Politics

U.S. bomber prepares to launch a strike mission from Al Udeid AIr Base, Qatar, April 13, 2018, in support of the multinational response to reports of Syria recent use of chemical weapons. (U.S. Air Force/Phil Speck)
Politics

Panel Finds Gaping Holes in OPCW Report on Alleged Syrian Chemical Attack

A whistleblowers’ advocacy group finds “unacceptable practices” by an investigation of the 2018 chemical attack in Douma, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
The Courage Foundation, an international protection and advocacy group for whistleblowers, has published the findings of a panel it convened last week on the extremely suspicious behavior of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. After hearing an extensive presentation from a member of the OPCW’s Douma investigation team, the panel’s members (including a world-renowned former OPCW Director General) report that they are “unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018.”
Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization’s other work.

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Max Blumenthal
Politics

“This Charge is 100% False”: Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal arrested months after reporting on Venezuelan opposition violence

The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal has been arrested on false charges after reporting on Venezuelan opposition violence outside the DC embassy. He describes the manufactured case as part of a wider campaign of political persecution.
If this had happened to a journalist in Venezuela, every Western human rights NGO and news wire would be howling about Maduro’s authoritarianism. It will be revealing to see how these same elements react to a clear-cut case of political repression in their own backyard.

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Politics

The Revolution Isn’t Being Televised

Over 30 years ago, in their book Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky developed their theory of worthy vs. unworthy victims to explain why corporate media cover certain stories and why others are dropped. In other words, when official enemies can be presented as evil and allies as sympathetic victims, corporate media will be very interested in a story. In contrast, they will show far less enthusiasm for a story when the “wrong” people are the villains or the victims.

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JOHN PILGER: Did This Happen in the Home of the Magna Carta?
Politics

JOHN PILGER: Did This Happen in the Home of the Magna Carta?

John Pilger: The worst moment was one of a number of ‘worst’ moments. I have sat in many courtrooms and seen judges abuse their positions, This judge, Vanessa Baraitser—actually she isn’t a judge at all; she’s a magistrate—shocked all of us who were there. Her face was a progression of sneers and imperious indifference; she addressed Julian with an arrogance that reminded me of a magistrate presiding over apartheid South Africa’s Race Classification Board. When Julian struggled to speak, he couldn’t get words out, even stumbling over his name and date of birth. Having ignored Julian’s barrister’s factual description of how the CIA had run a Spanish security firm that spied on him in the Ecuadorean embassy, she didn’t yawn, but her disinterest was as expressive. She then denied Julian’s lawyers any more time to prepare their case – even though their client was prevented in prison from receiving legal documents and other tools with which to defend himself.

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Julian Assange Illegal Imprisonment and Torture by the US and UK
Politics

Julian Assange Displayed Signs of Torture in Courtroom Farce

What we witnessed yesterday was a naked demonstration of the power of the state, and a naked dictation of proceedings by the Americans, writes Craig Murray.
Having attended the trials in Uzbekistan of several victims of extreme torture, and having worked with survivors from Sierra Leone and elsewhere, I can tell you that yesterday changed my mind entirely and Julian exhibited exactly the symptoms of a torture victim brought blinking into the light, particularly in terms of disorientation, confusion, and the real struggle to assert free will through the fog of learned helplessness.

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The World Turned Upside Down
Politics

The World Turned Upside Down

Yet when the Houthi rebel movement that controls much of Yemen wiped out three Saudi Brigades and inflicted at least 2,500 casualties at the end of September, the Western media ignored it. The humiliating defeat that the Houthis have just inflicted on the Saudis is of comparable epochal significance. The Houthi victory serves notice that the Saudis have met their nemesis. The Houthis are now poised to bring the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself crashing down. Payback is coming. And it will not stop at the borders of Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

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Iran Claims To Have Video Evidence Of Oil Tanker Attacks
Politics

Iran Claims To Have Video Evidence Of Oil Tanker Attacks

Iran has claimed that it has footage of last week’s attack on its oil tanker while off the Saudi Arabian Jeddah port, and it proves that the attacks were carried out by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, according to Mehr news agency, who quoted Abolfazl Hassan Beigi, Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission member. This evidence, Hassan Beigi said, will be provided to the UN and Security Council.

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Barack Obama Receiving Nobel Peace Prize
Politics

Why Barack Obama Was Particularly Unsuited to Live up to the Ideals of the Nobel Peace Prize

But by the time Obama arrived in Oslo to accept the prize two months later, he had approved a 30,000 troop surge in Afghanistan, dashing any hopes that the anti-war candidate would reverse the militarism of the Bush administration. By the end of his second term, Guantanamo Bay – the closing of which he had made a cornerstone of his first presidential campaign – remained open.

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Kurds-flee-Syria-border
Politics

Kurds Face Stark Options After US Pullback

What’s happening is a quadruple win.
1. The US performs a face saving withdrawal, which Trump can sell as avoiding a conflict with NATO alley Turkey.
2. Turkey has the guarantee – by the Russians – that the Syrian Army will be in control of the Turkish-Syrian border.
3. Russia prevents a war escalation and keeps the Russia-Iran-Turkey peace process alive.
4. And Syria will eventually regain control of its oilfields and the entire northeast.

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GCHQ’s “doughnut” building in Cheltenham, west England. (U.K. Ministry of Defence, Wikimedia Commons)
Politics

British Government Continues to Aid Repression in Human Rights-Abusing Countries, New Data Shows

In the past year, “telecommunications interception equipment,” or software & technology for it, has been exported to authoritarian regimes such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, report Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis.
In June this year the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, called for an immediate worldwide moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of surveillance technology until human rights-compliant regulatory frameworks are in place.
He noted, “Surveillance tools can interfere with human rights, from the right to privacy and freedom of expression to rights of association and assembly, religious belief, non-discrimination, and public participation. And yet they are not subject to any effective global or national control.”

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School children react to bombs dropped outside of the Martyr Ahmed Abdul Wahab Al Samawi school on Nov 11, 2017. Mohammed al Alkabsi | Yamanyoon
Politics

A Generation Deleted: American Bombs in Yemen Are Costing an Entire Generation Their Future

“[They] face increased risks of all forms of exploitation including being forced to join the fighting, child labor and early marriage. They lose the opportunity to develop and grow in a caring and stimulating environment, ultimately becoming trapped in a life of poverty and hardship.” A team of investigators appointed by the UN Human Rights Council found numerous cases of Saudi airstrikes that violated international humanitarian law and, for the first time, directly implicated the United States, Britain, France and Australia for supplying the weapons used in the attacks.

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Hongkong Photo by Simon Zhu via Unsplash
Politics

The Battle Over Hong Kong: New Silk Road or New World Order?

It is an irony not to be missed, that not only does World Problematique underlie “right wing” neo conservatism, but is also at the root of the rise of the “new left” ecological movement as its leading adherents included Sir Alexander King who used it to create the Club of Rome in 1969 and a new green technocracy governed by the quasi-science of systems analysis which is more focused upon depopulation than actually cleaning the environment [1].

So if you are happy living in a world that denies creativity, then a new bureaucracy of risk management is the way to go. If, on the other hand, you are a member of the human species and have faith that we were created for something better, then you might want to applaud China’s Belt and Road Initiative, celebrate Hong Kong’s participation in it, and hope your nation joins if it hasn’t done so yet.

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