Russian Foreign Ministry: White House ‘Defending the Islamic State’ Terrorists
© Sputnik/ Alexei Druzhinin
Sputnik – 17.09.2016
Russia says that the situation in Syria is worsening finding that the rebels have intensified their attacks since the ceasefire came into force on September 12 and laying the blame at the feet of Washington for failing to crackdown on jihadists.
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a scathing response to the Obama administration after a US Central Command statement suggested that the US-led coalition had warned Russia prior to the airstrikes against Syrian Army positions at Deir Ez-Zor that left some 62 Assad regime soldiers dead.
The statement by the Foreign ministry comes in the wake of accusations by Russia that the United States has not been dealing in good faith in the ceasefire agreement with Russian General Vladimir Savchenko saying that “the situation is worsening” with rebel forces escalating their attacks since the agreement went into force on September 12.
“Russia is exerting all possible effort to restrain Government troops from returning fire,” Senior Army General Viktor Poznikhir said.
The harsh response by Russia comes not only after the United States attempted to flip the blame on Moscow for the attack that killed 80 forces according to the SANA news agency, but also after reports that Daesh terrorists engaged in a major offensive right after the American airstrike crippled the Assad regime’s forces.
Speaking on Rossiya 24 Television the Rusisan Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said: “If earlier we had suspicions that the Nusra Front is protected this way, now, after today’s airstrikes on the Syrian army we come to a really terrifying conclusion for the entire world: the White House is defending IS [Islamic State or Daesh).”
Birzeit University Condemns Denial of Entry to UK Academic
Birzeit University Official Statement – September 17, 2016
Birzeit University condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the denial of entry to Dr. Adam Hanieh, who was invited by the Ph.D. Program in the Social Sciences at Birzeit University to deliver a series of lectures at the university.
Dr. Hanieh, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, was deported back to London on the morning of September 13, 2016. He was held for questioning for 10 hours at Ben Gurion airport, and then taken overnight to a detention centre outside the airport. In addition to being refused entry, Dr. Hanieh was banned from entering the country for ten years.
Dr. Hanieh was scheduled to share his vast knowledge of global and Middle East political economy with students in the Ph.D. program as well as the university community in a series of lectures scheduled in the coming two weeks. Hanieh is an accomplished scholar, the author of Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East (Haymarket Books, 2013) and Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), as well as numerous academic articles.
This act of denial of entry and deportation by the Israeli state and its agencies is part of a systematic policy of denial of entry to international academics, professionals and activists intending to visit Palestine. This policy represents an attack on Palestinian academic freedom, and is routinely practiced at the two entry points, the airport in Tel Aviv and the Jordan valley crossing from Jordan.
Birzeit University is not surprised by this latest instance of the policy, and hereby draws attention to its destructive effects. Birzeit University, determined to be part of the international academy, has been once again denied the opportunity to engage with an international academic who would have enriched its academic programs.
US-led coalition aircraft strike Syrian army positions, kill 62 soldiers – military
RT | September 17, 2016
US-led coalition jets have bombed Syrian government forces’ positions near the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor, killing 62 troops and “paving the way” for Islamic State militants, the Syrian Army General Command told the state television.
According to Syria’s official SANA news agency, the bombing took place on al-Tharda Mountain in the region of Deir ez-Zor and caused casualties and destruction on the ground.
Sixty-two Syrian soldiers were killed and over 100 injured in the airstrike by the US-led coalition, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, said, citing information received from the Syrian General Command.
“We are aware of the reports and checking with Centcom and CJTF (Combined Joint Task Force),” the Pentagon told RT.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that the aircraft which carried out the bombings had entered Syrian airspace from the territory of Iraq.
Four strikes against Syrian positions was performed by two F-16 jet fighters and two A-10 support aircraft, it added.
“If the airstrike was caused by the wrong coordinates of targets than it’s a direct consequence of the stubborn unwillingness of the American side to coordinate with Russia in its actions against terrorist groups in Syria,” Konashenkov stressed.
The Defense Ministry also confirmed a report by SANA that an Islamic State offensive began right after Syrian Army positions were hit from the air.
“Immediately after the airstrike by coalition planes, Islamic State militants launched their offensive. Fierce fighting with the terrorists is currently underway in the area of the airport where for a long a time humanitarian aid for civilians was parachuted,” Konashenkov said.
The Syrian General Command has called the bombing a “serious and blatant aggression” against Syrian forces, and said it was “conclusive evidence” that the US and its allies support IS militants.
Earlier on Saturday, Russia accused the US of being reluctant to take measures to force rebels under its control to fall in line with the terms of the Syrian ceasefire.
Numerous Russian appeals to the American side remain unanswered, which “raises doubts over the US’s ability to influence opposition groups under their control and their willingness to further ensure the implementation of the Geneva agreements,” senior Russian General Staff official, Viktor Poznikhir, said.
Poznikhir also said that the truce is being used by the militants to regroup, resupply and prepare an offensive against government troops.
Last week, Moscow and Washington agreed to influence the Syrian government and the so-called moderate rebel forces respectively in order to establish a ceasefire in the country.
Since then, Russia has repeatedly complained that the US is failing to keep its part of the bargain. The US, on its part, has blamed Russia for not pressuring Damascus enough to facilitate humanitarian access to Syria.
Pathetic Fail #3: Sam Kestenbaum, Naomi Dann, and the Forward
WinterPatriot | September 16, 2016
Series: Accessories After The Fact Go Splat!!
Previous: Pathetic Fail #4: Matt Kwong and the CBC
Sam Kestenbaum, Accessory after the Fact [source: The Forward ]
Number 3 : Sam Kestenbaum, Naomi Dann, and the Forward, for “Progressive Brooklyn Space Won’t Dump ‘Anti-Semitic 9/11 Conspiracy Nut’,” “9/11 Anniversary Sparks New Wave of Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories,” “The Jewish Left Needs To Call Out Real Anti-Semites Like Christopher Bollyn,” and “9/11 Conspiracy Theorist Chris Bollyn Blames Terror Attack on ‘Zionist War Agenda’ in Brooklyn Speech”
In the three previous installments, we have seen examples of accessories after the fact trying to attack 9/11 Truth by addition, so to speak. They have been adding their voices (and their nonsense) to the public arena, using different tactical approaches:
Robert Bridge wrote as if the official story of 9/11 were obviously true and had never been seriously challenged, for readers who know better, and got called on it, repeatedly.
Jack Holmes attacked 9/11 Truth on the evidence, claiming to “disprove” the “conspiracy theories,” but proving only that he had nothing convincing to offer.
Matt Kwong tried to explain why so many people are still concerned about 9/11 Truth without even considering the possibility that the official story might be false. Since this required him to ignore significant and relevant evidence, including some which he himself presented, the result was unconvincing, to put it mildly.
Now we turn to accessories after the fact using a different strategy, attacking 9/11 Truth by subtraction. Rather than adding their voices to the discussion, they’re using their voices to try and prevent other voices from speaking. Or: they can’t compete with 9/11 Truth, so they’re trying to suppress it.
In this installment, we will consider an attack which was intended to prevent an independent researcher from speaking in a public space to which he had been invited, by inciting so much opposition that the event organizer would be forced to withdraw the invitation.
The space is called Brooklyn Commons, the researcher is Christopher Bollyn, and the accessories after the fact were connected with the Jewish newspaper, “The Forward.”
On September 7, Sam Kestenbaum wrote:
A progressive gathering space in Brooklyn is sticking by its decision, despite widespread condemnation, to host a talk by a conspiracy theorist who has blamed Israel and Jews for the 9-11 attacks on their 15th anniversary.
Melissa Ennen, founder of Brooklyn Commons, wrote in a statement released Tuesday afternoon that the Commons was not “designed to be a cozy cocoon for intramural debate among leftists. From the beginning my goal has been to foster discussion among disparate groups across a wide political spectrum.”
Ennen noted that since launching in 2010, the Commons has rented space to Tea Partiers, anti-union corporations and elected officials who supported wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While “progressive organizations dominate the calendar,” Ennen wrote, “the Commons is available for rental by other groups.”
In case you’re not aware, Christopher Bollyn is not only “a conspiracy theorist who has blamed Israel and Jews for the 9-11 attacks.” He’s also been identified by the Anti-Defamation League as a “prominent voice in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,” and described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “a raging anti-Semite.”
Poster advertising Bollyn in NYC, 2016 [source: Twitter via Noah Shachtman]
Why are Bollyn and his conspiracy theories anti-Semitic? Because he alleges
a “Zionist Jewish” plot to induce America into the War on Terror so that their “cabal” can expand its global power
according to Daniel Sieradsky of jewschool.com.
On what evidence does Bollyn base his allegations? That’s what all these people were trying to prevent him from talking about!
The first attempt didn’t produce the desired result, so Sam Kestenbaum tried again the next day with “9/11 Anniversary Sparks New Wave of Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories,” which follows the pattern of ad-hominem attack established in the previous article, but packages it in a more concise way.
Meanwhile, Naomi Dann chipped in with “The Jewish Left Needs To Call Out Real Anti-Semites Like Christopher Bollyn,” in which she writes
It’s heartening that there have been so many calls from progressive organizations and leaders calling for the cancellation of the event, and extremely disappointing to see that the Commons has refused to cancel it.
Having said this, she goes on to explain how we can tell the difference between “anti-Zionism,” which the Jewish Left allegedly tolerates, and “real anti-Semitism,” which Jews of all political leanings are urged to fight at every turn.
The distinction, according to Naomi Dann, can be understood this way:
There should be a clear line between criticizing the policies, actions and even ideology of the state of Israel, and criticizing the Jewish people or religion.
Thus: One may criticize Israel’s policies, the actions that flow from those policies, and the ideology that gives rise to both, because such criticism is merely “anti-Zionism.”
But no one may criticize the people who promote that ideology, establish those policies, and carry out those actions; nor may anyone criticize the religion that gives rise to the ideology behind the policies, because such criticism is “real anti-Semitism.”
If this is not immediately clear to you, then you’re probably reading it correctly. I think it means I can say the Palestinians are being viciously abused, provided that I don’t identify the abusers or mention the grounds on which the abusers attempt to justify their vicious behavior.
Naomi Dann, Accessory after the Fact [Source: Jewish Voice of Peace]
If I have that wrong, perhaps the Jewish Left needs to work harder to change the narrative being imposed from above, as it were. Naomi Dann explains:
For us to expect others to understand that distinction, our communal leaders also have to stop acting as if any criticism of the state is an attack on our people.
because
It does not help us fight truly dangerous anti-Semitic narratives when the state of Israel claims to represent all of us Jews, nor when American Jewish organizations use the power that they have to silence criticism of the state.
I am impressed by the depth to which Naomi Dann seems unaware of the contradiction: she’s complaining about what happens “when American Jewish organizations use the power that they have to silence criticism of the state” of Israel, while urging American Jewish organizations to use their power for that very purpose. So in effect Naomi Dann is saying, “It doesn’t help us when we do what we’re trying to do, but it’s essential that we do it anyway.”
Perhaps I could help Naomi Dann to find a way out of her self-imposed maze, by suggesting that when “the state of Israel claims to represent all Jews,” it may not be especially motivated by a desire to “help” the American Jewish Left “fight truly dangerous anti-Semitic narratives.”
To me it seems more likely that the state of Israel claims to represent all Jews because in this way it can coerce the American Jewish Left into fighting against anti-Zionist narratives.
In other words, as I see it, all Jews — even those who oppose Israel’s policies and actions — are pressed into service as human shields, and active shields at that, trying to stifle anything — a news report, an opinion piece, a public speaking engagement, or whatever — that might reflect badly on Israel, for fear that the anger that might be generated by widespread knowledge of Israel’s policies and actions might fuel a wave of general anti-Semitism that might bring negative impacts crashing down on them, their families and friends, and those who share their religion. And this coercion comes about precisely because “the state of Israel claims to represent all Jews.”
To make a long, pathetic story short: They didn’t manage to get the event in Brooklyn canceled, although similar pressure did result in the cancellation of Bollyn’s invitation to speak at Busboys and Poets Café in Washington, according to Daniel Sieradsky.
As it turned out, Bollyn’s presentation at Brooklyn Commons was attended by only about two dozen people, some of whom came to disrupt the event, as Sam Kestenbaum was pleased to report from the scene.
So one must ask: How many people did the Forward and its friends scare away? Any? And what would they have accomplished had they managed to get the event canceled, other than depriving two dozen people of the opportunity to listen to Bollyn for a couple of hours?
Instead, Sam Kestenbaum and the Forward gave Bollyn publicity he could not have bought, linked to an online PDF of his book, “Solving 9/11: The Deception That Changed The World,” and provided a platform for his assertion that
“The ‘false flag’ terrorism of 9-11 is a monstrous Jewish-Zionist crime of our time […] The true culprits of this heinous crime are clearly being protected by a gang of like-minded Jewish Zionists in the highest positions of the U.S. government.”
As far as I can tell, nobody is trying to refute Bollyn’s allegations, though many are trying to prevent his voice from being heard. And it’s clear that refuting his allegations would be more convincing than trying to prevent him from speaking. So we can infer that they would refute him if they could, and they’re trying to prevent him from telling us what he knows because they can’t dispute what he has to say.
It’s a logical conclusion, and easy to reach, so I wouldn’t be surprised if at least two dozen readers, finding the Forward’s coverage on the Internet and intrigued by the hallmarks of a coverup, did a bit of exploring, downloaded Bollyn’s book, and did some reading at his website, to which Naomi Dann linked.
So what is the net gain to the Forward ? to Sam Kestenbaum? To Naomi Dann?
On one hand, they’ve demonstrated to their “communal leaders” that they can be trusted to stand and fight on command.
On the other hand, they’ve demonstrated to the rest of us that (1) they’re highly motivated by fear of a hypothetical future in which some of the consequences of 9/11 might be borne by innocent people who happen to share the same religion as the perpetrators, but (2) they have no problem with a real present in which the horrible actual consequences of 9/11 are borne by innocent people who happen to share the same religion as the scapegoats!
 |
| Christopher Bollyn [source: The Forward ] |
I recall a presentation several years ago in which Christopher Bollyn said he never had a problem with Israel, even lived there for a while; and never had a problem with Jews either, until he started investigating explosions in the WTC, at which point he started getting pressure from Jewish groups. At first he wondered why Jewish groups, in particular, would try to keep him from looking into the destruction of the towers. But the more he dug, the more Israeli connections he found, and the less he wondered.
That’s Bollyn’s story, as I remember it, and you may choose to believe it or not. It sounds loopy, but I had a similar experience. I never had any problem with Jews either, until I started blogging about evidence of explosions in the WTC, at which point I started getting pressure from other bloggers and readers who identified themselves as Jewish. It was this pressure which prompted me to entertain, for the first time, the possibility that the people who were talking about Israeli complicity in 9/11 might know what they were talking about.
So it seems to me that if they’re trying to suppress the facts, drawing attention to the people who are trying to disseminate those facts is a losing strategy. On the other hand, they can’t very well anger their “communal leaders” by not trying it.
In any case, it was a total fail. They didn’t get the event canceled, they gave a “raging anti-Semite” a moment in the anti-Semitic sun, and they revealed themselves and their followers to be transparent hypocrites.
Sorry, Sam! You lose! Your pathetic attack failed, and you wound up using your platform to publicize the very allegations you were trying to suppress.
Sorry, Naomi! You lose, too! You’re trapped behind the imaginary line you’re trying to draw, but so caught up in your own contradictions that you don’t even realize it.
And sorry, Forward ! You’re the biggest loser in the story, and the most hypocritical, too. As an alert reader pointed out in a comment:
The Dancing Israeli stories is a curious side bar to 911, turns out they were Mossad agents working for a Mossad front, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J. The details of which can be found in a Forward article dated March 15 2002 written by Marc Perelman
There’s boundless irony here, as the paper is busted on the strength of its own reporting. Shockingly, the piece referred to in the comment is no longer available at the Forward website, but the Wayback Machine hasn’t forgotten that Marc Perelman wrote, and the Forward published, the following:
Despite angry denials by Israel and its American supporters, reports that Israel was conducting spying activities in the United States may have a grain of truth, the Forward has learned. […]
In particular, a group of five Israelis arrested in New Jersey shortly after the September 11 attacks and held for more than two months was subjected to an unusual number of polygraph tests and interrogated by a series of government agencies including the FBI’s counterintelligence division, which by some reports remains convinced that Israel was conducting an intelligence operation. The five Israelis worked for a moving company with few discernable assets that closed up shop immediately afterward and whose owner fled to Israel. […]
According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front.
After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations.
However, a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI concluded that at least two of them were in fact Mossad operatives, according to the former American official, who said he was regularly briefed on the investigation by two separate law enforcement officials.
“The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it,” he said. “The conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs but that they could leave because they did not know anything about 9/11.” […]
Spokesmen for the FBI, the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to discuss the case. Israeli officials flatly dismissed the allegations as untrue.
However, the former American official said that after American authorities confronted Jerusalem on the issue at the end of last year, the Israeli government acknowledged the operation and apologized for not coordinating it with Washington.
The five men — Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari and Yaron Shmuel — were arrested eight hours after the attacks by the Bergen County, N.J., police while driving in an Urban Moving Systems van. The police acted on an FBI alert after the men allegedly were seen acting strangely while watching the events from the roof of their warehouse and the roof of their van.
In addition to their strange behavior and their Middle Eastern looks, the suspicions were compounded when a box cutter and $4,000 in cash were found in the van. Moreover, one man carried two passports and another had fresh pictures of the men standing with the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center in the background.
And so on. I’ve omitted Marc Perelman’s attempts to spin the story in an innocent direction, just as Marc Perelman described the men as “acting strangely” rather than admitting that they attracted attention to themselves by dancing, exchanging high-fives, flicking their lighters, and photographing one another against the backdrop of the burning towers.
Marc Perelman’s story hints that the behavior of these five men was probably innocent and misinterpreted, and he repeated the same claim in a subsequent interview. But if that were true, they would never have been noticed, let alone arrested. Plenty of people were acting strangely that day. But the others weren’t dancing, high-fiving, flicking their lighters, or taking souvenir photos.
Another reader remembered that after being released on the pretense that they knew nothing about the 9/11 attacks,
Your freaking Mossad agents went on Israel live TV and said “our purpose was to document the event” wtf is everyone suppose to think of that?
wtf indeed! If you think he’s kidding, watch this short video.
The story of the five dancing Israelis is the tip of the iceberg called “Israeli complicity.”
You can click here to read about that iceberg. But I can’t tell you any more about it myself — because, as I’ve been saying:
The facts must be suppressed, and the people who are trying to gather and disseminate those facts must be suppressed, and that is the one and only thing that matters to these people. And why? Why would you hide the crime unless you were trying to protect the criminals?
Series: Accessories After The Fact Go Splat!!
Previous: Pathetic Fail #4: Matt Kwong and the CBC
Next: … to be continued …
US & US-controlled forces haven’t fulfilled any Syria ceasefire deal obligations – Russian Army
RT |September 17, 2016
The US is still reluctant to take measures to force rebels under its control to implement the Syrian ceasefire, Russia’s Defense Ministry said, adding that if things do not change, Washington will be the sole side responsible for the failure of the truce.
“After five days of the ceasefire, it has to be noted that only the Russian and Syrian sides have been fully implementing their commitments. On its own initiative, Russia prolonged the cessation of hostilities for 48 hours, and yesterday it was extended for another 72 hours,” senior Russian General Staff official, Viktor Poznikhir, said at a briefing in Moscow.
But, according to Poznikhir, it is very different on the American side as “the US and the so-called moderate groups under their control didn’t fulfill a single commitment undertaken in the framework of the Geneva arrangements.”
The Russian official pointed out that “the main priority of the Russian-American agreements of September was the division of territories controlled by IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Jabhat al-Nusra, and the areas controlled by the ‘moderate opposition,’ as well the separation of the ‘moderate opposition’ from Jabhat al-Nusra.”
Such a division is essential for the implementation of the ceasefire in Syria because “without it, the hands of the government forces are tied. They can’t fight the terrorists without knowing which of them joined the truce and who didn’t,” he explained.
Numerous Russian appeals to the American side remain unanswered, which “raises doubts over the US’s ability to influence opposition groups under their control and their willingness to further ensure the implementation of the Geneva agreements.
“Russia is making every possible effort to hold off government troops from the use of force in return [to opposition attacks]. If the US does not implement the necessary measures to fulfill their obligations under the September 9 agreements, the responsibility for the failure of the ceasefire will be solely America’s,” Poznikhir said.
The inaction of the American side has already led to a worsening of the situation in Syria, the General Staff official stressed.
“Tensions are rising in Syria, especially in the provinces of Aleppo and Hama, where opposition groups are using the cessation of hostilities to regroup forces, refill their stocks of ammunition and weapons and are preparing an offensive in order to capture new territories,” he said.
“In the past 24 hours, the number of attacks has increased drastically. The positions of government troops, the people’s militia, and civilians were fired at on 55 occasions,” Poznikhir added.
Last week, Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and US Secretary of State, John Kerry, agreed to influence the Syrian government and the so-called moderate rebel forces respectively in order to establish a ceasefire in the country.
Since then, Russia has repeatedly complained that the US is failing to keep its part of the bargain. While the US, on its part, blamed Russia for not pressuring Damascus enough to facilitate humanitarian access to Syria.
Lavrov talked to Kerry on the phone Saturday, urging Washington to start influencing the opposition in Syria in order to expand humanitarian access in the country, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The FM also called on the American side to actively participate in monitoring the Syrian ceasefire instead of merely accusing Syrian government forces of violations.
“Due to Washington’s continuing claims of ceasefire violations by the Syrian government forces, the Russian Foreign Minister urged them to go beyond accusations and to ensure the US military’s full-fledged participation in the ceasefire control mechanism created as far back as February and March and to take action against violations,” the ministry said in a statement.
Lavrov also stressed that “as result of Russia’s efforts, the issues of putting on track cooperation between the Syrian authorities and the United Nations in the area of broader humanitarian access are being solved, though not without difficulty.”
Who killed Vladimir Petukhov?
Farida Islamova, widow of murdered mayor Vladimir Petukhov
OffGuardian | September 17, 2016
However much the likes of the Guardian try to portray Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky as a champion of freedom who suffered under the yoke of government oppression before escaping tyranny for the freedom of the West, the fact remains he was and is more Capone than Solzhenitsyn; a greedy robber-baron and willing tool of US hegemony, who exploited his country’s darkest hour, cheated his workforce and eventually served a well-deserved term in prison for fraud, tax-evasion and money-laundering, before scuttling out of his mother-land to live the life of a celebrated “pro-democracy” exile.
It’s less widely understood that there are even darker things being laid at his door than corruption, theft and opportunistic lying for profit. Murder for example. But yes, in 2015, Russian Interpol put Khodorkovsky on a wanted list in connection with the murder of a Siberian city mayor in 1998.
Vladimir Petukhov was the first mayor of oil-rich Nefteyugansk. Popular locally and considered to be a man of the people, he was shot dead on his way in to work, June 26, 1998. A subsequent criminal investigation described the killing as an assassination, and implicated two members of Khodorkovsky’s Yukos Oil Company in a plot to be rid of the Mayor.
A court eventually sentenced Alexei Pichugin to life in prison for multiple murders and attempted murders. His boss Khodorkovsky was not accused of, or prosecuted for, any involvement, though many have claimed he may have known more than he claimed. According to Pravda :
In May 1998 Petukhov accused Yukos of tax evasion, which resulted in the shortage of funds in the local budget to pay wages to employees of state-run enterprises. The mayor went on a hunger strike demanding chairmen of municipal and district tax offices be dismissed from their positions and a criminal case against Yukos be filed on counts of tax evasion.
Vladimir Petukhov was shot dead on June 26 on his way to work.
Local residents took to the streets soon after the assassination of their mayor. Many attempted to seize the local office of Yukos. The Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation brought assassination charges against an employee of Yukos’s security service, Aleksei Pichugn, only in 2005.
Petukov’s wife, Farida Islamova was and is convinced Mikhail Borisovitch was involved in the plot to murder her husband, and for many years she has been trying to have him brought to justice. She has even written a book – Khodorkovsky, who killed my Husband?, given an English language translation in 2014. In it she says:
Vladimir Petukhov, Mayor of Nefteyugansk, was shot down on his way to work, not far from the municipal administration building. The killer fired several submachine gun bursts from the cover of nearby bushes. Later on, the investigators would find 18 empty cases at the crime scene. In the face of such fire-power, the unarmed security man, Vyacheslav Kokoshkin, was helpless, he himself took several bullets, has never recovered from his wounds… At that time he was only 30 years old, and still today lives with one of these bullets – a sort of a message from Khodorkovsky – in his body…..
Vladimir Petukhov died in the hospital several hours after the attempt. That was a planned contract assassination…
Unsurprisingly, Farida has had little success in getting the English-language media to take interest in her story. No mainstream outfit has covered her book. Her wait for justice drags on as the western media continues to fete Mikhail Borisovich, embezzler of state funds, tax-evader and suspected murderer, as a symbol of the values they hold most dear.
Then again – maybe that’s not as stupid as it first sounds.
Facebook, Internet.org, and the End of Net Neutrality
By Tony Cartalucci | New Eastern Outlook | September 16, 2016
American-based aerospace company SpaceX is one of the few Western enterprises pursuing a greater purpose in a nation otherwise obsessed with power and profit. When its rocket was recently lost on the launch pad amidst an anomaly it took with it a satellite to be used by Facebook, an example of the latter.
The Guardian in an article titled, “SpaceX rocket explosion: Mark Zuckerberg laments loss of Internet.org satellite,” would report:
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg struck a bitter tone in his response to the explosion of the SpaceX rocket carrying a satellite intended for use on his Internet.org project in Africa.
Writing on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg said: “As I’m here in Africa, I’m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent.”
However, while technically Facebook’s Internet.org would provide “connectivity” to people across the continent, it would not be providing them with access to the actual Internet.
Instead, it is Facebook’s version of the Internet, where the concept of net neutrality – the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites – does not exist.
On Facebook’s version of the Internet, only those willing to pay large sums of money can have access to audiences while others who do not pay, no matter how popular or meaningful their message may be, are essentially silenced. This is already a reality across Facebook’s social network itself, and this network is one of several “Free Basics” offered on Facebook’s Internet.org.
Internet.org by Facebook Aims to Control the World, Not “Connect” It
A visit to Facebook’s Internet.org reveals meaningless slogans and images of smiling brown people.
Looking past the superficiality at what Internet.org truly represents, it is clear that it is an attempt to takeover and monopolize the telecom industry and in particular, the entire Internet across the developing world. Not only does Facebook’s “Free Basics” limit users to information highly controlled by Western corporate-financier special interests and Facebook’s own net neutrality-usurping algorithms, but because the infrastructure employs methods including space-based satellites, the governments and communities exposed to this upturned version of the Internet have no say or control over it.
So obvious is this, that even before Facebook has completed its plans, nations are already fighting back.
In India, net neutrality activists succeeded in getting the invasive, manipulative, and monopolizing service banned from the country. The Guardian’s article, “India deals blow to Facebook in people-powered ‘net neutrality’ row,” would report:
Facebook has lost the right to offer its free mobile internet service in India after the country’s telecoms regulator ruled in favour of net neutrality, marking the end of an intense and very public 11-month national debate.
The new regulations published by India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) ban differential pricing for data services, and make it easier for smaller firms to compete with established companies including Facebook.
Facebook’s response was as unsurprising as it was dishonest, claiming:
Our goal with Free Basics is to bring more people online with an open, non-exclusive and free platform. While disappointed with the outcome, we will continue our efforts to eliminate barriers and give the unconnected an easier path to the internet and the opportunities it brings.
In reality, in order to eliminate barriers and connect people, the people themselves must acquire the skills and resources necessary to create their own infrastructure, companies to maintain it, and the ability to create their own content to transmit over it – the very embodiment of both the Internet itself and the underlying hope proponents of net neutrality hold for the Internet. The people using the Internet in their nation should be the primary benefactors of it – not just in terms of having access to useful information, but the ability to earn a living by maintaining its infrastructure.
In addition to Facebook’s ability to penetrate and monopolize any given developing nation’s telecom industry, considering Facebook’s ties to the US State Department and its role in facilitating regime change and even destructive, violent campaigns of armed subversion, it is very likely Facebook’s monopoly would make it that much easier to control and manipulate information space in any given developing nation during a Western-engineered crisis.
This may explain why legitimate nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in India stood up to Facebook’s attempt to undermine net neutrality, but nations where NGOs are dominated by US State Department and Open Society funding like Thailand and the Philippines, Facebook’s Internet.org has gone unopposed.
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| Image: “Activists” complain about Thailand’s alleged “single gateway” plan to control domestic Internet infrastructure, while Facebook attempts to construct a global “single gateway” it controls, completely unopposed by these same groups – groups generally funded by the US State Department and Open Society, two partners Facebook has worked with in the past and groups that have themselves taken part in training assisted or sponsored by Facebook. |
Telecom and information technology, like food, water, energy, and a standing army, are essential building blocks for national security and prosperity. Handing the responsibility of any of these over to either a foreign nation or a foreign corporation – or both – is the relinquishing of one’s sovereignty and the compromising of one’s national security.
Nations and their people must develop their own Internet infrastructure. For Mark Zuckerberg and his government-connected corporation Facebook to presume they are the sole solution to “connecting the world” is but a modern-day version of “The White Man’s Burden” – those nations subjected to it subordinated to this domineering arrogance and the self-serving schemes that underpin it.
Facebook’s Internet.org is a wake-up call for developing nations to stand up and invest in modern day essential infrastructure – including domestic versions of social networks like Facebook – to ensure they are as safe in the field of information as their conventional armies keep them on the field of battle.
Eva Bartlett Debates Syria with Misinformed US University Prof
By Richard Edmondson | Fig Trees and Vineyards | September 16, 2016
Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett attempts to clarify issues about the Syrian conflict in a debate with two Americans, one of whom, is Stephen Zunes, a political science professor at the University of San Francisco. From his perch in California, Zunes, who seems to have a peculiar facial tic, pompously suggests he knows more about the situation in Syria that does Bartlett, who has filed numerous reports from on the ground inside Syria.
Zunes apparently relies a lot on the mainstream media for his information. For one thing, he believes there are “moderate” rebels. He also asserts that protests held in 2011 at the outset of the conflict were “brutally suppressed by the Assad regime,” and he refers to the democratically elected president of Syria as a “war criminal.” If Zunes is typical of university professors in America, it’s no wonder the country is in such a sad state.
When Bartlett attempts to set the record straight–for instance on the early protests–Zunes basically dismisses everything she has to say.
The other guest on the show, Gareth Porter, is not one of my favorite writers either, but at least he has the grace and good form to concede at one point that Bartlett “knows much more about this than I do.” No such concession is made by the presumptuous and overbearing Mr. Zunes. … More
IMF: Mideast conflicts have erased development gains for whole generation
Press TV – September 16, 2016
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says conflicts in the Middle East are not only devastating economies in countries such as Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, but they have also erased “development gains for a whole generation.”
The fund issued a report titled the Economic Impact of Conflicts and the Refugee Crisis in MENA (Middle East and North Africa) on Friday, where it said conflicts were killing economies in the countries gripped by war and sapping growth in neighboring countries and those hosting millions of refugees.
Middle Eastern and North African countries battered by fighting have suffered average losses of 6-15 percentage points in the gross domestic product (GDP) in three years, compared to a 4-9 percentage-point average worldwide, according to the report.
The IMF report showed that the drops in economic output in Syria, Libya and Yemen in recent years have far exceeded the worldwide average.
Syria’s gross domestic product level is currently less than half the level it was five years ago before the start of the conflict, the IMF stated.
The report showed Yemen lost 25-35 percent of its GDP in 2015 alone, in the wake of the deadly Saudi campaign.
Oil-dependent Libya saw its GDP fall 24 percent in 2014, the IMF said.
Physical infrastructure damage, now estimated at $137.8 billion in Syria and more than $20 billion in Yemen, has reduced trade and output in neighboring countries, according to the report.
Countries bordering high-intensity conflict zone showed an average annual GDP decline of 1.4 percentage points worldwide, with a bigger drop of 1.9 percentage points in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Refugees’ plight
The fleeing of more than half of Syria’s 22 million population, 6.6 million internally and more than five million to other countries, has magnified economic losses, dramatically escalating poverty, unemployment and school dropouts in countries that were already struggling, the IMF said.
Many of the refugees seeking asylum in other countries are skilled workers and professionals forced by war and persecution to leave the conflict zones in hope of better lives.
However, according to the IMF, because refugees often have fewer rights than local populations, those landing in developing countries are often absorbed into already disadvantaged local communities forming a new underclass comprising refugees and the existing poor in the host country, which in turn leads to a detrimental effect on the host countries.
For those refugees that land in Europe, where the influx of refugees has only had a small impact on economy, there have been some positive effects on the host countries, according to the report.
More funds needed
The IMF report has revealed the huge scale of the refugee crisis and the pressure it put on several United Nations institutions, especially the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme.
The two UN organizations have been playing a leading role in the provision of humanitarian assistance, both to internally displaced people and refugees.
However, the IMF report says funding has not kept up with the sharp increase in needs.
For instance, the World Food Programme and the UNHCR have had to cut their services to refugees in Jordan due to funding constraints, which may have contributed to the acceleration of refugee flows to Europe from late 2014, according to the report.
The IMF report urged policymakers to scale up humanitarian aid in conflict zones and neighboring countries hosting refugees and prioritize fiscal spending to protect human life and serve basic public needs.
The report comes as the UN General Assembly is preparing to host a summit on refugees in New York next week.
The UN plans to use the summit as a platform to urge governments, private donors, and humanitarian agencies to support the organization in its efforts to ease suffering of the victims of world conflicts.
Analysts believe the MENA conflicts and the following refugee crisis are the outcome of the West’s policies in the Middle East and North Africa.
Egyptian state media claims 9/11 was carried out by West to justify war on terror
Orrazz | September 16, 2016
A columnist for a state-run newspaper in Egypt has suggested the US invented Isis and set up the 9/11 attacks to justify its military interventions in the Middle East.
“Is it possible to believe the official version, from the US government, of the events of 11 September 2001?” wrote journalist Noha Al-Sharnoubi in Al-Ahram, a major national Egyptian newspaper owned by the government.
Ms Al-Sharnoubi said the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks could have been premeditated to “justify the war on terror” in her column, published on 23 August.
She also cast doubt over the veracity of the actions of the so-called Islamic State, alleging the extremist group could have been made up to “trick” the world and validate US foreign policy.
Ms Al-Sharnoubi does not appear to shy away from controversial subjects. Her weekly column has recently discussed issues such as burkini bans, French military involvement in Libya and whether it is acceptable to sacrifice chickens, duck and geese.
According to an English translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri) [admittedly unreliable – Aletho News ], Ms Al-Sharnoubi wrote: “Is it a coincidence that the commanders of the September 11 attack trained at American flight schools?”
“Is it conceivable that four hijacked planes flew around so freely, penetrated US airspace and hit the towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon one by one, with an interval of 15 minutes and 30 minutes between the attacks,” she added.
“All this took place without the Americans targeting the planes and downing them, despite all their intelligence, satellites and radars?
“Or was the whole thing planned [in advance] in order to justify the war on terror, the [first] episode of which [later] began in Iraq?”
Ms Al-Sharnoubi also questioned the contents of ISIS propaganda videos, suggesting the militant group could be “another story that was prepared in advance [by the West] to justify the devastation, partitioning and occupation” of Middle Eastern countries.
“Does it make sense that most ISIS members are foreigners [i.e., Western nationals], unless ISIS is another story that was prepared in advance [by the West] to justify the devastation, partitioning and occupation [of countries] that is taking place and will continue to take place in the Middle East?” she wrote, according to Memri.
“Those who are murdered and [then] accused of perpetrating terror attacks in the West – are they the real culprits?
“[Perhaps Western] intelligence elements are behind the attacks and the bombings, and later Muslim citizens are arrested and killed and simply accused of perpetrating [the attacks] in order to justify what is happening in the Arab countries in the name of the war on terror, and in order to justify the plan to persecute the Muslims in the U.S. and Europe and expel them? Have we really been deceived, and continue to be deceived, to such an extent?!”
Egypt is listed as number 159 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index.
According to the report, “journalists are obliged on national security grounds to report only the official version of ‘terrorist’ attacks” under an anti-terrorism law passed in 2015.
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Does Kevin Barrett Seek to “Absolve Islam of a Terrible Crime”?
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Last part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 28, 2016
Amidst his litany of condemnations, Jonathan Kay reserves some of his most vicious and vitriolic attacks for Kevin Barrett. For instance Kay harshly criticizes Dr. Barrett’s published E-Mail exchange in 2008 with Prof. Chomsky. In that exchange Barrett castigates Chomsky for not going to the roots of the event that “doubled the military budget overnight, stripped Americans of their liberties and destroyed their Constitution.” The original misrepresentations of 9/11, argues Barrett, led to further “false flag attacks to trigger wars, authoritarianism and genocide.”
In Among The Truthers Kay tries to defend Chomsky against Barrett’s alleged “personal obsession” with “vilifying” the MIT academic. Kay objects particularly to Barrett’s “final salvo” in the published exchange where the Wisconsin public intellectual accuses Prof. Chomsky of having “done more to keep the 9/11 blood libel alive, and cause the murder of more than a million Muslims than any other single person.” … continue
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