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UN report details Israel's genocidal war crimes against Palestine during 2014 summer assault

Ali Abunimah
Electronic Intifada
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:02 UTC
Image
© Eyad Al Baba APA images
Palestinians pray over the bodies of eight members of the al-Haj family, killed when Israel bombed their Khan Younis house on 10 July 2014. This was one of the attacks investigated by an independent UN body that found extensive evidence of Israeli war crimes during last summer’s assault on Gaza
There can be no surprise that the UN Human Rights Council's independent investigation of Israel's assault on Gaza last summer found evidence of massive and systematic war crimes.

Its report, published Monday in Geneva, says investigators were "able to gather substantial information pointing to serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law by Israel and by Palestinian armed groups."

"The extent of the devastation and human suffering in Gaza was unprecedented and will impact generations to come," the chair of the investigation commission, Justice Mary McGowan Davis told media, adding that "there is also ongoing fear in Israel among communities who come under regular threat."

Despite the "balanced" language that is now the habitual refuge of international officials hoping to avoid false accusations of anti-Israel bias, the evidence shows that the scale and impact of Israeli violence dwarfs anything allegedly done by Palestinians.
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TV

South Front Crisis News 25 June: 15 buildings destroyed by Ukrainian shellings in DPR


South Front
Thu, 25 Jun 2015 19:16 UTC
south front
Kiev forces have violated the ceasefire regime over 50 times yesterday. A total of 54 shells of 82 mm and 120 mm caliber have been fired at the republic's territory, DPR's defence ministry said, adding that Kiev forces also use grenade launchers and small arms. Moreover, 15 residential buildings destroyed over the past 24 hours in Dokuchaevsk, the local administration head said.

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Red Flag

Dual-citizen Australians can now have their citizenship arbitrarily stripped for involvement in "anti-government activity"

Mike Head
World Socialist Web Site
Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:18 UTC
Image
© Alex Ellinghausen
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Attorney-General Senator George Brandis address the media on Tuesday.
After months of increasingly hysterical scare campaigns about terrorism, Prime Minister Tony Abbott's government on Wednesday unveiled unprecedented legislation to arbitrarily strip citizenship from people accused of involvement in a wide range of anti-government or "terrorist"-related activity.

As with every law imposed under the fraudulent banner of the "war on terrorism," the bill goes far beyond terrorism. Its target is not the relative handful of 50 or so dual citizen "foreign fighters" who have reputedly joined Islamic State (ISIS) or other fundamentalist groups in Syria and Iraq. Its provisions could be used to terminate the most basic political and civil rights of many people, including those opposing predatory and criminal wars being conducted by the US and its allies, such as Australia.

Contrary to misleading media reports, the government has not "backed down" on its drive to revoke the fundamental democratic right of citizenship by ministerial direction, without any criminal conviction by a court. The bill contains far-reaching powers for the immigration minister to unilaterally declare, purely on the basis of secret intelligence reports, that someone has "renounced" Australian citizenship.

Demagogically inciting a wartime atmosphere, Abbott and other senior ministers declared that the new laws would be used to "banish" modern-day "traitors" and "hardened terrorists" who "hate everything about the way we live" and "would take up arms against our soldiers."

Comment: It starts with dual citizens. It won't be long before sole Australian citizens are in the same boat. Welcome to freedom and democracy in the Western world, where your freedom and rights are dependent on your conformity to what the government says. Allegiance to Australia, or say goodbye to your freedoms.

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War Whore

Western aggression: NATO expanding military force targeting Russia

Niles Williamson
World Socialist Web Site
Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:07 UTC
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NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels Wednesday and Thursday agreed to the enlargement of the organization's Response Force to 40,000 troops from the current level of 13,000. On Tuesday, ahead of the meeting, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced the positioning of hundreds of American tanks, military vehicles and heavy artillery pieces in the Baltic States as well as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.

This buildup of troops and military equipment is part of a long-term reorientation of NATO directed against Russia. There is only one conclusion the Kremlin can draw from such threatening and aggressive measures: Washington and its European allies are preparing to go to war against Russia. Moscow is undoubtedly preparing accordingly.

Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak spelled out the implications of the US-NATO policy at the conclusion of NATO war games in Poland last week, declaring: "The peaceful period after the Second World War is over. We cannot defend our European way of life if we don't do more for our defense."

The international working class should take this statement as a dire warning. If the post-World War II period of peace is over, the build-up to World War III has begun.
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Eye 1

UK spy unit engaged in online propaganda, psychological operations, and domestic law enforcement

Glenn Greenwald and Andy Fishman
The Intercept
Mon, 22 Jun 2015 16:32 UTC
Image
The spy unit responsible for some of the United Kingdom's most controversial tactics of surveillance, online propaganda and deceit focuses extensively on traditional law enforcement and domestic activities — even though officials typically justify its activities by emphasizing foreign intelligence and counterterrorism operations.

Documents published today by The Intercept demonstrate how the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), a unit of the signals intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), is involved in efforts against political groups it considers "extremist," Islamist activity in schools, the drug trade, online fraud and financial scams.

Though its existence was secret until last year, JTRIG quickly developed a distinctive profile in the public understanding, after documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the unit had engaged in "dirty tricks" like deploying sexual "honey traps" designed to discredit targets, launching denial-of-service attacks to shut down Internet chat rooms, pushing veiled propaganda onto social networks and generally warping discourse online.

Early official claims attempted to create the impression that JTRIG's activities focused on international targets in places like Iran, Afghanistan and Argentina. The closest the group seemed to get to home was in its targeting of transnational "hacktivist" group Anonymous.
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Dollar Gold

Greece rejects counterproposals from Western creditors


RT
Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:28 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Yannis Behrakis

Comment: The Greek people are much better off without the noose of IMF debt wrapped around their necks. For Greece, they should look to the East and find comfort with help from Russia instead.


Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and international creditors have failed to reach a common ground on tax and reform proposals, which adds more doubts over the country's chances of averting an imminent debt default.

The lack of concrete proposals coming from the Greek side, according to representatives of the lending institutions, is the main stumbling block in its talks with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Such an attitude they say is more likely only to impede progress in the negotiations.

"Our impression is that there's still a long way to go," said German Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger on Wednesday at a government briefing in Berlin. He added that lending institutions have made "exceptionally generous" concessions to the Greek government, and "it's now up to the Greek side to show some movement."

Meanwhile, the Greek PM insists that the country's reform plan is equivalent to the counterproposals by the creditors, but much less recessionary.
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Eye 1

Wikileaks: NSA spied on French presidents

James Regan, Mark John
Reuters
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 07:59 UTC
Hollande and Chirac
© www.france24.com
Presidents Francois Hollande and Jacques Chirac
The United States National Security Agency spied on French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, WikiLeaks said in a press statement published on Tuesday, citing top secret intelligence reports and technical documents.

The revelations were first reported in French daily Liberation and on news website Mediapart, which said the NSA spied on the presidents during a period of at least 2006 until May 2012, the month Hollande took over from Sarkozy.


Comment: Dollars to doughnuts it didn't stop there...


WikiLeaks said the documents derived from directly targeted NSA surveillance of the communications of Hollande (2012 - present), Sarkozy (2007 - 2012) and Chirac (1995 - 2007), as well as French cabinet ministers and the French ambassador to the U.S.

According to the documents, Sarkozy is said to have considered restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks without U.S. involvement and Hollande feared a Greek euro zone exit back in 2012.

These latest revelations regarding spying among allied Western countries come after it emerged that the NSA had spied on Germany and Germany's own BND intelligence agency had cooperated with the NSA to spy on officials and companies elsewhere in Europe.

Comment: Fluff and flutter over presidential somebodies being spied upon. For sure, no one seems to be exempt. Begs the question: who or what is behind the screen? A runaway idea or a damned big and nefarious global agenda? Where is the outrage? Is releasing this information part of the "Plan?"

Face it, we live in Cyberia. Location: the whole planet.
The predator is among us, has surfaced, IS US. Boggles the "mind," doncha think?

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Che Guevara

Russia's offer to Greece

Alexander Mercouris
Russia Insider
Thu, 25 Jun 2015 13:09 UTC
Russia Greece BRICS
© Russia Insider
Greek Prime Minister meets with Vladimir Putin
Russia's offer of a pipeline came with an offer of a $5 billion prepayment. This was intended to buy Greece time to apply for a loan from the BRICS Bank. However the Greeks don't seem to be embracing the offer.

In the article about how Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's dealings with Moscow are putting at risk Greece's traditionally friendly ties to Russia, I said that the gas pipeline proposal the Russians have floated is intended to help Greece, not achieve some grand Russian pipeline strategy. In this article I will explain why.

It is first necessary to say something about Russia's gas export policies.

Western paranoia about Moscow's supposed "pipeline politics" has distorted understanding of Russian gas policy to a quite extraordinary degree, even among commentators who are generally favourable to Russia.

Comment: Greece has been subjected to shock doctrine measures, and those are intended to make it a loyal vassal to Washington. As a young government, Syriza is undoubtedly under enormous pressure. There is a financial war being waged in Greece, and the stakes are high:
The Greek government is currently locked in a life and death struggle with the elite which dominate the banks and political decision-making centers of the European Union. What are at stake are the livelihoods of 11 million Greek workers, employees and small business people and the viability of the European Union. If the ruling Syriza government capitulates to the demands of the EU bankers and agrees to continue the austerity programs, Greece will be condemned to decades of regression, destitution and colonial rule. If Greece decides to resist, and is forced to exit the EU, it will need to repudiate its 270 billion Euro foreign debts, sending the international financial markets crashing and causing the EU to collapse.

James Petras: The Assassination of Greece
Also see:

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Bullseye

Russian official: Events in Armenia are identical to the first stage of Ukrainian coup


Sputnik
Wed, 24 Jun 2015 08:18 UTC
Image
© AFP 2015/ Karen Minasyan
Current protests in Armenia are completely identical to the first stage of the state coup in Ukraine and might be orchestrated by the United States, Igor Morozov, member of the Federation Council's International Affairs Committee, said Wednesday.

Mass protests against the rise in household electricity prices erupted in Armenia's capital of Yerevan on Friday, and on Monday and Tuesday thousands of protesters attempted to march to the presidential residence. On Tuesday morning, police dispersed the crowd using water cannons. Almost 240 people, including journalists, were brought to police stations, and 25 have sought medical assistance. According to city officials, all those detained were subsequently freed.

According to Morozov, the events in Armenia are a repeat of those in Ukraine with exact precision. Thus, he concludes that Armenia is close to an armed coup.

"This will happen if the country's President Serzh Sargsyan fails to learn lessons from the Ukrainian Maidan... At that time, the Ukrainian opposition also refused to have a meeting with President Viktor Yanukovych and started to appeal to the European community and politicians arriving from Europe also started addressing the demonstrators," he said.

According to Morozov, at the time of the Maidan protests it was obvious that the scenario was orchestrated by the Embassy of the United States in Kiev.

"The American Embassy in Armenia is also taking an active part in the current developments in Yerevan. It should be noted that the US mission in Armenia is one of the largest US diplomatic missions abroad.... Even though Armenia is quite a small country," Morozov said.

A political crisis erupted in Ukraine in November 2013, after the Cabinet of Ministers halted the country's European integration. Mass protests started on Kiev's Independence Square, or Maidan, and resulted in the overthrow of then President Viktor Yanukovych, on February 22, 2014.

Comment: See also:

'Electric Yerevan' is Sliding Out of Control
Geopolitical Ends

Like all Color Revolutions, the backers of 'Electric Yerevan' are motivated by concrete geopolitical interests. They want to install an anti-Russian government that would withdraw Armenia from the Eurasian Economic Union and break the historical friendship between both states, following the model spearheaded by EuroMaidan's post-coup authorities. Pashinyan is highly critical of all aspects of Armenia's special relationship with Russia and has experience with anti-government organizing, hence his present designation as de-facto leader of the Color Revolution. The US also wants to drag Russia into a renewed military conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, using post-coup newly installed nationalists like Pashinyan to aggravate the situation with Azerbaijan to the point of open warfare, which Russia, with its Collective Security Treaty Organization obligations to Armenia and its 102nd military base in Gyumri, would inevitably be sucked into. The US failed to coax a disastrous Afghan-esque military intervention out of Russia in Ukraine after the EuroMaidan events, but it doesn't mean that it won't try to do the same thing in the Caucasus after a potentially successful 'Electric Yerevan'.
Is it just coincidence that US 'Secretary for War in Eurasia' Victoria Nuland was just recently touring the Caucasus?

How the West plans to prevent the SCO from mediating in Nagorno-Karabakh

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Play

South Front Crisis News 23-24 June: Kiev kills 2 civilians in Donetsk, U.S. charges teen with helping IS


South Front
Wed, 24 Jun 2015 00:58 UTC
south front
Two civilians were killed in the Ukrainian shelling of the town of Dokuchayevsk and a neighborhood of Donetsk, the defence ministry of the Donetsk People's Republic has reported. The ministry confirmed the use of artillery and mortars by Ukrainian troops. More than 30 ceasefire violations by Kiev forces were registered on Tuesday.

Canadian military instructors will come to Ukraine in August. According to source in Canada's Defense Ministry, a planning team that recently arrived in Ukraine will be tasked with preparations for stationing the main contingent. Canada plans to send around 200 instructors to Ukraine. The specifics of the two-year mission have not been disclosed. Last week, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper told that Canadian military instructors will stay in Ukraine until 31 March 2017.

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