Belgium demands explanation from British spy agency
Press TV – October 5, 2013
Belgium has demanded explanations from the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) over allegations that it infiltrated major Belgian national telecom provider Belgacom.
The allegations against GCHQ were made after documents, leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, pointed to the British agency’s spying activities against Belgium.
According to reports in the German newspaper Der Spiegel, the Cheltenham-based intelligence agency has been accused of hacking the IT system of Belgacom by placing a virus in its network.
“Following the article in Der Spiegel, the government asked Belgian intelligence services to ask their British colleagues for more information,” said a source close to the Belgian government.
Prosecutors in Brussels are now investigating the case against the British spy agency.
A GCHQ spokeswoman declined to comment on the revelation.
Meanwhile, the European Parliament is also examining the activities of the GCHQ. European courts have launched a legal challenge against the agency’s surveillance programs over violating the privacy of millions of people throughout Britain and Europe.
However, London claims the EU does not have the authority to investigate these charges in European courts.
Snowden is currently in Russia, where he has been granted temporary asylum.
Related articles
- Belgium seeks answers from Britain over telecom spying (dnaindia.com)
- UK intelligence spying on Belgium – Snowden leaks (voiceofrussia.com)
- GCHQ: EU surveillance hearing is told of huge cyber-attack on Belgian firm (theguardian.com)
- Privacy advocates vs. GCHQ: Groups launch EU court case against spy agency (RT)
EU ‘not satisfied’ with US spying answers, says top official
Press TV – September 24, 2013
The European Union is “not satisfied” with Washington’s answers on revelations that the US spied on international bank transfers, a top official says.
“I’m not satisfied with what we have gotten so far,” said EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom during a hearing at the European Parliament on Tuesday.
She added, “I will be seeking exhaustive explanations, comprehensive information.”
The revelations that US National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments and financial transactions was reported by the German magazine Der Spiegel on September 16 and stems from leaked documents by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Malmstrom wrote in a recent letter to US Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Under Secretary David Cohen that “should the facts in these press reports be confirmed, they would further weaken the confidence between the EU and the US and would undoubtedly impact on our cooperation in the field of counter-terrorism.”
Since the disclosure, there have been calls by EU lawmakers for the suspension of a data-sharing agreement between the EU and the US. The deal grants Washington access to data from the SWIFT network used by thousands of banks to send transaction information securely.
“There have been very severe allegations in the press,” said Malmstrom adding, “If these allegations are true, they constitute a breach of the agreement and a breach of the agreement can certainly lead to a suspension.”
Malmstrom warned already in July, prior to the bank transfer disclosure, that the EU could reconsider financial data sharing agreements with the US if it was determined that the accords have not been executed “in full compliance with the law.”
The privacy violations were first revealed by Snowden in June. He leaked confidential information that showed the NSA collects data of phone records and Internet communication in the US and Europe as well as other countries.
EU calls for explanations from Israel over diplomat scuffle
RT | September 22, 2013
European diplomats are holding Israel accountable over an incident where IDF servicemen attacked a EU humanitarian convoy in the West Bank on Friday. So far Tel Aviv has left the scandal in limbo, offering no official explanation for the incident.
Diplomats from several EU countries have spoken out against the shocking incident of harassing a person with diplomatic immunity, clearly awaiting some sort of official reaction from the state of Israel.
After disturbing photos of the French diplomat, Marion Fesneau-Castaing, spread on the ground with IDF soldiers standing around her hit international news, the scandal over hijacked EU aid to homeless Bedouins from demolished villages in the West Bank has gained momentum.
“EU representatives have already contacted the Israeli authorities to demand an explanation and expressed their concern at the incident,” says a statement issued by the spokesmen for EU foreign policy, Catherine Ashton and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, Kristalina Georgieva.
An EU official described the Israeli actions as “shocking and outrageous”, the BBC reported.
The British Consulate General in Jerusalem is “concerned at reports that the Israeli military authorities have prevented the affected community from receiving humanitarian assistance,” the consulate’s spokesman said.
“We have repeatedly made clear to the Israeli authorities our concerns over such demolitions, which we view as causing unnecessary suffering to ordinary Palestinians, as harmful to the peace process and contrary to international humanitarian law,” the spokesman added.
The Israeli authorities should “live up to their obligations as occupying power to protect those communities under their responsibility,” the UN Humanitarian Coordinator James Rawley said.
‘Illegal diplomatic activity’
The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Paul Hirschson, has threatened to lodge a complaint over Marion Fesneau-Castaing’s actions, Agence France-Presse reported.
“If she did participate then a formal complaint will be filed because that is not the way diplomats behave,” he said.
On Saturday the EU ambassador in Israel called the Foreign Ministry Deputy Director-General for Europe, Rafi Shutz, demanding explanations regarding the IDF in the West Bank on Friday.
“What was done there by the European diplomats was a provocation,” said Shutz as quoted by the Haaretz.
Mr Shutz claimed that force against the female French diplomat was used because she slapped one of the soldiers. He also announced that the state of Israel is looking into allegations that foreign diplomats “abused their diplomatic privileges”.
Because Palestinian construction at the site of former Khirbet Al-Makhul village was ruled illegal by an Israeli court, the European diplomats were engaging in illegal activity, Shutz stated. He also pointed out that humanitarian aid to Palestinians should be delivered through the proper channels, coordinated with Israel.
The IDF explained the use of stun grenades during the incident, claiming that stones were thrown at security forces. Stun grenades were thrown directly into a group of European diplomats, aid workers and locals who were trying to deliver emergency aid to the residents of a demolished Palestinian village, Reuters reported.
On Friday a truck with EU humanitarian aid for the villagers of the demolished Khirbet Al-Makhul settlement was attacked by IDF personnel, who confiscated the truck and the payload. French diplomat Marion Fesneau-Castaing, who attempted to prevent confiscation of the aid, was pulled out of the truck and forced to the ground. The incident received wide international coverage.
Houses, stables and a kindergarten at Khirbet Al-Makhul village were demolished on Monday after a decision by Israel’s High Court, which ruled that villagers had illegal building permits. The villagers refused to leave the ruins saying they have been living on that land for generations.
The seizure incident of a truck carrying humanitarian aid has become yet another page in the row between Brussels and Tel Aviv. In July the EU announced it is going to stop all financial assistance to Israeli organizations operating in the occupied territories, starting from 2014.
The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted angrily, denouncing the move as interference in Israel-Palestine relations and retaliated by blocking EU humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank.
Israel and the Palestinian Autonomy remain in fruitless peace talks, with the major stumbling block being the ongoing construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.
Related article
Israeli soldiers rough up EU diplomat, confiscate aid supplies for Palestinians
Al-Akhbar | September 20, 2013
Israeli soldiers manhandled European diplomats on Friday and seized a truck full of tents and emergency aid they had been trying to deliver to Palestinians whose homes were demolished this week.
A Reuters reporter saw soldiers throw sound grenades at a group of diplomats, aid workers and locals in the occupied West Bank, and yank a French diplomat out of the truck before driving away with its contents.
“They dragged me out of the truck and forced me to the ground with no regard for my diplomatic immunity,” French diplomat Marion Castaing said.
“This is how international law is being respected here,” she said, covered with dust.
The Israeli army and police declined to comment.
Locals said Khirbet al-Makhul was home to about 120 people. The army demolished their houses, stables and a kindergarten on Monday after Israel’s high court ruled that they did not have proper building permits.
Despite losing their property, the inhabitants have refused to leave the land, where they say their families have lived for generations along with their flocks of sheep.
Israeli soldiers stopped the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delivering emergency aid on Tuesday and on Wednesday IRCS staff managed to put up some tents but the army forced them to take the shelters down.
Diplomats from France, Britain, Spain, Ireland, Australia and the European Union’s political office, turned up on Friday with more supplies. As soon as they arrived, about a dozen Israeli army jeeps converged on them, and soldiers told them not to unload their truck.
“It’s shocking and outrageous. We will report these actions to our governments,” said one EU diplomat, who declined to be named because he did not have authorization to talk to the media.
“(Our presence here) is a clear matter of international humanitarian law. By the Geneva Convention, an occupying power needs to see to the needs of people under occupation. These people aren’t being protected,” he said.
In scuffles between soldiers and locals, several villagers were detained and an elderly Palestinian man fainted and was taken for medical treatment.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement that Makhul was the third Bedouin community to be demolished by the Israelis in the West Bank and adjacent Jerusalem municipality since August.
Palestinians have accused the Israeli authorities of progressively taking their historical grazing lands, either earmarking it for military use or handing it over to the Israelis whose settlements dot the West Bank.
Israeli forces regularly demolish Palestinian homes, claiming they do not have the proper construction permits. However, the Israeli government regularly announces the expansion of settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.
Israelis and Palestinians resumed direct peace talks last month after a three-year hiatus. Palestinian officials have expressed serious doubts about the prospects of a breakthrough.
“What the Israelis are doing is not helpful to the negotiations. Under any circumstances, talks or not, they’re obligated to respect international law,” the unnamed EU diplomat said.
(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
Obama regime calls on EU to postpone ban on Israel
Press TV – September 8, 2013
US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged the European Union (EU) to delay a planned ban on Israel over the Tel Aviv regime’s continued settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, according to a senior US official.
On July 19, the EU published new guidelines in its Official Journal, banning its 28 members from funding projects in the illegal Israeli settlements in al-Quds (Jerusalem), the West Bank or Golan Heights, which the Tel Aviv regime occupied during the 1967 war.
The ban sparked anger among the Israeli officials, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres threatening that the new directive would undermine attempts by Kerry to relaunch talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
A senior US State Department official, whose name was not mentioned in the reports, said that, in a meeting with EU foreign ministers in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, on Saturday, Kerry called on the Europeans to consider postponing the implementation of the EU guidelines.
Kerry also asked EU diplomats to support the talks between the Israeli regime and the Palestinian Authority, which resumed in July after a three-year hiatus.
Meanwhile, the EU is to send a team to Israel on Monday to move forward on the guidelines against Israeli organizations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel has announced plans to construct more than 3,000 housing units in al-Quds and the occupied West Bank since the resumption of the talks with the Palestinian Authority in July.
On August 11, Israel’s Housing Minister Uri Ariel gave final approval for the construction of 793 settlement units in the occupied east al-Quds (Jerusalem) and 394 others in the West Bank.
A day later, the EU described as “illegal” the Israeli regime’s decision to approve the building of settlement units.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top aide to Mahmoud Abbas, the acting Palestinian Authority (PA) chief, said on September 4 that continued Israeli settlement construction had undermined the talks with Israel.
Palestinians demand that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.
Related article
EU court verdict on Iran sanctions angers US
Press TV – September 7, 2013
A new EU court ruling that rejected sanctions on a number of Iranian entities has drawn the ire of the United States, prompting Washington to extend its illegal embargoes against more individuals and businesses.
The EU’s General Court in Luxembourg lifted the bloc’s sanctions against seven Iranian companies on Friday, ruling that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to justify the embargoes.
The top EU court ruled that the bloc wrongly blocked the accounts of Post Bank of Iran, the Iran Insurance Company, Good Luck Shipping and the Export Development Bank of Iran, from 2008 to 2011.
“We are very disappointed by the [EU] court’s decision today,” a spokesman for the US Treasury Department said in a statement on Friday.
The US Treasury later announced that it blacklisted six individuals and four businesses over their alleged links to Iranian oil sales.
At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors aimed at preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s nuclear activities have non-civilian purposes.
France cannot afford military operation in Syria
By Steven Elliot | RT | September 6, 2013
The G20 should be focusing on their flagging economies rather than planning a military operation in Syria they can’t afford, analyst, Alex Korbel, told RT. France, in particular, is at full stretch, with 16 military campaigns abroad and an ailing economy.
The Syrian conflict has eclipsed the G20 meeting in Saint Petersburg, as the international community is unable to come to an agreement over a possible military strike. Washington has put forward a plan for military intervention against the Assad regime, which it believes is responsible for a chemical attack in a Damascus suburb on August 21.
RT: If the UN team of inspectors finds that chemical weapons were used in the Damascus attack, do you believe military intervention could be justified?
Alex Korbel: I think there is no case for military intervention in Syria for several reasons. The first reason is that there is no national interest for France or the US to actually intervene in Syria. The regime of Bashar al Assad was not a problem in the past and it is not clear why it’s now a problem for France and the US. There is no clear objective in the military intervention as it is now presented. Is it about maintaining the credibility of the US? What credibility exactly? The credibility to intervene in unnecessary wars? Is it to ban the use of chemical weapons? Then why does the US have chemical weapons in its arsenal? Is it to weaken the Bashar al Assad regime? In that case you need to put boots on the ground. If it is a humanitarian way to help the civilians, then locking on cruise missiles is not the right solution.
For all of these reasons the US and France have decided to move ahead with limited military intervention. But still there is a danger of falling down a slippery slope. What if a military intervention has no effect? Are we going to see full war? What would be the consequences in the region? I am thinking about Iran and Lebanon and I am thinking about a war less than 1000 kilometers south of Russia.
There is no broad international support for this war. Germany is against it, the UK is against it, China and Russia are against it. The only countries that are in favor are France, which has not yet consulted parliament, US and Israel and Saudi Arabia. Finally, public opinion is clearly against it everywhere. We saw it in the UK and the public polls in the US and France that the public is massively against military intervention in Syria.
RT: Given the climate of economic crisis in the EU, can France feasibly participate in another military operation?
AK: The economic situation of the EU countries is really bad. We can see in France that public debt is higher than 90 per cent of GDP. We see economic growth is less than 1 per cent. We see across G20 countries on average that unemployment is at 9 per cent and growing, that public debt is 64 per cent and growing, that economic growth is 1 per cent and weakening. What needs to be done is not to intervene militarily in another country.
France is already intervening in 16 countries worldwide. Clearly we don’t have any money to finance a seventeenth operation. The purpose of France, the US and any western power is not to ‘play the cop’ around the world but actually to maintain a sound economic policy first and then maybe lead by example on the international scene.
Colombia farmers’ uprising puts the spotlight on seeds
Against the grain | September 4, 2013
On 19 August, Colombian farmers’ organisations initiated a massive nationwide strike. They blocked roads, dumped milk on cars and basically stopped producing food for the cities. The problem? Farmers are being driven out of existence by the government’s policies.
The state provides almost no support for the small-scale farming sector.1 Instead, it embraces a social and economic model that serves the interests of a wealthy elite minority. Recent free trade agreements (FTAs) signed with the US and the EU are undercutting Colombian producers, who can’t compete with subsidised imports.2 The Colombian government has been actively promoting land grabbing by large corporations, many of them foreign (Monica Semillas from Brazil, Merhav from Israel, Cargill from the US), to promote export-oriented agribusiness at the expense of family farming oriented towards food sovereignty.
But the farming sector needs real support, especially in the form of access to land and lower costs of production, protestors argue. Otherwise, Colombian potato and coffee farmers, dairy and meat producers, not to mention small fishers, will not be able to keep up. They are being evicted and exterminated.
With their backs against the wall, a movement of mobilisation began in one part of the country in June and grew into a coordinated national action for August. The farmers’ strike was soon supported by other sectors: oil industry workers, miners, truckers, health sector professionals and others. On 29 August, ten days into the strike, more than 20,000 students joined the movement and shut down the capital city, Bogotá.
The response of the government was chaotic and contradictory. Police forces violently repressed and injured a lot of protestors, not to mention journalists. More than 250 people were arrested, including high-level union leader Hubert Jesús Ballesteros Gomez, mostly on trumped up charges.
A number of people on both sides lost their lives. At one moment the government recognised the farmers’ grievances as valid and offered some concessions. In another it claimed that the movement was infiltrated by the FARC. President Santos even went on TV and claimed that “the agrarian strike does not exist”. The following day, he was filmed from a helicopter, inspecting the skirmishes and tear gas which filled the streets of Bogotá.
The mobilisation has been extremely successful in opening up space for discussion, conscientisation, solidarity and resistance in Colombia. Students, for instance, were keen to support the farmers and back their demands. They rallied loudly against GMOs and for food sovereignty. But they also wanted to put forward their own demands for free public education, nudging the mobilisation beyond agrarian concerncs into a broader wave of social pressure to change current Colombian policies.
Law 970
Seeds emerged as one highly visible issue. Under the FTA signed with Washington, as well as that signed with Brussels, Bogotá is required to provide legal monopoly rights over seeds sold by US and European corporations as an incentive for them to invest in Colombia. Farmers who are caught selling farm-saved seeds of such varieties, or simply indigenous seeds which have not been formally registered, could face fines or even jail time.3 As is the case in many other countries throughout the world, this criminalisation of farmers’ and indigenous people’s rights to save, exchange and sell seeds puts the country’s biodiversity and cultural heritage at risk.
While it’s true that the Colombian government has been moving in this direction for many years, and agreeing to such policies as part of its membership in the Andean Community or the World Trade Organisation, many people point out that it is only since the signing of the US and EU FTAs that the government has begun seriously implementing them.
In 2011, the Colombian government authorities stormed the warehouses and trucks of rice farmers in Campoalegre, in the province of Huila, and violently destroyed 70 tonnes of rice that it said were not processed as per the law. This militarised intervention to destroy farmers’ seeds shocked many, and inspired one young Chilean activist, Victoria Solano, to make a film about it. The film is called “9.70” because that is the number of the law adopted in 2010 that articulates the state’s right to destroy farmers’ seeds if they don’t comply.4
Today, thanks to the force, tenacity and justness of the farmers’ protest, people from all walks of life in Colombia are discussing that film, as can be seen in the mass media, social networks and the streets, and asking why the government is pursuing such senseless policies.
Support the movement
There is no question that Colombian farmers can feed the country very well, in a way that provides jobs, dignity and a healthy environment. But the government is too firmly attached to an economic model that caters to crony interests and holds no place for small-scale family farming. We should all support the popular agrarian struggle in Colombia to turn that model around. It’s not too late.
As one small concrete action, the documentary film “9.70” — which you can watch online in Spanish at http://youtu.be/kZWAqS-El_g — is seeking funds to produce a version with English subtitles so that more people around the world can understand what the Colombians farmers are facing and support them to defeat such policies. The smallest contribution helps. Please go to http://idea.me/proyectos/9162/documental970 to participate. The deadline is 10 September!
As another meaningful action, the Latin American Coordination of La Via Campesina are seeking international solidarity initiatives to support the strike. Please go to http://goo.gl/9u6RXJ to learn more. Again, time is of the essence!
Beyond Colombia, the battle over similar seeds legislation is raging right now at very high political levels, and across the countryside, in Chile and Argentina as well. One concern is that some of the more aggressive elements adopted by the government of Colombia could infiltrate other Latin American countries as well. The need to scrap these laws is truly urgent indeed!
Going further:
- “La historia detrás del 970“, Semana, Bogotá, 24 August 2013
- Grupo Semillas, “Colombia: Las leyes que privatizan y controlan el uso de las semillas, criminalizan las semillas criollas“, Bogotá, 26 August 2013
- Julia Duranti, “A struggle for survival in Colombia’s countryside“, 30 August 2013
Visit the bilaterals.org website for more coverage (in English, French and Spanish) of the general agrarian strike and the fight over Law 970
For more information about the struggles around the seed laws in Colombia, please contact Grupo Semillas (“Seeds Group”) at semillas@semillas.org.co or visit their website http://semillas.org.co/
To learn more about the political battle currently taking place in Chile, please get in touch with Anamuri, the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women, at secretariag@anamuri.cl
For information about what is happening in Argentina, please contact Diego Montón at the Latin American Coordination of La Vía Campesina, at secretaria.cloc.vc@gmail.com.
Notes
1 Almost one-third of the Colombian population lives in the countryside and nearly 60% of those in the rural areas live, to some extent, in hunger. See Paro Nacional Agrario y Popular, Pliego de peticiones.
2 The effects are just starting, but they are real. US agricultural exports to Colombia shot up 62% in the first year of the agreement, while Colombian farm exports to the US went down 15%. (See USTR, and Portafolio)
3 To be registered and certified, seeds need to meet criteria of genetic uniformity and stability, to suit agroindustrial processes. This excludes, by definition, peasant seeds — or criollo varieties, as they are called in Colombia — which tend to be diverse, adaptive and dynamic. Under the current rules in Colombia, if a farmer wants to plant criollo seeds, s/he has to get authorisation from the government, can only do it once, can only do it on five hectares or less and must consume the entire harvest at home (cannot sell it on the market).
4 See the film’s Facebook page and on Twitter look up #NoMas970. In the three years of Law 970 so far (2010-2012), the government rejected or destroyed nearly 4,000 tonnes of seeds.
Colombia: With a “Mea Culpa,” the Arrogant Santos Government Relents
By Nazih Richani | Cuadernos Colombianos | August 27, 2013
The rural workers who have mounted Colombia’s national agrarian strike are staying the course after four peasants and one policeman were killed and scores more detained. Hundred of thousands of peasants and small farmers are participating in this historic mobilization whose scope and magnitude has not been seen for decades. But this is just a tactical triumph in a long struggle to address the current crisis in the rural economy. The crisis has been generated by a neoliberal model of development based on the extraction of raw materials and large bio-fuels agribusiness. It has been exacerbated by free trade agreements increasingly transforming Colombia into an importer of its basic food necessities. In August 19 when the strike started President Juan Manuel Santos ridiculed it by declaring that “el paro agrario no existe,” that is, “the agrarian strike does not exist.” Well, against his wishful thinking, the strike is still going strong after nine days (as of this writing, 27 August) and has expanded to include most of the country’s departments. It has put the agrarian crises on the social and political map and has highlighted its centrality in a country in which some 31.6% of the population still live and depend on the agrarian economy (according to the UNDP Report of 2011 on Colombia’s rural economy).
Finally Santos acknowledged the strike in a meeting that took place on Monday August 26, with peasants’ representatives in Tunja, an epicenter of the mobilization and the capital of the department of Boyacá. Speaking to peasant representatives, Santos openly apologized, saying “Mea Culpa” for his earlier dismissive comment on the strike and promised to continue his negotiations. Santos recognized the obvious, especially after the mobilization reached La Casa de Nariño, his presidential palace in Bogota, where 8,000 demonstrators in Bolivar Plaza raised their voices and their casseroles in solidarity with the peasants.
The fundamental question is whether this strong show of force by the peasants can translate into policy that takes Colombia in a different direction? That is a different matter. Can this strike open the door for a very serious discussion of the root cause: the economic model and the free trade agreements with the United States, Canada, and EU. How would this wide mobilization resonate in Havana where the Santos government is negotiating with the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC)? The answers would depend on the resilience of the organizations that led the strike and the effectiveness of the democratic and revolutionary forces in pushing for an economic change that safeguards the subsistence peasant economy and the real producers of “bread, milk and butter” in Colombia.
Related article
- Social protest grows across Colombia as trade union leader arrested (colombiaresistance.wordpress.com)
ADL orders YouTube to disable Press TV account: Emadi
Press TV – August 18, 2013
Video-sharing site YouTube deactivated Press TV’s official page without explanation after the Israeli-American Anti-Defamation League (ADL) ordered it to terminate the Iranian channel’s live broadcast.
“We have not been able to upload new videos on our official YouTube page since July 25. Both YouTube and (its parent company) Google have declined to comment,” said Press TV Newsroom Director Hamid Reza Emadi.
He added that YouTube was “in fact responding to an ADL order to stop us from revealing Israeli crimes to the world.”
An article on ADL’s official website has accused Press TV of bypassing the West’s sanctions by broadcasting live via YouTube and other internet and mobile platforms.
“ADL has contacted YouTube regarding concerns about Press TV,” reads the article, further noting that the station’s “broadcast on YouTube comes at a time when the United States, the European Union and others in the international community are seeking to isolate Iran.”
Since January 2012, Press TV has come under mounting pressure from European governments and satellite companies, which have taken the alternative channel off the air across the European Union.
In a statement published on the official website of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the pro-Israeli lobby has lauded Spain’s efforts to ban Press TV, saying Madrid has pulled the plug on the Iranian channel following months of negotiations with the AJC.
“In recent years has emerged a channel that not only challenges the Zionists’ long-time media dominance, but also has it questioned the West’s silence on their (the Zionists’) crimes against humanity. That’s Press TV and they’re determined to silence it,” Emadi added.
He said Press TV had to create an alternative YouTube account to upload its videos.
“Viewers can now watch our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/PresstvNewsCast,” he said.
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World War II Didn’t End The Great Depression
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024
A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.
This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue
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