SOTT
SIGNS
OF THE
TIMES
OF THE
TIMES
Welcome to Sott.net
The World for People who Think
Puppet MastersS
© AFP 2013/ CBS News / 'This Morning'Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, during an interview with CBS news anchor Charlie Rose, which aired Monday
"You should expect everything, not necessarily through the government," Assad told CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose in what CBS said was the first television interview given by the embattled Syrian leader since President Barack Obama asked Congress to approve military action against Syria in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack last month that Washington has blamed on the Assad regime.
"Everything is on the brink of explosion - you have to expect everything," Assad said, warning that his government is not in control of the volatile situation in Syria, where the United Nations says at least 100,000 people have been killed in a three-and-a-half-year civil war, because it is "not the only player in this region."
The military contractor who allegedly disappeared with $1 million of Canadian government money and failed to build an acoustic monitoring system for the navy has a question for the Department of National Defence: When are you going to pick up your equipment?
Department officials say they have been trying since 2009 to get the equipment from Applied Radar and Sonar Technologies GmbH, a German firm.
But the company is no longer registered in Germany and "cannot be contacted," according to a December 2012 briefing note prepared for senior department staff. The company's contract has been terminated and DND is going to use an international collection agency to try to recover the $1 million it already paid to Applied Radar and Sonar Technologies.
But the Citizen has tracked the firm to Izmir, a city in Turkey, and interviewed its director, Klaus Kremer.
He says not only is the transportable acoustic range equipment ready to be picked up, but DND officials know very well where he is since they have visited him at least four times over the years.
Department officials say they have been trying since 2009 to get the equipment from Applied Radar and Sonar Technologies GmbH, a German firm.
But the company is no longer registered in Germany and "cannot be contacted," according to a December 2012 briefing note prepared for senior department staff. The company's contract has been terminated and DND is going to use an international collection agency to try to recover the $1 million it already paid to Applied Radar and Sonar Technologies.
But the Citizen has tracked the firm to Izmir, a city in Turkey, and interviewed its director, Klaus Kremer.
He says not only is the transportable acoustic range equipment ready to be picked up, but DND officials know very well where he is since they have visited him at least four times over the years.
SPIEGEL has learned from internal NSA documents that the US intelligence agency has the capability of tapping user data from the iPhone, devices using Android as well as BlackBerry, a system previously believed to be highly secure.
The United States' National Security Agency intelligence-gathering operation is capable of accessing user data from smart phones from all leading manufacturers. Top secret NSA documents that SPIEGEL has seen explicitly note that the NSA can tap into such information on Apple iPhones, BlackBerry devices and Google's Android mobile operating system.
The documents state that it is possible for the NSA to tap most sensitive data held on these smart phones, including contact lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information about where a user has been.
The documents also indicate that the NSA has set up specific working groups to deal with each operating system, with the goal of gaining secret access to the data held on the phones.
In the internal documents, experts boast about successful access to iPhone data in instances where the NSA is able to infiltrate the computer a person uses to sync their iPhone. Mini-programs, so-called "scripts," then enable additional access to at least 38 iPhone features.
© Reuters
The documents state that it is possible for the NSA to tap most sensitive data held on these smart phones, including contact lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information about where a user has been.
The documents also indicate that the NSA has set up specific working groups to deal with each operating system, with the goal of gaining secret access to the data held on the phones.
In the internal documents, experts boast about successful access to iPhone data in instances where the NSA is able to infiltrate the computer a person uses to sync their iPhone. Mini-programs, so-called "scripts," then enable additional access to at least 38 iPhone features.
© Agence France-PressePeople typing on their laptops.
The official SPA news agency said the cabinet approved the "unified legislation against cybercrime," which the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) adopted in December.
The legislation targets those who "create sites and publish information on the Internet or a computer network for the benefit of a terrorist group to enable contacts among its leaders or its members, to promote its views or funding," said the agency.
It also prohibits "the dissemination of ideas that could affect public order or morality," said SPA, without providing further details.
Most members of the six-nation GCC - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - have tightened their laws against cybercrime in recent years.
Source: Agence France-Presse
Comment: That list of countries also happen to be U.S. client regimes and most repressive in the region. Coincidence?
You have to laugh in horror when you hear that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, the biggest regional exporters of terrorism - culturally, materially, and financially - are doing all this under the pretext of 'fighting terrorism'.
Bild am Sonntag cites high-level German surveillance source suggesting Syrian president was not personally behind attacks.
President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous requests from his military commanders to use chemical weapons against regime opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported , citing unidentified, high-level national security sources.
The intelligence findings were based on phone calls intercepted by a German surveillance ship operated by the BND, the German intelligence service, and deployed off the Syrian coast, Bild am Sonntag said. The intercepted communications suggested Assad, who is accused of war crimes by the west, including foreign secretary William Hague, was not himself involved in last month's attack or in other instances when government forces have allegedly used chemical weapons.
Assad sought to exonerate himself from the August attack in which hundreds died. "There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people," he said in an interview with CBS.
But the intercepts tended to add weight to the claims of the Obama administration and Britain and France that elements of the Assad regime, and not renegade rebel groups, were responsible for the attack in the suburb of Ghouta, Bild said.
© David Mcnew/GettyA anti-Syria strike demonstration in LA. German paper Bild am Sonntag has cited information saying the Syrian president did not personally order chemical attacks, but this does not exonerate his regime
The intelligence findings were based on phone calls intercepted by a German surveillance ship operated by the BND, the German intelligence service, and deployed off the Syrian coast, Bild am Sonntag said. The intercepted communications suggested Assad, who is accused of war crimes by the west, including foreign secretary William Hague, was not himself involved in last month's attack or in other instances when government forces have allegedly used chemical weapons.
Assad sought to exonerate himself from the August attack in which hundreds died. "There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people," he said in an interview with CBS.
But the intercepts tended to add weight to the claims of the Obama administration and Britain and France that elements of the Assad regime, and not renegade rebel groups, were responsible for the attack in the suburb of Ghouta, Bild said.
© AFP Photo/Nicholas Kamm
Jeffrey M. Smith spoke about the dangers posed by GMO products and Monsanto aggressive policies on RT's SophieCo.
Candidates to Author are well documented - from the Israel lobby to the House of Saud, from a select elite of the industrial-military-security complex to, most of all, the rarified banking/financial elite, the real Masters of the Universe. Poor Barack is just a cipher, a functionary of empire, whose ''deciding'' repertoire barely extends to what trademark smile to flash at the requisite photo-ops.
There's nothing ''tragic'' about the fact that during this week - marking the 12th anniversary of 9/11 - this presidency will be fighting for its bombing ''credibility'' trying to seduce Republican hawks in the US Congress while most of the warmongers du jour happen to be Democrats.
Republicans are torn between supporting the president they love to hate and delivering him a stinging rebuke - as much as they are aching to follow the orders of their masters, ranging from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to military contractors. Once again, this is farce - caused by the fact that a man elected to finish off wars is eager to start yet another one. And once again without a United Nations vote.
The White House ''strategy'' in this crucial negotiating week boils down to this; to convince the US Congress that the United States must start a war on Syria to punish an ''evil dictator'' - once again, as bad as Hitler - for gassing children. The evidence? It's ''indisputable''.
© Global Research
In its absence, Damascus and its ally Russia have aggressively pushed another scenario: that rebels carried out the Aug. 21 chemical attack. Neither has produced evidence for that case, either. That's left more questions than answers as the U.S. threatens a possible military strike.
The early morning assault in a rebel-held Damascus suburb known as Ghouta was said to be the deadliest chemical weapons attack in Syria's 2 1/2-year civil war. Survivors' accounts, photographs of many of the dead wrapped peacefully in white sheets and dozens of videos showing victims in spasms and gasping for breath shocked the world and moved President Barack Obama to call for action because the use of chemical weapons crossed the red line he had drawn a year earlier.
Yet one week after Secretary of State John Kerry outlined the case against Assad, Americans - at least those without access to classified reports - haven't seen a shred of his proof.
Comment: Be warned that the images that follow are very disturbing. Unlike the disturbing and untrue images that the mainstream media wants you to see however, as to get your sympathy for bombing another Middle East country, these ones are real and show the effects of the use of White Phosphorus by the Israeli army on unarmed Gazan civilians during Operation Cast Lead. They also show the hypocrisy of the US government and their allies regarding the use of chemical weapons on innocent humans.
I want you to remember this picture when you think of Israel's use of chemical weapons every time someone parrots the talking points of the Israeli government. This picture was taken in Gaza, Palestine; this is a war crime. No this isn't photoshopped. If this isn't a war crime then I don't know what is.
Comment: Read also, Israeli brutality in broad daylight: A chemical weapon attack on Palestinian school children. For more images of the effects of White Phosphorus on Palestinians visit the In Gaza blog.
Comment: Although any information that comes from unnamed sources is usually suspect to the journalistic eye, it is interesting that this one spells out a scenario that is normally foreseen only by the alternative media - in spite of the fact that books of history carry plenty of examples of false flag attacks used as excuses to trigger wars (9-11, anyone?).
The Russians, who are clearly opposed to letting the US start a regional or even global war, obviously know their history and understand that the possibility is real. They also know their enemy and how keen they are to 'make war by way of deception', and probably have real intelligence on what they might do next. By putting the possibility on a news outlet like RT, they may be making a clever attempt to spoil the plan for the CIA, Mossad, or anyone in control of the so-called 'Syrian rebels' to provide an indisputable casus belli for the US or Israel against Syria.
In other words, now that this scenario has been discussed publicly, it is less likely to happen. Perhaps that was the intention.