequences as the Catalan crisis,Russia's President Vladimir Putin says.

"As for the situation with Catalonia, we have seen a unanimous condemnation of the independence supporters by the EU and a number of other states," Putin said. "Regarding that, I have to say - you should have thought about it earlier."

"Did they not know about centuries-old contradictions of this nature in Europe? They knew, didn't they? But at the time they de facto welcomed the disintegration of a number of states in Europe, with undisguised relish," he added.
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