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Why violence is fundamental to Israel's 'democracy' and always has been

Ray Hanania
Middle East Monitor
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 20:11 UTC
israel palestine conflict
Israeli soldiers hiding behind bunkers and using long-range sniper rifles have intentionally murdered 35 children, paramedics, journalists and disabled people during its ongoing assault against Palestinian civilian protesters along the Gaza border, a report released by the United Nations concluded this week. The UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) said that Israeli soldiers violated international human rights and humanitarian laws in killing 189 Palestinians and wounding more than 6,100 in weekly Friday protests since they began on 30 March, 2018. According to Palestinian sources in Gaza, those figures are very conservative.

In the 25-page report, UN officials said that the killings "may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity" and urged that the evidence should be submitted formally to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution.

Rather than addressing the contents of the report, Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responded in their usual way when confronted with overwhelming evidence of the mass murder of women, children and innocent civilians: they accused the UN of "anti-Semitism", bias and hypocrisy. This is nothing new. The Israelis have been obfuscating and denying mass murder allegations since the ethnic cleansing and destruction of at least 400 Palestinian towns and villages during the "war of independence" between 1946 and 1949.
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Eye 2

New website reveals extent of secret CIA flight network


RT
Wed, 29 May 2013 19:40 UTC
cia rendition flights
A team of academics have launched the world's largest interactive database detailing suspected CIA rendition flights, many of which may have transported detainees to Guantanamo Bay.

Scotland is the only country so far which has raised any questions on the alleged rendition activity on home soil.

The Rendition Project is a product of a collaborative research between Dr. Ruth Blakely from the University of Kent and Dr. Sam Raphael from Kingston University, London.

Now anyone with an internet connection can understand, view, and track over 11,000 CIA flights detainees may have been aboard between 2001 and 2006 under the US rendition program, a murky operation of secret detention and torture.

"Our purpose is to shed as much light as possible on this system," Blakely told RT.
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Target

Arab League's insulting statement regarding Turkey is a symptom of desperation leading to foolishness

Adam Garrie
Eurasia Future
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Star/Arab
© shiitenews.org/KJN
The Arab League has long been described by ordinary Arabs themselves as an impotent, useless and even shamefully discredited institution. Originally formed in 1945 to bolster economic and diplomatic cooperation throughout the vast Arab world, today it has been reduced to a shell of its former self. Against this background, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit issued a statement which sought to scapegoat non-Arab powers as a means of excusing the Arab League's own failings. Ahmed Aboul Gheit stated:
"We [together with the European Union] are sharing concerns over the ongoing military conflicts in Yemen, Libya and Syria as well as foreign interference in them, both Iranian and Turkish ones".
While the Arab League's statements about Iran have been commonplace since the 1980s, blaming Turkey for the failures of the League and of governance in the Arab world more widely, is symptomatic of a newer phenomenon. The problem that Arab leaders have with Turkey is not that Ankara seeks to reconstitute the territory in the Arab world that was once peacefully integrated into the Ottoman Empire. The problem is that while Turkey's government appears to be capable, worldly, professional and while Turkey's president is an articulate supporter of Palestine, the same cannot be said of just about any Arab government.

Comment: Israel sees the Arab League as vulnerable, thus ripe for manipulation to its advantage. As always, underlying motives drive Israel's relationships with other nations. Forging an alliance of multiple nations against Turkey would greatly increase the odds of igniting a regional conflict and serve Israel's interests.

See also:

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Bad Guys

Trump to terminate trade benefits with India, Turkey

Jenny Leonard and Jennifer Jacobs
Transport Topics
Tue, 05 Mar 2019 19:35 UTC
India trade
© Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg News
President Donald Trump announced plans to end key trade preferences for India and Turkey, in the latest move by the United States to counter what it calls unfair trade practices.

Trump notified Congress on March 4 in letters of his "intent to terminate" trade benefits for both countries under the generalized system of preferences. The notification starts a 60-day countdown before the president can take the action on his own authority, the U.S. Trade Representative's Office said in a statement.

Their designation under the program allows duty-free entry of about 2,000 products including auto components, industrial valves, and textile materials. The president still can walk back his notice to terminate the preference programs if the two countries satisfy the concerns of his administration.
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Bad Guys

US sanctions designed to cripple development of Russia's "Great Society"

Andrew Korybko
InfoRos
Tue, 05 Mar 2019 17:16 UTC
moscow
© Sputnik
Latest round of proposed US sanctions is intended to offset Putin's legacy-defining socio-economic development program known as the "Great Society"

Congress is deliberating whether to promulgate the so-called "Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act of 2019" (DASKAA) that would impose a new round of sanctions against Russia's financial, shipbuilding, and LNG industries. The timing of this bill shouldn't be seen as coincidental either, nor should its targeted industries, because it's part of the US' strategy to offset President Putin's legacy-defining socio-economic development program known as the "Great Society". The Russian leader promised during his reelection campaign last year to prioritize state investment in the economy with a view to making the country competitive with its fellow Great Power peers, and he finally released details about his plans for implementing this grand vision last month.

According to reports, the "Great Society" will cost upwards of $390 billion and focus on 12 main spheres of development including agriculture, transportation infrastructure, and the digital economy, among others. Russia is able to afford this after unveiling its state-of-the-art hypersonic weaponry last year and proving that the country no longer needs to invest such large sums into the military-industrial complex in order to safeguard the state's security. As such, budgetary funds will naturally be rerouted to the "Great Society", provided of course that Russia is able to avoid playing into the US' hands and entering into a costly interconnected arms and space race, which it has thus far been able to resist. It's precisely because of that, however, that sanctions are once again being weaponized to subvert the "Great Society".

Comment: It's pretty clear that the US government's hostile attitude toward Russia has driven it to hurt the Russian economy in whatever ways it can. However, it's also very possible that the Washington insiders driving this agenda do not want want the American people or the people of the world to see what is possible when a government like Russia refocuses their 'defense economy' and its benefits into the fundamental sectors driving their economy. Imagine what good the US could do under such a model. But we already know that this will not happen because this would challenge the immense wealth and power of the global elite.

It's noteworthy that Russia had to build their defense industry up enough to serve as a significant deterrent to the US. In doing so they also brought to market valued defense products that many countries are now buying. By rerouting that value back into the Russian economy, they are seeking to lift up markets that the US is trying (not so successfully) to crush. In effect, Russia is using the immense pressure of US hegemonic influence to turn coal into diamonds. If they are able to create such a model, other countries may very well follow suit. Russia is leading the way for a truly human society, and it is this that threatens the global elite more than anything else.

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Eye 2

Integrity Initiative: Tracking the sinister chain of events leading up to Salisbury

Kit Klarenberg
Sputnik
Mon, 04 Mar 2019 17:54 UTC
skripal pub
© Sputnik / Alex McNaughton
A police officer near the Mill pub in Salisbury, where the traces of the nerve agent used to poison former Main Intelligence Directorate colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found
In several reports to date, I've documented how the Integrity Initiative - the shadowy UK government-funded military intelligence front - and its assorted operatives and media assets systematically shaped news reporting on, and Whitehall's response to, the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on 4 March 2018.

Now, on the anniversary of that fateful and ever-mystifying day, I'll attempt to track some of the activities of the Initiative's parent, the Institute for Statecraft, and other key figures and organizations directly and indirectly connected to the body in the years immediately prior.

Troublingly, the information collected here inevitably represents but a negligible fragment of a much wider clandestine picture. The full extent of the British state's sinister and long-running secret machinations leading up to the Salisbury incident certainly isn't ascertainable at this time, and may well never be.

Comment: The Institute for Statecraft and its spawn Integrity Initiative have tentacles reaching in so many directions it's hard to know where to start. Kudos to Anonymous for bringing a nefarious organization to light.

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Top Secret

Russia foiled 600 spies in 2018 as foreign intelligence "boost activities" - Putin


RT
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 17:13 UTC
Putin
© Sputnik/Ramil Sitdikov
Speaking to senior staff of the Federal Security Service President Vladimir Putin warned of foreign intelligence increasing activities against the country and ordered security services to step up their counter efforts.

Foreign intelligence agencies are "seeking access to information of a political, economic, scientific and technological nature, by all available means," Putin stressed, adding that they are also making more efforts "to influence developments inside Russia."

He has revealed that as many as 129 personnel officers and 465 agents belonging to foreign intelligence were foiled last year.

Comment: See also:

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No Entry

Russia, Syria say won't send aid convoy to Rukban camp as long as it is controlled by US-backed militants


Sputnik
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 18:24 UTC
Rukban camp
© AP/Raad Adayleh
Rukban refugee camp
Sending a humanitarian convoy to the Rukban refugee camp located in the At Tanf area is out of the question as long as its territory is seized by the US-controlled militant groups, the joint statement of the Russian and Syrian interdepartmental coordination staffs said Wednesday.

"There is no question of sending a humanitarian convoy to Rukban camp under the conditions of the camp's residents are held by US-controlled militia," the statement said.

No convoy is able to help the humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded in the camp and that can only be resolved by eliminating the facility, the statement added.

"Only full elimination of the camp can stop sufferings of the Syrians who are forcefully held there," the statement read.

The United States has handed over a list of provocative questions to Russia and refuses to let go Syrian refugees from the Rukban camp without answers to them, according to the joint statement.

"Positively assessing the fact that the United States has provided contacts of a relevant authority to discuss problems of the Rukban camp... we stress that the questions, which have been handed over to the Russian side and without answers to which there will be no exit of people from Rukban, are nothing more that another US attempt to undermine the Rukban solution," the statement said.

According to the statement, the questions were "openly provocative" and sought to discredit activities of Russia and Syria on solving the Rukban issue.

Comment: See also:

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War Whore

Deep State shill Clapper claims he 'didn't lie' about NSA spying on Americans, but 'didn't understand' the question


RT
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 17:55 UTC
clapper
© Youtube / CNN
NSA director-turned-cable-news-pundit James Clapper is still insisting he wasn't lying when he told a congressional panel the NSA wasn't spying on American citizens - three months before Edward Snowden told everyone it was.

"I didn't lie, I made a big mistake. I just simply didn't understand what I was being asked about," Clapper told CNN's New Day, marking the third time he's changed his story regarding his notorious pre-Snowden testimony. He further explained he'd been thinking of another dubiously constitutional surveillance program - section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - rather than section 215 of the Patriot Act, perhaps hoping the audience had forgotten the context of his response six years earlier.

Asked in early 2013 whether the NSA had gathered "any type of data at all on millions of Americans," Clapper responded "not wittingly." Just a few months later, Snowden released his first explosive trove of documents exposing the NSA's massive covert data collection program. Oops!
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Better Earth

Italy will be first G7 nation to support China's One Belt One Road program

Evelyn Cheng
CNBC
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 17:08 UTC
kenya railways
© REUTERS
A train launched to operate on the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) and financed by the Chinese government arrives at the Nairobi Terminus on the outskirts of Kenya's capital Wednesday.
Italy is planning to officially announce its support for China's Belt and Road Initiative this month, the Financial Times reported Wednesday. It would be the first endorsement by a G-7 nation, the report pointed out.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's regional infrastructure investment program is widely seen as Beijing's attempt to expand its influence globally through the construction of a network of land and maritime routes across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Critics say that through the project, China forces developing nations to take on high debt burdens while benefiting Chinese companies which are often state-owned.


Comment: China forces no one to participate, that's how the US/World bank/IMF does business.


Comment: Italy has shown itself to be the one of the few forward-thinking countries in Europe that is willing to break away from the entrenched and erroneous 'establishment' for the good of its people: And check out SOTT radio's:

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