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Russia vows to respond ‘reciprocally’ to EU sanctions over ‘politically motivated’ & ‘far fetched’ hacking allegations

RT | July 31, 2020

Russian officials have dismissed as “baseless” restrictions imposed by the European Union on individual Russians and an intelligence unit accused of cybercrimes. Moscow has hinted at a mirrored response to Brussels’ sanctions.

“Obviously, the EU’s hostile action will not be left unanswered. As we know, everything in diplomacy is reciprocal,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

On Thursday, the EU blacklisted four Russian individuals and the special technologies unit of Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the GRU, which Brussels accuses of committing cyberattacks. A number of nationals and entities from China and North Korea were hit by sanctions as well.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry rejected the allegations as “baseless” and illegal under international law. Moscow said that the sanctions were enacted “under a far-fetched pretense,” and were strictly politically-motivated.

July 31, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Funding the PA strengthens Israel’s colonial framework

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | July 29, 2020

Unsurprisingly, Israel’s decision to halt its annexation plans temporarily has been met with a resounding silence from the international community, rather than utilising the interlude to come up with a unified approach that holds Israel accountable for its open colonisation of Palestine.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority persists with its absurd yet dangerous spectacle, professing a purportedly defiant stance while capitulating to international demands regarding the two-state compromise. The EU’s funding of this charade and its willing political actors has simplified the process for two-state diplomacy. Conversely, the Palestinian people will bear the brunt of the consequences of decades-long political failure.

Speaking about the PA’s financial crisis and in turn illustrating its dependence on external financial support, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh insisted that a complete dissolution of ties with Israel was still on the agenda. “We are continuing with a total halt to ties with the occupation,” he declared, “and we will not allow it to blackmail us, and therefore we will not receive the clearance funds from this month.”

With security coordination, once deemed “sacred” by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, regulating every aspect of Palestinian politics and society, the tax revenues collected on the PA’s behalf by Israel are no exception. Israel is insisting on it delivering the funds through such coordination which the PA has halted in retaliation for the forthcoming annexation.

Stepping in to alleviate the PA’s financial deficit, the EU announced a €23 million contribution, allowing Ramallah the ability to pay reduced wages for Palestinian public employees working mostly in the health and education sectors.

If the EU and the PA refrain from misrepresenting the current political crisis as a financial setback, a different picture emerges of a decades-long compromise in which the international community funds the PA to play a role in maintaining the two-state compromise, while protecting Israel in the process. The EU has excelled in this strategy. By distancing Palestinian narratives from politics – the former solely serving the humanitarian enterprise – the EU is under no pressure to alter its stance, even when annexation, or the formalisation of colonial land grab, is imminent. Funding the PA does not create obstacles for Israel’s colonisation process, it actually strengthens Israel’s colonial framework. Furthermore, it creates the illusion of peacebuilding and Palestinian rights within the two-state framework.

The PA, meanwhile, seeks to frame its refusal to accept the tax revenues as an anti-colonial stance, even when its structure is heavily dependent upon the colonial framework. So far, it has not offered a coherent strategy that prioritises Palestinian rights and autonomy; EU funding is precisely about preventing such politics from emerging and the PA is an accommodating puppet. At a time when Palestinians are facing another visible round of internationally-forced displacement, the EU’s priority is to safeguard the PA’s existence. The blind acceptance of the EU’s financial aid for the PA as a pro-Palestinian endeavour needs to be challenged. Any trickle of benefits for Palestinians from EU funding is destroyed swiftly by Israel, while the peacebuilding illusion and the two-state framework provide Israel with the impunity to continue to colonise Palestine. As long as peacebuilding rhetoric exists, Israel remains safe from punitive measures.

July 29, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Very serious threats’: US reportedly ramps up pressure on Nord Stream 2 contractors

RT | July 26, 2020

The US government has made further attempts to force European firms to ditch the Russian-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, Welt am Sonntag reported, citing people familiar with talks on the issue.

According to the newspaper, officials from US Department of State, the Treasury Department, as well as the Department of Energy approached European contractors to make sure they fully understand the consequences of staying in the project. Up to a dozen officials reportedly held at least two online conferences with representatives of the firms in recent days.

Speaking in a “friendly” manner, the US side stressed that it wanted to prevent completion of Nord Stream 2, observers of the online talks said. “I believe the threat is very, very serious,” one of them revealed to the German outlet.

Those threats are consistent with comments by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week, in which he warned that companies involved in the project had better “get out now” or risk facing penalties under Section 232 of the notorious Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

Apart from Russia’s energy major Gazprom, which is developing the project, five European companies have joined. Those are France’s Engie, Austria’s OMV, the UK-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell, as well as Wintershall and Germany’s Uniper.

Speaking to Welt am Sonntag, the latter called US attempts to undermine the “important infrastructure project” a clear intervention into European sovereignty.

Earlier this week, the US House of Representatives approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, meant to expand US sanctions on companies involved in installing Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. According to one of the sponsors of the bill, the measures can target companies facilitating or providing vessels, insurance, port facilities, or tethering services for those vessels, as well as to those providing certification for Nord Stream 2.

Both European businesses and government officials have repeatedly decried US attempts to meddle in European energy policy by sanctioning Nord Stream 2, with some even calling on Brussels to work on countermeasures.

Moscow has also lambasted Washington’s move, calling it unfair competition. Earlier this week, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will develop a new strategy for completion of the project if Washington proceeds with new punitive measures.

July 26, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Spanish Politics Jolted by Claims of Government Spying

By Cain Burdeau – Courthouse News – July 14, 2020

Spain was rocked Tuesday by allegations that the government may have hacked a smartphone used by the pro-independence president of the Catalan parliament and spied on him and others during a tense period in the run-up to a politically explosive trial against Catalan leaders.

Allegations that the Spanish state may have used an Israeli company’s hacking spyware to target Roger Torrent, the speaker and president of Catalonia’s regional parliament, were revealed in a joint investigation by the newspapers El País and The Guardian.

The domestic espionage claims open a new chapter in an emotional and epochal fight in Spain over the future of Catalonia and its capital Barcelona. About half of Catalonia’s population wants to secede from Spain. An unauthorized independence referendum in 2017 led to massive protests, police violence, the arrests of Catalan politicians and the criminal conviction of pro-independence leaders last October.

The newspaper reports about the hacking of Torrent’s phone sprang from a wide-ranging probe by digital experts at a Canadian university into allegations that authoritarian governments around the world have abused technology developed by Israeli hacker-for-hire firm NSO Group and taken control of cellphones to spy on dissidents, journalists, lawyers, activists, human rights advocates and opposition politicians. NSO is fighting numerous lawsuits in the United States and elsewhere against it over its spying program called Pegasus.

NSO claims no responsibility for how its Pegasus spyware is used by governments and says it only sells the spyware to governments to help them fight crime and terrorism. The Pegasus program can take control of a phone, its cameras and microphones, and mine the user’s personal data.

Spanish authorities denied any knowledge of the alleged spying on Torrent.

Andrew Dowling, an expert on Spanish politics and history at Cardiff University, said the allegations against Spanish authorities appear solid.

“In one sense it is not that surprising at all,” he said in an email to Courthouse News. It appears, he said, that “sectors of the Spanish security services act autonomously and are not fully subject to democratic control.”

Torrent called on the Spanish state to investigate the claims. He said he was unsure who was behind the hacking but he suspects state actors carried out the surveillance without judicial authority.

“The espionage I have been subjected to violates my right to privacy, the right to secrecy of communications and the right to be able to develop a political project without illegitimate interference,” Torrent said on Tuesday in a statement to media at the Catalan parliament. “It is inappropriate in a democracy that state apparatuses illegally spy on political opponents.”
He charged that the evidence confirms the Spanish state is seeking to use illegal means to squash Catalonia’s drive for independence.

“This is the first time, therefore, that what many of us already knew and have been denouncing for a long time has been conclusively proven: espionage against political opponents is practiced in Spain,” he said.

He said he was told about the alleged hacking by newspaper reporters and that he feared his smartphone’s camera and microphone were remotely turned on to spy on him. He said the Pegasus program allowed hackers to listen to all his conversations on the phone and those that took place while the phone was close at hand. He said conversations he had with politicians, trade union members, economic leaders and international representatives had been put at risk.

“This type of software is intended for use in investigating complex and serious crimes, such as terrorism or drug trafficking,” Torrent said. He said watchdogs, including United Nations Rapporteur on freedom of expression David Kaye and Amnesty International, have warned that governments in Morocco, Mexico and Saudi Arabia have abused the Pegasus software to spy on opponents.

“Now,” he said, “we know that this practice has also occurred in Spain.”

He said Catalan authorities will “take all political and legal action” to “get to the bottom of the matter.”

The hacking of Torrent’s phone was confirmed by Citizen Lab, a center that researches digital threats, the newspapers reported. Citizen Lab is working with the social media platform WhatsApp to find improper hacking that took place around the world in April and May 2019 by exploiting a previous weakness in WhatsApp. The lab is based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

Besides Torrent, a former Catalan parliamentarian, Anna Gabriel, and pro-Catalan activist Jordi Domingo also were hacked, according to the newspapers. Gabriel fled Spain after the Spanish state cracked down on the Catalan independence drive in 2017 and she remains in exile in Switzerland. Other Catalan politicians, most notably former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, also fled Spain to avoid arrest. Puigdemont is a member of the European Parliament and condemned the alleged domestic espionage on Tuesday.

John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, said on Twitter that there is a “troubling sign of a pattern of political hacking in Spain.”

The newspaper reports said WhatsApp believes the hacking took place between April and May 2019 and involved 1,400 of its users around the world. Until now, European governments had not been linked to the hacking attack.

WhatsApp is suing the NSO Group in the U.S. and charges that the Pegasus program was used to hack more than 100 journalists, human rights activists, diplomats and government officials in various countries around the world. The Pegasus program has been linked to surveillance of associates of slain Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Citizen Lab says Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and India have been linked to abusive use of the spyware to target civil society.

Citizen Lab says the software is among the world’s most sophisticated commercial spyware and can be deceptively placed on phones without a user’s knowledge or permission. Once the software infects a phone, hackers can obtain a person’s private data, including passwords, contact lists, calendar events, text messages, and live voice calls, Citizen Lab says. Hackers can also turn on the phone’s camera and microphone to monitor activity in the phone’s vicinity and track someone’s movements through GPS, the group says.

On Monday, NSO won a case in an Israeli court brought by Amnesty International seeking to stop the company from selling its software around the world.

Spanish authorities said they were not behind the hacking of Torrent’s phone.

The newspapers said the National Intelligence Center, Spain’s domestic and foreign intelligence service, issued a statement saying it acts “in full accordance with the legal system” and that its work is overseen by Spain’s Supreme Court.

Socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also issued a statement saying his “government has no evidence” that Torrent was hacked, according to the newspapers. The hacking allegations have the potential to sour relations between Sanchez and Catalan politicians upon whose cooperation he depends in the Spanish parliament.

The hacking allegedly took place while Sanchez was prime minister and may erode trust in the Socialist leader’s promises to open dialogue with the Catalan separatists to find a political solution to demands for Catalan independence.

Torrent called on Sanchez to live up to his pledges, he is leading a progressive government in coalition with the far-left Podemos party.

“A government that claims to be the most progressive in history cannot allow such practices to go unpunished,” Torrent said. “We cannot make it normal for there to be prospective wiretaps, to criminalize a peaceful and democratic movement.”

Dowling, the Cardiff University expert, doubted the Spanish state or European Union institutions will investigate the allegations.

“Spain has little tradition of independent investigation into political scandals, however deep,” he said. “The fact that it has had widespread European coverage will be embarrassing but I don’t perceive the EU intervening in what it will consider to be the internal affairs of the Spanish state.”

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

July 20, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lithuania’s Television Commission Bans Broadcasting of Five RT Channels

Sputnik – 08.07.2020

The Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission (LRTK) has banned the broadcasting of five RT channels in the country, following the example of neighbouring Latvia, commission chairman Mantas Martisius said on Wednesday.

“Yes, we can confirm this. The decision will come into force after being published on the LRTK website,” Martisius said.

The ban is applicable to RT, RT HD, RT Spanish, RT Documentary HD and RT Documentary, and will go into effect on Thursday, LRTK chairman explained.

Last week, Latvia banned the broadcasting of seven RT channels (namely RT, RT HD, RT Arabic, RT Spanish, RT Documentary HD, RT Documentary, RT TV), saying they are all owned by Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency Director-General Dmitry Kiselev, who is under EU sanctions. Notably, Rossiya Segodnya and RT are two different legal entities, RT is not chaired by Kiselev, and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan is not under any EU sanctions.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, has slammed Latvia’s decision to ban seven RT channels as a disgraceful and illegal move.

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said on Tuesday that the government was mulling the possibility to ban RT broadcasting in the country.

July 8, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

The PA is a willing accomplice in the international subjugation of Palestine

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | July 7, 2020

From seemingly defiant rhetoric to the expected capitulation, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has offered nothing in terms of a unified Palestinian stance against US President Donald Trump’s deal of the century. Going back to a compromised international community, ready to negotiate additional losses for Palestinians which will ultimately fail to prevent Israel’s annexation of their land, is not a counter-proposal, as the PA wishes us to believe. A more honest approach would have been a clear statement that the PA’s role is dependent upon donor funding and hence only capable of delivering upon compromised political agendas.

In a call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday, Abbas announced his willingness to restart negotiations based upon UN resolutions and the Middle East Quartet demands. In light of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to postpone — not abandon — the annexation of large swathes of the occupied West Bank, the two-state paradigm will once again be touted as “the only solution”. The reality is that the only solution is to dismantle the Zionist colonial enterprise in its entirety.

While it was expected that Abbas would renege on his rhetorical threats, his approach towards the international community, which also appeases Israel, confirms the political game that pitted the two-state hypothesis against the deal of the century; in other words, the international community against Trump. This was a shallow, despicable manoeuvre that ties Palestinian politics perpetually to international demands, because the PA functions as a security apparatus for Israel and a hierarchy presiding over a symbolically recognised, yet non-existent, state.

With Abbas’s decision, Israel boosts its upper hand. The settler-colonial entity considers itself above international law and, in fact, holds it in contempt. Diplomatic negotiations, therefore, present no obstacle to its annexation plans. It is highly likely that if annexation takes place, the international community will take its time but will, inevitably, normalise the violation of international law, while setting the scene to negotiate a non-existent two-state travesty, this being nothing less than legitimising the deal of the century.

International donors fund the illusion of Palestinian state building; they also fund the PA’s security coordination with Israel because, ultimately, the PA does not relish the possibility of Palestinians rising up against the imposed status quo which elevates its status, albeit only within the parameters decided upon by the international community and Israel. Abbas also knows that stopping security coordination will contribute to a complete collapse of its institutions.

As for international opposition to Israel’s annexation, which is already weak and not intended to seek a confrontation with the Zionist state, a scenario can unfold in which not even the most cosmetic of stances opposing annexation will be followed through. The international community’s diplomacy, after all, is based entirely upon the two-state compromise. Abbas may have no choice indeed, unless he is ready to base his politics upon Palestinian demands, which would trigger a complete change in terms of diplomacy.

However, the PA’s repeated excuse that the Palestinian cause has been marginalised by the international community only tells one part of the story. The PA has supported this marginalisation, but it just prefers not to speak about its role in altering the Palestinian political demands of land and refugees’ legitimate right of return, into a global project supporting Israel’s colonial demands. It is a willing accomplice in the international subjugation of the Palestinians.

July 7, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Empire Bombed Serbia to Seize Kosovo in 1999

Tales of the American Empire | July 2, 2020

The American Empire faced downsizing in the 1990s after the Warsaw Pact disbanded and Soviets troops withdrew home. American politicians demanded a reduction in military spending and the closure of most military bases in Europe. The solution was to start a war in Europe. Serbia (which was called Yugoslavia before 2006) openly resisted demands to open its economy to western banks and corporations and refused to join the European Union. As a result, Serbia was demonized and targeted for destruction. An ongoing rebellion by some Albanian immigrants in Serbia’s province of Kosovo was chosen as a NATO cause. The American CIA began shipping arms to the Islamic Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and transported hundreds of al Qaeda mercenaries to Kosovo to attack Serbs. This was politically awkward since the KLA was on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist groups. Serbian soldiers were dispatched to their southernmost province to repel these Islamic invaders. This increased the level of violence and Serbia was blamed.

____________________________

“Let Slobbo speak for himself”; (no evidence of serious Serb atrocities); John Laughland; The Spectator ; 2003; http://www.antiwar.com/spectator/spec…

“We Bombed the Wrong Side” in Kosovo; Major General Lewis MacKenzie; The National Post (Canada), Apr. 6, 2004; http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~leonardo/pub/m…

“Destruction of Yugoslavia was an operation planned by the CIA”; Klagemauer TV: Feb. 28, 2016; https://www.kla.tv/7811

“NATO’s Bombing of Yugoslavia Was Textbook State Terrorism”; Marko Marjanovic; Ant-Empire; March 24, 2019; https://www.anti-empire.com/natos-bom…

“Why Does Camp Bondsteel Still Exist”; Carlton Meyer; G2mil; 2011; https://www.g2mil.com/bondsteel.htm

“Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaci, indicted on war crimes charges ahead of planned White House meeting”‘; Michael Birnbaum; Washington Post ; June 24, 2020; https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/…

“Kosovo Indictment Proves Bill Clinton’s Serbian War Atrocities”; Jim Bovard; Libertarian Institute; June 25, 2020; https://libertarianinstitute.org/arti…

July 3, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

American taxpayers’ money funds MKO terrorist group: Iran Foreign Ministry

Press TV – June 28, 2020

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has lambasted both Europe and the United States for aiding and abetting the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group.

In a tweet on Sunday, the Iranian ministry said the MKO “is by all means a terror cult,” adding that while European countries are sheltering the terrorist members of this group, the United States is funding their anti-Iran activities.

“Europe is home to this rogue entity & American taxpayers’ money has funded the atrocities of this corrupt grouplet,” it said.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry concluded by saying that as a result of their full support for the MKO, Europe and the US “both have [their] hands in the massacre of innocent Iranians” by this terrorist organization.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, had already condemned Western countries for their unbridled support for this terrorist cult, saying the MKO supporters have the blood of thousands of Iranians on their hands.

Mousavi made the remarks in a tweet on Saturday, which marked the 39th anniversary of a deadly attack by the MKO terrorists, which killed scores of Iranian officials, including then head of Supreme Judicial Council Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti.

The MKO has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials since victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks over the past four decades, about 12,000 have fallen victim to MKO’s acts of terror.

Washington and the European Union have removed the MKO from their lists of terrorist organizations. The anti-Iran terrorists enjoy freedom of activity in the US and Europe, and even hold meetings with American and EU officials.

June 28, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Davos: the birthplace of a New World Government? But who are the parents?

By Robin Horsley | Brexit Watch | June 25, 2020

DAVOS, is the small town, nestled high in the Swiss Alps, widely known for hosting the annual conference of global business-people, world leaders, activists, and journalists that takes place every January. The organisation that arranges the event, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and its enigmatic founder Klaus Schwab, are less well-known.

The WEF’s exclusive shindig used to be thought of simply as a grandiose talking-shop. The ultimate annual ‘networking’ event where the wealthy and powerful could grand-stand in front of the world’s media. But in recent years, as the ambitions and agenda of the WEF have become clearer, many people have gradually realised there is far more to Davos and the World Economic Forum than they previously thought.

The WEF operates from its own modern, low-rise office complex, overlooking Lake Geneva on some of the most expensive land in the world and now generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues from its membership fees paid by what it describes as the world’s top 1,000 companies. According to its most recent annual report, the WEF now has assets valued in excess of half a billion dollars.

In June 2019 the WEF signed an exclusive partnership agreement with the United Nations to accelerate the implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which has been adopted by all 193 UN member countries.

This strategic partnership caused great consternation in many quarters. The Transnational Institute (TNI), a think-tank with its roots in the anti-Vietnam war movement, denounced it for “formalising the corporate capture of the UN and moving towards an increasingly privatised and less democratic global governance.” 400 organisations subsequently signed a letter calling for the termination of the UN/WEF’s agreement.

Far from being inhibited from continuing to develop policy – or using its influence and the resources of its powerful, global corporate membership to persuade or compel national Governments to adopt it’s ideals – the WEF states “now is the time to press the reset button on capitalism”. In essence it is calling for the dismantling of the entire global economic system in order that it can be re-cast to a design complying with its own agenda.

The sheer audacity of this ‘Great Reset’ agenda as it is known, with the scope to impact billions of lives on the planet, is quite simply breath-taking. It is none other than a globalist agenda seductively cloaked in green, equal-opportunity, pro-diversity packaging. In response the TNI has highlighted the combined economic power of WEF’s ‘members’, which utterly dwarfs that of most nation states, represents a serious threat to democratic global governance. Likewise, the history and commercial interest of many of the WEF’s members are, unsurprisingly, completely at odds with its supposedly green credentials.

At Davos 2020, the WEF appeared to install Prince Charles as its titular head placing him, as keynote speaker, on their global stage extravagantly emblazoned with the official heraldic insignia of the Prince of Wales, the three feathers.

It must have been a shattering moment for the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who had previously banned his Government ministers from attending Davos, to see his childhood ambition to become ‘world-king’ apparently thwarted by the future British monarch. For others there are disturbing echoes of a previous Prince of Wales cosying up to another group with similarly grandiose ambitions of pioneering a new global world order.

The rise of the World Economic Forum has been truly remarkable. In 50 years it has grown from a small three-person office in Geneva to a global organisation with a membership whose combined annual turnover, and economic power, is in the tens of trillions of dollars. Klaus Schwab, its founder and still its Executive Chairman 50 years on, has unparalleled access to political leaders across the entire world.

But how did the World Economic Forum come about?

Delving back into the historical archive of the WEF yields some interesting observations. The first Davos conference took place in 1971, the year the WEF was founded and, according to Wikipedia, was funded by the European Commission, the powerful central institution of the European Union.

This connection to, and support from, the European unification movement reveals itself further when looking through the photographic archive. That first Davos conference, or ‘symposium’ as it was then called had, as its keynote speaker, another royal long awaiting his king-ship.

Otto von Habsburg, also known as Archduke Otto of Austria, was the first Davos keynote speaker. Habsburg’s monarch was a casualty of the First World War. He was the last crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, an empire which comprised modern-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia – and parts of Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. His father, Charles, was the last emperor until its dissolution in 1919.

Otto Habsburg had been one of the original founders, in 1922, of the Pan-European Union which still exists today and is widely recognised as the oldest European unification movement still in existence. Habsburg went on to be its President in 1973, following the death of his co-founder Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, and subsequently served as a Member of the European Parliament for 20 years following its creation in 1979.

Klaus Schwab, the WEF’s founder, was born in Ravensburg, Germany in 1938 and studied economics and, at the behest of his father, engineering. His father had been Managing Director for a Swiss engineering company, Escher Wyss, who continued operating in Germany throughout World War II. In interviews, Schwab recalls travelling between war-torn Germany and neutral Switzerland as a small child and the impression that the contrast made upon him.

After studying in Germany, Schwab travelled to the USA to attend lectures at Harvard Business School. Here he made some key contacts that he was later able to use, including Henry Kissinger.

It is clear, looking at the history of the World Economic Forum, that Schwab’s aim was not simply to provide a platform for others to use for meeting and making decisions. The WEF launched its first ‘Davos Manifesto’ at its third annual event in 1973. It was always, essentially a political construction but one that lacked any truly democratic foundation.

The theme of the WEF’s forthcoming 50th Annual event in January 2021 is ‘The Great Reset’, a radical plan to completely re-work the mechanics of the entire global economy. Had the Covid-19 virus not emerged this year, bringing the global economy to a shuddering halt, it’s difficult to conceive how this agenda could ever have hoped to have been implemented.

But now, with the prospect of vast and potentially devastating economic impacts ahead – albeit temporarily masked by unsustainable financial interventions by national governments, such as the UK’s furlough scheme – it may be that the people of the world are driven to radical solutions in the near future.

Working with the UN, International banks and the WEF’s stable of global industrial and technology giants it is now possible that together they have the opportunity to create ‘the new normal’ – a world that works as they plan it to work.

The deeply disturbing concern for us mere mortals is that it appears these organisations intend to impose their agenda on us without any democratic consent and without any democratic system of accountability in place to ensure it serves the needs and interests of the people of our planet – rather than the interests of the wealthy and powerful who control this agenda.

The World Economic Forum’s ‘Strategic Partners’ are its top-tier group of 100 global organisations. This group includes major global banks such as Barclays, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Standard Chartered Bank who yield immense financial power.

It also includes major technology and communications companies such as Huawei, Publicis, Omnicom, (two global communications companies) Facebook and Google.

With this combination of enormous financial power, skilled persuasion capabilities and control of the communications infrastructure at their disposal WEF has huge power to mould, influence and control events – while shaping public opinion.

We, the ordinary people, shall have to keep a very close eye on WEF’s activities as its ‘Great Reset’ agenda unfolds over the coming months ahead.

Robin Horsley is the founder of YouPolitics.uk a new online UK politics social media channel. He founded The Great Brexit Debate in 2016 a Facebook site with over 30,000 followers, and has worked with political campaigning organisations such as The Bruges Group and Veterans for Britain and has campaigned on issues in the areas of justice, defence and education.

June 27, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

EU’s Aviation Deal with Israel ‘The Pinnacle of Hypocrisy’

By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | June 20, 2020

I had barely finished my rant against the British Government for showering new rewards on the Israelis (see Do Palestinians’ lives matter? ) when the EU voted to do the same.

The UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement signed last year comes into force next January. The Government says it loves this relationship and is committed to strengthening it. “We will seek to work with counterparts in the new Israeli government to host a bilateral trade and investment summit in London.” This will “identifying new opportunities and collaboration between Israel and the United Kingdom”.

Not to be outdone, the EU has now decided to hand Israel a juicy aviation agreement, the latest in a long line of goodies awarded to the apartheid regime for its crimes against humanity. And that’s after the EU had voiced condemnation of Israel’s latest annexation plan.

Not only that, the European Investment Bank, the EU’s financing institution, has just agreed a 150 million euros loan for a seawater desalination plant – one of the largest in the world – for Israel “in one of the world’s most water-stressed regions”. So water-stressed that Israel long ago stole the Palestinians’ aquifers and deprived them of access to their own supply. And it made no difference that the criminals were now gearing up to annex even more Palestinian territory.

According to this report 437 MEPs (that’s 62%) from EPP, REG, ECR voted to ratify the EU-Israel Aviation Agreement even though MEP Clare Daly from Ireland warned that doing so “would be perceived as an upgrade in bilateral relations with the state of Israel”. So who are these confused people?

The EPP (European People’s Party) Group, the oldest and largest, says: “We must continue to promote human rights and democracy in our relations with third countries.” So, naturally, they have no objection to promoting the Israeli regime in its policy to permanently deny Palestinians their human rights and self-determination.

The REG (Renew Europe Group) would have us believe: “At a time when the rule of law and democracy are under threat in parts of Europe, our Group will stand up for the people who suffer from the illiberal and nationalistic tendencies that we see returning in too many countries.” Oh really?

The ECR Group (European Conservatives & Reformists) declare: “We are the voice of COMMON SENSE.”

As if their behaviour wasn’t bizarre enough, these MEPs then held a separate debate with High Representative Joseph Borrell to discuss EU measures to deter Israel from declaring annexation.

The aviation deal builds on a 2013 agreement. Back then scheduled direct passenger flights connected Israel and 18 EU Member States and the EU was said to be the most important aviation market for Israel, accounting for 57% of scheduled international air passenger movements to and from Israel, and that Israel was one of the most important aviation markets for the EU in the Middle East with a strong growth potential.

The aim now is to take EU-Israel aviation relations to a new level. Higher volumes of tourism in both directions will create additional jobs and economic benefits on both sides. Of course much of the benefit of increased tourism to the Holy Land rightly belongs to the Palestinians if only they were permitted their own airport, but the EU doesn’t seem to care that all visitors to and from the Holy Land are forced through Israel’s Ben Gurion airport – or should we call it Lydda? Thereby hangs an interesting tale….

Growing airline traffic rewards Israeli terror

Strictly speaking Ben Gurion, near Tel Aviv, belongs to the Palestinians. It was formerly Lydda airport; and Lydda, a major town in its own right during the British mandate, was designated Palestinian in the 1947 UN Partition Plan. In July 1948, after Britain left and Israel declared statehood, Israeli terrorist troops seized Lydda, shot up the town and drove out the population as part of the ethnic cleansing and territorial expansion programme set out in their infamous ‘Plan Dalet’. In the process they massacred 426 men, women, and children. 176 of them were slaughtered in the town’s main mosque. See here for the gory details.

Those who survived were forced to walk into exile in the scalding July heat leaving a trail of bodies — men, women and children — along the way. Israeli troops carried away 1,800 truck loads of loot. Jewish immigrants then flooded in and Lydda was given a Hebrew name, Lod.

So Israel has no real right to Lydda/Lod/Ben Gurion airport — it was stolen in a terror raid, as was so much else. And it’s Israeli terror that is being rewarded by increasing airline flights and boosting tourism and trade.

Today the airport is the international gateway to Israel… and indirectly to Palestine. And what happened to Gaza’s airport? The Oslo II Agreement of 1995 provided for one to be constructed. The Yasser Arafat International airport was built with funding from Japan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Germany and Morocco, and cost $86 million. Arafat and US President Clinton attended the opening in 1998. Owned and operated by the Palestinian Authority it was capable of handling 700,000 passengers a year.

In December 2001 Israel destroyed the radar station and control tower, and cut the runway.

Back to the fiasco with the 437 MEPs who plainly don’t give a four-X about adding to the Palestinians’ misery. Aneta Jerska, the coordinator of the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP) says: “Those same political groups whom we heard expressing concern about annexation had just made annexation possible by voting in favour of the EU-Israel Aviation Agreement. This is by any standards the pinnacle of the EU’s hypocrisy. European citizens need to see no more crocodile tears from their elected politicians. The EU must impose sanctions on Israel, as member states once did against apartheid South Africa, including a military embargo on Israel, a ban on trade with illegal settlements and the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Only by ending ‘business as usual’, will Israel feel pressure to change its criminal behaviour.”

June 20, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

EU Parliament meddles in US affairs as it condemns Trump’s response to protests and declares ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’

RT | June 19, 2020

A lengthy resolution by the European Union legislators denounced US President Donald Trump for wanting to use force against rioters and condemned the “appalling death of George Floyd” and arrests of journalists.

In an 11-page resolution adopted on Friday with 493 votes in favor to 104 opposed – and 67 abstentions – the EU Parliament affirmed that “Black Lives Matter” and listed 36 more conclusions. The preamble ran out of letters of the alphabet.

Condemning the “appalling death of George Floyd” – a Minneapolis, Minnesota man who died during a botched arrest in late May – the EU parliamentarians also denounced “all forms of racism, hate and violence” as well as “Afrophobic traditions, such as the black face practice.”

They called on the US to “take decisive steps to address the structural racism and inequalities in the country, as reflected in police brutality” and condemned the “police crackdowns on peaceful US protesters and journalists.”

The EU Parliament also “strongly regrets the US President’s threat to deploy the US Army” to deal with the rioters. However, they blamed the riots on “extremist and anti-democratic forces which purposely misuse the peaceful protests to aggravate the conflicts with the intention of spreading disorder and anarchy.”

While denouncing the arrest of CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his crew in Minneapolis as another example of racism, the EU Parliament praised freedom of the press as key to fighting racism.

Lest one thinks that means freedom of speech, however, the resolution noted that “racist and xenophobic speech is not covered by the freedom of expression” and denounced “all types of incidents of hate crime and hate speech, both offline and online.”

Leaving nothing to chance, “slogans that aim to undermine or detract from the Black Lives Matter movement and dilute its significance” were declared to be “white supremacism.”

Education, the parliamentarians said, is a “key tool to end structural discrimination and racism in our societies,” with the crucial role in “deconstructing prejudices and stereotypes, promoting tolerance, understanding and diversity.”

Neither the White House nor the State Department have yet commented on the apparent meddling into internal US affairs.

June 20, 2020 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Hungary’s NGOs will have to disclose foreign funds despite EU top court’s ruling: Orban

RT | June 19, 2020

Civil organizations involved in Hungarian politics will still have to disclose their foreign donors, PM Viktor Orban said on Friday. He made the statement after the European Union’s top court said Hungary’s stance on overseas funding violated EU law.

The Hungarian legislation was part of measures against what the government sees as unfair foreign influence, linked to its disagreements with US billionaire George Soros, who was born in Budapest.

On Friday, reacting to the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU for the first time, Orban said Hungary would respect the decision about the funding of NGOs but transparency rules would continue to apply.

“All Hungarians will know about every and each forint worth of funding sent here from abroad for political purposes,” the PM told state radio.

June 19, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

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