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Reporter Serena Shim remembered six years after suspicious death near Turkey

Press TV | October 18, 2020

Six years after her suspicious death, Press TV reporter Serena Shim is remembered as one of the first journalists to have exposed the involvement of the US-led Western countries and their regional allies in igniting the foreign-sponsored terrorism in Syria, a daring act of investigative journalism for which she paid with her life.

The investigative reporter died in October 2014 while covering the ongoing siege by the Daesh Takfiri group of the Syrian-Kurdish border city of Kobani for Iran’s Press TV. She was the lone fatality following a suspicious car crash in Turkey’s Sanliurfa province.

She was reporting firsthand on the presence of Daesh and other al Qaeda-affiliated militant groups operating freely along the Turkey-Syria border. She revealed the weapons transfers and the trucks being driven into Syria by the terrorists themselves.

Shim had gathered evidence of militant training camps operating near the Turkey-Syria border.

She was, in her own words, one of the first, if not the first, on the ground to report on “Takfiri militants going in through the Turkish border”. These include not only Daesh but also terrorists from the so-called Free Syrian Army.

As Shim’s sister Fatmeh Shim stated in 2015, “She caught them bringing high-ranked Daesh members into Syria from Turkey into camps, which are supposed to be Syrian refugee camps.”

Shim said trucks belonging to some international aid agencies were being used to funnel terrorists’ arms into Syria, and stated this in her last interview, just one day before being killed.

On October 19, 2014, Shim, along with her camerawoman, was returning to their hotel after preparing a report near Kobani south of the Turkish border, where a heated battle was taking place between Daesh and the city’s defendants.

Early reports claimed that Shim died at the scene while later accounts suggested that she passed away due to heart failure after being transferred to hospital nearly 30 minutes later. Shim’s camerawoman, who had been transported to a different hospital, survived the incident.

Turkish authorities blamed Shim’s camerawoman, who had been driving the vehicle, for the crash. No further inquiry was reported to have been carried out by Ankara.

Many doubts, however, linger regarding the official testimony provided by the Turkish officials.

Today’s Zaman reported that prosecutors were seeking six years in prison for the operator of the concrete mixer instead, accusing the driver of causing “death through negligence.” The trial, allegedly set for March 2015, never occurred.

Six years following her unfortunate death, no further information has been released regarding the fatal accident.

Observers have pointed out that “car accidents” have been a “commonplace method” used by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) to get rid of people it doesn’t like.

Although all signs point to foul play, until now the US government has neither conducted nor demanded an inquiry into the events of the alleged car accident which Turkish officials say was the cause of Shim’s death.

Two weeks after the incident, the US State Department issued a brief statement regarding Shim, who was an American citizen of Lebanese origin, saying that it “does not conduct investigations into deaths overseas.”

The journalist’s tragic death came only two days after Shim had spoken out live on Press TV about being targeted by the MIT, who had accused her of being a “spy” while the journalist covered the latest developments in Turkey and Syria.

“I am a bit worried, because as you know and as the viewers know, Turkey has been labeled by Reporters Without Borders as the largest prison for journalists, so I am a bit frightened what they might use against me.”

Shim explained that she had been targeted for her investigative reports regarding Ankara’s direct support for terrorist groups, such as Daesh in Syria, whose evidence had been largely concealed at the time.

“We were some of the first people on the ground, if not the first people on the ground, to get that story of those Takfiri militants going in through the Turkish border — the Bab al-Hawa border — being sent in. I’ve got images of them in World Food Program trucks. It was very apparent that they were Takfiri militants by their beards and by the clothes that they wore. And they were going in there with NGO trucks,” she said.

The 29-year-old reporter had been described by her colleagues as an aspiring journalist with much potential. The young journalist had spent years working in various dangerous conflict zones such as Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Ukraine.

The Turkish government has been accused of supporting various terrorist groups seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the onset of the foreign-backed terrorism nine years ago.

Over the past four years, the Turkish military has staged at least two unauthorized incursions into northern Syria to push back against Kurdish militants, whom Ankara says seek to overthrow the Turkish government.

The aggression prompted the areas’ Kurdish population to ask the Syrian government for protection against the Turkish forces.

Ankara, which backs Syria’s anti-government militants, currently has hundreds of Turkish troops in the northwest of the Arab country.

In recent years, Western terrorists within the ranks of Daesh in Syria and Iraq have been seeking their countries’ help to secure their return to their motherlands as the Takfiri group continues to suffer heavy losses in the two Arab countries.

Some of the Daesh terrorists have contacted diplomatic missions in Turkey while others have secretly sought their governments’ help in leaving dwindling Daesh-held territory.

October 18, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | 8 Comments

Twitter removes mask guidance from White House Covid-19 adviser, claiming it violated policies on ‘misleading information’

RT | October 18, 2020

Twitter has removed a tweet from White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Scott Atlas questioning the effectiveness of mask mandates, claiming the message violated the platform’s Covid-19 Misleading Information Policy.

“Twitter seems to be censoring the science if it goes against their own goals of public indoctrination,” Atlas told Newsweek on Sunday about his tweet being removed.

In the original tweet, Atlas wrote, “Masks work? NO,” before citing various examples and quotes from health officials pushing back against the protection face coverings can provide.

The information cited included details of various places that have seen Covid-19 cases rise despite mask mandates, as well as quotes from both the World Health Organization and Dr. Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal’s Evidence-Based Medicine publication.

“It would appear that despite two decades of pandemic preparedness, there is considerable uncertainty as to the value of wearing masks,” Dr. Heneghan said of face coverings.

In a subsequent tweet, Dr. Atlas made it clear he was not arguing against masks, but instead was saying they are only effective in situations where one is around people at a high risk of getting Covid-19, or where one cannot social distance.

A Twitter spokesperson still said the tweet violated their policy on distributing misleading information about Covid-19. Twitter’s policy specifically targets tweets the company says could lead to harm. It flags “statements or assertions that have been confirmed to be false or misleading by subject-matter experts, such as public health authorities.”

Dr. Atlas is a neuroradiologist and a Robert Wesson senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who joined the coronavirus task force in August.

Twitter has also flagged tweets from the president in the past which it claimed had violated the platform’s Covid-19 policies.

Atlas has appealed the decision to remove his tweet and will be unable to post again while his appeal is under review.

October 18, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | | 3 Comments

Twitter Refuses To Unlock NYPost Account Unless Paper Deletes Tweets About Hunter Biden

By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 10/17/2020

By immediately condemning the Hunter Biden emails and photos published by the New York Post as the work of Russian hackers colluding with Rudy Giuliani, the MSM destroyed any credibility it might have had. As we pointed out earlier, more evidence has emerged to support Giuliani’s version of events – namely, that he was given a copy of the laptop’s hard drive and all of its contents by the owner of a Delaware computer-repair shop.

But despite apologizing and acknowledging  “straight up blocking of URLs was wrong“, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has apparently not finished punishing the New York Post, because three days after the account was initially frozen, the New York Post hasn’t been able to tweet, and according to a NY Post report, Twitter has frozen the New York Post’s account until the paper’s social media managers agree to delete six tweets about Hunter Biden.

“Anyone who looks at The Post’s Twitter feed can’t even see the tweets about the Biden stories, which have been replaced by messages saying, ‘This Tweet is no longer available,'” the Post wrote on Friday.

Twitter previously said the Post’s Hunter Biden stories violated the website’s Hacked Media Policy which prohibits the display of “hacked” information, an allegation that the Post called “baseless.” However, on Friday, Twitter updated that policy, saying it will start labeling content that violates its rules rather than remove it altogether “unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them.”

Confusingly, though, the company said that these changes wouldn’t apply retroactively, meaning that the NYP still must delete the tweets if it wants to use its account again, even though readers can’t even see them.

Twitter confirmed in an interview with Fox Business that the NY Post “has been informed what is necessary to unlock their account.”

Facebook, meanwhile, is temporarily restricting circulation of the story until an independent team of fact checkers has had time to investigate the claims, and certify they are real.

While social media has been rife with speculation, in the days since the first NYP story was published, nobody has offered anything in the way of evidence – however circumstantial or unconvincing – that the materials were stolen by hackers. Beyond James Clapper’s ‘professional opinion‘, the MSM has nothing to support these claims.

October 18, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Why Conflict in Caucasus Is Erdogan’s Revenge for Syria

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 17, 2020

Turkey’s outsize role in fueling the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is becoming more apparent. That’s why a peace deal will be hard to cut and indeed the conflict may blow up further into a protracted regional war. A war that could drag Russia into battling in the Caucasus on its southern periphery against NATO proxies.

In a phone call this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly backed Moscow’s efforts at mediating a ceasefire in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Notwithstanding, Erdogan appeared to deliver an ultimatum to his Russian counterpart. He said that there must be a “permanent solution” to the decades-long territorial dispute.

Erdogan and his Azerbaijan ally have already made it clear that the only solution acceptable to them is for Armenian separatists to relinquish their claim to Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey and Azerbaijan – bound by common Turkic culture – have long-called the Armenian-held enclave an illegal occupation of Azerbaijani territory since a border war ended in 1994.

When hostilities flared again last month on September 27 initial reports suggested the clashes were of a haphazard nature with both sides trading blame for starting the violence. However, it has since become clear that the actions taken on the Azeri side seem to have been a planned aggression with Turkey’s full support.

Following a previous deadly clash on July 12-13 involving about a dozen casualties among Armenian and Azerbaijani forces, there then proceeded massive military exercises in Azerbaijan involving 11,000 Turkish troops beginning on July 29. For nearly two weeks into August, the maneuvers deployed artillery, warplanes and air-defense units in what was evidently a major drive by Ankara and Baku to coordinate the armies from both countries to fulfill joint operations. Furthermore, reports indicated that Turkish forces, including F-16 fighter jets, remained in Azerbaijan following the unprecedented military drills.

Alongside the drills, there was also a dramatic increase in military arms sales from Turkey to Azerbaijan. According to Turkish export figures, there was a six-fold increase in weapons deals compared with the previous year, with most of the supply being delivered in the third quarter of 2020 between July and September. The armaments included drones and rocket launchers which have featured with such devastating impact since hostilities erupted on September 27.

A third factor suggesting planned aggression was the reported transport of mercenary fighters from Syria and Libya by Turkey to fight on the Azerbaijani side. Thousands of such militants belonging to jihadist brigades under the control of Turkey had arrived in the Azeri capital Baku before hostilities broke out on September 27. The logistics involved in organizing such a large-scale deployment can only mean long-term planning.

Armenian sources also claim that Azeri authorities had begun impounding civilian vehicles weeks before the shooting war opened. They also claim that when the fire-fights erupted on September 27, Turkish media were present on the ground to give live coverage of events.

It seems indisputable therefore that Turkey and Azerbaijan had made a strategic decision to implement a “final solution” to the protracted dispute with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

That’s what makes Russian efforts at mediating a cessation to hostilities all the more fraught. After marathon talks mediated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a ceasefire was introduced on October 10. However, within hours the truce unravelled with reports of resumed exchange of fire and shelling of cities on both sides. The main violations have been committed by the Azerbaijani side using advanced Turkish [as well as Israeli] weaponry. Armenian leaders have complained that the Azeri side does not seem interested in pursuing peace talks.

More perplexing is the widening of the conflict. Azerbaijan air strikes since the weekend ceasefire broke down have hit sites within Armenia, extending the conflict beyond the contested enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan has also claimed that Armenian missiles have hit cities within its territory. Armenia flatly denies carrying out such strikes, which begs the question: is a third party covertly staging provocations and fomenting escalation of conflict?

What is challenging for Russia is that it has a legal obligation to defend Armenia as part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (1992). With Armenia coming under fire, the pressure will be on Moscow to intervene militarily.

This would see Russia being embroiled in another proxy war with NATO-member Turkey. But this is not in Syria. It is the Caucasus region on Russia’s southern border. There are concerns among senior Russian military figures that such a scenario is exactly what Turkey’s Recep Erdogan is aiming for. Turkey was outplayed by Russia in the proxy war in Syria. Erdogan and NATO’s plans for regime change in Damascus were dealt a bloody nose by Russia. It seems though that conflict in the Caucasus may now be Erdogan’s revenge.

Moscow may need to seriously revise its relations with Ankara, and let Erdogan know he is treading on red lines.

October 18, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

95% of Bahrainis against normalization deal with Israel: Opposition tells UN

Press TV – October 18, 2020

Bahrain’s largest opposition group calls on the United Nations to intervene in the kingdom’s unbridled push to deepen its relations with the Israeli regime, saying the move falls short of the general population’s consent.

The Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society released the statement on Sunday, as the two sides are expected to sign a “joint communique on establishing peaceful and diplomatic relations” during a visit by Israeli and US delegations to the Bahraini capital Manama.

The move marks a major step forward in formalizing Manama and Tel Aviv’s ties after a September 15 event at the White House during which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed “normalization” deals with the occupying regime.

All the Palestinian factions besides countless independent Muslim figures and bodies have unanimously blasted the détente as a stab in the back of the Palestinian nation and a US-facilitated attempt at betraying the Palestinian cause of ending the Israeli occupation and aggression.

The opponents of the rapprochement say the move that has been taken by a handful of unelected authorities in Manama and Abu Dhabi never qualifies to represent the opinion of the world’s millions-strong Arab and Muslim community.

“More than 95% are against the agreement and the normalization with the Zionists and the absence of any authority representing the people” in the push towards cementing the détente, al-Wefaq said, addressing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“We call on the secretary-general and the international community to ask the Bahraini regime to allow Bahrainis to give their final word on the agreement between the Bahraini regime and the Zionist occupation,” it added.

“The people of Bahrain need to express their opinion about this illegal agreement,” the statement read, calling the deal unconstitutional and contrary to “patriotic and national values.”

The movement said another reason for the agreement’s illegality was that Manama was going ahead with it while stifling all instances of opposition at home.

Since 2011, Bahrain has been witnessing near-daily peaceful rallies against Manama’s routine practice of heavily discriminating against its Shia Muslim majority. The state has come down hard on the protests, killing scores of people and jailing hundreds of others.

October 18, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment