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The notorious London spy school churning out many of the world's top journalists

Alan Macleod
MintPress News
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
Kings College
© David JC/Alamy
King's College London, Maughan Library Gate, UK
In a previous investigation, MintPress News explored how one university department, the Department of War Studies at King's College London, functions as a school for spooks. Its teaching posts are filled with current or former NATO officials, army officers and intelligence operatives to churn out the next generation of spies and intelligence officers. However, we can now reveal an even more troubling product the department produces: journalists. An inordinate number of the world's most influential reporters, producers and presenters, representing many of the most well-known and respected outlets — including The New York Times, CNN and the BBC — learned their craft in the classrooms of this London department, raising serious questions about the links between the fourth estate and the national security state.

National security school

Increasingly, it appears, intelligence agencies the world over are beginning to appreciate agents with a strong academic background. A 2009 study published by the CIA described how beneficial it is to "use universities as a means of intelligence training," writing that, "exposure to an academic environment, such as the Department of War Studies at King's College London, can add several elements that may be harder to provide within the government system." The paper, written by two King's College staffers, boasted that the department's faculty has "extensive and well-rounded intelligence experience."

This was no exaggeration. Current Department of War Studies educators include the former Secretary General of NATO, former U.K. Minister of Defense, and military officers from the U.K, U.S. and other NATO countries. "I deeply appreciate the work that you do to train and to educate our future national security leaders, many of whom are in this audience," said then-U.S. Secretary of Defense (and former CIA Director) Leon Panetta in a speech at the department in 2013.

King's College London also admits to having a number of ongoing contracts with the British state, including with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), but refuses to divulge the details of those agreements.
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Target

Biden quietly moves to begin closing Guantánamo ahead of 20th anniversary of 9/11

Carol E. Lee, Courtney Kube
Yahoo News
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 04:31 UTC
Guantanamo prisoner
© Khaama Press
President Joe Biden has quietly begun efforts to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, using an under-the-radar approach to minimize political blowback and to try to make at least some progress in resolving a long-standing legal and human rights morass before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

After initial plans for a more aggressive push to close the facility — including rebuffed attempts to recruit a special envoy to oversee the strategy — the White House changed course, sources said. The administration has opted to wait before it reaches out to Congress, which has thwarted previous efforts to close the camp, because of fears that political outcry might interfere with the rest of Biden's agenda. A former senior administration official involved in the discussions said of Biden officials:
"They don't want it to become a dominant issue that blows up. They don't want it to become a lightning rod. They want it to be methodical, orderly."
The administration hopes to transfer a handful of the remaining terrorism suspects to foreign countries, the people familiar with the discussions said, and then persuade Congress to permit the transfer of the rest — including 9/11 suspects — to detention on the U.S. mainland. Biden hopes to close the facility by the end of his first term, the people familiar with the discussions said.

But even though just 40 people are left at Gitmo, the Biden administration faces many of the same obstacles that doomed President Barack Obama's much more public effort to close it a dozen years ago.
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Sun

Biden tells troops 'global warming' is the 'greatest threat to America'

Libby Emmons
PM
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 04:44 UTC
BidenTroops
© screenshot
US President Joe Biden
President Joe Biden spoke to troops at the US Air Force Base in Suffolk, England, on Wednesday, at the beginning of his first overseas trip as president. Even so, he joked "I keep forgetting I'm president."

Comment: Relevant as always, Biden shared his #1 military priority while placing plastic straws a little farther down the list.

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Star of David

Even former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa say it's time to recognize that Israel has imposed an apartheid system in Palestine

Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel
GroundUp
Tue, 08 Jun 2021 17:27 UTC
israel apartheid map occupation

Map of the West Bank, the Israeli occupied Palestinian territory. Palestinian areas are green. Blue areas are Israeli-controlled.
During our careers in the foreign service, we both served as Israel's ambassador to South Africa. In this position, we learned firsthand about the reality of apartheid and the horrors it inflicted. But more than that - the experience and understanding we gained in South Africa helped us to understand the reality at home.

For over half a century, Israel has ruled over the occupied Palestinian territories with a two-tiered legal system, in which, within the same tract of land in the West Bank, Israeli settlers live under Israeli civil law while Palestinians live under military law. The system is one of inherent inequality. In this context, Israel has worked to change both the geography and the demography of the West Bank through the construction of settlements, which are illegal under international law. Israel has advanced projects to connect these settlements to Israel proper through intensive investment in infrastructure development, and a vast network of highways and water and electricity infrastructure have turned the settlement enterprise into a comfortable version of suburbia. This has happened alongside the expropriation and takeover of massive amounts of Palestinian land, including Palestinian home evictions and demolitions. That is, settlements are built and expanded at the expense of Palestinian communities, which are forced onto smaller and smaller tracts of land.
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Megaphone

El Salvador becomes first country to makes bitcoin legal tender

Nelson Renteria, Tom Wilson, Karin Stohecker
Reuters
Thu, 10 Jun 2021 17:06 UTC
seal el salvador bitcoin

El Salvador has green-lit using bitcoin of bitcoin for its citizens
El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender after Congress on Wednesday approved President Nayib Bukele's proposal to embrace the cryptocurrency, a move that delighted the currency's supporters.

With 62 out of 84 possible votes, lawmakers voted in favor of the move to create a law to adopt bitcoin, despite concern about the potential impact on El Salvador's program with the International Monetary Fund.

Bukele has touted the use of bitcoin for its potential to help Salvadorans living abroad to send remittances back home, while saying the U.S. dollar will also continue as legal tender. In practice, El Salvador does not have its own currency.
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Map

How Russia's St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is mapping the Eurasian Century

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
St. Petersburg
It's impossible to understand the finer points of what's happening on the ground in Russia and across Eurasia, business-wise, without following the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

So let's cut to the chase, and offer a few choice examples of what is discussed on top panels.

The Russian Far East - Here's a discussion on the - largely successful - strategies boosting productive investment in industry and infrastructure across the Russian Far East. Manufacturing in Russia grew by 12.2% between 2015 and 2020; in the Far East it was almost double, 23.1%. And from 2018 to 2020, per capita investment in fixed capital was 40% higher than the national average. The next steps center on improving infrastructure; opening global markets to Russian companies; and most of all, finding the necessary funds (China? South Korea?) for advanced tech.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - As I've seen for myself in previous editions of the forum, there's nothing remotely similar in the West in terms of seriously discussing an organization like the SCO - which has progressively evolved from its initial security focus towards a wide-ranging politico-economic role.

Russia presided the SCO in 2019-2020, when foreign policy got a fresh impetus and the socioeconomic consequences of Covid-19 were seriously addressed. Now the collective emphasis should be on how to turn these member nations - especially the Central Asian "stans" - more attractive for global investors. Panelists include former SCO secretary-general Rashid Alimov, and the current one, Vladimir Norov.
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Dollars

Hyperinflation: Is the United States on the same calamitous path as Yugoslavia?

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.us
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
yugoslavia currency
Of all the inflationary disasters in modern economic history, Yugoslavia's is the one most ignored by the mainstream. To be sure, the collapse of the Eastern European nation was a slow burn, but with a big explosion at the end. Most people are familiar with the Serbian/Croatian war and the genocide that followed, but few people are familiar with the economic crisis that led to the conflict.

I am not here to present an in-depth analysis of the eventual breakup of Yugoslavia, only to examine the conditions that triggered it. I believe there are some interesting similarities to burgeoning conditions within the U.S., along with some distinct differences.

The First Stage: Inflation

President Josip Broz Tito led the nation in various capacities from 1953 to 1980. He used two powerful tools to clamp down on unrest in the ethnically-diverse nation: large-scale repression of dissenting voices using both police and military forces, and allowing regional foreign borrowing. The latter might not sound particularly important. According to the CIA's 1983 national intelligence document Yugoslavia: An Approaching Crisis?:
Although self-management in theory permits workers to own and manage their enterprises, in fact the leaders in the six republics and two provinces... became the dominant economic decision makers. They grew increasingly protectionist and isolated from each other in pursuing local interests. Ignoring national economies of scale and ultimate profitability, they built redundant enterprises, blocked competition on the "unified market," and granted unrealistic price increases and subsidies to favored industries. Thus, by the early 1980s inflation in the 30- to 40-percent range became chronic...
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Dollar

Senate GOP blocks bill to combat gender pay gap

Jordain Carney
The Hill
Thu, 10 Jun 2021 19:21 UTC
Mitch McConnell
© Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked legislation aimed at addressing pay inequality, marking their second successful use of the filibuster under President Biden.

Senators voted 49-50 to try to advance the legislation, falling short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the procedural hurdle.

The bill would limit employers to "bona fide" factors such as education, training and experience when justifying pay differentials in wage discrimination claims.

Comment: Maybe Republicans know that the gender pay gap is a myth.

See also:

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Newspaper

Peru's left-wing Castillo claims victory in presidential run-off, rival claims fraud despite international observers approval


RT
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 13:03 UTC
Castillo
© REUTERS / Sebastian Castaneda
Pedro Castillo addresses supporters from the headquarters of his party.
Trade union leader Pedro Castillo has declared himself the victor in the Peruvian presidential election. His opponent Keiko Fujimori refused to concede and claimed without evidence that the vote was fraudulent.

"The people have spoken," Castillo told supporters late on Tuesday in front of his Peru Libre party's headquarters. He was speaking before the official count in last Sunday's second-round vote was finished, but it was pointing to his imminent victory. With over 99% of the votes counted, he led by a small margin of around 70,000 votes.

"Based on information from our electoral observers, we now have the party's official count, and the people have made this gesture, which we salute. For this reason, I also ask you not to react to provocation," Castillo said.
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Light Saber

Trump backs Nigeria banning Twitter, calls for other countries to follow

Olafimihan Oshin
The Hill
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 00:46 UTC
Donald Trump
Former President Trump on Tuesday applauded Nigeria's Twitter ban and called on other countries to follow suit.

Trump praised the West African country for banning use of the social media platform after the Twitter suspended the account of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari for comparing gunmen attacking national electoral commission offices to the Nigeria Civil War. The company deleted the tweet, saying it violated their abusive behavior policy.

"Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President. More COUNTRIES should ban Twitter and Facebook for not allowing free and open speech — all voices should be heard," Trump said in a statement Tuesday.

Nigeria indefinitely suspended Twitter's operations in the country late last week.

Comment: See also: Twitter bashed for saying access to its platform is a 'human right' while accused of silencing conservatives

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