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Palestinian media forum condemns NBC plan to produce drama series in Jerusalem

Palestine Information Center – 19/12/2013

GAZA — Palestinian media forum (PMF) has strongly condemned the plan of American TV company (NBC) to film a drama series, in partnership with the occupation municipality, in Silwan in occupied Jerusalem.

PMF said in a statement on Thursday that NBC is preparing to produce and broadcast a drama series in the “City of David”, with the aim of strengthening the Israeli narrative about the city of Jerusalem, which would give legitimacy to Israel’s policies of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonization in occupied Jerusalem.

According to Israeli and American media, the NBC network is cooperating with Israeli authorities, film makers and the Keshet Media Group to produce an action series entitled DIG mainly in occupied East Jerusalem, near the Old City.

Most of the filming will take place in the so-called “City of David national park”, which is established on Palestinian property in the neighborhood of Silwan and which is operated by the Israeli settler organization El’ad and the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority.

The PMF asserted that the production of this drama series comes within the framework of the falsification of history and the Judaization of Jerusalem.

December 19, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rouhani, Like Countless Iranian Officials Before Him, Affirms: Iran Will Never Seek Nuclear Weapons

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | September 18, 2013

Speaking in Tehran to NBC’s Ann Curry in his very first interview with an American media outlet, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani again – and repeatedly, considering Ms. Curry kept asking him the same question over and over – asserted Iran’s wholesale condemnation of nuclear arms and its commitment never to build or acquire such weaponry.

Rouhani’s statements were consistent with those of nearly every high-level Iranian official and diplomat over the past twenty years.

After Curry stated (totally incorrectly), “The world believes that Iran could build a bomb very quickly,” Rouhani replied:

We have never pursued or sought a nuclear bomb and we are not going to do so. We are solely seeking peaceful nuclear technology.

Once wasn’t enough for Curry. She asked, “Can you say now categorically then, that Iran will not build a nuclear weapon under any circumstances whatsoever?”

So Rouhani repeated:

The answer to this question is quite obvious. We have time and again said that under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever.

Again, Curry pondered, “So the answer is ‘no’?” After Rouhani again affirmed this point, she gave it another shot. “I want to make sure I understand. So the American public, so the world understands. If you can say categorically that Iran will not seek a nuclear weapon under any circumstances whatsoever. Is the answer to that yes or no, sir?”

Rouhani was patient. “The answer is that this country will never seek nuclear weapons.”

He added that “Iran wants nothing beyond what is defined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regarding the nuclear [rights] of countries,” a common statement often made by Iranian officials who understand that the Western demand on Iran to shutter or scale back its IAEA-safeguarded nuclear program is in itself a violation of Iran’s inalienable national rights.

In fact, Curry shouldn’t be so surprised by such statements coming from the top Iranian executive, as she has made a habit out of asking Iranian president the exact same question multiple times in a row and receiving the same answer.

When she interviewed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in September 2009, he told her (as noted in the above litany), “We don’t have such a need for nuclear weapons. We don’t need nuclear weapons. Without such weapons, we are very much able to defend ourselves…It’s not a part of our any – of our programs and plans.”

As a perfect example of how the mainstream media operates, after the interview, Curry published a summative report entitled, “Ahmadinejad refuses to rule out weapons.”

Two years later, when Curry again interviewed Ahmadinejad in Tehran, she asked the president directly, “Is Iran working on a nuclear warhead?”

Ahmadinejad’s reply was consistent, as always:

This is an old and repeated story. These are the same claims made by the U.S. administration many times. They have been repeating these claims for many years. This is not a new thing for us. In principle, we are against nuclear weapons because it is against our beliefs and ideology. We do not consider nuclear weapons as a useful weapon. The period or era of nuclear weapons is over…

Can nuclear weapons offer solutions to the current international problems? Can they bring superiority for the nuclear states? Certainly the answer is ‘no.’

He further stated, “We think those who try to build or make nuclear weapons, they are doing something absurd and useless. They only jeopardize their own situation and they waste the wealth of their own nations if they do it,” and explained that, as opposed to “a period of nuclear bombs,” today is an “era of humanity.”

Responding to allegations of a clandestine Iranian nuclear weapons program, he explained (as he always had):

We have integrity and are sincere in what we say because we are not afraid of any power and we do not need to conceal our intentions. If we want to build a nuclear weapon, we have the courage to announce it openly. We are not afraid of others.

Still unsatisfied, Curry decided to repeat herself, asking, “Is the answer yes or is it no, with all due respect?”

When Ahmadinejad reiterated, “We do not need nuclear weapon and we do not accept nuclear weapons. We are against that,” Curry quadrupled-down, “So you’re saying the answer is no?”

The president replied, “Right, that’s right, certainly.”

Apparently, Ann Curry has trouble taking ‘no’ for an answer. And yet, all we hear is that Rouhani’s unequivocal statement against nuclear weapons is something new and unprecedented. Clearly, it’s not.

Brian Williams, during tonight’s broadcast of NBC Nightly News, told his audience that Rouhani’s exclusive interview with Curry is “significant because it represents the first reason for any optimism, the first sign of any movement from Iran on the issue of nuclear weapons.”

What an absurd thing to say. Such is the scope of perception in the mainstream media.

September 19, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Coverage Offers Confusion Over Clarity

By Peter Hart – FAIR – 09/10/2012

On NBC‘s Meet the Press (9/9/12), Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and host David Gregory had a discussion about the failures of the Obama administration’s foreign policy that included this:

ROMNEY: The president has not drawn us further away from a nuclear Iran. And in fact Iran is closer to having a weapon, closer to having nuclear capability, than when he took office.  This is the greatest failure, in my opinion, of his foreign policy.  He ran for office saying he was going to meet with Ahmadinejad.  He was going to meet with Castro, Kim Jong Il.  All the world’s worst actors, without precondition, he’d meet with them in his first year.

GREGORY: President Bush said that he would stop Iran from going nuclear.  So did President Obama.  Neither one were able to achieve that.  Correct?

ROMNEY:  President Obama had a policy of engagement with Ahmadinejad.  That policy has not worked and we’re closer to a nuclear weapon as a result of that.

Set aside the talk about the U.S. having a “policy of engagement” with Iran–we have a policy of sanctions. The real question is what Gregory is talking about when he talks about Iran “going nuclear,” and how Bush and Obama failed “to achieve that.”

In this context, “going nuclear” would seem to refer to producing a nuclear weapon, which nobody claims Iran has done. Gregory has mislead viewers on this before: “Iran: Will talks push that country to give up its nuclear weapons program?” he declared a few years back (10/4/09).

There is as yet no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. What we know now is that the country has a nuclear energy program, and some countries demand to know more about that program, based on the theory that Iran is hiding something. Perhaps they are, but no evidence to that effect exists.

But it is common for media to start the Iran conversation based on the assumption that there’s a weapon being built. You could see that in Bill Keller’s column in the New York Times today (9/10/12). “Negotiations aimed at preventing the dreaded Persian Bomb have resumed their desultory course,” he explained to readers–before posing what I think Keller believes is a provocative question:  “Can we live with a nuclear Iran?”

Keller believes his column is adding something novel to the debate over Iran:

The prevailing view now is that a nuclear Iran cannot be safely contained. On this point both President Obama and Mitt Romney agree.

Keller then goes on: “Let’s assume, for starters, that Iran’s theocrats are determined to acquire nuclear weapons.” The rest of the column consists mostly of a “theoretical exercise” where Keller ends up opposing pre-emptive war in favor of allowing Iran to enrich uranium so long as it doesn’t pursue a weapons program. Then we could “gradually relaxes sanctions and brings this wayward country into the community of more-or-less civilized nations.”

It’s a strange argument, given that Iran says that’s what it’s doing, and the inspectors that are supposed to monitor Iran’s nuclear program are already reporting that there is no evidence any of the country’s uranium is being diverted for a weapons program. It sure doesn’t seem as if sanctions relief is right around the corner.

A truly novel media approach that Keller–or any other columnist–might want to try: Assume, for the sake of novelty, that Iran is not pursuing a weapons program. Then take every fact of the Iran showdown–the sanctions, the threats from various Israeli government officials that a military attack could be imminent–and try to reconcile them with the assumption that Iran is not developing the weapons that are the focus of so much controversy.

It’s much more difficult to rationalize U.S. policy if one explores this “theoretical exercise.” Which is likely why pundits like Keller go a different route.

September 10, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | 1 Comment

NBC Invents War-o-tainment

By David Swanson | War is a Crime | July 29, 2012

If you’ve watched the Olympics on NBC you’ve probably seen ads promoting a war-o-tainment reality show cohosted by retired U.S. General Wesley Clark, co-starring Todd Palin, and with no apparent role for reality.

The ads brag about the use of real bullets in a way that promoters of the new Batman movie probably wouldn’t try. But the chances that any of the celebrities engaged in “war competition” on NBC’s “Stars Earn Stripes”  will be shot and killed is essentially what it was for John Wayne, as he promoted war while dodging it (even if nuclear weapons testing got him in the end).

RootsAction.org and Just Foreign Policy have set up a website at StarsEarnStripes.org to push NBC to show the real cost of war, and to help get them started.

“Stars Earn Stripes” is being produced by the TV “genius” behind Donald Trump’s “Apprentice” and “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” (Husband Todd Palin is a “Stars Earn Stripes” co-star.) NBC is promoting the show during its Summer Olympics telecast as the next big sporting event.  But the sport it’s exhibiting is war.

On “Stars Earn Stripes,” celebrities will pair-up with members of the U.S. military to compete at war-like tasks, including “long-range weapons fire.” Only there won’t be any of the killing or dying.

Our wars kill huge numbers of people, primarily civilians, and often children and the elderly.  NBC is not showing this reality on its war-o-tainment show any more than on its news programs.  Other nations’ media show the face of war, giving people a very different view of war-making.

NBC news programs have repeatedly used retired generals, pretending independence but getting their pro-war talking points from the Pentagon. See New York Times: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand and Glenn Greenwald: The Pulizer-Winning Investigation That Dare Not Be Uttered on TV.

In the United States, our tax dollars are spent by the billions each year marketing the idea that war is a sport and associating the military with sporting events.  Media companies like NBC are complicit in the propaganda.  While 57% of federal discretionary spending goes to the military, weapons makers can’t seem to get enough of our tax dollars.  In the spirit of transferring veterans’ care to the realm of private charity, “Stars Earn Stripes” will give prize money each week to “military-based charities” in order to “send a message.”

One of NBC’s corporate parents, General Electric, takes war very seriously, but not as human tragedy — rather, as financial profit.  (GE is a big weapons manufacturer.) A retired general hosting a war-o-tainment show is another step in the normalization of permanent war.  And consider for a moment who that retired general is.  During the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia commanded by Gen. Wesley Clark, civilians and a TV station were bombed, while cluster bombs and depleted uranium were used. Had Clark done these things for another nation, NBC would probably favor his prosecution and certainly not employ him. See Democracy Now! Confronts Wesley Clark Over His Bombing Of Civilians.

StarsEarnStripes.org  is asking NBC to stop treating war as a sport, and to air an in-depth segment showing the reality of civilian victims of recent U.S. wars, on any program, any time in the coming months.  We’ve provided some resources to help NBC research and show the reality of war, at http://StarsEarnStripes.org

July 31, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russian warships not heading for Syria

TREND | June 16, 2012

A number of warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet are prepared to go to Syria, a source in the Russian General Staff told Itar-Tass news agency on Friday.

“The Mediterranean Sea is a zone of the Black Sea Fleet responsibility. Hence, warships may go there in the case it is necessary to protect the Russian logistics base in Tartous, Syria,” it said.

According to the source, “several warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, including large landing ships with marines aboard, are fully prepared to go on the voyage.”

However, it strongly denied U.S. media reports claiming that a Black Sea Fleet warship had already headed for Tartous. “All the ships are staying in Sevastopol but the Cesar Kunikov large landing ship. Either the U.S. intelligence service works poorly or they have a poor knowledge of geography,” it said.

The Cesar Kunikov large landing ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which is returning from Italian Messina to base, passed the Bosporus Strait on Friday. It will return to Sevastopol on Saturday, the source said.

The U.S. media said that Russia had sent a small group of servicemen to Syria for protecting the Tartous base. NBC said with the reference to a U.S. official that the servicemen were going to Tartous aboard a warship. The State Department spokesperson said she could not confirm the NBC report.

A group of Russian warships led by the Admiral Kuznetsov heavy aircraft carrying cruiser visited Tartous in January. The group visited the port for replenishing reserves and giving maintenance to ship systems.

Tartous is the only Russian naval base outside of the former Soviet territory – this is the logistics center serving Russian ships on missions in the Mediterranean Sea. The base opened in 1971 under an agreement with the Syrian government.

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June 17, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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