16 Nov 2015
A life is a life
Jeremy Corbyn has suggested the British media under-played terrorist attacks in Beirut and Ankara compared to its coverage of the atrocities in Paris this weekend. The Labour leader claimed the events “got hardly any publicity” and the media should “report things that happen outside of Europe as well as inside”.
On Thursday evening, over 40 people died in Beirut in an IS terror attack a day before the Paris strikes. The extremists are also believed to have been responsible for the October suicide bombings in Ankara, Turkey, which killed over 100 people. Mr Corbyn told ITV’s Lorraine Kelly this morning: “I think first of all what happened in Paris was appalling, this is a vibrant, multicultural city, young people of all faiths, and older people as well, all there together, and cultures, and this terrible thing happened.
“Likewise, which didn’t unfortunately get hardly any publicity, was the bombing in Beirut last week or the killing in Turkey. I think our media needs be able to report things that happen outside of Europe as well as inside. A life is a life.”
More at Huff. Post UK – Also see The Conversation.
14 Nov 2015
Paris reels after multiple terror attacks
At least 120 people were killed in a wave of simultaneous attacks on Friday evening in Paris, in the deadliest violence to strike France since World War II.
Gunmen and bombers attacked busy restaurants, bars and a concert hall at six locations around Paris on Friday evening, killing scores of people in what a shaken President François Hollande described as an unprecedented terrorist attack. The apparently coordinated gun and bomb assault came as the country, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State group fighters in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks ahead of a global climate conference due to open later this month.
9 Nov 2015
The US norm of Police Violence
Early Friday morning, this man was slammed to the ground by Austin police – for jaywalking.
Bill Maher and “The Hateful Eight” filmmaker Quentin Tarantino discuss his recent efforts to call attention.
26 Jun 2015
Terror attacks on 3 continents, including 37 in Tunisia
Gunmen killed at least 37 people at a beachfront Tunisian hotel on Friday, the same day terrorists lashed out brutally in France and bombed a mosque in Kuwait.
Tunisia's health ministry reported those deaths as well as 36 injuries in and around the Hotel Riu Imperial Marhaba in the coastal Tunisian city of Sousse, according to the state-run TAP news agency. There were three attackers -- one of whom was killed, one arrested and one escaped -- Interior Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui told reporters.
Tunisia's nightmare came on the same day as at least two deadly terrorist attack in other countries.
One person was beheaded and two injured at a gas factory near Lyon in south-eastern France, according to French President Francois Hollande. And ISIS has claimed responsibility for an apparent bomb blast at the Shiite-affiliated Al-Sadiq mosque in Kuwait's capital during Friday prayers, leaving at least 25 dead and more than 200 injured.
17 Jan 2015
EU response to free speech killings? More internet censorship
In the wake of this week’s terrorist attacks in Paris, which began with the killing of 12 people at the offices of satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, the interior ministers of 12 EU countries have called for a limited increase in internet censorship.
The interior ministers of France, Germany, Latvia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the U.K. said in a statement (PDF) that, while the internet must remain “in scrupulous observance of fundamental freedoms, a forum for free expression, in full respect of the law,” ISPs need to help “create the conditions of a swift reporting of material that aims to incite hatred and terror and the condition of its removing, where appropriate/possible.”
This sounds similar to recent agreements in the U.K. whereby ISPs use filters to stop citizens seeing “extremist” online content, though it’s hard to tell without more details. There seems to be no coordinated push for more internet surveillance just yet, although there is a drive for better intelligence sharing between EU countries.
It seems, to say the least, an awkward reaction to what was in part a free-speech-related attack — the left-wing Charlie Hebdo has itself frequently been accused of hate speech for its portrayal of Muslims and others. On that front, a German newspaper that reprinted blasphemous Charlie Hebdo cartoons of Mohammed in the wake of the attack was firebombed in the early hours of Sunday morning, with no injuries. Others that did the same remain under police guard.
7 Jan 2015
Gun attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo kills 13
Gunmen have attacked the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 13 people and injuring seven in an apparent Islamist attack. At least two masked attackers opened fire with assault rifles in the office and exchanged shots with police in the street outside before escaping by car.
The gunmen shouted "we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad", witnesses say. President Francois Hollande said there was no doubt it had been a terrorist attack "of exceptional barbarity". A major police operation is under way in the Paris area to catch the killers.
BBC News – Aljazeera English – Sky
Witnesses said the gunmen shouted "Allahu Akbar" (Arabic for God is great) during the deadly rampage. It was by far the bloodiest attack on Charlie Hebdo, but not the first.
The left-leaning magazine is known for its provocative and acerbic commentary on world affairs, routinely taking on the high and mighty, be they celebrities, presidents or popes. But its jabs at Islamic extremists have stirred the most controversy.
The satirical weekly has been repeatedly threatened for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in the name of free speech and France’s cherished secular laws.
#JeSuisCharlie - Twitter users have begun to replace their profile avatars with a white-on-black image of the phrase - which translates as "we are all Charlie" in English - in sympathy with those killed. (Sky)
9 Aug 2013
"I Do Not Want to Die in Prison": Cancer-Stricken Lawyer Lynne Stewart Seeks Compassionate Release
Lawyers for imprisoned attorney Lynne Stewart head to federal court today to seek her release from prison. Now 73 years old, Stewart is dying from cancer in a Texas prison.
Last month, Stewart’s treating physician in prison estimated her life expectancy is approximately 18 months. This comes after the Federal Bureau of Prisons denied Stewart’s request for early release — a denial her lawyers are appealing and hope to address today in a hearing before her original sentencing judge, Judge John Koeltl. In 2010, Stewart was sentenced to 10 years in prison for passing messages from her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, to his followers in Egypt. In a letter to Judge Koeltl, Stewart wrote: "I do not intend to go 'gently into that good night' as Dylan Thomas wrote. There is much to be done in this world. I do know that I do not want to die here in prison — a strange and loveless place. I want to be where all is familiar — in a word, home. ...
25 Jun 2013
In the US complaining about water Quality Could be considered 'Act of Terrorism'
A representative for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation told a group of concerned citizens that complaining about water quality could be considered an “act of terrorism,” The Tennessean reports.
Sherwin Smith, deputy director of TDEC’s Division of Water Resources, made the claim during a meeting with residents of Maury County, Tennessee. Organized by State Rep. Sheila Butt, R-Columbia, the gathering sought to address complaints by residents that area water was making their children sick. In audio obtained by The Tennessean, Smith can be heard equating water quality complaints, an act of citizenry, with DHS-defined acts of terrorism:
We take water quality very seriously. Very, very seriously … But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there’s no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism.
23 Apr 2013
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s bedside court hearing
At the top of Monday night’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow described the remarkable scene that unfolded on Monday in the hospital room of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston bombing suspect. Federal Judge Marianne Bowler and attorneys converged at the 19-year-old’s bedside at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to read him his Miranda rights and advise him of his right to an attorney.
20 Apr 2013
Mother Of Boston Bombing Suspects Says FBI Was In Contact With Her Son For Years
Zubeidat K. Tsarnaeva, the Boston bombing suspect's mother, thinks this whole thing is a set up. Business Insider says: Tsarnaeva said that Tamerlan Tsarnaev got involved in "religious politics" five years ago, and that the FBI had previously contacted her about her son's activities.
She says: "He was controlled by the FBI, like for three, five years," she said. "They knew what my son was doing, they knew what actions and what sites on the Internet he was going [to], they used to come...and talk to me...they were telling me that he was really a serious leader and they were afraid of him. How could this happen?...They were controlling every step of him, and they are telling today that this is a terrorist attack," she added.
Further she says: "FBI, they were scared of my oldest son, they always told me that he's a leader...they are afraid of him because, you know, he is a leader, he talks about Islam a lot. They were talking to my son, and they called me officially and they told me that my son is an excellent boy and they have no problem with him," she added. "At the same time, they were telling me that...he is getting information on really extremists...sites, so they were very, very afraid of him. So that's why I think that this is a setup."
16 Apr 2013
Why police states love terrorism
Scenes from a very hard-to-find movie made in 1972: "State of Siege". It's a fictionalized account of a true story. Using an "aid" program as a cover, the CIA trained police officers throughout South America to fight "subversives" using of torture, assassination, and police-staged explosives to blame on terrorists.
Of course, they'd never do that in the US.
The Strategy of Tension
Project Gladio in Italy attempted to use domestic terrorism on a longstanding basis to maintain the political status quo. Seems to be a strategy also discussed in the report from Iron Mountain. The tactics beat down the public disfavor with the present government with fear of a ubiquitous, and nebulous threat so that the same masses ultimately seek protection from the government, and conform to the government's political order and agenda as a quid pro quo. Sometimes the far right is infiltrated and made a scape goat; other times a leftist patsy is apprehended and held in public display.
Brasscheck tv - Operation Gladio, The Hidden History of U.S. Sponsored False Flag Terrorism in Europe on Information Liberation
27 Feb 2013
US trains Terrorists
The Department of Energy has a National Security Site in Nevada, that is around sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas, has the look of northwest Iran with high plains and remote mountain peaks. The site was once used for nuclear testing and now includes a counterintelligence training facility. It is a restricted area, and inhospitable–sites security personal are authorized to use deadly force against any intruders.
Starting in 2005 the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) started conducting training for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K was once linked to the killing of six Americans and in 1997 was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. In 2002, the M.E.K earned some international credibility back by publicly revealing that Iran had begun enriching uranium at a secret location. After the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, the M.E.K’s ties with the Western intelligence deepened and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations.
15 Feb 2013
The Secret Orders of Cheney
In 2003, Former US Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta testified before the 9/11 Commission:
Mineta: "During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President...the plane is 50 miles out...the plane is 30 miles out....and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president "do the orders still stand?" And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said "Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!??"
Also see: Historic Court Case Against the BBC’s Cover Up of 9/11 Evidence on Global Research
11 Feb 2013
Former German Parliamentarian Exposes West’s Alliance with al-Qaeda
Jürgen Todenhöfer: “The Syrian rebels receive money and weapons predominantly from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Saudi Arabia is mainly supplying Al Qaeda, with the U.S.A. knowing about it. The West is providing political cover for the entire rebellion, including al-Qaeda. It is de facto an ally of al-Qaeda. In Mali against, in Syria for al-Qaeda—it can’t be more cynical.”
“Assad is a dictator. So is the King of Saudi Arabia and the Emir of Qatar. The U.S. and the despots of Saudi Arabia and Qatar don’t want to see democracy in Syria. Their objective is to knock out an important ally of Iran, which has become too powerful because of the Iraq War for them. That this goes along with one of the most amiable multi-ethnic peoples of the Arab world, does not interest our ‘world strategists.’ Nor does the fact that if the extremists win, 2 million Christians will lose their home.”
Significant responsibility for the epidemic spread of terrorism carry his sponsors in the Gulf. Without Saudi money could not survive Al Qaeda. But the West dares to this central problem of terrorism not approach. He argues that the Saudi royal family has with the terrorist mafia godfathers one pact. It be spared from attacks only as long as it does not disturb their circles. His reluctance to engage with the men behind the terror was therefore understandable. The West would be for understanding richly compensated by oil.
Phantom Report - Related Article: German Intelligence: “al-Qaeda” All Over Syria
19 Jan 2013
Five-Year-Old Girl Suspended For “Terroristic-threat”
In yet another hysterical over-reaction to last month’s Sandy Hook school shooting, a girl of five-years-old has been suspended from school following a three hour grilling when she joked that she would shoot her classmates with a toy gun.
The girl, from Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, was last week said to have told other children at the school that she was going to shoot them, and then herself with a pink Hello Kitty bubble gun; a toy that is filled with a soapy solution to make bubbles with.
School officials reportedly categorized the incident as a “terroristic threat,” and labeled the girl’s actions a “threat to harm others.”
23 Nov 2012
Israel's War on Truth
Abby Martin highlights the Israeli Military's bombing of media buildings and targeting of journalists, including the RT office in Gaza, and calls out the Israeli government to for making veiled threats to RT's headquarters in Moscow.
18 Sept 2012
State of siege
Scenes from a very hard-to-find movie made in 1972: "State of Siege". It's a fictionalized account of a true story.
Using an "aid" program as a cover, the CIA trained police officers throughout South America to fight "subversives" using of torture, assassination, and police-staged explosives to blame on terrorists.