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Canada: Government and Bankers Pay “Antifa” Members to Dox and Attack Right Wingers

By Eric Striker • National Justice • December 3, 2020

Last week, Kurt Phillips of Anti-Racist Canada (ARC) retired his blog after 13 years.

ARC was an early pioneer of the tactic of “doxing,” where leftists post the addresses, photos of homes, and other personal information of political dissidents in order to threaten and intimidate them into silence. Over the years, Phillips has targeted free speech activists, Canadian nationalists, Proud Boys, immigration skeptics and even the Canadian Yellow Vest movement, sometimes paired with thinly veiled calls to violence.

Even his farewell message encourages readers to follow explicitly violent anarchist groups and left-wing “skinheads” like SHARP.

Early this year, Phillips was himself exposed as a gay communist teacher at St. Anthony’s Catholic school in Drumheller, Alberta, where he continues to work despite revelations of his activities and litigation alleging unethical and potentially illegal behavior.

While Phillips is calling it quits at ARC, this is only because of a sinecure he has received at Bernie Farber’s antifa NGO, the “Canadian Anti-Hate Network,” (CAN) where Phillips is now a board member. Farber is a Zionist Jewish activist who was criticized for claiming to be a homosexual in 2009 in order to promote Israel and protest a pro-Palestine group at an gay parade.

CAN engages in similar activities as ARC, specializing in doxing and creating media narratives to demonize right-wingers in Canada. CAN’s position on violence appears to be purely legalistic, with its “About” page stating “We do not, however, engage in any on-the-ground organizing and encourage you to contact your local anti-racist groups if you want to get involved at that level.” The anti-racist groups they are referring to are mostly communist and anarchist “antifa” groups who use force to deny Canadians with different political opinions their civil liberties.

What is most shocking about CAN is who is paying Phillips to harass people: the Canadian government and banking establishment.

In October, the multinational investment bank Bank of Montreal (BMO) provided CAN with a $250,000 donation to expand its “antifa” operations. This was followed up with another big cash injection from the Canadian state itself through its “Anti-Racist Action” program, which allocated $270,000 to CAN’s activities of “monitoring” and “combating” right-wing groups.

The dynamic doesn’t seem to bother self-described anti-capitalists tripping over one another for the money of bankers and Canadian plutocrats.

Non-governmental organizations, often funded by billionaires and business interests, have always been a vital lifeline for the phony left. Now Canada appears to be one of the first nations to use taxpayer dollars to outright fund left-wing paramilitary activity and organized online harassment.

The fact that the “Anti-Racist Action” grant program shares its name with the “antifa” terrorist group is unlikely to be a coincidence. If you were to ask Kurt Phillips, he is likely to proudly agree.

December 4, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Canadian Intel Report Alleging COVID-19 Disinformation Campaign is ‘Madness’, Russian Embassy States

Sputnik – 04.12.2020

The Russian Embassy in Ottawa refuted a Canadian intelligence report that claimed Russia, China and Iran actively spread COVID-19 disinformation.

Earlier in the day, snippets of a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) report obtained by a Canadian media outlet shed light on an alleged disinformation campaign by Russia, China and Iran to discredit western countries’ pandemic response to further their strategic interests.

“False claims in blame Russia-fashion spread by [mainstream media], referring to secret intelligence reports, instead of cooperation against the pandemic. The propaganda war by western spy agencies to denigrate Russian anti-COVID-19 efforts and the successful Sputnik V vaccine while diverting attention from west’s own failures. Madness,” the embassy’s press service tweeted on Thursday.

Canada’s spy agency deduced that Russia spread disinformation to discredit the west, promote national interests abroad and to push for an end to sanctions. China and Iran were accused of spreading disinformation to compensate for their failures in containing the pandemic.

Reciprocally, Russia, China and Iran have vocally asserted that western countries are using COVID-19 disinformation to sow discord in their internal affairs.

December 4, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Betting other people’s money on green

Climate Discussion Nexus | December 2, 2020

With pandemic lockdowns crushing the private sector, it’s obviously time to launch an ambitious redesign of our economy. Or so they tell us. And “they” are not just the architects of the Great Reset whose plans, we noted last week, offer a strange mix of cosmic ambition and predictable futility. But “they” also includes those who keep insisting, against all evidence, that there are vast commercial opportunities in this new economy. If that were true it would mean we don’t need sweeping government intervention, just the same old profit motive and efficient capital markets. Unfortunately neither profits nor efficient capital markets seem to enter the picture. Yahoo! Finance just noted that “The chief executive officers of eight Canadian pension funds, collectively representing about $1.6 trillion in assets under management, are calling for a green recovery from the COVID-19 economic slump.” But every single one of those massive funds is… a government agency gambling with other people’s money. Every one.

We’re talking state capitalism not the private kind because the CEOs who signed the letter in question run “AIMCo, BCI, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, CPP Investments, HOOPP, OMERS, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and PSP Investments.” All stuffed with public-sector money and insulated by government guarantees from the cost of any failed investment in magic beans. Unlike, say, taxpayers.

In case some of those pension funds are not familiar to you, HOOPP is the “Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP)” whose website boasts that “As one of Canada’s largest defined benefit pension plans, we are dedicated to providing retirement security to more than 380,000 healthcare workers in Ontario.” As for AIMCo, aka “Alberta Investment Management Corporation”, its website touts first “New Commitments to Diversity & Inclusion” then “Investors Collaborate on Climate Change Mitigation”. Not return on equity. So you’re not astonished to learn from their 2019 Annual Report that they call themselves “Alberta’s investment manager” and that their shareholder, in the singular, is… “the Government of Alberta”. Or that they are “a non-profit, crown corporation responsible for investing on behalf of most of Alberta’s public sector employees and, through the Heritage Fund, on behalf of all Albertans.”

Shall we continue? Let’s. Sure enough, BCI is the “British Columbia Investment Management Corporation” aka “The Investment Manager of Choice for British Columbia’s Public Sector”. Obviously the Caisse de depot is a branch of the Quebec government. It claims its clients are “41 depositor groups. Most are pension plans and public and parapublic insurance plans which, together, pay out benefits to more than two million Quebecers each year.” But of course its real client is the government of Quebec, which appoints the Board of Directors and mandates the Caisse to generate money for the government’s pension plans “while at the same time contributing to Quebec’s economic development” in, you understand, an independent manner.

Where are we? Ah yes, CPP Investments, whose name speaks for itself, though we might add that it is “one of the world’s largest investors in private equity”. So it is not your grandfather’s capitalism we’re seeing here.

Then there’s OMERS, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, a branch of the Ontario government that, Wikipedia notes, “has become one of the largest institutional investors in Canada”. And as its own website notes, it runs a “defined benefit pension plan” so if the market returns aren’t there, well, the government will come to the rescue with however many billions are needed.

We don’t have to tell you that the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is another of these parastatal behemoths. But we should mention that PSP Investments is… yes… the “Public Sector Pension Investment Board”, a branch of the federal government that is also “one of Canada’s largest pension investment managers” and once again oversees defined-benefit plans.

We dwell on the “defined-benefit” aspect here because it is vital to understand that these outfits are free to gamble with other people’s money for two vital reasons. First, by law their beneficiaries get paid whether the investments work out or not. And second and related, they are free from the sort of scrutiny normal investment firms face from clients concerned about losing their savings if the fund bets heavily on trendy exotic ideas because their clients are not those whose pensions they manage but governments that can just raise taxes, borrow against other people’s assets or, for the federal government, print the stuff to make up for any failure to find a pot of gold at the end of the green rainbow.

This consideration deserves emphasis because when you hear “institutional investors” you might well be inclined to think, well, if sober money managers taking care of Canadians’ hard-won savings are into this stuff it must not be trendy or exotic. Green must be blue chip. But no. It’s just more of the public-sector song and dance you pay for whether you like it or not.

Except for one nasty thing: The bigger they are the harder they fall. Especially now, with public sector balance sheets a soggy red mess, if one or more of these major holders of often badly underfunded public-sector pension assets should bet the wind farm on something that goes thud, as alternative energy generally does, it may not be possible for the government or governments in question to find the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars needed to make up the losses. (The CPP, the Chief Actuary of Canada has said, must earn a real rate of return of 4% for 75 years to cover projected payouts. Good luck with that mate. And as Andrew Coyne has been tireless in exposing, what was once a small outfit pursuing a “Wealthy Barber” plan of passive investment with 164 employees and administrative costs of $118 million has since 2006 become a bloated behemoth whose 1,661-strong host of managers costing $3.3 billion a year pursue risky ventures around the world. So they’re riding the gravy train even if we’re not.)

There is this meme out there that big companies are extra-right-wing entities that send lavish cheques to deniers and oppose regulation. But it’s not true. Like GM, which just switched from Trump’s position on California’s strict new emissions to Biden’s, many are smooth operators convinced they can game the system. They may find, as carmakers in Europe are already finding, that feeding the crocodile in the hope of being eaten last is just exactly as bad an idea as it sounds. But in any case private companies no longer dominate financial markets. Public and parapublic entities do.

As a result, the only meaningful shareholder revolt possible here is that of citizens. And just imagine trying to make OMERS’ investment strategy a key election issue. But it matters, because that CEOs’ letter is full of trendy verbiage like “The pandemic and other tragic events of 2020 have revealed pre-existing business strengths and shortcomings with respect to social inequity, including systemic racism and environmental threats.” And so all your chips, as a taxpayer and as a retired or even current public employee, are on the notion that a Great Reset is a fiscal winner.

December 3, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics | | Leave a comment

Informal British-Turkish-Ukrainian alliance is emerging in the Black Sea

By Paul Antonopoulos | November 30, 2020

Trade agreements between the UK and Turkey are “very close,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said during a visit to Britain in July. London’s endeavour to secure post-Brexit trade agreements reflects on the status of its economic relations with Turkey. A UK-Turkey trade agreement is important for both countries, not only commercially, but also geopolitically as it can extend into the Ukraine against Russia, particularly in the Black Sea.

The trade agreement is crucial because the EU’s relationship with Turkey and the UK have deteriorated. Brussels and Ankara clash over the erosion of democratic controls and balances in Turkey, and also because of its increasingly dynamic foreign policy in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean against Greece and Cyprus. Turkey’s relationship with the U.S. has also intensified, especially since Ankara bought the Russian S-400 missile defense system despite opposition from Washington and NATO. With it appearing imminent that Joe Biden will become the next U.S. President, relations between Washington and Ankara are set to deteriorate further.

This makes the UK one of Turkey’s few remaining friends in the West, and for Ankara a trade deal would signal a close economic and political relationship with a major European power that still wields international influence. For its part, the UK was willing to cultivate a good relationship with Ankara in the context of a “Global Britain” that it wants to build after Brexit.

When it was still a member of the EU, the UK was one of the leading supporters of Turkey’s membership into the bloc. London has also taken a much more discreet stance than other European capitals in condemning President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the deteriorating domestic situation. When Turkey launched a military operation in Syria in 2019, the UK was initially reluctant to condemn Ankara unlike other NATO members, just like what happened when Turkey intervened in Libya.

It was always inevitable that a post-Brexit UK would have strengthened relations with Turkey, especially as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson often boasts that his paternal great-grandfather, Ali Kemal, was a former Ottoman Minister of the Interior.

Johnson describes the Gülen movement, once allied to Erdoğan but now considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, as a “cult.” He also supports Turkey’s post-coup purges that resulted in the detainment of over half a million Turkish citizens, not only from the military, but also from education, media, politics and many other sectors.

It appears that Johnson’s post-Brexit “Global Britain” has Turkey as a lynchpin for its renewed international engagement with the world, and this poses immense security risks for Russia, especially in the Black Sea.

Erdoğan was outraged when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suspended arms shipments to Turkey because of its involvement in Azerbaijan’s war against Armenia. This was a major blow to the TB2 Bayraktar drones that are highly valued by Erdoğan as he uses them in his military adventures in not only Libya, Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, but also in the Aegean in espionage acts against so-called NATO ally Greece. He has even set up a drone base in occupied northern Cyprus to oversee the Eastern Mediterranean.

The so-called “domestically produced” Bayraktar drones have been exposed for using parts from nine foreign companies, including a Canadian one. Although Erdoğan was outraged by Trudeau’s decision, he found a British company to replace Canadian parts. Britain’s decision to be involved in the Bayraktar drone program is all the more controversial considering five of the nine foreign companies involved have withdrawn their support because of Turkey’s role in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Although the growing unofficial alliance for now appears to be in the fields of economics and military technology, alarming reports are emerging that British troops will be stationed in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv Port on the Black Sea.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the BBC that if British troops “land there and stay, we will not mind either. From the first day of the Russian aggression, Britain has been close and provided practical support, and not only militarily.”

Post-Brexit Britain will not weaken its maximum pressure against Russia, and rather it appears to be increasing its campaign. Britain, as a non-Arctic country, is attempting to bully its way into Arctic geopolitics by undermining Russian dominance in the region. However, Britain’s campaign of maximum pressure creates instability on Russia’s vast frontiers, including in Ukraine and the Black Sea.

With this we can see an informal tripartite alliance emerge between the UK, Turkey and Ukraine.

Kiev has formed a venture with Ankara to produce 48 Turkish Bayraktar drones in Ukraine. This also comes as Ukraine’s Ukrspetsexport and Turkey’s Baykar Makina established the Black Sea Shield in 2019 to develop drones, engine technologies, and guided munitions. In fact, Turkey will allow Ukraine to sell Bayraktar drones it produces, which will now contain British parts after several foreign companies withdrew from the drone program. It is not known whether Bayraktar drones can currently be produced because of the mass withdrawal of foreign companies, but we can expect Ukrainian and British companies to eventually fill the voids left behind.

Both Turkey and Ukraine cannot challenge Russian dominance in the Black Sea alone, and it is in their hope that by closely aligning and cooperating that they can tip the balance in their favor, especially if Britain will have a military presence in Mykolaiv Port. Ukraine still does not recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea, Britain maintains sanctions against Moscow because of the reunification, and Turkey continually alleges that Russia mistreats the Crimean Tatars.

Erdoğan uses Turkish minorities, whether they be in Syria, Greece or Cyprus, to justify interventions and/or involvement in other countries internal affairs. Erdoğan is now using the Tatar minority to force himself into the Crimean issue while simultaneously helping Ukraine arm itself militarily. With Turkish diplomatic and technological support, alongside British diplomatic, technological and perhaps limited military support, Ukraine might be emboldened to engage in a campaign against  Crimea or disrupt Russian trade in the Black Sea.

It certainly appears that an informal tripartite alliance is emerging between the UK, Turkey and Ukraine, and it is aimed against Russia in the Black Sea to end the status quo and insert their own security structure in the region on their own terms.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst. 

November 30, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Open Skies no more: US pulls out of Cold War-era deal that provided global security in diplomatic row with Russia

RT | November 22, 2020

President Donald Trump’s administration has on Sunday withdrawn from an international treaty that allows countries to monitor military hardware build-ups from afar, accusing Moscow – without evidence – of breaking its terms.

The Open Skies Treaty was first considered by the US and the Soviet Union in the 1950s as a possible way to increase transparency around troop movements and the deployment of nuclear weapons. It allows signatories to conduct a limited number of mutually beneficial aerial reconnaissance missions in the countries that are party to the deal, which includes the US, Canada, Russia and most of Europe.

In May, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed the finger at Moscow when he announced his country would seek to end its involvement in the treaty, claiming without evidence that Russia violated it. President Vladimir Putin’s government was presented with a set of new demands by US diplomats but refused them, calling them ultimatums.

As a result of the decision, the Americans will now no longer be able to operate unarmed spy plane flights over Russian territory, or that of the other signatory countries. They will also, in theory, be unable to benefit from intelligence gained from the program. However, there are concerns that the US will request aerial photographs of Russia taken by allies, while barring equivalent Russian flights over US military installations.

On Sunday, the Russian Foreign Ministry called that situation “unacceptable.” It added in a statement that Moscow “will seek firm guarantees that the states remaining in the treaty will fulfill their obligations, firstly, to ensure there are no barriers to observing their territory and, secondly, to ensure that the photographs from reconnaissance flights are not transferred to third countries that are not signed up to the deal.”

Open Skies is the latest international treaty that the US has pulled out of over tensions with Russia. Last year, Trump’s White House tore up the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that had banned a number of highly destructive weapons with ranges of between 500 and 5,500km. At the time, Washington also accused Russia of breaking the conditions of the pact, while Moscow strongly denied the allegations.

The presumptive winner of the disputed US presidential elections, former vice president Joe Biden, has been critical of Trump’s approach to these Cold War-era treaties in the past. He has called the move to pull out of Open Skies short-sighted, and implied he would look to re-join the deal. However, this may prove challenging as the US might be forced to sign up to any and all new provisions of the Treaty that were made in their absence.

November 22, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

Canada’s Trudeau calls Great Reset a CONSPIRACY THEORY after video of him promoting the globalist initiative went viral

RT | November 21, 2020

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who brought an avalanche of attention to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ when a video of him talking about the plan surfaced earlier this week, now says it’s a “conspiracy theory.”

Asked at a press conference Friday about concerns raised by conservative lawmakers about his use of the term ‘Great Reset’, Trudeau said, “We’re in a time of anxiety, where people are looking for reasons for things that are happening to him, the difficult moments we’re in. It’s nice to be able to find someone to blame, something to point to, something to get mad at.

“We’re seeing a lot of people fall prey to disinformation. If conservative MPs and others want to start talking about conspiracy theories, well, that’s their choice. I’m going to stay focused on helping Canadians get through this, on learning lessons from this pandemic, and making sure that the world we leave to our kids is even better than the world we inherited from our parents.”

The statement came just six days after a video of Trudeau addressing the United Nations remotely in September came to light, triggering a surge in Google searches for ‘Great Reset’ and sparking viral social media reaction to his comments.

“This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset,” Trudeau said. “This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality, and climate change.”

Opposition-party lawmakers, such as Pierre Poilievre, called attention to the video and posted a petition to stop the Great Reset. “Canadians must fight back against global elites preying on the fears and desperation of people to impose their power grab,” Poilievre said.

It’s easy to see how observers would infer that Trudeau’s comments reflect an international effort to capitalize on the Covid-19 pandemic to impose globalist economic policies. The World Economic Forum has openly promoted the Great Reset and championed using it to avert an economic collapse resulting from the pandemic.

Trudeau also referred in his UN address to “building back better,” echoing Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign slogan. “Building back better means giving the support to the most vulnerable while maintaining our momentum on reaching the 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development and the SDGs,” he said.

Mainstream media outlets put their spin on reaction to Trudeau’s comments, such as AFP saying the video was being used to justify a “baseless conspiracy theory” about global elites using the Covid-19 crisis to bypass democracy.” The Toronto Star also referred to “baseless conspiracy theories.”

Trudeau’s comments on Friday provided another opportunity to try to stamp out concerns that the prime minister meant what he said when he called the pandemic “a chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems.” The Huffington Post used a straw man to paint the reactions as absurd, saying, “No, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not engineer the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Royal Canadian Air Force veteran Rex Glacer tweeted that the media was trying to “cover up” for Trudeau. “Seeing things that aren’t there? Like Trudeau on video talking about the Great Reset the entire world has now seen?”

Former National Hockey League star Theo Fleury reacted to Trudeau appearing to directly contradict his own comments, saying, “He’s full of s***.” Other observers agreed, calling Trudeau’s latest comments “gaslighting.” One Twitter user quipped, “He now calls it the ‘Great Turn it Off and Turn it Back On.’”

November 21, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

The Canadian Military Declares War on Canadians – #PropagandaWatch

Corbett • 11/13/2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Dan Dicks of PressForTruth.ca joins us to delve deeper into the insane story of the Canadian military fake wolves psyop. We go beyond the ludicrous story of the government using fake wolves to scare the public to discover that the Canadian military is now openly announcing that they are targeting the Canadian public themselves with their newly-weaponized public affairs department. The Canadian military has declared war on Canada. Will Canadians even notice?

Watch on Archive / BitChute / LBRY / Minds / YouTube or Download the mp4

SHOW NOTES
PressForTruth.ca

Canadian Military FAKE WOLVES FEAR CAMPAIGN EXPOSED! But You WON’T BELIEVE What They Are Doing NEXT!!!

Forged letter warning about wolves on the loose part of Canadian Forces propaganda campaign that went awry

THIS Is How You CONDITION The Masses For The MILITARIZATION OF COVID-19(84)!!!

Canadian military wants to establish new organization to use propaganda, other techniques to influence Canadians

Vancouver Mega Freedom Rally Live with Press For Truth

Press For Truth BANNED On YouTube!

November 13, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | | 1 Comment

Why Canada Must Release Meng Wan Zhou

By K.J. Noh | Dissident Voice | October 30, 2020

Few things are as dangerous as a poorly thought-out kidnapping. Kidnappings are serious business, often with unintended consequences. History is replete with dim-witted criminals who engaged in them on a whim, only to discover adverse outcomes far beyond their imagining. One dramatic example happened 90 years ago this week:

On October 24th, a mother with young children is kidnapped. She is the cherished wife of an important man whom the kidnapper’s group is in competition with. The plan of the kidnapper is that by kidnapping her, this will create unbearable psychological pressure on her husband, force him to capitulate, or at least damage his resolve.

The woman is first humiliated, then tortured, then killed. But the leader does not capitulate, break, or weaken. Instead, over the next nineteen years, he wages war without quarter on his enemies and eventually drives them into the sea. Decades later, he will write this poem for her:

The lonely goddess in the moon spreads her ample sleeves
To dance for these faithful souls in the endless sky.
Of a sudden comes word of the tiger’s defeat on earth,
And they break into tears of torrential rain

The poet, is of course, Mao Zedong. The kidnapped woman was the beloved wife of Chairman Mao, Yang Kai Hui, the mother of his three children. In the winter of 1930, the Kuomintang Fascists kidnapped her and her son, in order to demoralize Mao and put pressure on him to capitulate. She was executed in Changsha, on November 14th, in front of her children, at the ripe age of 29.

Though utterly helpless at the moment she was hostage, Mao never forgave the kidnappers for their depravity, cowardice, and misogyny—victimizing women and children as weapons in a war—and he ground his enemies into the dust, and then built a state where such atrocities could never occur or go unpunished again.

The State-directed, extraterritorial kidnapping of Huawei CFO Meng Wan Zhou is widely seen as a similar act of infamy, misogyny, and thuggery, by a similar class of disreputable individuals. “Lawless, reasonless, ruthless,… vicious” is the extraordinary official pronouncement of the Chinese government. It is certainly a violation of international law. How this will play out ultimately, and what retribution will be meted out remains to be seen, but retribution there will surely be for this “extremely vicious” act.

George Koo has pointed out the “rotten underpinnings of the case” in this article. Most people understand that Meng is not guilty of anything other than being the daughter of Ren Zeng Fei, the founder of Huawei. Huawei, as a global technological powerhouse, represents Chinese power and Chinese technical prowess, which the United States is hell-bent on destroying. Meng has been kidnapped as a pawn, as a hostage to exert pressure on Huawei and the Chinese government, and to curb China’s development. In a maneuver reminiscent of medieval or colonial warfare, the US has explicitly offered to release her if China capitulates on a trade deal—making clear that she is being held hostage. This constitutes a violation of the UN Convention on Hostages.

The outcome of this judicial kidnapping will determine US and Canada-Chinese policy for decades to come: whether a rapprochement is possible in the future, or whether relations will spiral into a cycle of acrimony, vengeance, and ultimately catastrophe.

What is on trial, of course, is not Meng, or Huawei, but the judicial system of Canada and the conscience, good sense, and ethics of its ruling class: whether it will uphold or undermine international notions of justice.

If the Canadian judiciary and its ruling classes fail this test, Canada risks being driven, metaphorically, into the sea by a determined Chinese leadership. The global community that upholds international justice could only concur.

Key Facts about the Meng Wan Zhou Case

The Canadian government arrested Meng Wan Zhou, the CFO of Huawei, on December 1st of 2018, as she was transiting Vancouver on a flight to Mexico. The arrest was made on the demand of the US government’s US District Court’s Eastern District of NY. The initial charge was “fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud to circumvent US sanctions on Iran”.

Of course, the US government knew rapidly that these allegations could not constitute an extraditable charge. The Canadians do not subscribe to US sanctions against Iran—they actively encourage trade with Iran–and therefore business dealings with Iran could hardly be a crime in Canada. In fact, the unilateral US sanction are actually a violation of international law. Furthermore, like most jurisdictions in the world, Canada also has a requirement of “double criminality”: unless the alleged crime is a crime in both jurisdictions, you cannot extradite.

So an alternate case had to be constructed. The case was that was concocted alleged that because Meng had lied to a bank, she must be extradited for fraud. Of course, the bank was British (HSBC), the “crime” happened in Hong Kong, the accused was a Chinese national, and the arrest was in Canada. Hence, she must be extradited to the US for “fraud”. As a set up for a lame joke this would not pass, and as legal argument it is beyond farce. The US court claimed standing to charge her because transactions with HSBC had, or would have transited US servers in New York for a few milliseconds.

Here are some key things to remember about this case:

1) Even if the allegations of so-called “fraud” were true, without the political pressures, such an issue would largely be a private matter between HSBC and Meng.

2) None of the transactions between HSBC and Meng occurred in the US. The funds only transited through the US system because of the way of the global banking system is set up for dollar clearance—this was the pretextual technicality used for jurisdiction and charging. (The funds could equally have been set up to transit through an alternate system, bypassing US servers and risk).

3) No non-US person has ever been charged for “causing” a non-US bank to violate US sanctions in the past. In similar cases, it’s usually a small fine to a corporation.

4) It’s been shown that the US attempted the abduction of Meng in 6 European and Latin American countries—all of which rejected US demands. The US decided on Meng’s momentary transit through Canada, because they considered the Trudeau government to be the most pliable and sycophantic to their cause.

5) Trump has made statements that Meng could be used as a bargaining chip in the US-China trade deal, showing the clearly political nature of the arrest. Confidential RCMP documents also note that the arrest was “highly political”. It’s widely suspected that the law-breaking John Bolton was the instigator behind the action.

6) HSBC was already under prosecution by the US government for prior unrelated violations; rather than doing due diligence in their loan or clearance processes or the law, it decided to collaborate with the US government to entrap Huawei and Meng.

7) The arrest itself involved massive abuses of process: irregularities in detention, notification, search, seizure, constituting themselves violations of international law and bilateral agreements.

8) The court case has been also full of abuses, including the hiding of key exculpatory documents (slides 6 & 16) by the prosecution; and denial of access to key documents to the defense (on the basis of national security and “damage to China-Canada relations”). Given the damage that has already happened to China-Canada relations by the abduction of Meng, one can only imagine what additional “damage” Canada’s Intelligence service is trying to prevent with a claim of National Secrets exemption.

9) The Trudeau government is going on with charade that it is a hapless damsel obliged to follow US strong-arm demands. But Section 23 of the Canadian Extradition Act gives the government the authority to terminate this case at any time. Extradition is made on the discretion of the government, and by refusing to act, the Trudeau administration is abdicating its responsibilities to the Canadian people and the cause of justice.

The Fraudulent Charge of Fraud

Meng Wan Zhou’s lawyer has argued, “It is a fiction, that the US has any interest in policing interactions between a private bank and a private citizen halfway around the world…It’s all about sanctions.”

The jurisprudence upholds this: for a fraud charge against Meng to stick, it would have to show 1) deliberate misrepresentation/deception to HSBC as well as 2) harm or risk of harm to HSBC. In other words, Meng’s lies would have put HSBC at risk for fines and penalities for sanctions busting.

Note, however, that the bank could not have been held liable, if it could be shown that they had been “deceived” into breaching US sanctions by Meng as alleged. If Meng had “lied” to the bank, no harm could have occurred to the bank. The bank would have needed to act deliberately to face any risk of liability.

On the other hand, documents, slides, and emails released later actually show that HSBC had been informed of the relationship between Skycom and Huawei before Meng’s testimony as well as during the meeting, so the allegation of deception doesn’t hold up. (Slides 6 & 16 used in Meng’s presentation to HSBC were omitted to make it seem as if Meng had deceived them, but in full context, show there was no deception).

The conclusion is simple: there was either no lie, or no harm. Regardless, there was no fraud.

In other words, the Canadian government had no case.

The Double Criminality of Heather Holmes

Canadian Justice Heather Holmes, presided over the interrogation. Like the fascist KMT warlord who had kidnapped and tortured Yang Kai Hui, she interrogated Meng Wan Zhou and her lawyer in sibilant tones. Tell me, about “double criminality”, she entreated gently, as if their arguments would be weighed in her judgement.

Meng’s lawyer, Richard Peck, answered with common sense: Because Canada doesn’t have sanctions against Iran, there would be no liability to the bank, hence, no risk to the bank, hence, no criminal “fraud”.

It also couldn’t constitute fraud in the US, since if what the government argued was true–that Meng had misrepresented facts to the bank–HSBC would not be liable because the bank would be an “innocent victim,” hence not liable for any sanctions.

“All risk is driven by sanctions risk in the US,” Peck stated.

Astonishingly, Justice Holmes ruled against Meng, claiming that one should not look for correspondence or equivalence between the statutes to determine “double criminality” in fraud. Instead, she claimed that one had to transpose the context and the coherence of the statues of the demanding country to render a decision. Even though Canada didn’t have sanctions against Iran (thus no illegality or risk of harm, and hence no fraud), she stated that she still had to interpret the demand for extradition by “transposing the environment” that led the US to make the demand. In other words, Canada had no sanctions on Iran, but she had to imagine “the environment”–i.e., “as if Canada had sanctions on Iran”–to render the decision. In so doing, she was able to smuggle in illegal US sanctions by installing a legal backdoor–into a country that had lifted sanctions.

In other words, the dubious, illegal “environment” of US sanctions overruled the clear, plain letter of Canadian law. At the same time, no consideration was given to the odious political “environment” driving the abduction.

Why did the good justice see fit to make a mockery of Canada’s own laws and sovereignty, and subjugate Canada to US extraterritoriality? Why did she contort herself to support the blatant illegality of US sanctions? Does she realize she has set the country barreling down the wrong lane of history?

It’s not known if Justice Holmes asked for the clerk to bring her a basin of Maple syrup to wash her hands after she passed judgement. But it would have been understandable for such a corrupt, consequential, and deeply catastrophic judgement.

Rogue State Canada

Canadian politicians and press like to intone robotically, that Meng’s kidnapping is strictly a by-the-books, “rule-of-law” procedure with Meng’s detention. They like to repeat the catechism, in that tiresome, hypocritical, Maple-washing fashion, that they are “a nation of laws” (insinuating the others are not). But the fact is, Canadians have an atrocious history of kidnapping innocents in general, and assisting the US with kidnappings in particular. There are many examples, but the best known is the story of Maher Arar, the Canadian engineer who was kidnapped and rendered as terrorist, and tortured unspeakably in Syria, where”the pain was so great, it makes you forget the taste of your mother’s milk” Of course, he was innocent of all charges.

It’s also well established that Canadian Police have an ugly habit of kidnapping Indigenous people who are drunk or homeless, and driving them far away from city and abandoning them where they are sure to die of hypothermia and exposure in the winter. These are called Saskatoon “Starlight tours”.

It’s equally well known that the Canadian government also kidnapped tens of thousands of Indigenous children, sometimes at gun point, and forced them into concentration camps (“residential schools”) where they were abused, tortured, raped, enslaved, and killed. Children kidnapped in these schools had a greater chance of dying than soldiers doing battle in WWII–some studies show a mortality rate of 40-60%. In other words, it committed genocide, through rule of law, of course.

In 2018, the UN Committee on Human Rights published a long series of incriminating findings on Canada, related to the torture, mistreatment, imprisonment, death and refoulement of immigrants, refugees, indigenous peoples, and other political prisoners.

On the other hand, the Canadian government has been known to fight tooth and nail to harbor war criminals and torturers–people who legitimately should be extradited. For example, it harbored several El Salvadoran death squad leaders in the 1980’s. These people were so toxic that the Salvadoran government could no longer have them in their country–so they gave them diplomatic postings to Canada. The Canadians, instead of doing the reasonable thing and extraditing them–as was demanded by human rights community around the world, bent over backwards to give them safe harbor and immunity.

Any hope that the settler-colonial Canadian justice system can play an even hand or follow basic human ethics in this case is belied by this atrocious history.

But Why is the US going after Huawei?

China has been designated the official enemy (“revisionist power”) of the US, because it poses a threat to US dominance. As such, the US is engaged in “multi-domain” hybrid warfare against China to attack and bring China down. The domains of warfare that involve the US assaults against Huawei are the domains of: tech war, trade war, economic war, lawfare, and cyber war. Huawei is one of the key pillars of China’s technological and economic strength. It is the world’s largest and most advanced telecom corporation, and in 5G it owns 1/5 of the base patents in the field.

Huawei is also building the digital infrastructure to accompany the Belt and Road Initiative (the “digital silk road”). This not only allows China’s economy to grow, but also prevents the effects of military blockade at the South China Sea. Its hardware makes it harder for US surveillance to tap.

These are the key reasons why it is being attacked and taken down. Aside from kidnappings, the US has been waging this warfare by trying to prevent other countries from signing deals for Huawei 5G infrastructure. It is alleging that Huawei would render these networks insecure: Huawei would spy on them for the Chinese government, or even open them for Chinese cyberwarfare.

Actually, the truth is exactly the inverse. A world-wide Huawei system could create problems for the US global panopticon upon which US “unipolar” dominance relies on: its ability to eavesdrop on individuals, corporations, the leaders of countries, as well as military communications. With non-Huawei routers, due to the subservience and mandated cooperation of US companies, cyberspace as a domain of warfare is always guaranteed to be permeable and amenable to US surveillance and attack.

In other words, the US taps routers globally to spy on individuals, companies, governments, and nations: “Routers, switches, and servers made by Cisco are booby-trapped with surveillance equipment that intercepts traffic handled by those devices and copies it to the NSA’s network”

Regarding specific allegations of Huawei’s “spying”, Huawei has been completely transparent and has handed over its source code to relevant Intelligence agencies for detailed analysis, year upon year. No spying or intentional backdoors have been found: For example, German Intelligence found no spying, and no potential for spying, and British Intelligence also found none.

On the other hand, the US NSA, in a program called Shotgiant, spied extensively on Huawei to look for links between Huawei and the PLA, evidence of backdoors and spying, and vulnerabilities that they could exploit. This extraordinary spying (revealed by Wikileaks) showed no evidence of backdoors, spying or connections with the PLA. The Shotgiant disclosures showed that US allegations were projection: NSA actions “actually mirror what the US has been accusing Huawei of potentially doing”. The NSA did, however, steal Huawei’s proprietary source code at the time, and had plans to spy on other countries by using this information and had sought to compromise security in general. Of course, these kinds of unethical exploits create dangers for everyone.

Theft and exploits notwithstanding, using Huawei hardware could still make it harder for the US to surveil networks–Huawei has declared it refuses to plant backdoors.

Guo Ping, the chairman of Huawei, was quoted in The Verge: “If the NSA wants to modify routers or switches in order to eavesdrop, a Chinese company will be unlikely to cooperate,”…Guo argues that his company “hampers US efforts to spy on whomever it wants,” reiterating its position that “Huawei has not and will never plant backdoors.”

Wired Magazine has also confirmed that Huawei is an obstacle to NSA surveillance: Telecom-equipment makers who sell products to carriers in the US “are required by law to build into their hardware ways for authorities to access the networks for lawful purposes”.

The only allegation of “Huawei vulnerabilities” with any backing evidence shown to date have been Bloomberg‘s “gotcha” article that alleged that in 2009, 2011 some telnet connections in Huawei equipment for Vodaphone in Italy were insecure. Vodaphone, however, refuted these allegations. Further technical analysis showed these allegations were completely implausible. The hardware (Baseboard Management Controller) that Bloomberg alleges is “insecure” cannot access any data in any normal configuration Furthermore, built-in Telnet access CLI connections are unexceptional, and did not pose meaningful risk.

Since then further allegations have been made by the US government (leaked to the WSJ ), but always without proof. These allegations may be recycled and refuted old allegations, or they may just be pure invention, which why they cannot issue the proof.

Of course, Huawei refutes these allegations and always demands proof. The proof is never forthcoming, because there is none.

Here is a solution that allows everyone to step back from the brink. Back off on the unsubstantiated, unverifiable “backdoor spying” canards. Stop the spying and harassment of Huawei, and stop the projection. Stop the interference with its global contracts: let each country evaluate them on their own merits. Stop the fraudulent prosecutions that recycle settled matters.

Above all, stop taking hostages: this is a violation of international law. Canada must release Meng Wan Zhou, immediately. And it must find ways to repair relations and find ways cooperate anew with China. The benefits of success will be tangible and immense. The consequences of failure, immeasurable.

K.J. Noh is a long time activist, writer, and teacher. He is a member of Veterans for Peace and works on global justice issues. He can be reached at: k.j.noh48@gmail.com.

October 31, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 1 Comment

Biden vows to sanction ‘Lukashenko regime henchmen’ until Minsk turns ‘democratic’

RT | October 28, 2020

Democrat candidate for US president Joe Biden has called for regime change in Minsk, denouncing President Alexander Lukashenko’s “brutal dictatorship” and vowing to sanction his “henchmen” until there’s a “democratic Belarus.”

“I continue to stand with the people of Belarus and support their democratic aspirations,” Biden said, claiming that President Donald Trump “refuses to speak out on their behalf.”

Biden said that “No leader who tortures his own people can ever claim legitimacy” and demanded that “the international community should significantly expand its sanctions on Lukashenka’s henchmen and freeze the offshore accounts where they keep their stolen wealth.”

The Belarus statement was among a flurry of press releases by Biden’s campaign on Tuesday, and a rare foray into the subject of foreign policy. The Democrat has generally avoided the subject during the campaign, focusing his attacks on Trump on the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lukashenko, who has been president since 1994, was awarded a convincing victory in the August 9 election, by election organisers. The opposition claims the results were rigged.

Official runner-up Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, whom Biden endorsed in the statement, supposedly received about 10 percent of the vote. She has since fled to the neighboring Lithuania and reached out to EU countries for support, calling for a general strike to pressure Lukashenko into annulling the election they claim was “rigged.”

Police in Belarus forcefully dispersed demonstrations on Sunday, prompting some Biden supporters to demand “a plan for Belarus.”

While the EU, UK and Canada have imposed sanctions on Belarussian officials and openly sided with Tikhanovskaya in denouncing the “rigged” election, the Trump administration has been more diplomatic.

Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun met with Tikhanovskaya in Lithuania at the end of August, but said his job was “to listen, to hear what the thinking of the Belarusian people is and to see what they are doing to obtain the right to self-determination.”

“The United States cannot and will not decide the course of events in Belarus,” Biegun said at the time.

This stands in stark contrast with the Trump administration’s strategy for Venezuela, which Biden’s Belarus plan appears to mirror. Vowing to stand with the Venezuelan people in their pursuit of democracy, Washington endorsed opposition figure Juan Guaido as “interim president” of that Latin American country in January 2019, lining up the Organization of American States and even the EU in support.

However, Guaido has repeatedly failed to seize power in Caracas, leaving the government of President Nicolas Maduro more entrenched than ever. Meanwhile, the US-imposed sanctions – ostensibly targeting Maduro’s “regime” – have made lives miserable for the vast majority of Venezuelans, as even think tanks supporting the policy have noted.

October 28, 2020 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 3 Comments

Chile vote is a blow to corporate Canada and Trudeau

By Yves Engler · October 26, 2020

With Chileans voting overwhelming to rewrite the country’s Pinochet era constitution it’s a good moment to reflect on Ottawa’s support for his coup against Salvador Allende. It’s also worth looking at Canadian companies’ opposition to the popular uprising that lead to the referendum on reforming the dictatorship’s neoliberal constitution.

On Sunday nearly 8 in 10 Chileans voted to rewrite the country’s Augusto Pinochet era constitution. The vote was the culmination of months of antigovernment protests that began against a hike in transit fares last October and morphed into a broader challenge to economic inequality and other injustices. The dictatorship’s constitution entrenches pro-capitalist policies and was widely seen as contributing to the country’s large economic divide.

The Pierre Trudeau government was hostile to Allende’s elected government and predisposed to supporting Pinochet’s dictatorship. Days after the September 11 1973 coup against Allende, Andrew Ross, Canada’s ambassador to Chile cabled External Affairs: “Reprisals and searches have created panic atmosphere affecting particularly expatriates including the riffraff of the Latin American Left to whom Allende gave asylum … the country has been on a prolonged political binge under the elected Allende government and the junta has assumed the probably thankless task of sobering Chile up.” Thousands were incarcerated, tortured and killed in “sobering Chile up”.

Within three weeks of the coup, Canada recognized Pinochet’s military junta. Diplomatic support for Pinochet led to economic assistance. Just after the coup Canada voted for a $22 million Inter American Development Bank loan “rushed through the bank with embarrassing haste.” Ottawa immediately endorsed sending $95 million from the International Monetary Fund to Chile and supported renegotiating the country’s debt held by the Paris Club. After refusing to provide credits to the elected government, on October 2nd, 1973, Export Development Canada announced it was granting $5 million in credit to Chile’s central bank to purchase six Twin Otter aircraft from De Havilland, which could carry troops to and from short makeshift strips.

By 1978, Canadian support for the coup d’etat was significant. It included:

  • Support for $810 million in multilateral loans with Canada’s share amounting to about $40 million.
  • Five EDC facilities worth between $15 and $30 million.
  • Two Canadian debt re-schedulings for Chile, equivalent to additional loans of approximately $5 million.
  • Twenty loans by Canadian chartered banks worth more than $100 million, including a 1977 loan by Toronto Dominion to DINA (Pinochet’s secret police) to purchase equipment.
  • Direct investments by Canadian companies valued at nearly $1 billion.

Prominent Canadian capitalists such as Peter Munk and Conrad Black were supporters of Pinochet.

When the recent protests began against billionaire president Sebastián Piñera in October, Trudeau supported the embattled right-wing leader. Two weeks into massive demonstrations against Piñera’s government, the PM held a phone conversation with the Chilean president who had a 14% approval rating. According to Amnesty International, 19 people had already died and dozens more were seriously injured in protests. A couple thousand were also arrested by a government that declared martial law and sent the army onto the streets for the first time since Pinochet. A Canadian Press story on the conversation noted, “a summary from the Prime Minister’s Office of Trudeau’s phone call with Pinera made no direct mention of the ongoing turmoil in Chile, a thriving country with which Canada has negotiated a free trade agreement.”

Rather than express concern about state-backed repression in Chile, the Prime Minister criticized “election irregularities in Bolivia” during his October conversation with Piñera. The false claims of “election irregularities” were then being used to justify ousting leftist indigenous president Evo Morales.

Amidst the massive demonstrations against Piñera in October, Trudeau also discussed Venezuela. In another phone conversation with Piñera two months ago Trudeau again raised “the situation in Venezuela”, according to the official readout, as he did in February 2018 and previously.

Chile is the top destination for Canadian investment in Latin America at over $20 billion. Over 50% of Chile’s large mining industry is Canadian owned and Canadian firms are major players in the country’s infrastructure. Scotiabank is one of the country’s biggest banks.

A number of stories highlighted Scotiabank’s concerns about the protests against inequality that ultimately lead to Sunday’s constitutional referendum. The Financial Post noted, “Scotiabank’s strategic foray into Latin America hits a snag with Chile unrest” and “Riots, state of emergency in Chile force Scotiabank to postpone investor day.” The CEO of the world’s 40th largest bank blamed the protests on an “intelligence breakdown” with people outside Chile “that came in with an intention of creating havoc.” In a January story titled “Why Brian Porter is doubling down on Scotiabank’s Latin American expansion”, he told the Financial Post that Twitter accounts tied to Russia sparked the unrest against Piñera!

Canadian companies, with Ottawa’s support, have led a number of environmentally and socially destructive projects in Chile. In the mid 2000s Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management led a consortium, with US $700 million invested by the Canadian Pension Plan and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, pushing to build a massive power line and dams in Chile’s Patagonia region, one of the planet’s greatest environmental treasures. “This kind of project could never be implemented in a full-fledged democracy,” explained Juan Pablo Orrego, a prominent Chilean environmentalist, to the Georgia Straight. “Our country is still under a constitutional, political, and financial checkmate to democracy which was put in place during the [Pinochet] military dictatorship and empowers the private sector.”

Sunday’s referendum is a blow to Canadian corporations operating in Chile and the Trudeau government’s alliance with right-wing governments in the Hemisphere.

October 26, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Bolivia election is a blow to Trudeau’s policy

By Yves Engler · October 21, 2020

Massive support for Bolivia’s Movimiento al Socialismo at the polls is a rejection of last year’s Canadian-backed coup against Evo Morales. The vote was also a blow to Trudeau’s policy of seeking to overthrow left-wing governments in the region.

On Sunday Morales’ former finance minister, Luis Acre, won 55% of the vote for president. His MAS party also took a large majority in the Congress.

The unexpectedly large victory is a decisive rebuke of Ottawa’s support for the ouster of Bolivia’s first indigenous president. Hours after the military command forced Evo Morales to resign on November 10, then foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland released a celebratory statement declaring, “Canada stands with Bolivia and the democratic will of its people.”

Ottawa provided significant support for the Organization of American States’ effort to discredit Bolivia’s 2019 vote, which fueled opposition protests and justified the coup. Ottawa promoted and financed the OAS’ effort to discredit the presidential poll and two Canadian technical advisers were part of the audit mission to Bolivia. “Canada commends the invaluable work of the OAS audit mission in ensuring a fair and transparent process, which we supported financially and through our expertise”, noted Freeland at the time.

But, the OAS audit mission was designed to precipitate Morales ouster. A slew of academic and corporate media studies have demonstrated the partisan nature of the OAS audit mission and the weekend’s election results confirm it. Still, Global Affairs promoted the organization’s involvement in Bolivia’s elections. On Saturday their Canada in Bolivia account tweeted, “Canada is pleased to support the Organization of American States (OAS) electoral observation mission to Bolivia.”

For a year Ottawa stayed silent while the unelected Jeanine Anez regime ramped up repression and anti-indigenous measures as well as drastically shifted the country’s foreign policy. Worse than silence, on Bolivia’s national day in August Global Affairs claimed Canada and Bolivia’s “strong bilateral relationship is founded on our shared values of democracy, human rights and a celebration of diversity.”

Global Affairs ignored the ‘caretaker’ government’s repeated postponement of elections. Even worse, when the country’s social movements launched a general strike in August to protest the ‘caretaker’ government’s repeated postponement of elections Global Affairs echoed the coup government’s claims that the protests undermined the fight against the pandemic. Canada in Bolivia tweeted, “Canada calls for humanitarian aid to be allowed to circulate freely in Bolivia to fight #COVID19 & calls on all social actors to support the country’s democratic institutions and to use those mechanisms to resolve any disputes.” (Protesters let ambulances and other medical vehicles circulate with little disruption.)

Looking at a year of the Canada in Bolivia Twitter account I did not find a single criticism of the coup government. But, there were more than 15 posts critical of the Venezuelan government. On October 14 Canada in Bolivia tweeted, “the conditions needed for free and fair elections do not exist in Venezuela” and linked to a Lima Group statement declaring renewed “support of President Juan Guaidó.” (After usurping power Anez joined the Lima Group of countries seeking to oust Nicolas Maduro’s government.) Two months earlier the account called for “concerted international actions in support of a peaceful return to democracy in Venezuela” and linked to a Lima Group statement reiterating their “firm commitment to interim president Juan Guaidó.”

Contrasting the Trudeau government’s response to an unelected, anti-indigenous, elitist government in Bolivia to that of Venezuela’s elected, pro-poor president is telling. So is their silence on the election results in Bolivia. Nearly 72 hours after the polls closed Ottawa has yet to release a statement congratulating Arce or the MAS on their massive victory.

The election results in Bolivia are a major blow to Canadian policy in that country and Ottawa’s bid to wipe out the remnants of the leftist pink tied in Latin America.

Further, the victory of MAS shows Canada for what it has always (unfortunately) been: an imperialist power seeking to maintain the world’s massively unfair status quo.

October 21, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Russian Embassy Says Hacking Accusations Coming From US Have ‘Nothing to Do With Reality’

Sputnik – 20.10.2020

WASHINGTON – The Russian Embassy in Washington has refuted US claims of alleged Russian involvement in a major cyber attack targeting officials and various large-scale events, with an embassy representative telling Sputnik that Russia has no intention to engage in destabilizing operations.

On Monday, the US charged six alleged Russian military intelligence officers with a major cyber attack, claiming that they targeted large-scale events, such as elections in France, Ukraine’s power grid and American medical facilities.

“It is quite obvious that such information has nothing to do with reality and is aimed only at stirring up Russophobic sentiments in the American society, at launching a ‘witch hunt’ and spy mania. All this has been a distinctive feature of Washington’s political life for several years now. The US authorities are consistently destroying the once pragmatic Russian-American relations and artificially imposing a toxic perception of Russia and everything connected with it on their population,” a Russian embassy representative told Sputnik.

The representative of the embassy in Washington added that “Russia does not and has not had any intention of engaging in any kind of destabilizing operations around the world. This is not in line with our foreign policy, national interests, as well as our understanding of how relations between states are built. Russia respects the sovereignty of other countries and does not interfere in their affairs.”

The Russian embassy in Canada has also dismissed all allegations concerning Russia’s alleged cyber activity, calling them “absurd and baseless.”

Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment issued a statement on Monday saying that “Canada is concerned over reports of a series of global malicious cyber activities, as detailed in today’s statements by the United States and the United Kingdom.” According to the release, the activities “are examples of the willingness of Russian military intelligence, GRU, to target critical infrastructure and international organizations.”

The Russian embassy in Canada said on Twitter on Monday that Ottawa was damaging its relations with Moscow by issuing such groundless statements.

“Another absurd and baseless Canada allegations on Russian ‘malicious cyber activity’ copycat US-UK intelligence disinformation as part of psychological war against Russia. Ottawa is further damaging Canadian-Russian relations following its Russophobic narrative,” the embassy said.

According to the indictment, unveiled on Monday, six alleged Russian military intelligence officers have used “the world’s most destructive malware to date,” including NotPetya, which wreaked havoc globally and caused nearly $1 billion in losses to victims identified during the probe.

US authorities alleged that in December of 2015 and 2016, the conspirators launched destructive malware attacks against the electric power grid in Ukraine. In the US, hospitals in Pennsylvania were allegedly attacked with malware. US authorities claimed that the suspects also tried to undermine the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, and attempted to meddle in elections in France, as well as tried to compromise the Georgian parliament network and a major media company in the post-Soviet Republic. The group also allegedly conducted “spearphishing campaigns” against investigations by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Kingdom’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory into the Novichok nerve agent poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, according to the indictment.

A source at the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik on Monday that the accusations are groundless, aim to create anti-Russian sentiments, and are addressed to the internal audience within the context of the upcoming presidential election in the United States.

October 20, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , | 2 Comments

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