Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

For your safety: Fresh Snowden leaks reveal GCHQ's dark arts capabilities, online manipulation, Facebook, YouTube snooping

GCHQ
© GCHQ via CNETGCHQ in Cheltenham
A fresh set of documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the UK intelligence agency can manipulate online polls and debates, spread messages, snoop on YouTube and track Facebook users.

GCHQ has developed a toolkit of software programs used to manipulate online traffic, infiltrate users' computers and spread select messages across social media sites including Facebook and YouTube.

The UK spy agency's dark arts were revealed in documents first published by The Intercept, and each piece of software is described in a wiki document written up by GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). The document, which reads like a software inventory, calls the tools part of the agency's "weaponised capability."

Some of the most interesting capabilities of the tools on the list include the ability to seed the web with false information - such as tweaking the results of online polls - inflating pageview counts, censoring video content deemed "extremist" and the use of psychological manipulation on targets - something similar to a research project conducted with Facebook's approval, which resulted in heavy criticism and outrage levied at the social media site.

Star of David

Israel's horrific war crimes in Gaza provoke global outrage

Gaz protest
© APPro Palestinian protest, Paris. July 13 2014.
As the Israeli onslaught on Gaza enters its second week, more and more evidence of atrocities is being made public, producing widespread expressions of outrage around the world.

There have been numerous protests in Europe and North America, which though still relatively small, reflect the growth of popular understanding of the criminal character of the one-sided "war" against Gaza.

Since the non-stop air strikes began on Gaza July 7, Israel has carried out more than 1,300 bomb and missile attacks on the Gaza Strip, an average of one massive explosion every nine minutes, 24 hours a day.

Amid reports that Israel's security cabinet was to meet early Tuesday morning to consider a cease-fire proposal advanced by the Egyptian regime, there was no letup in this onslaught, and Israeli troops and tanks remained poised on the border of Gaza for a potential ground invasion.

Hamas and other Palestinian groups have fired more than 900 rockets, but there is no comparison in terms of the damage inflicted. The rockets are primitive and unguided, most hit open land; not one Israeli has been killed. Every Israeli bomb and missile finds some human target in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, with more than 10,000 people in each square mile.

The death toll among Palestinians in Gaza stood at over 185, as of this writing Monday. The vast majority of these are civilians, not fighters in any of the Palestinian armed groups, and a significant number, at least 50, are children. At least 1,200 more Gazans have been wounded.

War Whore

Horror as Israel bombs Gaza care home for disabled people

Gaza wounded
© AP photo A man brings a wounded Palestinian into the Shifa hospital after an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City on July 12, 2014.
Twenty-year-old Palestinian Sally Saqr lies in a hospital bed in Gaza's Shifa hospital with burns that have turned her cheeks an angry pink beneath her ventilation tube.

She survived an Israeli strike in the early hours of Saturday morning that hit a care home for Palestinians with special needs.

Two of her fellow residents were not so lucky. Thirty-year-old Ola Washahi and 47-year-old Suha Abu Saada were killed when the rocket slammed into the home, destroying it.

The two women's body parts were still being pulled from the rubble hours later, causing initial confusion over whether another person had been killed. The facility's director, Jamila Alaywa, is unable to contain her fury as she describes the tragedy that has befallen the centre she set up in 1994.

"Both Ola and Suha had severe mental and physical handicaps, and had been living at the centre since it was founded," she told AFP.

The building in northern Gaza's Beit Lahiya housed 13 residents, including some who were on weekend visits at their family homes when the strike hit. Five residents and a helper were inside, screaming in terror as the building collapsed around them.

"They didn't understand what was happening and they were so frightened," Alaywa said. "They fired the rocket and it hit us without any warning. There was no warning strike with an empty rocket," she added.

Israel has said it tries to minimize civilian casualties by firing a small missile at a target first, to give non-combatants a chance to leave.


Comment: Psychopathic morality: "It's okay, we'll just shoot you in the leg first so you have a chance to limp away before we set the dogs loose. It's only fair to give you a sporting chance after all."


Bad Guys

Anti-dollar alliance: BRICS establish $100bn bank and currency reserves to counter Western dominance

BRICS
© AFP Photo(L to R) Russia's President Vladimir Putin, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, China's President Xi Jinping and South Africa's President Jacob Zuma join their hands during the official photograph of the 6th BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, on July 15, 2014
The group of emerging economies signed the long-anticipated document to create the $100 bn BRICS Development Bank and a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 bn. Both will counter the influence of Western-based lending institutions and the dollar.

The new bank will provide money for infrastructure and development projects in BRICS countries, and unlike the IMF or World Bank, each nation has equal say, regardless of GDP size.

"BRICS Bank will be one of the major multilateral development finance institutions in this world," Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday at the 6th BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil.

The big launch of the BRICS bank is seen as a first step to break the dominance of the US dollar in global trade, as well as dollar-backed institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, both US-based institutions BRICS countries have little influence within.

"In terms of escalating international competition the task of activating the trade and investment cooperation between BRICS member states becomes important," Putin said.


Die

Germany at crossroads between US and Russia

Image
© AFP
As a never-ending stream of spy scandals put Washington-Berlin relations under unprecedented strain, Germans are increasingly asking themselves whether the country should be blindly following the US.

A recent poll for Der Spiegel showed that up to 57 percent of Germans would like Berlin to conduct policies more independent from the US, and an Op-Ed article by the publication asked more bluntly: "Germany's Choice: Will It Be America or Russia?"

This question, previously unimaginable for Berlin, show just how deeply the US spy scandals are shattering German politics.

An unceasing row of intelligence scandals, that started over a year ago with revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have revealed that the US has been eavesdropping Germans, Chancellor Angela Merkel included, for years now.

Bell

Plot thickens: Blackmailed pedophile Speaker in charge when MP Dickens compiled dossier

George Thomas
Popular Commons Speaker George Thomas dreaded interest in his sexual proclivities - including sex with minors.
The row over claims of an establishment cover-up of an alleged paedophile ring took a new turn last night over fresh claims concerning former Commons Speaker George Thomas.

When late Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens tried to expose public figures he claimed were involved in a Westminster child sex ring in the 1980s, Thomas, who was in the Speaker's chair at the time, had himself been blackmailed over his homosexuality.

Furthermore, The Mail on Sunday has been told of claims that Thomas, who later became Viscount Tonypandy, propositioned young men in the Speaker's official grace and favour apartment in Parliament.

A senior political source said: 'Thomas had an interest in young men and did not hide it at Westminster.'

In the 1960s, Thomas was a Minister in the Home Office, which is accused of losing over 114 files on alleged child sex cases, including Dickens's dossier in the 1980s.

And he reportedly used his Home Office position to help Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe - who was later acquitted of attempted murder of his gay lover - to cover up an alleged homosexual offence against a minor.

The disclosures follow the announcement of official inquiries into claims of a Westminster paedophile ring and a Home Office cover-up.

Thomas, who died in 1997, was one of Britain's best-loved and most influential public figures as Speaker from 1976 to 1983.


Comment: How likely is it that the only perverts who will be exposed in this scandal are the ones who are already dead?


Quenelle - Golden

Russia hand over Crimea to Kiev? Out of the question!

Dmitry Peskov
© RIA Novosti / Aleksey NikolskyiDmitry Peskov
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman has ruled out any chance of Russia giving Crimea back to Ukraine.

"Crimea is part of Russia. Return, handover or any other manipulation is not even up for discussion," Dmitry Peskov said in a program on the Russian News Service radio on Saturday in a comment on a statement by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry that returning Crimea to Ukraine is one of Ukraine's conditions for normalizing its relations with Russia.

On July 9, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Ukraine against trying to get back the peninsula by force.

"If the idea is to attack this part of Russian territory, the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, I wouldn't advise anyone to do that. We have a national security doctrine, and it very clearly prescribes the action to be taken in that case," Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow.

At a referendum in Crimea on March 16, 96.77% of voters supported a proposal for the region to join Russia, according to the Crimean Central Election Commission.

On March 18, Putin signed a treaty that sealed the incorporation of Crimea and Sevastopol into Russia.

Airplane

Petty politicians: UK denies visas to Russian airshow delegation, Moscow ready to take 'symmetrical' measures

Farnborough
© ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/GettyImagesRussians not allowed. Farnborough 'Not so' International air show denies Russians' visas.
Britain, having denied a Russian delegation entry visas to visit the Farnborough international air show this week, has triggered a determined response from Moscow, with Russia threatening to take "symmetrical" measures, Interfax reports.

"We qualify this British move as patently unfriendly and expect official explanations from the British side about the current situation, which does not fit into the framework of normal relations between our nations. We also reserve the right to symmetrical action, as is customary in diplomatic practice," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yury Matery, in a statement.

"We are justifiably indignant about the situation. We have always assumed that it is in the interests of Britain, as the organizer of large-scale international events, that they should be successful and as representative as possible. But this is by no means the first instance of problems with issuing visas to participants in official Russian delegations to Farnborough shows. There have been problems for the same reason with regard to other international forums in Britain, including an international exhibition of ecological foods in April this year and the Info Security Europe 2014 exhibition in summer this year," he continued.

Russia's Embassy in Britain "has sent a note to the Foreign Office, requesting explanations," Matery said, adding that "no response has been received so far".

Butterfly

Anti-Russian unity crumbling: 9 EU countries ready to block economic sanctions against Russia

EU Brussels
© AFP Photo / Belga / Siska Gremmelprez
France, Germany, and Italy are among EU members who don't want to follow the US lead and impose trade sanctions on Russia. US sanctions are seen as a push to promote its own multibillion free-trade pact with Europe.

"France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia, and EU President Italy see no reason in the current environment for the introduction of sectorial trade and economic sanctions against Russia and at the summit, will block the measure," a diplomatic source told ITAR-TASS.

In order for a new wave of sanctions to pass, all 28 EU members must unanimously vote in favor. EU ministers plan to discuss new sanctions against Russia at their summit in Brussels on Wednesday, July 16. Even if only one country vetoed, sanctions would not be imposed. With heavyweights like France and Germany opposed to more sanctions the measure will likely again be stalled, the source said.

According to the source, the US sees slapping Russia with sanctions as a way to promote its own trade agenda with Europe, a side rarely explored in mainstream media. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and Europe would create the world's largest free trade zone, but some worry it could balloon into an "economic NATO" or could end up putting corporation interest above national.

Dollars

When will the bubbles burst? Russian economy expert says: The world is balancing on the edge of financial shock

Image
Yakov Mirkin, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Head of the International Capital Markets Department, Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Science

The global financial system is again pushing the global economy into the pit of the crisis: even deeper than in 2008. Russia will also have hard times. We are connected to the U.S. and the EU with one umbilical cord. As before, on the European Union accounted for 50 percent of Russia's exports and imports (the figure for January-April 2014). The trade with the U.S. has even increased by 9 percent. If these economies suffer, Russia will suffer as well. If they have problems with their finances, we'll see bankruptcies on our home soil too.

Red lights on the dashboard

The biggest risk is the bubble in U.S. stock market. Dow Jones increased by 25 percent within 1.5 years. And it raised 2.6x since the bottom of spring 2009. A bit too much for the "developed market" of the USA, isn't it? It is usually stable, not so fluctuating and bouncing as the raging emerging markets. Yet another red light is the "stock market capitalization to GDP" indicator. And again, it is too high for the United States together with the UK: the pre-crisis value in 2008 is already exceeded. Once the markets reached them six years ago, everything collapsed. What is really going on with the finance of these famous kingdoms? Almost the same as during the flood in August 2002 in Europe.