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UK arms sales to Israel hit record high in 2017 – Report

Al-Masdar News – 27/05/2018

United Kingdom’s defense contractors supplied Israel with record amounts of arms in 2017, The Guardian newspaper reported Sunday.

According to the figures provided by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), in 2017 the UK sold arms to Israel worth 221 million pounds ($294 million), indicating a huge increase from 86 million pounds in 2016 and 20 million pounds in 2015, The Guardian outlet reported. According to the newspaper, the list includes equipment, small arms ammunition, missiles, weapon sights and sniper rifles.

These reports are published just a month before UK Prince William’s five-day visit to the Middle East. On June 24, the Prince start his trip, visiting Jordan’s capital Amman; Ramallah, the capital city of the Palestinian Authority and the city of Jerusalem.

The Israeli forces have been suppressing the demonstrators using lethal weapons, citing security concerns. According to Palestinian medics, since March 30, at least 115 Palestinians have been killed during protests, while over 13,300 people have been injured.

May 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

North Korea raps Israel’s “brutal massacres” in Gaza

Palestine Information Center – May 26, 2018

North Korea has condemned Israel’s use of violence against unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, describing what happened with them as “brutal massacres.”

Kim Yong-nam, head of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea, sent a message of sympathy to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, with the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper calling Israel’s actions as a “bloody suppression”.

The newspaper said that Yong-nam in the message expressed deep condolences to the victims and their families.

“He vehemently denounced Israel for its brutal massacres and indiscriminate use of force against peaceful demonstrators demanding their legitimate rights.”

He affirmed North Korea’s unwavering support for and solidarity with the just cause of the Palestinian people and their struggle to build an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital and obtain their inalienable legitimate rights.

North Korea backs Palestine in its dispute with Israel, an occupying power financed and supported by the US regime.

When North Korea was largely propped up by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it regularly sent aid and weapons to Palestine.

During the 2014 Gaza War, North Korea also condemned Israel.

The country’s foreign ministry then strongly denounced “Israel’s brutal killings of many defenseless Palestinians through indiscriminate military attacks on peaceable residential areas in Palestine.”

“They are unpardonable crimes against humanity” the ministry said.

May 26, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Dutch TV Parodies Israeli Singer’s Eurovision Song Contest Performance

By Richard Edmondson | Fig Trees and Vineyards | May 26, 2018

In case you haven’t heard, an Israeli singer by the name of Netta Barzilai won this year’s Eurovision song contest. The win was announced on May 12 and was much celebrated by Israeli officials at the time. A video of the somewhat obese Barzilai doing her winning “chicken dance” performance can be accessed here. The video you see below is a parody of that performance which aired Saturday May 19 on Dutch TV.

The Dutch parody has prompted the usual accusations of anti-Semitism you would expect. Aviv Shir-On, the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, complained that the performance “packages anti-Semitic stereotypes as jokes.” An article, published yesterday at Mondoweiss, quotes Shir-On additionally as saying:

“Freedom of speech, freedom of the press and satire, are important elements of a democratic and pluralistic society, as exists in the Netherlands and Israel. We cherish and respect these principles, yet in that show you went too far.”

Don’t you just love it when Zionists talk about how much they’re in favor of freedom of speech–even as they’re attempting to get laws passed limiting yours. So far as I know, Martine Sandiforte, the Dutch singer doing the parody, hasn’t been arrested for “holocaust denial” yet, but I suppose that’s a possibility that can’t be ruled entirely out.

The timing of all this, of course, probably had a lot to do with the Dutch decision to air such a parody. The Eurovision contest, on May 12, preceded by a scant couple of days the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem and also ran concurrent to the bloody massacres by Israel of Gaza protestors.

Conceivably it may additionally have had something to do with Israel’s destruction of a Dutch project in a Palestinian village in the West Bank just under a year ago. On June 30, 2017, a Dutch news site, the NL Times, reported the following:

Israel demolished a Dutch development project consisting of 96 solar panels and other equipment for supplying power to Palestinian village Jubbet Adh Dhib on the west bank of the Jordan. The Netherlands spent about half a million euros on the project last year. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is furious, AD reports.

Funny how Shir-On, the Israeli ambassador, seems to have omitted any mention of the destruction of the solar panels when he was busy accusing the Dutch TV producers of packaging “anti-Semitic stereotypes as jokes.”

Three cheers for Palestine… and three cheers also for the Dutch. An amusing parody of Israel is a service to humanity.

May 26, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Syrian Kurds rally to demand Turkey withdrawal

Press TV – May 26, 2018

Hundreds have demonstrated in Syria’s northeastern city of Qamishli, in response to a call by Kurdish authorities for global protests against Turkey’s military presence in the flashpoint Afrin region.

Turkish forces and allied Syrian militants seized the northwest region of Afrin from Kurdish forces in March, after a two-month military offensive that prompted tens of thousands of people to flee.

Since then, thousands of people displaced from other parts of Syria — notably the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus — have been resettled in the emptied city.

Syria’s Kurds, who have built up their own autonomous administrations in the chaos of the country’s seven-year war, say that amounts to demographic change.

On Saturday, men and women marched through the Kurdish-controlled city of Qamishli to protest Turkey’s military presence.

They waved the yellow, green, and red flag that represents Kurdish part of Syria, as well as signs that read: “No to Turkish occupation.”

Ghassan Juli, a 38-year-old resident of Qamishli, described the Afrin developments as a “disaster.”

“Our people were forced out, and fighters from other areas were brought to live there,” he said.

Her head wrapped in a shawl that matched the Kurdish flag, Bahia Hassan said Afrin’s original residents were afraid to return because of fears of abduction or worse.

“Enough killing, enough kidnapping our boys! Enough killing women and children. We won’t accept this,” said the 45-year-old.

Syria’s Kurds control swathes of the country’s north, and many of those who fled to Afrin escaped into nearby Kurdish-held territory.

Around 135,000 stayed in Afrin, more than a third of them in the urban center that shares the same name, according to the United Nations.

Since war broke out in 2011, half of Syria’s population has been displaced, including more than five million outside the country and another six million internally.

May 26, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Travel Surveillance, Traveler Intrusion

The Cato Institute | April 4, 2013

Featuring Edward Hasbrouck, Journalist, Consumer Advocate, Travel Expert, and Consultant, The Identity Project (PapersPlease.org), Author of the book and blog, The Practical Nomad; and Ginger McCall Director, Open Government Program, Electronic Privacy Information Center; moderated by Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies, Cato Institute. The United States government practices surprisingly comprehensive surveillance of air travel, amassing data about the comings and goings of all Americans who fly. Travel expert Edward Hasbrouck has been researching travel surveillance for many years. His findings reveal a stunning level of government surveillance, control of the traveler, and intrusion into commercial travel IT systems.

Audio podcast (listen while viewing the slides)

Slides and notes

Edward Hasbrouck’s blog

http://www.cato.org/events/travel-sur…

May 26, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Canada, the Korean Dispute and Foreign Policy Mythology

By Yves Engler | Dissident Voice | May 26, 2018

Repeat after me: Canada is seldom a force for good in the world, Canada is seldom a force for good in the world.

Thomas Walkom’s “Canada should board Korean peace train” is yet another example of how the progressive end of the dominant media has been seduced by Canadian foreign policy mythology.

The leftist Toronto Star columnist offers an astute analysis of what’s driving rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula. He points out that the two Koreas are moving the process forward and that Pyongyang believes “complete denuclearization” of the Peninsula includes the US forces in the region aiming nuclear weapons at it.

But, Walkom’s column is cloaked in naivety about Canada’s role in the geopolitical hotspot. He ignores the international summit Ottawa and Washington organized in January to promote sanctions on North Korea. In a highly belligerent move, the countries invited to the conference in Vancouver were those that fought against North Korea in the early 1950s conflict. “We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea,” General Curtis LeMay, head of US air command during the fighting, explained three decades later. “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off … twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure.”

(During another dreadful chapter in Korean history Canada supplied war materials to the Japanese army that occupied Korea before World War II.)

Continuing its aggressive diplomatic posture, Chrystia Freeland brought up North Korea at the Munich Security Conference in Germany in February and the next month Canada’s foreign minister agreed with her Japanese counterpart to send a “strong message” to Pyongyang at the upcoming Group of Seven meetings. In a subsequent get together, Freeland and Japanese officials pledged to maintain “maximum pressure” on North Korea. After “welcoming South Korea’s critical role in maintaining diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea” in March, Freeland responded gingerly to Seoul and Pyongyang’s joint announcement last month to seek a formal end to the Korean War and rid the Peninsula of nuclear weapons. “We all need to be careful and not assume anything,” said Freeland.

Walkom also ignores the Canadian Forces currently seeking to blockade North Korea. Three weeks ago Ottawa announced it was a sending a CP-140 Aurora surveillance aircraft and 40 military personnel to a US base in Japan to join British, Australian and US forces monitoring efforts to evade UN sanctions. Earlier in the year a Vancouver Island based submarine was sent across the pond partly to bolster the campaign to isolate North Korea.

Canadians are also part of the UN military mission in Korea. The first non-US general to hold the post since the command was created in 1950, Canadian Lieutenant General Wayne Eyre was recently appointed deputy commander of the UN force stationed there.

(To be fair, Walkom hints at Ottawa’s belligerence, noting that Canada is “still technically at war with North Korea” and is among countries that “traditionally take their cue from the U.S.”)

In my forthcoming book Left, Right — Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada I discuss how leftist intellectuals concede a great deal to the foreign policy establishment’s outlook. Laziness is a simple, though not unimportant, reason why these writers mythologize Canadian foreign policy. Buried amidst a mass of state and corporate generated apologetics, critical information about Canada’s role in the world takes more effort to uncover. And the extra work is often bad for one’s career.

A thorough investigation uncovers information tough to square with the narrow spectrum of opinion permitted in the dominant media. It’s nearly impossible to survive if you say Canadian foreign policy has always been self-serving/elite-driven or that no government has come close to reflecting their self-professed ideals on the international stage. Almost everyone with a substantial platform to comment sees little problem with Canadian power, finding it expedient to assume/imply Canada’s international aims are noble.

Rather than a story titled “Canada should board Korean peace train”, Walkom should have written about how “Canada must step off the belligerence bus”. His conscious or unconscious naivety regarding Canada’s role in Korea is part of a mainstream left trend that partly explains why Canadians overwhelmingly believe this country is a benevolent international actor despite a long history of supporting empire and advancing Canadian corporate interests abroad.

Yves Engler is the author of A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation .

May 26, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

South Korean President Moons Bolton

By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | May 26, 2018

Thanks no doubt to his bellicose national security adviser John Bolton, President Donald Trump has now lost control of the movement toward peace between the two Koreas. Trump has put himself in a corner; he must now either reject — or, better, fire — Bolton, or face the prospect of wide war in the Far East, including the Chinese, with whom a mutual defense treaty with North Korea is still on the books.

The visuals of the surprise meeting late yesterday (local time) between the top leaders of South Korea and North

Korea pretty much tell the story. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in drove into the North Korean side of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), and Seoul quickly released a one-minute video of what, by all appearances, was an extremely warm encounter with Kim Jung-un. It amounted to a smiling, thumbing of two noses at Bolton and the rest of the “crazies” who follow his advice, such as Vice President Mike Pence who echoed Bolton’s insane evocation of the “Libya model” for North Korea, which caused Pyongyang to go ballistic. Their angry response was the reason Trump cited for cancelling the June 12 summit with Kim.

But Trump almost immediately afterward began to waffle. At their meeting on Friday the two Korean leaders made it clear their main purpose was to make “the successful holding of the North Korea-U.S. Summit” happen. Moon is expected to announce the outcome of his talks with Kim Sunday morning (Korean time).

Why is Trump Waffling?

One cannot rule out the possibility that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has some cojones beneath his girth. He has a personal, as well as a diplomatic stake in whether or not Bolton succeeds in wrecking the summit. (Trump, after all, deputized Pompeo, while he was still CIA director, to set it up.) It’s also possible some non-crazy advisers are warning Trump about Bolton’s next “March of Folly.” Other advisers may be appealing to Trump’s legendary vanity by dangling the prospect that he may blow his only shot at a Nobel Peace Prize.

The two Korean leaders have made abundantly clear their determination to continue on the path of reconciliation despite the artificial divide created by the U.S. 70 years ago. Now, a lot depends on the unpredictable Trump. If enough people talk sense to him and help him see the dangerous consequences of letting himself be led by Bolton, peace on the Korean peninsula may be within reach.

It is no longer a fantasy to suggest that the DMZ could evaporate just as unexpectedly and quickly as that other artifact of the Cold War did — the Berlin Wall almost four decades ago.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington, D.C.. A Fordham alumnus, he spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, from the Kennedy administration to the first Bush administration. He holds a certificate in theological studies from Georgetown and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

May 26, 2018 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

US warns of ‘firm’ response ahead of Syria’s anti-terror operation in Dara’a

Press TV – May 26, 2018

The US has threatened Syria with “firm and appropriate measures” as the Syrian army reportedly prepares to retake a strategic province on the border with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In a statement released on Friday, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert expressed concerns about the upcoming operation in southwestern Dara’a province, claiming that it falls within a de-escalation zone in Syria.

“As a guarantor of this de-escalation area with Russia and Jordan, the United States will take firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations,” she said.

The warning came two days after the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the Syrian troops were moving into Dara’a after liberating all remaining militant-held areas near the capital, Damascus.

On Friday, Syrian state-run media reported that government aircraft had dropped leaflets in terrorist-controlled areas of Dara’a, urging foreign-backed militants to disarm.

One of the leaflets declares “the arrival of the Syrian Arab army’s soldiers,” according to SOHR, which is sympathetic to foreign-backed militants.

The UK-based monitor also said the Syrian government had sent reinforcements to Dara’a following the completion of operations near Damascus.

“These forces are now stationed on the edges of Dara’a province,” SOHR head Rami Abdel Rahman said. “The goal is a broad offensive, should the rebels reject a negotiated pullout as was the case in Eastern Ghouta.”

The recapture of Dara’a is highly important because it borders the occupied Golan Heights which Israel has used to treat wounded militants for years.

The territory’s return to the Syrian government control would cut the much-reported collaboration between Israel and militants and deal a blow to Tel Aviv’s plans to annex the Golan Heights.

Syrian army advances are also upsetting to US plans in the Arab country where it has deployed about 2,000 troops to carve out a statelet in the country’s north with the help of Kurdish militants.

With Syria’s military gains gathering momentum, the US has stepped up its attacks on army positions under numerous pretexts.

On Thursday, Syrian state media reported that the US struck Syrian army positions in eastern Syria, but the US military denied knowledge of it.

“Some of our military sites between Albu Kamal and Humeima were exposed at dawn today to aggression launched by US coalition jets,” state news agency SANA reported, citing a military source.

SANA said the strikes came within 24 hours of a Daesh attack on Syrian army positions in the same region, where the Takfiri terrorists are fighting government forces to the west of the Euphrates.

The Syrian army managed to retake the Eastern Ghouta region, on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, late in March.

On Monday, the General Command of the Syrian Army and Armed Forces said complete security had been restored to Damascus and its countryside after al-Hajar al-Aswad district and al-Yarmouk camp were totally purged of Daesh terrorists.

May 26, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | | Leave a comment

Draft Version of Scotland Yard’s Statement on Behalf of Sergei Skripal

By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | May 25, 2018

Warning: It is “highly likely” that this statement contains traces of satire.

“I was discharged from Salisbury District Hospital on the 18th May, more than two months after being poisoned by a military grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia.

Like my daughter Yulia, I find myself in a new and unique set of circumstances than the ones I faced before the 4th March, when I was poisoned by a military grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia.

I am now spending the time of my convalescence seeking to come to terms with my prospects, and looking forward to a future without trepidation, despite having being poisoned by a military grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia.

I would like to take this opportunity to correct a number of erroneous stories that have been circulating on the worldwide web, especially on a number of sites devoted to the propagation of conspiracy theories.

The first is in respect to my alleged connections with my former MI6 handler, who also happens to live in Salisbury, and with whom I was in the habit of frequenting one of the City’s establishments for the consumption of certain comestibles and beverages. I would like to assure those attempting to make these links that there is no credibility in them whatsoever, and that they should desist from making them. We were merely old friends who happened to share a passion for gardening, backgammon, and Châteauneuf-Du-Pape 2014 Réserve Des Oliviers. Any connection between this relationship and my poisoning — by a military grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia — is entirely without foundation.

I would also like to address those who claim that I am being held against my will and denied my rights. I want to clarify that this supposition is very wide of the mark and bears no relation to the actualité. On the contrary, I have the freedom to go wherever I wish, naturally within the bounds of the beautiful location in which I currently reside, and I would also want to reassure everyone that I have full access to friends, family, and information. I am free to call my mother at anytime, and I may well do this, when I judge that it will not be prejudicial to my continued recovery. All such talk of disappearance or abduction is arrant nonsense.

I have been assigned specially trained officers who have helped to take care of all my needs and who have explained the details of the painstaking investigative processes that are being undertaken to establish how I and my daughter were poisoned by a military grade nerve agent — of a type developed by Russia — on the door handle of my abode. They have also explained that the substance must have been carefully designed to take effect on the two of us at precisely the same time, some four hours after its administration, and after we had visited a public house and a restaurant in the City. They have also been very helpful in explaining how it was nothing short of a miracle that Yulia and I recovered from what I understand is ordinarily the most deadly of substances, with no irreparable damage.

I wish to make clear that I have been given the names and email addresses of staff at the Russian Embassy in London, and naturally I am perfectly free to contact them at any time, should I wish to avail myself of their services. However, at this particular juncture, whilst I am simply overwhelmed by their abundant kindness in attempting to contact me, I would like them know that I do not wish to speak to them or see them, and I would ask them to kindly desist from all their efforts to pressure the British Government into granting access to me.

Although I feel perfectly safe and secure at my new location, which understandably cannot be disclosed, I do not yet feel able to face the media to give a full interview, although it is the deepest desire of my heart to one day do so. Until such time, I want to make it abundantly clear that nobody speaks for me or on my behalf, except of course the fully trained and highly professional officers of Scotland Yard, whom I have authorised to speak and release statements on my behalf.

Any suggestion that this statement was written by them without my knowledge, or that it was written by me whilst under duress, is — to coin a popular English idiom — manufactured from whole cloth. I would ask that, out of respect for my privacy, people desist from asking any further questions in this respect.

I want to end by thanking the British Prime Minister, Mrs May, and her colleague, Mr Johnson, who I understand acted swiftly, decisively and — I might add — courageously in dealing with the political ramifications of the poisoning, by a military grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia. Their actions in attributing culpability so swiftly are highly commendable and a demonstration of their undoubted bravery, their commitment to upholding the rule of law, and of course their remarkable fitness to lead in their respective ministerial positions.

I hope very much to be able to return to Russia one day, but in the short term, I look forward to being reunited with my pet cat and two guinea pigs, which I understand are being well looked after at an undisclosed location.”

May 25, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | | Leave a comment

Ugly Canadians active in Brazil

By Yves Engler · May 23, 2018

New revelations about Brazilian military violence offer an opportunity to reflect on Canadian support for that country’s 1964 coup and how Ottawa’s policy towards our South American neighbour is similar today.

A spate of international and Brazilian media have reported on a recently uncovered memo from CIA director William Colby to then US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, detailing a meeting between president Ernesto Geisel and three Brazilian generals. At the 1974 meeting the new Brazilian president is reported to have supported extending “summary executions” of enemies of the military dictatorship. An army officer, Geisel ordered National Information Service head João Baptista Figueiredo — who would replace him as president — to authorize the executions.

While it has long been accepted that the military dictatorship was responsible for hundreds of murders — a 2014 national truth commission blamed it for 191 killings and 210 disappearances — military backers have sought to put the blame on lower level officers. But the uncovered memo clearly reveals Geisel, who was considered more moderate than other top military leaders, was directly responsible for some deaths.

Ottawa passively supported the military coup against elected President João Goulart that instituted the 1964–85 military dictatorship. “The Canadian reaction to the military coup of 1964 was careful, polite and allied with American rhetoric,” notes Brazil and Canada in the Americas. Prime Minister Lester Pearson failed to publicly condemn the ouster of Goulart.

Washington played a pivotal role in the overthrow of Brazilian democracy. At one point President Lyndon Johnson urged ambassador Lincoln Gordon to take “every step that we can” to support Goulart’s removal. In a declassified cable between Gordon and Washington, the ambassador acknowledged US involvement in “covert support for pro-democracy street rallies … and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-communist sentiment in Congress, armed forces, friendly labor and student groups, church, and business.”

Washington, Ottawa and leading segments of Brazil’s business community opposed Goulart’s Reformas de Base (basic reforms). Goulart wanted to expand suffrage by giving illiterates and low ranking military officers the vote. He also wanted to put 15% of the national income into education and to implement land reform. To pay for this the government planned to introduce a proportional income tax and greater controls on the profit transfers of multinational corporations.

As important as following Washington’s lead, Pearson’s tacit support for the coup was driven by Canadian corporate interests. Among the biggest firms in Latin America at the time, Brascan was commonly known as the “the Canadian octopus” since its tentacles reached into so many areas of Brazil’s economy. A study of the Toronto-based company that began operating in Brazil in 1899 noted, “[Brazilian Traction’s vice-president Antonio] Gallotti doesn’t hide his participation in the moves and operations that led to the coup d’état against Goulart in 1964.” After the elected government was overthrown, Brazilian Traction president Grant Glassco stated, “the new government of Brazil is … made up of men of proven competence and integrity. The President, Humberto Castello Branco, commands the respect of the entire nation.”

Overthrowing the Goulart government, which had made it more difficult for companies to export profits, was good business. After the 1964 coup the Financial Post noted “the price of Brazilian Traction common shares almost doubled overnight with the change of government from an April 1 low of $1.95 to an April 3 high of $3.60.” Between 1965 and 1974, Brascan drained Brazil of $342 million ($2 billion today). When Brascan’s Canadian president, Robert Winters, was asked why the company’s profits grew so rapidly in the late 1960s his response was simple: “The Revolution.”

As opposition to the Brazilian military regime’s rights violations grew in Canada, Ottawa downplayed the gravity of the human rights situation. In a June 1972 memo to the Canadian embassy, the Director of the Latin American Division at Foreign Affairs stated: “We have, however, done our best to avoid drawing attention to this problem [human rights violations] because we are anxious to build a vigorous and healthy relationship with Brazil. We hope that in the future these unfortunate events and publicity, which damages the Brazilian image in Canada, can be avoided.”

The military dictatorship’s assassination program has contemporary relevance. In 2016 Workers Party President Dilma Rousseff was impeached in a “soft coup” and the social democratic party’s candidate for the upcoming presidential election, Lula da Silva, was recently jailed. The night before the Supreme Court was set to determine Lula’s fate the general in charge of the army hinted at military intervention if the judges ruled in favour of the former president and election frontrunner.

While they’ve made dozens of statements criticizing Venezuela over the past two years, the Justin Trudeau government seems to have remained silent on Rousseff’s ouster, Lula’s imprisonment and persecution of the left. The only comment I found was a Global Affairs official telling Sputnik that Canada would maintain relations with Brazil after Rousseff was impeached. Since that time Canada has begun negotiating to join the Brazilian led MERCOSUR trade block (just after Venezuela was expelled).

As many Brazilians worry about their country returning to military rule, Canadians should demand their government doesn’t contribute to weakening the country’s fragile democracy.

May 25, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Claim: $220 Billion “Family Planning” Equivalent to a Trillion Dollars of Climate Tech Investment

Displaced Rohingya people in Rakhine State. By Foreign and Commonwealth Office – Flickr, OGL, Link
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | May 22, 2018

Family planning charities suggest helping poor women “control their fertility” will save as much CO2 as a trillion dollars of investment in low carbon technologies. But provision of family planning wrapped around a higher purpose has a long and ugly history.

Worried About Climate Change? Investing in Reproductive Health Must Be Part of the Solution

Monday, 21st May 2018
Chris Turner

Since the invention of the contraceptive pill in the 1950’s, access to modern contraception has driven some of the key demographic and social changes in history. It has delivered improved health outcomes for mothers and babies as women are able to wait longer between births or delay having their first child. It created demographic shifts, as populations have fewer dependents and a more productive labour force. It has empowered girls and women to stay in school longer, seek higher education and participate in the formal economy. And now recent research has determined that contraception also has a key role to play in addressing climate change.

Poverty reduction and strengthening economies

When women can exercise reproductive choice, they are more likely to participate in education and the workforce. In most developing countries, female participation in the formal economy has increased as fertility has fallen. Women’s participation in the economy promotes economic growth and economies that are strong are better able to absorb the disturbances of climate change and recover from climate-related events.

Women’s participation and leadership

Women’s participation and leadership is important to climate change preparedness, resilience and action. Enabling women to control their bodies and reproductive health can help create opportunities for women to participate, lead and contribute to the conversation.

As a climate change mitigation strategy, family planning programs are also more cost-effective than other conventional, energy-focused solutions. One study found that $220 billion spent on providing family planning to those with an unmet need would reduce 34 gigatons of global carbon emissions, compared to $1 trillion for a similar outcome if spent on low carbon technologies.

Read more: https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2018/05/worried-climate-change-investing-reproductive-health-must-part-solution/

Regardless of your position on birth control and abortion, I think we can all feel a sense of unease when efforts to provide “family planning” are offered as part of a larger mission to reduce population, rather than placing the interests of the recipients of the medical aid first.

Provision of birth control to poor people has a long, ugly history. For example, consider this Guardian story about the Bangladesh government’s recent efforts to offer sterilisation services to inconvenient Rohingya refugees displaced by ongoing political turmoil in Burma.

Bangladesh to offer sterilisation to Rohingya in refugee camps

Family planning authorities have asked the government to launch vasectomies and tubectomies for women in Cox’s Bazar, where 1m refugees fight for space.

Bangladesh is planning to introduce voluntary sterilisation in its overcrowded Rohingya camps, where nearly a million refugees are fighting for space, after efforts to encourage birth control failed.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar in August triggered an exodus, straining resources in the impoverished country.

The latest arrivals have joined hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled in earlier waves from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where the stateless Muslim minority has endured decades of persecution.

Most live in desperate conditions with limited access to food, sanitation or health facilities and local officials fear a lack of family planning could stretch resources even further.

Many of the refugees told AFP they believed a large family would help them survive in the camps, where access to food and water remains a daily battle and children are often sent out to fetch and carry supplies.

Others had been told contraception was against the tenets of Islam.

Farhana Sultana, a family planning volunteer who works with Rohingya refugees in the camps, said many of the women she spoke to believed birth control was a sin.

“In Rakhine they did not go to family planning clinics, fearing the Myanmar authorities would give medicine that harms them or their children,” Sultana said.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/28/bangladesh-to-offer-sterilisation-to-rohingya-in-refugee-camps

You could reasonably argue that refugee women having 19 children each is unsustainable. But I doubt the first concern of the Bangladeshi authorities is the well-being of the Rohingya. I suspect the Bangladeshi authorities would be overjoyed if the Rohingya refugee problem just quietly disappeared.

Over zealous family planning doesn’t just occur in poor countries. The USA has experienced domestic scandals in the past related to forced sterilisation, and scandals with the practices of organisations like Planned Parenthood, including accusations of medical racism.

My point is I personally have no problem with women having access to the medical services they need to create a better life for themselves and their families. I understand some people likely have different opinions about reproductive issues, what is an is not acceptable, to myself.

But surely we can all agree that mixing family planning with another mission like reducing humanity’s global carbon footprint creates a horrifying risk that the welfare of patients will not be the top priority. There are many ugly historical examples to support this concern.

May 25, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Russia ‘absolutely’ rejects Dutch & Aussie accusations it’s responsible for MH17 downing

RT | May 25, 2018

Moscow has rejected any involvement in the crash of flight MH17 in Ukraine after the Netherlands and Australia declared Russia “responsible” for the deployment of a BUK missile system that downed the jet in 2014.

Moscow neither accepts nor trusts the results of an international investigation into the MH17 crash as it was not allowed to take part in it, according to the Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“Of course, without being able to be a full participant, Russia does not know to what extent the results of this work can be trusted,” he said.

Peskov echoed the position of the Russian president Vladimir Putin who earlier said that, although Ukraine was included in the probe, Russia was barred from participating in establishing the truth.

Asked if he can confirm that Russia vehemently denies any involvement in the MH17 downing, Peskov replied “absolutely.”

Earlier on Friday, Amsterdam and Canberra said Russia is “responsible for its part in the downing of flight MH17” following a Thursday press conference of the Dutch-led International Investigation Team (JIT). The latter concluded that a BUK missile system from a Russian 53rd brigade was transported to eastern Ukraine and used to down the passenger plane with more than 300 people onboard. The system was then said to have returned to Russia.

“The [Dutch] government is now taking the next step by formally holding Russia accountable,” Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Stef Blok said in a statement. However, the Russian military earlier said that not a single weapons system crossed the border.

MH17 tragedy may be used to achieve political goals – Lavrov

The country’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that Moscow would not reject closer cooperation on the MH17 probe, but only if the data it provides is included as well. He also compared the case with the Skripal scandal, in which London made groundless allegations and pinned the blame on Moscow, but failed to provide any proof.

“If our partners have decided to speculate on this case, when it comes to the most serious human tragedy, the death of hundreds of people, to achieve their political goals, I leave it on their conscience,” Lavrov said.

Despite the JIT claiming that it conducted a separate probe, it did not move any further than the British investigative group Bellingcat – some reports of which came under fire and were refuted by Russian activists. Among other flaws in the earlier Bellingcat claims was the assertion that the Ukrainian Army had no Buk systems in the conflict area. However, in a countering statement, Russian activists presented reports from the Ukrainian media itself showing Buk missiles in the area prior to the downing of the plane.

Bellingcat’s online investigations have previously raised questions regarding their accuracy. After the group’s founder, Eliot Higgins, published one of his reports on Syria, he was asked to discuss his findings with prominent MIT physicist Theodore Postol. However, the blogger declined the debate and insulted the scientist, triggering an avalanche of criticism on Twitter.

The allegation that the missile belonged to the Russian military had earlier been debunked by the Buk manufacturer, Almaz-Antey. Its real-time experiment showed that the projectile which hit MH17 (Boeing 777) was from an earlier generation and is no longer in service with the Russian military. It was found that the plane was likely shot down using an old 9M38 missile, not the newer type 9M38M1 with distinct butterfly-shaped metal fragments, which were allegedly recovered by the Dutch Safety Board.

Moreover, Almaz-Antey’s findings, which analyzed the angle from which the projectiles entered the cockpit of the ill-fated flight, showed that the most probable location of the launch site could be only on Kiev-controlled territory. Untampered Russian radar data provided by Moscow led to similar conclusions.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Ukrainian forces kept around 20 Buk systems, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The military also stressed that Moscow has not supplied any new missiles to Ukraine since then.

Read more:

Accusations and threats, but where are the facts? – Russia challenges West on truth

May 25, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment