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Four Palestinian women, one child injured in settler attack in West Bank

Palestinian Information Center – August 10, 2024

NABLUS – Four Palestinian women and one child were injured on Friday evening when a horde of extremist Jewish settlers attacked them near Nablus City in the occupied West Bank.

According to the Hebrew media, settlers showered a car carrying four women and a two-year-old girl child with stones and injured them after they mistakenly entered an area near an illegal settlement outpost in the south of Nablus.

The child and women suffered different injuries in the settler attack and were transferred to a hospital after they fled the area on foot.

According to Israel’s Kan news agency, the five victims are residents of the Arab town of Rahat in southern Israel and were on their way to the Palestinian City of Nablus.

Nufah, one of the women who were attacked, told journalists that their navigation application had led them astray.

“We accidentally went into some place and then settlers started running after the car, throwing rocks,” she said. “After they broke all the windows they sprayed tear gas.”

She said one of the attackers put his gun to the infant’s head and ordered them to get out of the car before they escaped the area.

The incident occurred at Givat Ronen, a small hilltop outpost in the northern West Bank near the village of Burin

August 10, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli strikes on Gaza kill two more Palestinian journalists, their family members

Deceased Palestinian journalists Abdullah al-Soussi (L) and Tamim Muammar (Photo via social media)
MEMO | August 10, 2024

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate mourned two journalists from the Gaza Strip who were killed by the Israeli army on Friday.

The Syndicate called on International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan to immediately investigate the Israeli crimes committed against journalists.

This was conveyed in a statement, a copy of which was received by Anadolu Agency, in which the Syndicate mourned journalists Tamim Muammar and Abdullah Al-Soussi, who were killed in a bombing of the city of Khan Yunis in central Gaza, denouncing this “crime”.

The Syndicate reported that Muammar worked as an editor at the Voice of Palestine (governmental) radio station, while Al-Soussi worked for Al-Aqsa TV (affiliated with Hamas). The journalists were assassinated in two separate airstrikes on Khan Yunis, along with a number of their children, family members and relatives.

The Syndicate considers the assassination of Palestinian journalists a “systematic crime” committed by the Israeli army.

The agency called on: “The International Criminal Court Prosecutor to quickly begin investigations into the occupation’s crimes against Palestinian journalists.”

Earlier on Friday, Wafa news agency quoted medical sources stating: “The bodies of 14 martyrs arrived at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis as a result of the occupation’s ongoing raids on various parts of the city.”

It added that an airstrike targeted: “The Muammar family home in the Tahlia area in central Khan Yunis, leading to the martyrdom of fellow journalist Tamim Muammar from Voice of Palestine radio.”

Meanwhile: “Local sources announced the martyrdom of journalist Abdullah Al-Soussi in an occupation airstrike that targeted his home in Khan Yunis,” according to the agency.

With the killing of Muammar and Al-Soussi, the number of journalists killed since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza has risen to 168, according to official Palestinian figures.

With US support, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since 7 October, leaving more than 131,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them women and children, with more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and deadly famine.

In disregard of the international community, Tel Aviv continues this war, ignoring the United Nations Security Council resolution to stop it immediately and the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

August 10, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces run over, kill 15-year-old Palestinian boy injured in drone strike

Israeli forces killed 15-year-old Khatab Majdi Asad Abu Badawiya in Jenin on August 6, 2024. (Photo: Courtesy of the Abu Badawiya family)
Defense for Children International – Palestine | August 8, 2024

Ramallah, August 8, 2024—Israeli forces killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in Jenin during a military incursion on Tuesday morning.

Khatab Majdi Asad Abu Badawiya, 15, was struck by shrapnel from an Israeli drone-fired missile around 9:40 a.m. on August 6 during an Israeli military incursion into the eastern neighborhood of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine. Khatab allegedly threw a homemade explosive device toward a heavily armored Israeli military vehicle prior to the drone strike. The strike, which injured Khatab, killed three armed Palestinian men. After Khatab was injured in the strike, an ambulance attempted to reach him but Israeli soldiers in the military vehicle fired live ammunition toward the paramedics. The military vehicle then dragged a civilian vehicle parked nearby and attempted to push it onto the child lying on the ground. After failing to do so, the military vehicle advanced towards Khatab, who was still alive, and drove one of its wheels onto his abdomen. The military vehicle stayed near the bodies of the child and the other young men for about 40 minutes before withdrawing.

“Israeli forces continue showing contempt for Palestinian children’s lives as they carry out aerial attacks in densely populated civilian areas like Jenin,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Israeli forces not only injured Khatab in a drone strike, but they shot at paramedics trying to provide aid, then parked their military vehicle on top of his torso while he bled out in a shocking act of cruelty. Countries need to enact an immediate arms embargo and sanctions on Israel to force accountability for Israeli forces who have been allowed to brutally kill Palestinian children with impunity for decades.”

Palestinian residents demolished a wall so paramedics could walk to the scene, since Israeli forces targeted the ambulance with live ammunition. Paramedics transported Khatab and the three Palestinian men to the ambulance, which was parked about 200 meters (656 feet) away. Doctors pronounced all four of them dead on arrival at Jenin Governmental Hospital.

Israeli forces stormed the center of Jenin on August 5 around 3:30 p.m. Soldiers raided the Gulf Exchange Company on Abu Bakr Street. During the incursion into the city center, Israeli military vehicles deliberately smashed many vehicles by crashing into them. The soldiers also fired heavily and indiscriminately while the area was crowded with vendors and shoppers.

Palestinian gunmen confronted the Israeli soldiers. During these confrontations, Israeli military reinforcements, accompanied by large military bulldozers, arrived in Jenin city and refugee camp. The bulldozers began destroying infrastructure, demolishing walls of several homes, and smashing and burning vendor stalls in the Jenin market.

After Israeli forces withdrew from Jenin, they entered the Palestinian village of Kafr Qud to the west and besieged a house, killing two young men and confiscating their bodies. Three others were injured in the besiegement and were subsequently arrested.

Israeli forces and settlers have killed 62 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2024, including two United States citizens, according to documentation collected by DCIP.

143 Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, according to documentation collected by DCIP, when the Israeli military began a full-scale military offensive on the Gaza Strip.

In 2023, Israeli forces and settlers killed at least 121 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Israeli forces and settlers shot and killed 103 Palestinian children with live ammunition, 13 Palestinian children were killed in drone strikes, four Palestinian children were killed by missiles fired from a U.S.-sourced Apache attack helicopter, and one child was killed in an Israeli warplane airstrike.

Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where a direct threat to life or of serious injury is present. However, investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings.

August 8, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Khan Yunis: Israeli army destroyed over 70 percent of the city’s water wells

Palestinian Information Center – August 8, 2024

GAZA – The municipality of Khan Yunis City in southern Gaza has affirmed that the Israeli occupation army has destroyed over 70 percent of the city’s water wells since October 7, 2023.

In a statement on Thursday, the municipality explained that the Israeli army destroyed the city’s water purification station, 26 of its 37 wells, and 220 kilometers of water lines.

According to the municipality, more than 1,200,000 displaced people currently sheltering in al-Mawasi area of western Khan Yunis are struggling to access drinking and usable water.

The municipality warned that the severe water shortage in Khan Yunis led to the spread of infectious diseases among the local and displaced families.

August 8, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pharma, WHO Team Up to Create Permanent ‘Pandemic’ Market for Mandated, Experimental Vaccines

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 6, 2024

Big Pharma and its key investors are rolling out a new strategy — “the full takeover of the public sector, specifically the World Health Organization (WHO), and the regulatory system that now holds the entire market hostage” — according to a new investigative report by Unlimited Hangout’s Max Jones.

What’s behind the new strategy? The pharmaceutical industry is facing a “patent cliff” by 2030, as many of its blockbuster drugs are set to lose their patent protection, placing $180 billion in sales at risk and threatening to topple the industry.

According to Jones, for years, when patents expired on profitable drugs, pharmaceutical giants deployed a “mergers and acquisitions” strategy, buying up smaller drug companies to add to their product portfolios.

As a result, the industry is now dominated by a handful of companies, conventional chemical drugs exist for most health issues, and the regulatory process for new ones has become onerous.

Big Pharma has now pivoted to acquiring biotech and biologic companies, whose products are “more complex, unpredictable and difficult and expensive to make,” than chemical-based medicine, Jones wrote.

Conventional drugs are chemically synthesized and have a known structure according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Biologics come from living humans, animal or microorganism cells, and are technologically altered to target particular proteins or cells in the immune system. The FDA calls biologics “complex mixtures that are not easily identified or characterized.”

As a drug class, biologics offer an appealing solution to the patent cliff problem, because they can’t be easily replicated like generic versions of conventional drugs.

Instead, producers make “biosimilars,” which unlike genetics can’t simply be interchanged with the original drug during a course of treatment without serious safety risks, according to Jones. And while generics are cheap, biosimilars are still expensive to produce. There also are regulatory hurdles to getting biosimilars to market.

However, Jones wrote, the serious safety issues associated with biologics — the high risk of serious adverse events associated with the COVID-19 vaccine, for example — make it difficult for drugmakers to find commercial success in a conventional regulatory environment.

“Luckily for Big Pharma,” Jones wrote, the WHO and its private backers “are pursuing an unprecedented legal process that would cement loopholes that could solve these significant market challenges of at least some biotechnologies.”

Such loopholes made Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccines — the paradigmatic example of this new strategy — Big Pharma’s highest-selling annual market success ever.

Distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines to approximately 70% of people globally was possible only because of the “fast-tracked, deregulated development and mandated consumption of the experimental drugs,” Jones wrote.

The industry hopes to replicate that model with other drugs. And it has already begun — last month the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, gave Moderna $176 million to develop an mRNA bird flu vaccine.

Stakeholders behind the WHO have turned it into an arm of Big Pharma

According to Jones, the process of rapidly developed and mandated experimental drugs was first adopted by the U.S. military for bioweapons threats. Now, it is being internationally legitimized by the WHO through the agency’s revisions to the International Health Regulations (IHR) and its continued attempt to push its pandemic treaty.

The amendments were watered down and the treaty was partially thwarted at the last meeting of the World Health Assembly, which ended on June 1. However, the powers added to the amendments and the language in the treaty WHO and its backers are still hoping to advance next year show the type of biotech pandemic market Big Pharma has in the works.

According to Jones, this market:

“Will not be one that depends on the free will of consumers to opt in and out of products — but instead relies on tactics of forced consumption and manipulation of regulatory paradigms.

“At the forefront of this push are the WHO’s public-private-partners/private stakeholders, who directly shape and benefit from this policy. Their influence has, in effect, turned the WHO into an arm of Big Pharma, one so powerful that it already demonstrated its ability to morph the entire international regulatory process for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

These stakeholders can wield this power in part because the WHO receives 80% of its funding from private stakeholders.

Those stakeholders include private-sector giants like Bill Gates, his public-private partnership organizations like the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and public-sector bureaucrats, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Rick Bright, Ph.D., of BARDA and the Rockefeller Foundation, who have been working for years to create a new system that would speed up vaccine production.

During the COVID-19 pandemic period, even states that lacked legal structures to provide emergency authorization for new drugs created them, using the WHO’s Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EUL) as justification, and aided by the WHO’s COVAX vaccine distribution system. COVAX was co-led by the WHO, Gavi, CEPI and Unicef, which are all backed by Gates.

The goal now, Jones wrote, is to institutionalize the procedures that were put in place globally for COVID-19 to pave the way for a new pandemic market.

The One Health agenda, which requires “full-scale surveillance of the human-animal environment,” both before and during pandemics, is central to this plan, he wrote.

The four pillars of the emerging pandemic market

There are four pillars to the plan for securing this market. The pillars are embodied in the WHO’s recently passed IHR amendments and the proposed pandemic treaty.

1. Biosurveillance of “pathogens with pandemic potential”: The WHO is calling on member states to create infrastructure to conduct biosurveillance on entire populations.

WHO private stakeholders, like the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have been funding such initiatives for years and continue to be at the forefront of similar initiatives today, Jones wrote.

2. Rapid sharing of data and research: Under the IHR amendments, the WHO’s director-general must provide support for member states’ research and development. In the pending treaty, that would include helping them rapidly share data during a pandemic.

Such sharing should help coordinate global pandemic responses and also “pandemic prevention.” That means building a globally coordinated effort to research and share data on diseases that don’t currently pose a public health threat but are allegedly “likely to cause epidemics in the future.”

The WHO’s announcement last week that it is facilitating data-sharing for a new mRNA bird flu vaccine from Argentina is one example.

Experts have raised concerns that incentivizing such “preventive R&D” could incentivize risky gain-of-function research, Jones wrote.

Jones also noted that it is “highly likely” that the same global organizations that partner with the WHO and are funded by its largest private donors will be the ones doing this research and development on vaccines for “future pathogens with pandemic potential” — and also the ones profiting from it.

3. New regulatory pathways: The WHO is developing new regulatory pathways for unapproved medical products to get to market during pandemic emergencies. The IHR amendments are vague on this, Jones wrote, but the proposed language of the treaty aims to speed up emergency authorizations of WHO-recommended investigational “relevant health products.”

The proposed treaty also seeks to compel member countries to take steps to ensure they have the “legal, administrative and financial frameworks in place to support emergency regulatory authorizations for the effective and timely approval of pandemic-related health products during a pandemic.”

4. Global mandates of unapproved products: The final key element in the Big Pharma-WHO plan to pave the way for a new pandemic market is shoring up the global capacity to mandate unapproved medical products.

According to Jones, in July 2023, the WHO adopted the European Union’s (EU) digital COVID-19 passport system, or the “immunity pass” which recorded people’s vaccination records, negative test results or records of previous infections.

“While a digital vaccine passport does not function as a hard mandate in which every citizen of a given population is forced to take a vaccine, it acts as a conditional mandate — one which offers the illusion of choice, but — in reality — restricts the civil liberties of those who do not comply,” Jones wrote.

The 2005 version of the IHR allowed for travel-based mandates that required proof of vaccination to enter countries when there was a public health risk. The new IHR, Jones wrote, expands on this by detailing the kinds of technology that can be used to check such information during future pandemics.

The WHO also is developing its Global Digital Health Certification Network, which expands the EU digital passport system to a global scale. It will digitize vaccination records and health records and will be “interoperable” with existing networks.

While interoperability makes it possible for decentralized data to be shared globally, Jones wrote, “The UN is seeking to impose digital identification as a ‘human right,’ or rather as a condition for accessing other human rights, for the entire global citizenry by 2030, as established in its Sustainable Development Goal 16.9.”

The initiative seeks to provide people with a “trusted, verifiable way” to prove who they are in the physical world and online.

Jones wrote:

“Verification systems of this size will place the right of citizens to do basic activities — like traveling, eating at a restaurant or working their job — in the hands of governments and potentially employers.

“The rights of civilians will be conditional, dictated by data stored in a massive digital hub that is global in its sharing abilities. Not only will domestic governments have access to the health information of their own citizens under this system, but an entire global bureaucracy will as well.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

August 7, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

UK Police Blame Social Media for Unrest

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 7, 2024

While some observers explain the chaos that has erupted in the UK in the wake of an attack that resulted in the murder of three children as an outburst based on societal issues that have been bubbling beneath the surface for a long time – the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) sees”disinformation” as the main culprit.

Inaccurate or misleading posts on social media could serve as the trigger for protests and riots, and the NPCC, which is coordinating law enforcement in the UK, is focusing on “silenc(ing) those intent on spreading false news” – suggesting that this institution’s stance is that the unrest has no other meaningful deep underlying causes.

This is clear from the tone NPCC has taken, referring to “so-called protests” and, “criminals pretending to be protesters.” In other words, the crisis is simply down to “criminals” reading “fake news” on social media.

And so, it is disinformation that is “a huge driver” behind the violence, and, “we know a lot of those attending these so-called protests are doing so in direct response to what they’ve read online,” said a report on the NPCC site, quoting its public order lead, B.J. Harrington.

Harrington also revealed that the police acted “swiftly” across the country to make 147 arrests in connection to the clashes – adding that he expects that number to increase.

Regarding posts NPCC considers to be fake news and disinformation, this official noted that “high profile accounts” are to blame for their proliferation.

And, NPCC – but not only – is “working hard” to “silence those intent on spreading false news.”

Harrington said that law enforcement is achieving this together with communities and “our partners” – without naming the latter. But he did inform the public that both police officers and intelligence teams are engaged in identifying people involved.

As soon as the protests, which in places turned violent, erupted, a number of former and current government and intelligence officials immediately blamed “foreign meddling” and “misinformation” for the turn the events took after the fatal Southgate stabbing attack.

August 7, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

State AGs Criticize Janet Yellen for “Fearmongering” on De-Banking Bans

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 6, 2024

20 attorney-generals from Republican states have penned a letter addressed to US Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen, in protest of the Treasury’s apparent push to stigmatize anti-de-banking laws as “harmful to national security.”

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The signatories, led by Florida AG Ashley Moody, cited the Treasury’s recent letter that went after those states that either have or are preparing to enact laws aimed at protecting clients from de-banking.

The Treasury’s letter (sent by Undersecretary Brian Nelson), they write, was critical of laws like Florida’s HB 989, designed to prevent banks from denying financial services “based on factors that are not grounded in measurable risks.”

Previously, the Treasury prohibited banks from doing this, except in cases when a client was documented as unable to meet quantitative, impartial risk-based standards.

“Importing political activism into financial regulation” is how the Republican AGs now describe this marked shift in policy.

The AGs see opposition to said legislation as the Treasury ignoring its statutory role and serving instead to promote the Biden-Harris Administration’s campaign described as radical and fearmongering and meant to advance “activists’ extreme agendas” while sowing confusion about the purpose and nature of those state laws.

According to the letter, that purpose is to promote “responsible money management and protecting consumers from discrimination.”

But the Treasury’s meddling – bringing up national security in this context in order to allow large financial institutions and banks to abuse power – is advancing the political goals of “activists,” the AGs claim.

The activists here would be anti-conservative ones, those trying to remove access to bank services to gun manufacturers, among others.

Undersecretary Nelson’s letter made the assertion that state laws to prevent such policies by financial institutions are “interfering” with the ability to “comply with national security requirements.”

Nelson went on to claim that the legislation he singled out meant “heightened risk” of international drug traffickers, transnational organized criminals, terrorists, and corrupt foreign officials using the US financial system to not only threaten national security but also “launder money, evade sanctions.”

The Treasury has since said that this was a reaction to a “bipartisan letter from members of Congress” who expressed these concerns and that this department agrees with their stance on the issue.

But the AGs say that Nelson’s letter “deliberately misleads financial institutions about these state laws, for example, by falsely suggesting that laws such as Florida’s HB 989 would prohibit financial institutions from considering whether a consumer is associated with designated terrorist groups.”

The letter concludes that the signatories “join with the majority of Americans in looking forward to the day when federal regulators will focus on their statutory duties, rather than on advancing radical political causes and stoking unfounded fear about state laws.”

August 7, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Russia decries ‘routine repression’ of dissidents in EU states

RT | August 7, 2024

The West is turning into a “neoliberal dictatorship” that is intolerant of any form of dissent, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Wednesday. She was commenting on the prosecution of journalist Svetlana Burtseva by EU member Estonia.

Burtseva, a 57-year-old naturalized Estonian citizen, was charged this week under an article of the Estonian penal code that prohibits relations with a foreign entity with the intention of committing treason.

Specifically, Burtseva was accused of writing under a pen name for a Baltic-focused Russian-language news outlet that belongs to the Russian media group Rossiya Segodnya, which is sanctioned by the EU.

Estonian officials have claimed Burtseva committed subversive activities such as writing a book that “belittles” the Baltic country, as claimed by public prosecutor Eneli Laurits.

Commenting on the case, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said that “similar to other ‘advanced democracies’ of the Baltics, Estonia continues to systematically use repression as a routine tool for quashing dissent.”

She described the allegations against Burtseva as “obviously fabricated” and claimed that they reflect Tallin’s “flawed and absolutely irreconcilable” attitude to opposition.

Moscow perceives the prosecution as an attempt to punish Burtseva for journalism and voicing opinions critical of the Estonian government. International bodies that should defend freedom of speech share the blame, since they have neglected their duties and have long turned a blind eye to the stifling of critical press by the Baltic states, the diplomat argued.

The entire situation “showcases the deep crisis and the deterioration of the Western-style democracy, how it is morphing into a neoliberal dictatorship,” Zakharova concluded.

August 7, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

NY county bans masks used to hide identities in Pro-Palestine protests

Al Mayadeen | August 7, 2024

A bill banning people from wearing masks to shield their identity during pro-Palestine protests against the US support for “Israel’s” genocide in Gaza was passed in Nassau County in New York state on Monday, with 12 Republicans in the legislature voting in favor of the new law, while seven Democrats abstained.

Republican lawmakers claim that the bill applies to any form of public demonstrations to prevent protesters engaging in “violence and hate crimes” from hiding their identities and eluding responsibility. Civil rights advocates and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) have criticized this new legislation, deeming it a violation of the right to free speech.

“Masks protect people who express political opinions that are unpopular,” Susan Gottehrer, Nassau County regional director of NYCLU, said. “Making anonymous protest illegal chills political action and is ripe for selective enforcement.”

If demonstrators break the newly passed law, they would be charged with a misdemeanor where they can face up to a year in imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. However, the bill exempts wearing masks for medical and religious reasons.

“Unless someone has a medical condition or a religious imperative, people should not be allowed to cover their face in a manner that hides their identity when in public,” Republic Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said.

“Nassau County police offers are not health professionals or religious experts capable of deciding who needs a mask and who doesn’t,” Gottehrer said, highlighting the inadequacy of the exceptions.

Germany convicts pro-Palestine activist for ‘From river to sea’ chant

The restriction of freedom of speech when it comes to protesting in solidarity for Palestinians while condemning the ongoing aggression in Gaza is not limited to the United States, and is a common theme with governments complicit in the genocide.

A Berlin court has convicted pro-Palestine activist Ava Moayeri, a 22-year-old German-Iranian national, for the “crime” of leading the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” back in October.

The presiding judge, Birgit Balzer, ordered Moayeri to pay a 600 euro fine. While the 22-year-old’s defense team argued that the conviction was a violation of free speech.

Balzer argued that precedents documented in different courts that describe the slogan as “ambiguous” were incomprehensible, considering the chant a declaration against the “right of the State of Israel to exist.”

Moayeri co-organized an October 11 protest in Berlin’s Neukölln district, allegedly to condemn school violence after a teacher smacked a pro-Palestinian student protesting. Police claimed the protest featured Palestinian flags and Kouffiyehs, disputing her testimony.

Moayeri’s legal team defended the slogan as part of the Palestine solidarity movement and denied any antisemitism.

August 7, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

It’s Weird to See a Retired General Scotch a Plea Bargain

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | August 5, 2024

Given that we have all been born and raised under a national-security state form of governmental structure, no one in the mainstream press is batting an eyelash over Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s role in a plea bargain into which military prosecutors had entered with three men who are accused of participating in the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawix. Austin scotched the plea bargain because it eliminated the possibility of a death sentence for the three men.

To be sure, there are some mainstream pundits who have expressed disagreement with Austin’s decision to cancel the plea bargain. But none of them question the very notion that a retired military general is making a major decision in a case involving criminal justice. That’s because the mainstream press, along with many Americans, has come to accept the normality and permanence of the judicial system that the Pentagon established in Cuba after the 9/11 attacks.

But the fact is that Austin’s role in a criminal prosecution is weird — extremely weird. A retired military general serving as U.S. Secretary of Defense has no more legitimate role in America’s criminal-justice system than he does in America’s public-school system.

The U.S. Constitution established one judicial system. It consists of U.S. District Courts, federal courts of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. It encompasses both civil and criminal jurisdiction. Under the Constitution, when the U.S. government targets someone with criminal prosecution, it must do so within the rules and constraints of the federal-court system.

In other words, the Constitution did not set up two dual, competing criminal-justice systems — one run by civilians and one run by the military. It set up only one criminal-justice system. And that one judicial system is subject to the constraints of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, specifically the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments.

Contrary to popular opinion, terrorism is not an act of war. It is a criminal offense under the U.S. Code. When someone is charged with the crime of terrorism, the Constitution requires that he be treated like any other defendant in the federal-court system.

What happened after the 9/11 attacks, however, was that the military-intelligence establishment seized on the crisis, panic-filled environment to establish a brand new dual, competing judicial system at its imperial outpost in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mind you, there was no constitutional authority for such a judicial system but given the climate of “emergency” and the dominant role that the national-security establishment had already come to play in America’s federal governmental system, the Pentagon knew that no one would interfere with its new judicial system.

Thus, under America’s dual, competing judicial systems, the military now decides how an accused terrorist is going to be handled. If the military decides that an accused terrorist, whether foreigner or American, should go into the constitutional system, that’s where he will go. In fact, there have been a number of criminal prosecutions for terrorism in America’s federal-court system, both before and after the 9/11 attacks.

However, if the military decides that an accused terrorist, including an American citizen, will instead be placed in the military’s judicial system at Gitmo, that’s where he will end up. That’s why the plea bargain into which the accused 9/11 planners entered was done with military prosecutors rather than with U.S. Attorneys and assistant U.S. Attorneys.

The difference between these two judicial systems is like day and night. In the constitutional system, the accused has the right to a speedy trial, the right to trial by jury, the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishments, and other procedural protections.

None of those protections exists for people who are shunted into the military’s judicial system at Gitmo. That’s why criminal defendants have been held there for some 20 years without a trial — there is no right to a speedy trial at Gitmo. The accused can also be convicted on hearsay evidence, which means that he has no right to confront and cross-examine witnesses. He can be tortured into confessing to his crimes. He has no right to trial by jury. Instead his guilt or innocence is determined by a military commission whose kangaroo-court-like verdict will inevitably turn on pleasing superior officers.

This entire dual, competing judicial system is about as weird as weird can get, including the fact that a retired military general now wields the authority to involve himself in plea bargains in criminal prosecutions. The fact that this weird judicial system has become a normal and permanent part of American life just goes to show how the national-security establishment controls, manages, and directs the federal government, with the other three branches simply playing a supportive role. See National Security and Double Government by Michael J. Glennon.

August 6, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

Argentina’s AI and the Rise of Pre-Crime Digital Surveillance

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | August 5, 2024

Argentina’s new initiative to launch the Applied Artificial Intelligence for Security Unit (UIAAS) represents a concerning step toward a surveillance-heavy approach to tackling crime. Under the guise of innovation, this unit, embedded within the Ministry of Security, integrates artificial intelligence to not only sift through vast amounts of historical crime data but also to monitor social media activities ostensibly to predict and preempt criminal behavior.

This approach raises significant ethical questions, especially regarding privacy and civil liberties. The idea that AI can predict future crimes based on patterns might sound efficient, but it harbors risks of overreach, profiling, and potentially unjustified surveillance. The emphasis on monitoring social media activities and detecting “potential threats” could easily slide into invasive scrutiny of everyday citizens’ lives under a loosely defined mandate.

Critics have voiced many concerns. Their skepticism highlights a broader apprehension about the trade-offs between using AI in law enforcement and the erosion of personal freedoms. The capacity for AI to be misused under the pretext of security could set a dangerous precedent, potentially leading to a dystopian reality where personal spaces and freedoms are heavily compromised by state surveillance.

Argentina’s pioneering step, therefore, should be viewed critically, demanding rigorous scrutiny and debate to ensure that the pursuit of security does not trample the very liberties it aims to protect. The line between safeguarding citizens and surveilling them must be navigated with caution to prevent an unsettling shift towards an AI-driven surveillance state.

August 6, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

London police chief attacks journalist’s equipment

RT | August 5, 2024

Britain’s top law enforcement official ripped out a reporter’s microphone after being asked a question about double standards in policing the immigration-related riots across the UK.

Sir Mark Rowley of the Metropolitan Police Service had just left a government meeting in Westminster about handling the unrest when journalists approached him on Monday.

“Are we going to end two-tier policing sir?” a Sky News reporter asked. Rowley responded by destroying his recording equipment and continuing to walk to his car. He took no questions from the press.

Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt described Rowley’s actions as a “petulant, childish even” response to a “perfectly legitimate” question.

“It was a storm in a teacup, but perception is everything,” Brunt said, adding that Rowley’s explanation that he had been in a hurry was “mitigation, not a defense.”

Though the Sky reporter could have pressed charges for assault, criminal damage, or misconduct in public office, he reportedly chose to give Rowley a pass.

Dozens of British towns and cities have seen protests and riots since last Monday, when a British teenager of Rwandan descent killed three children and injured ten others in a mass stabbing in Southport, near Liverpool. While the initial outrage was sparked by a rumor misidentifying the perpetrator as Muslim, demonstrations have since grown into a wider backlash against mass immigration, Islam, and the perception that UK authorities are more concerned with suppressing domestic dissent than tackling immigrant crime.

More than 150 people were arrested on Saturday for rioting in Liverpool, Manchester, Stoke, Leeds and other cities. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed that the rioters will “face the full force of the law.”

Whitehall’s crackdown has prompted Reform Party leader Nigel Farage to suggest that there was “the impression of two-tier policing,” in comparison to the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots related to the death of George Floyd in the US.

“There is no two-tier policing. There is policing without fear or favor, exactly as it should be,” Starmer responded. “So that is a non-issue.”

According to Starmer, a “standing army of specialist officers” will be deployed to deal with the riots. “This is not protest – it is pure violence and we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or our Muslim communities,” he added.

The British government has also said it would “hold to account” social media companies that do not remove “disinformation.”

August 6, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment