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Hostile Takeover: How NATO Annexed Macedonia

By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | May 3, 2024

In Macedonia – or North Macedonia, or FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) – a counter-revolution impends. On April 24th, citizens went to the polls to choose their next President. Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova of Russophilic, pro-Serbian VMRO-DPMNE trounced Western-backed incumbent Stevo Pendarovski, albeit not by an absolute majority. The second round will be held May 8th, although opinion polls point to the challenger’s crushing victory. As we shall see, this development is a devastating blow to NATO, which could have far-reaching consequences regionally.

Pendarovski is a darling of EU and US officials. His upset win in 2019 was widely hailed in the mainstream media as illustrative of Macedonians’ yearning to at last become fully-fledged members of the transatlantic community, and rejection of VMRO-DPMNE’s “anti-Western” politics, which prominently included resisting NATO membership. His success also removed the last remaining barrier to Skopje joining the military alliance – a bitter, fraught, and protracted process, opposed by a significant proportion of the local population.

How Macedonia reached that point is largely unknown outside the country. It is a sordid tale of election meddling, subverted democracy, brazen swindles, high crimes and misdemeanours, and expansive American and British skullduggery, the full dimensions of which may never publicly surface. Now, Siljanovska-Davkova’s seemingly inevitable victory threatens to not only overturn those malign machinations, but reverse the US Empire’s ongoing effort to forcibly enmesh the entire Former Yugoslavia within NATO.

As with the election of Robert Fico in Slovakia, VMRO-DPMNE’s triumph comes at a very bad time for Washington. Across the West, public and state support for the proxy war in Ukraine is rapidly deteriorating, while Kiev faces total frontline collapse, and its forces are retreating everywhere. The prospect of Skopje’s withdrawal from NATO risks kickstarting another destabilising domino effect. The question of how, and whether, the alliance would be able to prevent this is an open one. Although it’ll undoubtedly try.

Dropping ‘Bombs’

NATO’s oft-repeated official mantra is that countries are free to choose their own security arrangements. As residents of the Balkans know only too well, in practice this simply isn’t true. For example, The Grayzone has previously exposed how alliance membership was violently imposed upon Montenegro in 2017, against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the population. Macedonians were slightly more amenable to joining, although there was for many years a seemingly insurmountable hurdle preventing accession – their country’s name.

Following Yugoslavia’s breakup, Macedonia applied to join a welter of international organisations and institutions. Athens, worried Skopje’s nationalist leaders might use their newfound independence to make irredentist claims on its own territory, successfully lobbied the United Nations et al for Macedonia to be forever referred to as FYROM in international fora. Officials charged there was no connection between the modern state, populated by ethnic Slavs, and the Greek land of antiquity.

In 2008 however, Greece blocked Skopje’s bid to begin NATO’s accession process under the FYROM moniker, explicitly due to its official name. Athens proposed the country rebrand itself New or Upper Macedonia, before trying again. Three years later, the International Court of Justice judged this was improper and discriminatory, although did nothing to prevent a subsequent repeat. Both the alliance and EU remained steadfast that the issue needed to be resolved, before membership negotiations for either body could begin.

Contemporary polls showed 82.5% of Macedonians opposed changing the country’s name, a position wholeheartedly shared by the government. VMRO-DPMNE was in office at this time, led by hardline nationalist Nikola Gruevski. Pledging that Macedonia would always be called Macedonia, as if to specifically spite Athens, he thereafter launched an ambitious construction project, “Skopje 2014”. Swaths of the capital’s brutalist architecture were razed to make way for faux neoclassical buildings, and a giant statue of Alexander the Great was constructed in the city centre.

From NATO’s perspective, however, Macedonia’s alliance “aspirations” were “set in stone” when Skopje inked a “Membership Action Plan” in 1999. VMRO-DPMNE’s popularity, and Gruevski’s leadership, were therefore highly problematic for Washington. In the year following Russia’s March 2014 reunification with Crimea, NATO’s efforts to expand into Moscow’s “near abroad” became turbocharged. As if on cue, opposition party SDSM’s leader Zoran Zaev began regularly dropping what he and domestic media dubbed “bombs”.

These were highly incriminating audio recordings and wiretaps of private conversations between prominent local government officials, businesspeople, journalists, and judges. Purportedly captured illegally by Skopje’s intelligence agencies, and provided to Zaev by whistleblowers, they appeared to implicate Gruevski and his ministers in gross wrongdoing, and abuses of power. For his part, the Macedonian premier claimed SDSM was attempting to blackmail him into holding a snap general election, and had threatened to publicise damaging intelligence “gathered with the help of a foreign spy service.”

‘Only Consultative’

A political crisis duly erupted in Macedonia. The EU and US stepped in, mediating a deal whereby SDSM would appoint ministers to government departments in an interim administration, Gruevski would resign by January 2016, and new elections would be held in June that year. USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), a component of the intelligence cutout concerned with “political transition” – in other words, regime change – subsequently set up shop in Skopje.

OTI went on to funnel tens of millions of dollars to anti-government, pro-NATO groups, political parties, and NGOs. In all, $16.2 million was allocated for ensuring Macedonia’s untroubled entry to NATO alone. George Soros’ Open Society Foundations was also handed vast sums to cause chaos. A final report on these efforts produced by USAID bragged that its “Macedonia Support Initiative” had “reinforced the US Government’s foreign policy goal of strengthening Macedonia’s democratic reform processes leading to greater Euro-Atlantic integration.”

Yet, in the resultant election, SDSM fell short of victory, and was forced to scrape together a fragile coalition government. Incongruously, around 70,000 Albanians in Macedonia – one third of the country’s total population – supported Zaev, when they would normally vote for ethnic Albanian parties. They hadn’t backed SDSM before in significant numbers, and haven’t since. Local sources suspect Skopje’s US and British embassies “worked with village elders, imams, and local mafia elements, to get Albanians to switch their vote this one time.”

Despite its vulnerability, the coalition administration was the breakthrough necessary to end Skopje’s name dispute once and for all. So it was in June 2018, the Greek and Macedonian foreign ministers met by Lake Prespa to sign a historic agreement. North Macedonia was born, and its NATO membership was imminent. Or so the alliance thought. While parliament rubberstamped the move, President Gjorge Ivanov of VMRO–DPMNE refused, pointing out the agreement contravened Skopje’s constitution.

Panicking, the Macedonian government opted to hold a referendum on the name change that September. In the intervening three months, authorities – backed and financed by the EU and US – bombarded citizens with slick advertising and propaganda, intended to sell the public on the benefits of joining NATO. Simultaneously, vast protests raged throughout the country, under the banner of “Never North, Always Macedonia”. Ivanov, and countless posters in major cities, urged voters to boycott the plebiscite. As a constitutional scholar explained:

“The name of a country is a name that comes from and is created by the people who created this country and live in it. The state created by the Macedonian people is called the Republic of Macedonia. The Macedonian people will never refer to their country with [another] name… We can never accept to change something that we’ve used for centuries, a name that has been carried by this state for more than 50 years.”

When the referendum’s results trickled in, Western leaders and Zaev hailed how a staggering 94% voted in favour of renaming Macedonia. They neglected to mention turnout was just 37%, therefore nullifying the result. Under Skopje’s constitution, 50% of the public must vote for the government to honour a referendum’s outcome. No matter – Zaev simply shifted goalposts, claiming the plebiscite was “only consultative”. The name change could and would go ahead regardless.

In January 2019, parliament approved dubious and highly controversial constitutional “reforms”, allowing the country to be renamed without a public vote, or even the President’s blessing. This required corralling two thirds of lawmakers to back the changes. The SDSM-led coalition achieved this feat by bribing, intimidating, and blackmailing MPs, pardoning MPs facing prosecution for serious crimes, and other cynical connivances. Subsequent investigations uncovered “serious breaches” of domestic laws and international standards perpetrated by authorities during the referendum campaign.

The next month, NATO’s 29 members accepted North Macedonia’s accession. The alliance welcomed its newest inductee on March 27th 2020. How extraordinary it would be, if the country was the last one in, and first one out. Although, long before the latest Presidential election, there were unambiguous indications Skopje sensed geopolitical breezes have begun to blow in new directions. In November 2023, Macedonian officials announced their airspace would open to Russia, allowing Sergei Lavrov to visit a local OSCE ministerial summit.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Corruption | , , , | Leave a comment

Sweden rules out international Nord Stream probe

RT | May 4, 2024

There is no need for an international investigation into the explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines, Sweden’s Foreign Ministry has told RIA Novosti news agency.

Last week, China’s deputy envoy to the UN, Geng Shuang, called for a probe into the September 2022 blasts that ruptured the pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe. Countries should work together on an investigation “to bring the perpetrators to justice in order to prevent the reoccurrence of similar incidents,” Geng said.

When asked about Beijing’s proposal by RIA Novosti on Friday, the Swedish Foreign Ministry insisted that “there is no need for an international investigation. It’s going to achieve nothing.”

“An investigation into the incidents was carried out by the Swedish authorities in accordance with the fundamental principles of independence, impartiality and the rule of law. Other national investigations are still ongoing,” the ministry stated.

Sweden conducted its own probe as the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines occurred in the country’s exclusive economic zone. Germany and Denmark carried out separate inquiries. However, in February, the Swedish and Danish investigations were aborted. Stockholm said it had come to the conclusion that the case did not fall under Swedish jurisdiction, while Copenhagen concluded that “there was deliberate sabotage” of the pipelines, but found insufficient grounds to pursue criminal proceedings.

Russia is carrying out its own investigation into the Nord Stream blasts despite the refusal of Western nations to cooperate. Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov said earlier that Moscow had sent more than a dozen requests for legal assistance to Germany, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden, but only received a single formal reply from Copenhagen.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials suggested previously that the pipelines were targeted by the US or on Washington’s behalf.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Odessa massacre 10 years on… Western media silence covers up NATO incrimination

Strategic Culture Foundation | May 3, 2024

Ten years ago this week, a shocking and brutal massacre was perpetrated by supporters of the NATO-backed Kiev regime in Odessa.

At least 42 men and women were murdered on May 2, 2014, when the Trade Unions House in the historic port city was set ablaze by a fascist mob.

Last year to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the atrocity, our weekly editorial provided a rationale for Western silence. We commented:

“In all, 42 people were murdered in the Trade Unions building massacre. Not one attacker was ever prosecuted. The Kiev regime refused to carry out any adequate investigation.

However, the horror of that day was a turning point for many Ukrainians and Russians. It revealed the hideous nature of the regime that had seized power over the country and its vile fascist hostility toward Russia.

This is the regime that was brought to power by Washington and its NATO partners. Since 2014, it has been armed and built up to be a war machine to aggress Russia and obliterate all cultural connections with Russia.

The massacre in Odessa should be remembered for the sake of the victims that day. But also remembered because it helps explain the background of how the present U.S.-led NATO proxy conflict in Ukraine with Russia has come about.

For that reason, Western news media and their governments chose to studiously ignore the Odessa massacre. Their shameful silence is necessary in order to conceal the criminal complicity of the West in Ukraine’s deadly turmoil.”

Now 10 years on, the Western media do not even make any mention of the atrocity. In earlier years, the Western media sought to distort the incident by claiming that it was a confused melee and the tragic result of a clash between unknown rival factions. There were even deplorable attempts by Western media to make out that claims of an atrocity were “Russian disinformation”.

The cover-up has given way to total silence as if the horrific event was consigned to an Orwellian “memory hole”.

Russia continues to call for an international independent investigation to bring the perpetrators to justice. The Kiev regime persists in rebuffing any serious investigation for the simple reason that a thorough probe would probably show that the atrocity was carried out by the leadership of the Kiev regime in collusion with Western intelligence agencies.

What happened in Odessa on May 2, 2014, was not some random event of chaotic violence that got out of control. This is what the Western media initially reported.

No, it seems quite clear now that the massacre was a well-planned, deliberate act of mass murder to terrorize the Ukrainian opposition into complying with the NATO regime. It was an act of state terrorism.

The victims were all from Odessa who had been participating in a peaceful protest outside the landmark building in the city center. The building was closed due to the May Day holiday. As in several other southern and eastern regions of Ukraine at the time, there were many protests against the NATO-sponsored coup in Kiev that had taken place only weeks earlier in February of that year.

Many Ukrainians were not happy – indeed were appalled – that the so-called EuroMaidan coup in Kiev had brought to power ultranationalists and fascists who glorified NeoNazi figures and paramilitaries. Cities like Odessa suffered terribly under Nazi occupation during the Great Patriotic War (WWII). Now they were seeing a regime exulting in those Nazi memories and wanting to banish all Russian cultural connections.

In those pivotal months of 2014, the CIA’s plan to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian bulwark was not a foregone conclusion due to the formidable opposition to the new regime in cities like Odessa, Kherson and Kharkov  – as well as of course the Crimea Peninsula and the Donbass.

Former Odessa lawmaker Vasily Polishchuk who witnessed the violence that day testifies that senior figures in the Kiev regime were present in Odessa in the days before May 2. One of those was Andriy Parubiy who had been appointed head of national security. Parubiy is also implicated in the sniper shootings in Kiev on February 20 – a false flag provocation killing dozens of protesters and police officers – that precipitated the coup against the elected pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.

Two weeks before the Odessa massacre, the then CIA director John Brennan was in Kiev on an unannounced visit. Even some U.S. lawmakers complained at the time that it was not a good look for the United States to be seen collaborating with the Kiev regime. Brennan was not only giving the green light to the “anti-terror operation” (civil war) that the Kiev regime was about to launch against the Donbass. It seems plausible that the United States was also helping to formulate a scorched-earth policy of terror to quell any dissent across Ukraine.

The mass killings in Odessa on May 2 were the selected terror demonstration.

Eyewitnesses tell of how thousands of Kiev regime paramilitaries who had been instrumental in the coup in the capital weeks earlier were bussed into Odessa and put up in camps. Andriy Parubiy was seen inspecting their ranks and overseeing the supply of body armor.

When the anti-Maidan protesters were attacked on May 2, they were herded by baseball-bat-wielding thugs into the Trade Union House. The building was then assailed with incendiary devices.

People who jumped from the blazing building were bludgeoned to death by NeoNazi gangs shouting “Death to all Russians”.

The dereliction of duty by the police that day to protect the peaceful protesters and the subsequent quashing of any crime investigation is proof that the security forces were complicit. That could only have been enabled by senior orders most likely issued by those in Kiev.

This is essential background to understand the current conflict in Ukraine and why Russia decided to intervene on February 24, 2022. Moscow maintains that Ukraine is a proxy war orchestrated by the United States and its NATO allies as a geo-strategic confrontation to subjugate Russia. Western regimes and their propaganda media make out that Ukraine is a democracy under aggression from Russia.

Understanding how the Kiev regime was installed with CIA and NATO engineering and how it rapidly used its fascist violence to turn Ukraine into a terror state corroborates the analysis of the current conflict being a Western imperialist proxy war.

The Western-lionized “democracy” has repressed all opposition parties and media.

The United States and its NATO accomplices do not want the Western public to understand the truth about their criminal machinations in Ukraine. These powers want the bloodshed to continue to the last Ukrainian because the war racket is so damn lucrative.

Thus the Western powers must shove episodes like the Odessa massacre down the memory hole and keep a lid on it. It is imperative to keep the fiction going of a democracy under attack otherwise the West’s collusion with a NeoNazi regime would reveal the Western powers’ inherent fascism.

Several events and developments around the world – brutal police repression of peaceful protests in the U.S. and Europe, the enabling of genocide by a fascist Israeli regime, the unprovoked aggression toward China, and the nefarious involvement in Ukraine – all point to Western states degenerating into full-fledged fascism.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

NATO Steadfast Defender Drills Indicate Preparation for ‘Potential Conflict’ With Russia

Sputnik – 04.05.2024

MOSCOW – NATO’s large-scale Steadfast Defender drills indicate that the alliance is preparing for a “potential conflict” with Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday.

NATO kicked off Steadfast Defender 24 in January. The war games are running through May and include over 90,000 troops from all 32 member states. During the drills, the allies plan to test out a conflict scenario against a “near-peer adversary” in accordance with Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that an attack on one ally is considered an attack against the entire NATO and allows for the provision of appropriate assistance.

“Right now, NATO is conducting its largest drills since the Cold War, Steadfast Defender, near the Russian border. According to their scenario, using all the tools, including the hybrid ones and conventional weapons, they are exercising coalition actions against Russia. We have to admit that the NATO states are seriously preparing for a ‘potential conflict’ with us, about which, by the way, high-ranking NATO representatives are openly talking about,” Zakharova said in a statement published by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Speaking about NATO’s accusations against Russia of hybrid attacks on the alliance Zakharova said Moscow considers them as disinformation, which increases the degree of anti-Russian hysteria.

On May 2, the North Atlantic Council adopted a statement, accusing Russia of hybrid attacks against the alliance’s member states.

“The North Atlantic alliance and the leadership of some individual member states are doing what they are the best at – spreading disinformation, increasing the degree of anti-Russian hysteria in order to justify unprecedented levels of militarization in Europe,” Zakharova said.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Russia shoots down four US-made long-range missiles – MOD

RT | May 4, 2024

Russian air defenses have shot down four US-manufactured long-range missiles over Crimea, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.

On Saturday night, Kiev’s forces attempted “to carry out a terrorist attack” against the Russian peninsula using surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) supplied by Washington, the ministry said in a post on Telegram. The strike was intercepted, it added.

On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry claimed that six ATACMS projectiles had been downed in a single day, without specifying the location of the strikes. In total, 15 such missiles have been intercepted in the past seven days, Moscow reported on Saturday.

In late April, US officials confirmed earlier media reports that the Pentagon had secretly shipped an unspecified number of long-range missiles to Ukraine as part of an arms package announced by President Joe Biden in mid-March.

The “goal” of supplying Kiev with ATACMS was to put more pressure on Crimea and allow Ukrainian forces to target the peninsula “more effectively,” the New York Times reported at a time, citing an unnamed Pentagon official.

Moscow said the provision of long-range missiles would only spell “more problems” for Kiev. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov insisted that the use of ATACMS would not impact the outcome of the conflict, or prevent Russia from achieving its security goals.

On Friday, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that any Western-backed Ukrainian attack against the Russian peninsula, or the Crimean Bridge which connects it to the Krasnodar Region, would spark a forceful response.

“I would like to again warn Washington, London, Brussels, that any aggressive actions against Crimea are not only doomed to failure, but will also be met with a retaliatory blow,” she said during a media briefing.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russia and the West Finally Decoded

Ivor Cummins | April 30, 2024

Superb short explanation of everything related to the Russian/Putin/Western Problem – Alex Krainer in Dubai has indeed cracked it! Please share so that people can understand it all…

NOTE: My extensive research and interviewing / video/sound editing and travel to counter totalitarianism does require support – please consider helping if you can with monthly donation to support me directly, or one-off payment: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=69ZSTYXBMCN3W – alternatively join up with my Patreon – exclusive Vlogs/content and monthly zoom meetings with the second tier upwards: https://www.patreon.com/IvorCummins

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Pandemic Officials are “Disappointed in Themselves”, per the New York Times

By Igor Chudov | May 3, 2024

An article in the New York Times is titled “Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening?” (no paywall)

The author, Apoorva Mandavilli, was correctly described by Vinay Prasad as the worst science reporter. She states her surprise about “thousands” who believe that Covid vaccines harmed them. While we know that number to be an understatement, it is interesting how the New York Times recognizes them after years of stonewalling.

But in a recent interview, Dr. Janet Woodcock, a longtime leader of the Food and Drug Administration, who retired in February, said she believed that some recipients had experienced uncommon but “serious” and “life-changing” reactions beyond those described by federal agencies.

“I feel bad for those people,” said Dr. Woodcock, who became the F.D.A.’s acting commissioner in January 2021 as the vaccines were rolling out. “I believe their suffering should be acknowledged, that they have real problems, and they should be taken seriously.”

FDA’s Dr. Woodcock is disappointed in herself:

“I’m disappointed in myself,” she added. “I did a lot of things I feel very good about, but this is one of the few things I feel I just didn’t bring it home.”

The article discusses thousands of people gaslit by vaccine promoters and their doctors, who were intimidated not to report vaccine injuries:

Similar sentiments were echoed in interviews, conducted over more than a year, with 30 people who said they had been harmed by Covid shots. They described a variety of symptoms following vaccination, some neurological, some autoimmune, some cardiovascular.

All said they had been turned away by physicians, told their symptoms were psychosomatic, or labeled anti-vaccine by family and friends — despite the fact that they supported vaccines.

Even some key vaccine promoters report vaccine injuries, which they could not report anywhere:

Dr. Gregory Poland, 68, editor in chief of the journal Vaccine, said that a loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first shot, but that his entreaties to colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explore the phenomenon, tinnitus, had led nowhere.

He received polite responses to his many emails, but “I just don’t get any sense of movement,” he said.

The federal officials in charge of setting the policy still refuse to believe these reports:

Federal health officials say they do not believe that the Covid vaccines caused the illnesses described by patients like Mr. Barcavage, Dr. Zimmerman and Ms. France. The vaccines may cause transient reactions, such as swelling, fatigue and fever, according to the C.D.C., but the agency has documented only four serious but rare side effects.

The excuse that these officials give for ignoring vaccine harms is that they were fighting misinformation :

The rise of the anti-vaccine movement has made it difficult for scientists, in and out of government, to candidly address potential side effects, some experts said. Much of the narrative on the purported dangers of Covid vaccines is patently false, or at least exaggerated, cooked up by savvy anti-vaccine campaigns.

Questions about Covid vaccine safety are core to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign. Citing debunked theories about altered DNA, Florida’s surgeon general has called for a halt to Covid vaccination in the state.

“The sheer nature of misinformation, the scale of misinformation, is staggering, and anything will be twisted to make it seem like it’s not just a devastating side effect but proof of a massive cover-up,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a vice dean at Johns Hopkins University.

So, get this please, the massive coverup was necessary to debunk ‘“misinformation” about the existence of a massive coverup. I hope it makes sense to you, my dear reader!

They finally note miscarriages caused by COVID vaccines:

Among the hundreds of millions of Americans who were immunized for Covid, some number would have had heart attacks or strokes anyway. Some women would have miscarried. How to distinguish those caused by the vaccine from those that are coincidences? The only way to resolve the question is intense research.

Another way to get the alarm signal of miscarriages is to ask, why does the Moderna vaccine cause 42% more miscarriages, compared to the Pfizer vaccine.

Why Now?

Are we observing a paradoxical awakening of honesty among federal officials and vaccine researchers? Have Apoorva Mandavilli and her employer finally decided to come clean about Covid vaccines?

Did these dishonest people suddenly straighten their ways, after being paid millions in research grants, CDC vaccine promotion fees paid to the media, etc? As much as I hope people can improve, I doubt that explanation.

The most likely explanation is that:

  • Most vaccine-injured people are Democrats
  • Facing a tough election in 2020, the Democratic party is afraid that the victims of vaccines that their party promoted and that disproportionally affected their core voters, might divert their votes and vote for an anti-vax Democrat, Robert Kennedy.

That might explain a puzzling turnaround in reporting vaccine injury in major newspapers such as the New York Times.

May 3, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Police State Revealed: US Student Protesters Tracked and Spied Upon

A State trooper stands gurad near pro-Palestinian demomstrators at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas – © AFP / Suzanne Cordeiro
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 03.05.2024

Thousands of American students at pro-Palestinian rallies face increased surveillance and scrutiny from police and university authorities.

Pro-Palestinian college students in the US may encounter surveillance on campuses following their protests, according to Axios.

The media outlet warned that the extent that law enforcement agencies and universities use social media monitoring tools and facial recognition software is greater than the public imagines.

Over the past two weeks, more than 2,000 protesters have been arrested due to close cooperation between law enforcement officers and university authorities. Citing Albert Fox Cahn, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project’s (S.T.O.P.’s) founder, Axios noted that police and universities have a long history of security cooperation, which includes sharing campus video footage, students’ geolocation, and social media posts.

US educational institutions have also mastered surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, installing all sorts of surveillance tools and apps for public safety. For instance, some installed automated license plate readers while others reportedly used state law enforcement’s facial recognition databases.

As per the media outlet, at least 37 universities have been clients of Social Sentinel (also known as Navigate 360), a US technology firm that tracks students’ social media behavior with a declared aim of preventing self-harm or violence on campuses. It turned out that the technology has also been used to spy upon student protesters since 2015, according to a 2022 journalist investigation.

In addition to abusing students’ privacy, various artificial intelligence tools could mislead their users. For example, facial recognition applications are prone to errors, especially when it comes to non-white individuals. That could lead to potential misidentification, with little to prevent officials from inadvertently or intentionally abusing the technology.

Columbia University, which has recently emerged as a focal point of student protests, has been a target for police that tracked student groups since at least 2006, according to the Associated Press.

There is fear that participants of student movements could face continued surveillance by law enforcement agencies post-graduation. US college and university students appear to be aware of the potential threat: many wear masks and other face coverings to avoid identification during the protests.

May 3, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Starbucks continues to feel weight of global boycott over Gaza war

MEMO | May 3, 2024

Starbucks continues to feel the weight of global boycott campaigns over its support of Israel’s war in Gaza which has claimed the lives of over 34,500 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children.

The coffee chain announced a sharp decline in global sales; the worst since the pandemic, which resulted in its share price dropping to a 21-month low. Starbucks reported a 15 per cent drop in net income (to $772 million) compared to this time last year.

Global boycott campaigns have also forced the company to lower its profit forecast for the fiscal year 2024 as the performance of its cafes is expected to remain weak in the near future.

“In a challenging environment, this quarter’s results do not reflect the strength of our brand, our capabilities or the opportunities ahead,” CEO Laxman Narasimhan said in a statement.

The company has been trying to counter what it describes as “ongoing false and misleading information being shared about Starbucks” online.

In October, Starbucks sued Workers United, which has organised workers in at least 370 US Starbucks stores, over a pro-Palestinian message posted on a union social media account.

Starbucks said it was trying to get the union to stop using its name and likeness as the post also drew protests from pro-Israel demonstrators.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Starbucks has seen a continual drop in sales and profits as a result of its actions.

May 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Anti-Semitic Awareness Bill Direct Attack on Free Speech

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 03.05.2024

On Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed the HR 6090 Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which would encode the definition of anti-Semitism defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance into the 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin.

The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act would legally define criticism of the government or state of Israel as an act of anti-Semitism, and should concern every American, regardless of their views on Israel.

“It would be as if you could not criticize US capitalism, and if you were to do so, you would be considered to be a bigot,” Dr. Gerald Horne, a professor of history at the University of Houston told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Thursday. “Indeed, I think that you should correctly sense a whiff of what befell the United States in the 1950s with the so-called ‘House un-American Activities Committee’.”

Speech that the bill would define as anti-Semitic includes “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel [than the US], or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.”

In October, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) wore an Israeli Defense Force uniform, the same uniform he wore while serving in Israel’s military. That led some to question where his loyalties lie, an accusation that would be deemed anti-Semitic under this law.

It also would define “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” as anti-Semitic. Many pro-Palestinian advocates argue that having a country specifically designed for a group of people, in this case, Jews, is in itself a racist act, just as a country only for white people, Christians or any other group of people would be.

The bill would also ban “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy of that of the Nazis,” which is a comparison many are making after seeing the images coming out of Gaza which has been described as a Genocide by multiple human rights organizations, heads of state and protesters.

It would also ban the “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation,” a definition so broad, that it could be used to shut down any criticism of Israel that the government determines the speaker has not applied to another country.

Similar laws have been enacted in Europe and have had a chilling effect.

In France, two individuals were arrested for wearing shirts to a grocery store that read “Boycott Israel, Free Palestine” and handing out pro-Palestine flyers on the bus.

In Germany, a German-Israeli activist was arrested for holding a sign that read “As a Jew and Israeli, stop the genocide in Gaza.”

“Europe’s experience with similar laws shows why this [bill] would be a mistake.” Jacob Mchangama, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression posted on X on Thursday.

“It’s part and parcel of what can fairly be considered [a] sort of thought crimes,” Horne warned. “There are going to be thought police who are going to ferret out these alleged offenders of these thought crimes.”

There have been several laws passed in states across the US that attempted to ban boycotting Israel, they have all been shot down by federal courts as unconstitutional, and the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is sure to face a similar challenge if it passes but there is no guarantee how the courts will rule.

“Israel wields a great deal of power in the United States. All you have to do is look at the bill that passed today to see what opinions you are allowed to express and what opinions you are not allowed to express,” explained award-winning journalist and former lawyer Glenn Greenwald on his show on Wednesday. “Therein is the proof of the people and the countries who occupy and exert the greatest power and they have now used that power to formally attack the free speech rights of American citizens in some of the most glaring and explicit ways that I’ve ever seen.”

Later on Thursday, Senate leadership attempted to fast track the bill but were denied by members who oppose the bill, but that won’t be the end of it. “We’re going to look for the best way to move forward,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters.

May 3, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Legal experts debunk Israeli, US claims challenging ICC jurisdiction

Anadolu Agency | May 3, 2024

For days now, there is growing speculation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is poised to issue arrest warrants against top Israeli officials for the ongoing war on Gaza.

Most of the hype has been fuelled by Israel itself, first with regular reports by Israeli news outlets about increasing apprehension among the top brass, followed by direct statements from Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, attacking the ICC and urging his Western allies to pressure the Court.

Another tactic employed by Israel and its supporters, particularly the US, has been to question the ICC’s power and jurisdiction to act against Israeli officials.

Spokespersons for the White House and US State Department have explicitly conveyed that the US does not believe the ICC has jurisdiction to move against Israel, specifically because Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the international treaty that forms the basis of the ICC.

Legal scholars, however, have refuted these assertions, stressing that Israel not recognising the ICC or not being a signatory to the Rome Statute does not have any impact on the Court’s powers.

The ICC has been leading an investigation since 2021 into potential war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian groups dating back to 2014. The probe has grown to include ongoing attacks in the war in Gaza.

“Palestine is a state party to the ICC, and the ICC has accepted that it has jurisdiction over crimes committed in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” Gerhard Kemp, a professor of criminal law at the University of the West of England Bristol Law School, told Anadolu.

The ICC also has jurisdiction over crimes committed by Palestinian nationals outside the Territory of Palestine, for example in Israel on 7 October, 2023, he said.

“The short answer is that there is not much that Israel can do to challenge the ICC jurisdiction over the alleged crimes committed in Palestine,” he explained.

Another legal expert, Mark Kersten, asserted that the ICC is able to “very clearly, logically and legally exercise jurisdiction in this case.”​​​​​​​

The ICC has territorial jurisdiction on Palestine, which it understands as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, he said.

First, this means it has jurisdiction over any crimes committed by citizens of Palestine, so it has the power to act against Hamas members for the 7 October attacks, even though most of it happened on the territory of a non-state party, Israel, he said.

“Second, it has jurisdiction over any crimes committed on the Territory of Palestine … which means it has jurisdiction over any Israeli authorities who have committed mass atrocities, international crimes in Gaza or the West Bank,” explained Kersten, assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of the Fraser Valley in Canada.

‘Attempts to interfere, undermine and threaten ICC’

In the current situation, Kersten said the ICC is facing immense pressure from various countries, including Israel and the US.

“There’s definitely ongoing political pressure … I think pressure is probably too soft of a term. I have no doubt that various states are effectively threatening the ICC with certain consequences,” he said.

“There are definitely ongoing attempts to interfere, undermine and threaten the ICC. It is up to the ICC Prosecutor and, indeed, to a certain extent the judges, to withstand that.”

On Friday, Prosecutor Karim Khan’s office issued a sharply worded statement asserting that “all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence (ICC) officials must cease immediately.”

“Such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offence against the administration of justice under Article 70 of the Rome Statute,” read the statement, without mentioning any cases or countries.

Kersten pointed out that pressure tactics are “nothing new” for the ICC, with both the US and Israel having previously threatened the Court.

The administration of ex-President Donald Trump even “issued sanctions against the Prosecutor and certain other ICC staff, as well as threatening to sanction their families,” he recalled.

“We have seen US policymakers and lawmakers say the same, that they would support literally sanctioning the only independent permanent international criminal tribunal in the world,” Kersten added.

What happens if warrants are issued?

According to the swirling reports, the Israeli leaders who could soon be facing ICC warrants include Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Israeli military chief, Herzi Halevi.

If warrants are issued, all 124 countries that are state parties to the ICC are obligated to act.

“If an arrest warrant is issued against Netanyahu, he cannot legally step onto the territory of Germany or the UK or Canada,” said Kersten.

Being ICC member states, these countries will be obligated under both their own laws and also international law “to arrest and surrender Netanyahu to the ICC”, he said.

Non-state parties, however, do not have that obligation, he added.

On a potential timeline, Kersten said the ICC has often released “some of its most important and most significant decisions … at around 4 p.m. Hague time on a Friday, when the media isn’t really covering these issues.”

As for the possible basis of the warrant, he said it could be “about the issues of starvation or the denial of aid to Gaza,” adding that these are points “the Prosecutor has spoken about repeatedly, especially since 7 October.”

Kersten also believes that any warrant against Netanyahu would be “unsealed” and publicly announced, citing past examples of warrants against Russian President, Vladimir Putin, or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

However, there have been instances in the past where ICC judges have accepted the Prosecutor’s request to issue sealed arrest warrants, he said.

These can then be unsealed in “a moment of vulnerability for the accused, for example, during travel to a member state of the ICC,” he added.

“Then, all of a sudden, that state has the obligation to catch the accused and surrender them to the ICC, in this massive kind of surprise moment,” said Kersten.

For someone as high-profile as Netanyahu, the expert reiterated that he does not believe a “sealed arrest warrant” is likely.

“It would be diplomatically inappropriate to issue a sealed arrest warrant for the head of a government … or a defence minister,” he said.

Complementarity challenge

While Israel has no standing when it comes to questioning the ICC’s jurisdiction, the one thing it can do is challenge the admissibility of any case in which warrants are issued on the basis of complementarity, according to Kemp, the Bristol Law School professor.

“This is because the ICC has complementary jurisdiction, meaning the ICC can only try a case if a national criminal justice system with jurisdiction over the matter is either unwilling or unable to try the case,” he said.

When Israeli nationals are accused of war crimes in Gaza, if Israel can show that its own courts will prosecute them “in a genuine prosecution and not a sham trial, then the ICC will stand back and will let Israel proceed with the case”, he explained.

“Of course, the ICC will evaluate the situation with reference to all the available facts,” Kemp added.​​​​​​​

May 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Inside story of mass graves at Al-Shifa and Al-Nasser hospitals in Gaza

By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | May 3, 2024

“Everywhere you walk there are graves, decomposing bodies or potentially people buried under the rubble”, a resident of northern Gaza’s al-Rimal neighborhood told the Press TV website, describing mass graves at two of the largest medical complexes in the besieged coastal territory.

The discovery of hundreds of mass graves at the Nasser and al-Shifa hospital complexes, where United Nations (UN) officials reported that bodies were “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste”, has led its officials to call for an international probe into the horrors being uncovered.

So far, some 400 bodies have been recovered at the Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, while around 300 bodies have been discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

The deceased include “older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes,” said the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani.

While the Israeli military downplayed reports about mass graves as “baseless and unfounded”, it made the mistake of admitting to having dug up bodies that had been previously buried, in the process of trying to explain away the irrefutable evidence documented.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that “the presence of urinary catheters or splints, which were found to be still attached to some of the dead patients’ bodies during the exhumation process, as well as medical files that were buried with them in Al-Shifa Medical Complex, confirm the execution of ill and injured people.”

The Switzerland-based rights group also reported that some of the “victims’ decomposing bodies were found in several places, with some having been run over by Israeli bulldozers which left their bodies torn into pieces” and that Israeli forces had been using Palestinian civilians at al-Shifa Hospital as human shields.

Gaza’s civil defense also called for help in forensic examination to find out more about 20 bodies that they believe were buried alive.

First-person account of Al-Shifa horror

Palestinian journalist, Motasem A Dalloul, who is based in northern Gaza, was one of the first on the scene to witness the aftermath of al-Shifa Hospital and had to reach the area on bicycle as the roads were too severely damaged for vehicles.

Press TV website spoke to him around an hour after he finished documenting the horrifying scenes in and around the coastal territory’s largest hospital complex.

Describing the scene upon his arrival at the scene of the hospital, he said that “the Israeli invasion resulted in the destruction of an area of 1000 meters around al-Shifa Hospital.”

“Homes, schools, mosques, in addition to the actual hospital were all destroyed. I saw everything, I saw unprecedented destruction and as I arrived there, I went to the main gate of al-Shifa Hospital and as I walked forward I saw that it was blocked with the burned remains of two destroyed ambulances and so I entered through a hole in the wall beside it,” he told the Press TV website.

Dalloul then described the scenes of destruction upon entering the hospital’s grounds:

“I found all the buildings were affected. The main building, which included the reception and the surgery department, was completely destroyed. The special surgery building, which included the ICU and the operation rooms and the patient beds, was completely destroyed,” he narrated.

“It had not collapsed but was destroyed from the inside and completely burned. I then went through the other buildings, walking through the maternity ward and the cancer treatment facility which were, in addition to the administrative building, everything was either partially or completely destroyed, or burned out.”

The Palestinian journalist based in Gaza painted a graphic picture of mass graves that were discovered at the prominent hospital that is now lying in ruins due to Israeli bombings.

“If you enter the medical complex from the East to the West, on your right-hand side there is a mass grave. I saw parts of bodies on the surface of the soil. I saw decomposing hands and parts of heads. When I counted the number of bodies that were visible, I counted that around 15 people were visible in this mass grave,” he explained with unutterable grief and sorrow.

“I saw bodies of people who were either killed or executed inside the buildings and around the yards of the hospital.”

‘Hospital is gone forever’

Dalloul said that when he spoke to Dr. Marwan Abu Saada, the director of al-Shifa Hospital’s ICU department, he was told that it would take 10 years to rebuild such a facility and that the “hospital is gone forever”.

He added that Dr. Saada was in tears while he was explaining the extent of the unprecedented damage at the hospital that remained in the news for several weeks due to the military siege.

Since then, the ICU department director has publicly appealed to the international community to launch a probe into the Israeli military siege, death and destruction at the al-Shifa Hospital.

Press TV website was also told about the horrifying cases of children searching for the remains of their grandparents, parents and siblings – an unimaginable situation for anyone to go through.

Press TV website contacted Motassem again, around a week later, to update us on the work done by professional teams sent to exhume bodies that were lying in mass graves at al-Shifa Hospital.

He told us that there was an urgent need for supplies at the time in order to help identify the bodies.

On the day the Israeli military withdrew from al-Shifa after weeks of siege, there were bodies of children, women and men that were left in the streets, many of which were already decomposed or badly mutilated by tanks and bulldozers, so the only way to identify the dead was from their clothing.

A harrowing case reported by Mondoweiss, during the aftermath of the Al-Nasser Hospital invasion, confirmed that the process of identifying the bodies in mass graves was similar to what occurred at al-Shifa.

A 51-year-old man named Ayman, who visited the hospital with his wife and one of his sons, was left searching through “a pit of bodies buried, cut up” that were in pieces and left scattered amongst bags of garbage, stating that his son “was wearing the blue wool sweater.”

“I bought it for him. I know everything he wears and can identify him by his clothes,” he said.

A Palestinian man, pleading anonymous, who was seeking shelter at the Al-Nasser Hospital complex, but left before Israeli forces stormed and occupied it, said he wasn’t at all surprised.

“They used drones to shoot at us if we moved, many were killed like this every day and when the tanks came we chose to leave because it was not safe. Everyone knew that the Israelis would kill many, including many of the medical staff and they still stayed to perform their jobs,” he told the Press TV website.

“We remember the bravery of the doctors and medical staff, they were heroes and the Israelis don’t care for human lives. Look what they did at every hospital, at schools, at our homes. They killed people holding up white flags, the mass graves are not just at the hospitals, they are everywhere and the death toll is so much higher than we are told I am sure.”

13,000 still missing, likely buried

Important to note is that although two of the largest mass graves that have been discovered to date are those outlined here, yet there are around 13,000 Palestinians still missing and buried in the rubble throughout the Gaza Strip.

In January, 50 bodies were discovered at the Khalifa Bin Zayed elementary school in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia, a school being used for shelter by displaced refugees, while another 30 bodies were discovered dumped in black bags amongst garbage at the Hamad School; the bodies were decomposing but showed signs of torture and many were found with their hands and feet bound.

Israel is also known for holding the dead bodies of slain Palestinians, with various reports stating that when they were returned to their families, their organs were missing.

This even prompted the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor to call for an international inquiry into the seizure of bodies and possible organ trafficking.

Amongst the abuses that have occurred at the Nasser Hospital and al-Shifa Hospital are the deprivation of food, water and medical care to the sick and injured; in addition to various forms of torture, arbitrary executions and even sexual violence.

The United Nations recorded at least two cases of Israeli soldiers raping Palestinians in February, yet, after countless allegations of rape and other forms of sexual violence, again, there has been no international probe into these credible reports.

With the discovery of the mass graves at the al-Shifa and Nasser medical complexes, there is an urgent need for international, independent probes into the conduct of the Israeli regime’s ground forces, believe human rights experts.

The mass graves are only part of the gruesome series of massacres but should be a turning point due to the sheer scale of murdered and mutilated bodies found, they state.

May 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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