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Stopping 'Israelization': Syrians in Golan Heights to boycott municipal election by Israel

Nour Samaha
Al Jazeera
Thu, 21 Jun 2018 10:28 UTC
Israeli soldiers walk past tanks
© Reuters
Israeli soldiers walk past tanks near the border with Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
Syrian residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights will boycott the first municipal elections by Israel in the area.

Thousands of Syrian residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights are expected to boycott the first municipal elections imposed by Israel on the area, rejecting what they call the 'Israelization' of the territory.

Following a decision handed down by Israel's supreme court last year to hold, for the first time ever, municipal elections in October 2018 for the occupied Golan's 26,000 Syrian residents, local religious leaders and village elders are calling for a full rejection of the elections, calling it a "red line."

"With regards to the Golan Heights families, we are Syrian Arabs living under Israeli occupation and there is no possible way for us to accept these elections imposed on us," Abu Wadih, an elder from Majdal Shams, told Al Jazeera.

Comment: See also: Oil interests: Trump will recognize the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory

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Pirates

167 bodies of Islamic State members found in Mosul

Nehal Mostafa
Iraqi News
Tue, 19 Jun 2018 09:56 UTC
Bodies of members of the Islamic State group

Bodies of members of the Islamic State group
More than 100 bodies of Islamic State members, including leaders, were found in Nineveh, a security source from the province was quoted saying on Tuesday.

"Security troops found, today, 167 bodies of Islamic State members, including foreign and Arab leaders, who were killed by their leaders during the liberation battles of Mosul city," Cap. Amir Wathiq, of Nineveh police, told BasNews.

The bodies, according to Wathiq, "was found in al-Gazira region in Hatra, southwest of Mosul."
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Gear

Lebanese army dismantles Israeli spying devices in southern Lebanon


PressTV
Fri, 22 Jun 2018 09:21 UTC
Israeli spying device
© Photo by al-Manar television network
This photo shows an Israeli spying device found by the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters on the outskirts of Barouk village, southwestern Lebanon, on August 13, 2017
Lebanese government forces have identified and dismantled a network of Israeli spying devices in the country's southern province of Nabatieh.

A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told English-language the Daily Star newspaper that the devices were discovered on the outskirts of Kfarchouba village, located 130 kilometers south of the capital Beirut, on Friday.

On January 10, Lebanese troops uncovered an Israeli spying device near Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh (Western Zawtar) town, which lies just north of the Litani River.

Comment: See also: Israel confirms running spy networks in Lebanon

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Eye 2

Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman: Dozens of Palestinians injured by Israeli forces during protest at Gaza border


RT
Sat, 23 Jun 2018 08:00 UTC
Palestinians carry a protester injured by Israeli forces at the Gaza border
© Said Khatib / AFP
Palestinians carry a protester injured by Israeli forces at the Gaza border on June 22, 2018
Dozens of Palestinian protesters have been injured by Israeli forces gathered at the Gaza border for the Great Return March, according to the Ministry of Health.

Friday's demonstration saw 206 cases of injury and gas asphyxiation, the Palestinian Health Ministry's spokesman wrote on Twitter. Of those injuries, 44 were live bullet wounds.


Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

Assets of the world's "high net wealth" millionaires ballooned to $70 trillion in 2017

Barry Grey
World Socialist Website
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC
wealth disparity
The concentration of the planet's wealth in the hands of a narrow financial elite is growing by leaps and bounds. A new report published Tuesday reveals that the wealth of the world's 18.1 million "high net worth individuals" - those having investable assets of $1 million or more-shot up by 10.6 percent last year to top $70 trillion for the first time ever.

The "World Wealth Report 2018," issued by the consulting firm Capgemini, revealed that the combined wealth of the world's millionaires rose for the sixth consecutive year in 2017 to reach $70.2 trillion. It is on target to surpass $100 trillion by 2025.

Capgemini defines a high net wealth individual (HNWI) as someone with assets above $1 million, excluding his or her primary residence, collectibles, consumables and consumer durables. This defines a wealthy elite that owns more than $1 million in stocks, bonds, real estate or other investments.
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Cow Skull

Nutzoids are STILL jabbering on about a Putin-Trump-Nazi apocalypse

CJ Hopkins
Counterpunch
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC
Trump Putin
I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little tired of waiting for the Hitlerian nightmare that the corporate media promised us was coming back in 2016. Frankly, I'm beginning to suspect that all their apocalyptic pronouncements were just parts of some elaborate cocktease. I mean, here we are, a year and half into the reign of the Trumpian Reich, and, well, where are all the concentration camps, the SS units with their death's head insignia, the Riefenstahlian parades and rallies? Trump hasn't even banned the Democratic Party, or annexed Canada, or invaded Mexico, or made anybody wear color-coded armbands. If he doesn't start Hitlering relatively soon, the oracles of the corporate media are going to have some serious explaining to do.

I don't think I'm overreacting. After all, back in 2016, The Guardian promised us an "Age of Darkness," and the end of "civilized order" as we know it. "Globalization is dead, and white supremacy has triumphed," one of its more hysterical pundits proclaimed. "Donald Trump is actually a fascist," Michael Kinsley assured us in The Washington Post. Charles Blow of The New York Times warned that Trump's election was "the beginning of the end," the descent of the republic into "racial Orwellianism," whatever that's supposed to mean. Thomas Friedman called it "a moral 911." Paul Krugman predicted nothing short of "a global recession with no end in sight." Jonathan Chait, after heroically vowing not to flee the country with his terrified family, but to stay and fight to the bitter end, guaranteed us that the "monster," Trump, would "shake the republic to its foundations."
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Sheeple

The National Endowment for Democracy's useful idiots

Joyce Nelson
Counterpunch
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC
Rachel Maddow
On Friday, June 8, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow augmented her nightly Russiagate fetish by extolling the merits of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), telling her huge audience that the NED, created in the 1980s by the Ronald Reagan administration, still does the "non-partisan hard work around the world, of promoting small D democracy and promoting the institutions of civil society that any culture needs in order to have a functioning democracy."

By Wednesday, June 13, at least one progressive writer, Bill Berkowitz, had challenged Maddow's viewpoint on NED as "naive". He wrote: "Whatever else can be said about the NED and its affiliated organizations, it is hard to back up Maddow's naive claim about its work re 'promoting small D democracy.' Because amid whatever success it may have had, the NED is also notable for supporting anti-democratic organizations, and contributing to the overthrow of democratically elected governments. Along the way, it has provided a glut of disinformation, misinformation, and downright fake news in pursuit of its mission." [1]
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Arrow Up

Roger Waters performs in Munich despite mayor's anti-Semitism smear campaign

Carlos Latuffe
Mondoweiss
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC
Roger Waters VS Israeli lobby Germany
© Carlos Latuff
Roger Waters versus Israeli Lobby in Germany.
"I believe all people, all of us, all of our brothers and sisters, all of our fragile globe, whatever their ethnicity or religion or nationality, deserve the same basic human rights under the law," Roger Waters told the crowd at a Munich concert last week.

Waters performed in Munich following a campaign to cancel his concert backed by the city's mayor, Dieter Reiter, who accused Waters of anti-Semitism. An attorney for Waters asked Reiter to retract his statement, according to the Jerusalem Post, and Waters addressed the row himself from the stage at Munich's Olympic Hall and later posted to social media. The musician explained that the mayor was championing a petition that alleged Waters is anti-Semitic because he endorses the Palestinian movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.

Munich passed a law last year that prohibits the use of public facilities to persons who support the BDS movement.

Comment: Kudos to Roger Waters for his continuing efforts on behalf of the beleaguered Palestinians despite repeated attempts to curtail his influence:

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Arrow Up

HRW: Assange should not face extradition to US under 'antiquated' Espionage Act for publishing leaked government documents

Jason Murdock
Newsweek
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 15:59 UTC
julian assange
© Jack Taylor/Getty Images
Julian Assange gestures as he speaks to the media from the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador on May 19, 2017, in London. The Human Rights Watch wrote that he should not have to face judgment under the U.S. Espionage Act.
Six years after entering the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains in limbo. The government of Ecuador recently terminated his internet connection, and reports from his legal representatives suggest his medical situation is worsening.

This week, on the anniversary of his arrival at the embassy in June 2012, Human Rights Watch threw its weight behind the controversial figure, saying he should not be forced to face judgment under the "antiquated" U.S. Espionage Act.

"The U.K. has the power to resolve concerns over his isolation, health, and confinement by removing the threat of extradition for publishing newsworthy leaks," wrote the general counsel of Human Rights Watch, Dinah PoKempner, in a blog post on Tuesday. "It should do so before another year passes."

Assange fled to the embassy in 2012 to escape sexual assault allegations in Sweden and was granted political asylum. While Swedish prosecutors dropped the case in May 2017, the U.K. has an outstanding warrant for his arrest accusing him of skipping bail, and he still fears leaving the embassy because of the threat of extradition to the U.S. for leaking secrets.

Comment: John Pilger: Bring Julian Assange home
No investigative journalism in my lifetime can equal the importance of what WikiLeaks has done in calling rapacious power to account. It is as if a one-way moral screen has been pushed back to expose the imperialism of liberal democracies: the commitment to endless warfare and the division and degradation of "unworthy" lives: from Grenfell Tower to Gaza.

[...]

In its revelations of fraudulent wars (Afghanistan, Iraq) and the bald-faced lies of governments (the Chagos Islands), WikiLeaks has allowed us to glimpse how the imperial game is played in the 21st century. That is why Assange is in mortal danger.


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Dollars

Supreme Court judge wrote a book on corruption; now he's being indicted on fraud charges

Victoria Gagliardo
Law and Crime
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 22:51 UTC
Justice Allen Loughry

Justice Allen Loughry
West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Allen Loughry, who authored a book on political corruption in his home state, was indicted on 22 federal charges, ranging from fraud to witness tampering, for alleged corruption of his own.

According to the indictment, Loughry fraudulently used a government-issued credit cards for personal use, took an historic Supreme Court desk back to his house for use in a "home office," and then lied about it to cover it up. Prosecutors says the Justice Loughry falsified the mileage on trips he took in a Supreme Court car, for which he used a government card for payment. They also say he claimed to use government vehicles for business, when he was really using them-and credit cards- for personal use. He also allegedly lied to fellow Supreme Court Justices about it.
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