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By Dr Ludwig Watzal

Israel, the USA, and Saudi Arabia are doing everything to lay the foundations for war against Iran. That is why Iran and its people must be demonized and dehumanized. The Israeli governments have been doing this since the Shah of Iran was overthrown by the Iranian people. In general, all Sunni Muslim countries get along very well with Iran, except the regime of Saudi Arabia and those Arab regimes that succumb to their financial pressure, which doesn’t surprise anybody because they collaborate closely with the Zionist regime such as Egypt.

In a flattering interview with the New York Times, the Saudi crown prince and future king, Mohammed bin Salman, called the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, the “new Hitler of the Middle East.”[1] And he continued with a skewed comparison, saying: “But we learned from Europe that appeasement doesn’t work. We don’t want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East.” The same rhetoric used Netanyahu when he agitated against the nuclear deal with Iran.

Besides the silliness of such comparisons, it’s an incredible insult to the highest Shiite authority by a Sunni Muslim, who is going to be the next “King of Saudi Arabia.” The Iranian clerical elite will never forgive and forget. They rebuked this insult elegantly saying: “No one in the world and the international arena gives credit to him because of his immature and weak-minded behavior and remarks.” As an old deep-rooted people, the Iranians gave bin Salman a good advice: “Now that he has decided to follow the path of famous regional dictators … he should think about their fate as well.”

This provocation by a regime that can only survive by the US American and Zionist sword and their financial tribute in the form of large weapon purchases and mercenary pay for terrorist fighters should have not future. But there is a sneaky plan behind bin Salman’s slander. It started with Donald Trump’s silly speech he delivered during his visit to Saudi Arabia in which he called Iran “the top state sponsor of terrorism.” And Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu called Iran “the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.” Both leaders cooperate very closely in deranging the nuclear deal signed under the Obama administration. Now, Mohammed bin Salman has thrown himself into the fray.

At least for the time being, President Trump is not jet willing, despite his anti-Iranian bias and rhetoric, to go to war with Iran for Israel’s and Saudi Arabia’s sake. To sacrifice American lives for two rogue regimes would be politically very unwise. That is why an image cultivation of the Saudi regime has already started in the United Kingdom and the US. In the case of Israel, the reporting in the US and the UK are one-sided and incredibly biased. Hence, the Saudis have to catch up.

The British Guardian and the leading newspaper of the US Empire, the New York Times,  have started to paint the new Saudi strongman, Mohammed bin Salman, as a kind of visionary reformer, although he has been spreading terror and blood since he took office. That Saudi Arabia has been fighting a brutal war against the people of Yemen, supports the different terror groups in Syria and stirs up tensions against Iran is silently skipped by Thomas L. Friedman from the NYT. Even bin Salman’s crackdown on large parts of the political and economic elite and his bloody purge against political opponents celebrate the NYT as a fight against “corruption.” Nobody should be surprised that the US and its major media outlets are embracing this brutal strongman because he serves US interests. Saddam Hussein was the best case in the point until he fell from US grace.

While the Guardian was full of praise of bin Salman during the year, the NYT reported more cautiously until Thomas L. Friedman took over. In a kind of press release, the Guardian was full of praise for the future Saudi King.  He did arrest not only 11 peopled but also sidelined 20 billionaires. That several people died in an organized helicopter crash was not worth reporting to the Guardian.

Friedman didn’t want to be in no way inferior to the Guardian’s uncritical reporting. He even topped it writing: “The most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia.”  All the other Arab Spring movements failed miserably happening from bottom up; the Saudi one is led from the top down by bin Salman. That the Crown Prince wants to reform a degenerated Saudi version of Islam seems worth reporting. Time will tell. Reading all these articles, one can ask who paid for these base flatteries.

Why didn’t Friedman ask bin Salman about his 500 million US-Dollars worth yacht? Or the cost of the last vacation in Morocco, where he and his father’s royal household spent 950 million US-Dollars. So much to combat corruption, Mr. Friedman.

Bin Salman also maintains an unconventional and rough diplomatic contact with other heads of states when they are on a Saudi drip-feed. When Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri visited Saudi Arabia, he was forced to announce his resignation via Saudi TV. Apparently he feared for his life. For a few days, he stood under house arrest. Due to the speech of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the whole Lebanese leadership rallied behind Nasrallah and called for Hariri’s return to announce either his resignation or to stay in office. The President of France, Manuel Macron, also intervened on behalf of Hariri. Finally, Hariri could leave Saudi Arabia via France from where he returned to Lebanon to celebrate the country’s independence day. Bin Salman’s farce failed miserably. Almost the same happened to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Saudis ordered him to Riyadh and presented him an outline of the American Israeli “peace plan.” After returning to Ramallah, Abbas rejected the US Zionist document of surrender.

It’s an open secret that the Saudi and the Zionist regime are cultivating intensive diplomatic contacts not only on security issues. A rare interview by the head of Israel’s armed forces to a Saudi owned news outlet fueling talks of close links. Despite the denial of the Saudi foreign minister Adel el-Jubeir, these rumors won’t disappear. “There are no relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel,” Jubeir said. Formally, he seems correct, but what about the informal contacts. Hasn’t Mohammed bin Salman visited Israel in camera?

According to Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Israel enjoys “warm relations” with many Arab countries despite the fact that these nations officially refuse to recognize Israel diplomatically. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been boosting for quite some time about the close contact with several Arab countries.

The Israeli Saudi US American alliance aims at Iran. They want to push back Iran’s influence in Iraq and Syria. For the time being, bin Salman’s plan to sell Israel to war against Lebanon to crush Hezbollah has failed. Hariri was not the Saudi stooge bin Salman thought. What these three rogue states have in common is the destruction of Iran like they did with Iraq, Syria or Libya. Netanyahu has warned President Bashar al-Assad not to allow Iran to build military bases in Syria. Israel will never accept it as they will never tolerate a nuclear Iran, so Netanyahu.

It remains to be seen whether the new “Axis of Evil” or the Russian Iranian Turkish alliance will prevail in the Middle East. So far, the Zionist US American and Saudi cooperation have brought devastation to the region; it’s time Russia and the other rational actors bring stability back to the area.

Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as a journalist and editor in Bonn , Germany . He runs the bilingual blog between the lines. http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-arab-spring.html

29 November 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/29/does-the-israeli-saudi-alliance-plans-a-war-against-iran/

By George Capaccio

”I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled …”

—Jonathan Swift, 1729 (from “A Modest Proposal”)

I am writing this on Thanksgiving eve. Tomorrow, like so many other fellow Americans, I will be passing the mashed potatoes and gravy, calling for more cranberry sauce, and once again feeling pangs of conscience as the turkey platter comes my way and I imagine industrial-scale factories where millions of farm-raised turkeys are slaughtered and otherwise prepared for consumption.In Plymouth, hundreds will gather for a Day of Mourning in recognition of the suffering Native Americans have endured since Europeans first began their conquest of indigenous lands over 500 years ago.

It will be a day of mourning for me as well. For that matter, every day lately has become a day of mourning as I reflect upon my country’s role in the starvation and slaughter of the people of Yemen. Through its open-ended support of Saudi Arabia’s illegal war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the U.S. is complicit in what has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The statistics are appalling: At least 10,000 Yemenis have been killed, the majority of whom are innocent civilians; millions have been displaced; and, according to UN reports, “some 7 million people in Yemen are now on the verge of starvation. Yemen is also in the throes of a cholera epidemic that has infected more than 900,000 people.”

Cholera is an infectious disease that occurs when a person ingests food or water contaminated with a particular type of bacterium. Typically, feces from an infected person are the source of contamination. In Yemen, Saudi planes have deliberately targeted the country’s water- and sewage-treatment plants, and its electrical infrastructure. Result: People are consuming untreated food and water and becoming ill. Cholera causes severe diarrhea, which in turn can lead to dehydration. If not remedied in time, dehydration will lead to shock and death in just a few hours.

The International Committee of the Red Cross predicts that a million people will become victims of the cholera epidemic by the end of this year. Disease and starvation are weapons of choice Saudi Arabia and its partners in crime are deploying against their enemies in Yemen, whom they regard as proxies of their major regional foe—Iran. To prevent the spread of Shia Islam in its own backyard, the Sunni regime of Saudi Arabia  is waging total war on the people of Yemen, now suffering from severe, life-threatening shortages of food and medicine.

These shortages are not the results of an earthquake or other natural disaster. They are the intended consequences of the bombing and shelling of Yemen’s civilian infrastructure by Saudi Arabia, and its imposition of a nearly total air, sea, and land blockade that has made an estimated 70% of Yemen’s population dependent on imported food and other forms of humanitarian aid, which the blockade has severely restricted—with the consent and active participation of the most indispensable nation on the face of the planet—the United States. We can thank Saint Obama for getting the ball rolling when his Administration authorized the shipment of more than $100 billion worth of weapons to the Saudi military, a largess that Trump has continued in the form of an additional $110 billion in weapons sales to the most despotic regime in the Middle East and the heart and soul of Wahhabism, a perversion of Islam that has brought nothing but suffering to the people of the region.

Our role in the crisis is not limited to the provision of high-tech weapons and munitions; the military has been waist-deep in the Big Muddy of turning Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, into a nation of widows and orphans. As former Green Party vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka rightly points out:

This is a war that could not then or today have been launched and executed without direct support from the U.S. military. The United States provided critical support in the form of intelligence sharing and targeting, air-to-air refueling, logistics support, participation in the naval blockade, and billions of dollars in weapons sales.

So let us bow our heads and give thanks for America’s continuation of the war of conquest that began five centuries ago and has evolved into the imperium’s onslaught against the poor and defenseless elsewhere in the world and its ruthless drive for hegemony, even when this means supporting the likes of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and other heartless rulers as long as our interests and theirs are closely aligned.

It’s an old story. Not that long ago, the U.S. and Iraq were bedfellows until Saddam Hussein broke the rules and had to be “taken out.” I wager the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is well-acquainted with the story of Saddam’s rise and fall, and the means by which the U.S. brought Iraq to its knees. In the first Persian Gulf War (1991), the U.S. military targeted Iraq’s civilian infrastructure, including water- and sewage-treatment plants, and the electrical system. And for over a decade, successive U.S. Administrations maintained a comprehensive embargo, allowing in only a trickle of humanitarian supplies. What we’re seeing in Yemen in year three of the war with Saudi Arabia is not that far a cry from what the Iraqi people endured under sanctions, imposed by the UN but enforced by the U.S. and UK. Severe malnutrition, the rise of communicable, water-borne diseases, and high rates of infant and maternal mortality were all directly related to the near-total destruction of Iraq’s civilians infrastructure and the continuation of a sanctions regime which prevented Iraq from importing necessary spare parts, restoring its electrical system to full capacity, and keeping the water-treatment plants running. Thanks largely to the role of the U.S. in making the Iraqi people pay for their leader’s intransigence, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings, mostly the old, the young, and the poor, died.

According to Save the Children, disease and starvation—the poison fruits of the war between Yemen and Saudi Arabia—could very well claim the lives of more than 50,000 Yemini children by the end of the year. Right now, the Saudi-imposed and U.S.-condoned blockadeis killingan estimated 130 Yemeni children each and every day. One thing you can say for sure about the U.S. is that no matter which party is in power, geopolitical interests and objectives will almost always trump the need for compassion and humanity. I am thankful that Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy had the courage to stand up on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, November 14 to denounce U.S. support for the war in Yemen and to hold up photos of starving Yemeni children as graphic evidence of the suffering our support has enabled. And I am also thankful that the day before Senator Murphy’s address, “the House of Representatives voted 366-30 in favor of a non-binding resolution that said the U.S. role in the war had not been authorized by Congress.”

It will take much more than a non-binding resolution and a Senator’s act of conscience to stop the bloodshed in Yemen and bring an end to the war. I mourn for the victims of this war and when I sit down with friends on Thanksgiving day, I will think of the children in Yemen and in other parts of the world where there is not enough food or no food at all not because of drought or other natural causes, but because of the inhumanity that passes for leadership and the policies that come from men and women whose own hearts must have broken long ago, and who cannot feel the pain of their brothers and sisters, and take no responsibility for putting an end, once and for all, to this suffering.

I will be thankful that my wife and I have created a lasting marriage in which we honor and support each other’s choices, and I will be thankful for the friends with whom I will share the Thanksgiving meal, and for the many fine and courageous individuals in every part of the world who are doing everything in their power to build a truly revolutionary new world order founded upon the principles of justice and equality; men and women struggling to preserve and enhance the beauty of our all-too fragile planet and safeguard its riches for generations to come, and to oppose all those who would trample this beauty to death in the name of maximizing profits and controlling the lion’s share of Earth’s natural resources.

If Jonathan Swift were alive today, I can well imagine him considering the tragedy that is unfolding in Yemen. I don’t doubt for a moment that he would mourn the dying of so many innocents. Perhaps his satirical gifts would inspire him to pen another “modest proposal,” this time in response to the sight of so many starving, emaciated children. He would understand that their suffering and the suffering of their families are not accidental but rather the consequences of political stratagems in which the safety, health, and well-being of ordinary people have little or no value. He might also determine that the root cause of the conflict is Saudi Arabia’s fear and hatred of Shia Islam and its most powerful advocate—Iran. The solution to this conflict, therefore, would be to completely block the transmission of this religious doctrine and practice to the Kingdom and its neighboring countries, or so Swift might conclude.

To that end, I can well imagine him proposing the creation of the world’s largest mosque—a structure that would encompass the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Construction would begin with the building of a wall around the country. While the wall is being built, a selection of the finest artists in the Arab world would design the qubba, or dome, large enough to sit comfortably on top of all sides of the wall. Skylights cut into the dome would allow ample sunlight into the Kingdom, and a massive air conditioning system would keep Saudi Arabia’s temperature at a moderate 75° Fahrenheit, or 24° Celsius.

Using its vast wealth, the Royal Family could afford to provide each of its citizens with a lifetime of financial support under one condition—that they would never question the authority of their rulers or conspire to foment revolution. With the Saudi version of Sunni Islam under lock and key, so to speak, the Kingdom would have no reason for waging war against its neighbors. The very idea would eventually be seen as ludicrous, irrational, unnecessary. To control the population of Shia Muslims and other minority groups living within the Kingdom, the offspring of these groups could be easily converted into kebab for the Royal Family, and its vast network of sycophants and tribal members.

Best of all, to keep the people happy and carefree, in addition to providing an indestructible, lifelong safety net, the Kingdom could install the latest laser technology to turn the country’s vast deserts into an awe-inspiring mirage of ocean vistas. The oceans, of course, would be hologram projections, as true to life as possible, complete with frolicking dolphins, breaching whales, boats under sail, and so forth.

With the entire country transformed into one vast prayer hall, all of human life, from its most humdrum tasks to its highest pursuits, would be an exercise in devotion. If they were so inclined, the Royal Family might also purchase naming rights from the Disney corporation and call their land the Magic Kingdom by the Sea (the Red Sea, actually). Tourists from all over the globe would flock to Saudi Arabia, thus generating an income stream equal to what it derives from its oil wealth. It’s quite likely that the country would be designated as one of the new Wonders of the World.

Granted, what Jonathan Swift might propose, were he alive today, does sound “over the top.” Personally, I would propose at the very least a moratorium on all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and its allies, an unconditional end to the blockade, a major relief effort bringing in tons of life-saving supplies, and an independent investigation into war crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition, its supporters—the U.S. and UK—and Houthi forces. And I would ask my fellow Americans to consider the plight of the people of Yemen, particularly the children, and do whatever is in their power to bring this tragedy to an end, starting perhaps with the use of social media or direct conversations with friends, co-workers, family members—informing them about the nature of this war and reminding them (gently, of course) that, as citizens of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful enabler, we have a responsibility to speak out against the violence, stand in solidarity with the victims of this violence, and advocate for Congressional action on behalf of the Yemeni people.

George Capaccio is a writer and activist living in Arlington, MA. During the years of U.S.- and UK-enforced sanctions against Iraq, he traveled there numerous times, bringing in banned items, befriending families in Baghdad, and deepening his understanding of how the sanctions were impacting civilians. His email is Capaccio.G@gmail.comHe welcomes comments and invites readers to visit his website: www.georgecapaccio.com

24 November 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/24/a-less-than-modest-proposal-to-end-the-war-in-yemen/

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his Iranian and Turkish counterparts have supported a proposal to hold a “Syrian people’s congress” that will bring together government and opposition figures.

The Russian President on Wednesday (Nov 22) hosted Hassan Rouhani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, just as some Syrian opposition groups met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, before United Nations-sponsored talks in Geneva.

“The congress will look at the key questions on Syria’s national agenda,” Putin told reporters at the summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, sitting alongside Rouhani and Erdogan.

“First of all, that is the drawing-up of a framework for the future structure of the state, the adoption of a new constitution, and, on the basis of that, the holding of elections under United Nations supervision.”

The congress is expected to also take place in Sochi before the next round of Geneva talks on November 28. However, no details about the exact date or who will be invited to attend were released.

In a joint statement, the three leaders underlined the need for all warring sides to release all prisoners and hostages, hand over bodies and create the conditions for a lasting truce.

They also urged the international community to provide humanitarian aid, clear Syrian territory of mines and restore infrastructure wrecked by the long-running conflict.

Now in its seventh year, the war in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than 12 million.

Syrian opposition in Riyadh says Assad has to go

Syrian opposition groups meeting in Saudi Arabia have renewed their demand for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad in a draft resolution obtained by Al Jazeera.

The groups said that a solution to the war in Syria can only be achieved with the departure of Assad at the start of the transitional period – a position held by the Syrian opposition since the start of the war, now in its seventh year.

“The participants agreed that the goal of the political settlement is to establish a state based on the principle of citizenship, which enables the Syrians to draft their constitution without interference and to choose their leaders through free, fair and transparent elections in which the Syrians participate inside and outside Syria under the supervision of the United Nations,” the draft resolution reads.

The communique stipulates that a transitional governing body “could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent”, but does not make any specific mention as to who exactly from the current government should stay on.

The ‘slow-motion slaughter’ of Syrian civilians

As the Syrian conflict entered its seventh year, about one million children have been orphaned by the war in Syria which is in its sixth year, according to an Aljazeera report.

More than 465,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, more than a million injured and over 12 million Syrians – half the country’s prewar population – have been displaced from their homes.

With much of Syria in ruins millions of Syrians have fled abroad. The Syrian refugee crisis remains one of the largest humanitarian crises since the end of World War II. The number of refugees who have fled the country now exceeds five million, including more than 2.4 million children, and millions more have been displaced internally, according to the United Nations.

The Syrian war is creating profound effects far beyond the country’s borders. Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan are now housing large and growing numbers of Syrian refugees, many of whom have attempted to journey onwards to Europe in search of better conditions.

There are 5.3 million refugees in the Middle East which includes 2 million Syrians registered by UNHCR in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, 3 million Syrians registered by the Government of Turkey, as well as more than 30,000 Syrian refugees registered in North Africa.
There are around one million Syrian refugees in 37 European countries.

24 November 2017

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/24/iran-russia-and-turkey-agree-to-hold-syrian-peoples-congress-to-bring-together-all-warring-sides/

By Gerald A. Perreira

The world we find ourselves in is complex and full of contradictions. It is easy to fall for rudimentary textbook propaganda based on simplistic dichotomies, such as ‘the good guys versus the bad guys’. If we are not aware of the complexities and nuances facing us, we can fall for this type of propaganda, whose sole aim is to keep us apart and destroy any type of unity that could strengthen our ability to defeat the enemy.

When examining and assessing the latest information fed us by one of imperialism’s mouthpieces, CNN, there are important things for us, as revolutionary Pan-Africanists, to keep in mind. The first thing to note is the clear hypocrisy and insincerity which is nowhere more stark than CNN’s recent expose of “Libyan crimes against humanity” and French President, Emmanuel Macron’s  call for a special meeting of the UN Security Council to demand immediate action against this heinous “Libyan” crime.

I know this much for sure, as an African revolutionary I do not look to the devil for the truth. I know that the devil does not lie some of the time; he lies and deceives all of the time. In whatever form the devil manifests himself, I do not deal with him. He can come in the guise of the imperialists and White Supremacists themselves, or their mouthpieces such as CNN, BBC, Fox News or any of the mainstream corporate media outlets. We should never forget their role as cheerleaders and purveyors of the fake news that laid the groundwork for the invasion and destruction of the Libyan Jamahiriya. Therefore, let us ask ourselves the burning question, why are they providing us with this information, and why now? Why are the imperialists suddenly feigning concern for the plight of Africans?

In my first article on the invasion of Libya, published March 2nd, 2011, titled, Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective, I said that “the conflict in Libya is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution. The struggle is fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi’s vision of a united Africa, and reactionary, racist Libyan Arab forces who reject Qaddafi’s vision of Libya as part of a united Africa.”

Events have proved this analysis correct. Muammar Qaddafi and the Revolutionary Committees Movement of the Al Fateh Revolution had a monumental task on their hands: to conscientize and reposition the Libyan people for a significant role in the revolutionary Pan-African project for a United States of Africa. This is a battle for all African revolutionaries. In Sub-Saharan African countries, where almost the entire population comprises Black Africans, we face the same battle. Here in the Caribbean, it is no different. So, when Qaddafi urged his people to look towards a United States of Africa and a revolutionary Pan-African perspective, he had to face Libyans who rejected this program in favor of Libya and the entire North African region joining the Barcelona Project, a Mediterranean-European alliance, whose aim is to take North Africa out of Africa.

Prejudice against dark-skinned Africans exists all over planet earth. Even in countries where the population is almost 100% Black African, we have to contend with ‘shadism’, a hangover from colonialism and plantation culture, where Africans with lighter skin shades are held in higher esteem than Africans with darker skin shades. However, to say that “Arab Libyans” are selling “Africans” is overly simplistic and deliberately misleading. There is a hidden agenda here – beware. The objective is to ignite hostilities between so-called Arab-Africans and so-called Sub-Saharan-Africans.  There is a debate amongst Africans about who is an African. On the one hand, there are those who limit the definition of African to Black Africans in the Sub-Saharan region of the continent. On the other hand, there are those of us who believe that Africa is one, and we will resist any attempt by the imperialists to redefine and further balkanize Africa. Rather than becoming part of the European Community, North Africans promoting the Barcelona Project would be better off seeking out their African roots. This is what Muammar Qaddafi told all Libyans.

Those who today call themselves “Arabs” have a historical, ancestral and moral duty to recognize their Africanity. Those “Arabs” who live in countries on the African continent and those who live in the region outside of the continent, need to explore and reexamine their history.  The region they inhabit, erroneously named “Middle-East” and “Levant” by the European colonizers cannot be divorced from Africa. I agree with Islamic theologian and historian, Dr. Wesley Muhammad, that the area known as “Middle-East” or “Levant” is more aptly named ‘Afrabia’.

Anyone interested in more information on this and the Aryanization of Christianity and Islam, should refer to the brilliant works of Dr. Wesley Muhammad, especially his book ‘Black Arabia and the African Origins of Islam’.

The North Atlantic Tribes Organization (NATO) deeply fear this type of awakening and the unity of purpose and action it could lead to in this oil rich and wealthiest region of the world.
Minister Farrakhan said many years ago, reflecting on periods of unity in our history, “we did it before and we can do it again”. Muammar Qaddafi persistent struggle to forge a United States of Africa was starting to pay off. He was on the verge of creating an African currency that would have shifted the global economic imbalance, preparing the way for Africa to take its rightful place in the world. Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Ivory Coast, was openly supporting Qaddafi with this radical move. Gbagbo believed that those who were serious should declare a United States of Africa and the others could follow. Fear of this emerging African unity, especially between countries in the north and south of the continent, prompted France to orchestrate Gbagbo’s removal from power at the same time as the NATO led invasion of Libya. Genuine African unity, resulting in anything more than talk, will always be opposed, no matter what the cost, by the forces of White Supremacy.

As we now know, even those Libyans who opposed Qaddafi’s drive for a United States of Africa, did not support the overthrow of the Jamahiriya. It is a well-substantiated fact that the rag-tag and opportunistic conglomerate of reactionaries, including monarchists, Arab supremacists and al-Qaeda linked Islamists, such as those from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, constituted an insignificant minority. The Libyan Revolutionary Armed Forces could have easily contained these retrograde forces, if NATO had not bombed them into power. Without the backing of France, the US, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and their satellites, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, the so-called Libyan rebels amounted to nothing when confronted with the overwhelming support of the majority of Libyans for Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh Revolution. This revolution brought dignity, stability, prosperity and liberation from foreign domination to all Libyans, from the fairest to the darkest in complexion. One thing you knew as soon as you stepped off the plane at Tripoli Airport was that the Libyans – all Libyans – were in control of their country! It was people power, seemingly chaotic and misunderstood by outsiders, but a truly participatory democracy to those who lived it and experienced it. The majority of Libyans were aware of this and supported Al Fateh.

Knowing who the so-called rebels truly are, it came as no surprise to me, that in addition to the long list of crimes against humanity attributed to these scoundrels, they would auction Black Africans as slave labor.

Following the heroic battle of Sirte, back in December 2011, in an article titled, “Demons Unleashed in Libya: NATO’s Islamists Continue Program of Ethnic and Ideological Cleansing”, I wrote about the horror that was taking place. A horror that was instigated by the Anglo-Franco-American Imperialists, under the watchful eye of the UN – all of whom are now shedding crocodile tears over the sale of African migrants in Libya. In that article, I wrote about the   “complete whiteout by the corporate media regarding all news from Libya”. I stated that, “Even the United Nations, an architect of the nation’s destruction, says 7,000 prisoners are held without trial or charge, most of them Black, many of them tortured. Any known Qaddafi loyalists who have not been able to get out of Libya have to stay underground. Death squads scour the land. Truckloads of bodies are being carted away, as the now feuding armed gangs, each with their own command structure, and none adhering to anything the Western installed NTC says, introduces the only policy they ever had – exterminate Qaddafi and all those loyal to him.”

These are NATO’s thugs.

I went on to note that, “In addition to loyalty to the Leader, and defense of their country against foreign invaders, having black skin and asserting one’s Africanity has become a crime in the new Libya. Ethnic cleansing is continuing unabated. Every day Black Africans from Libya and other parts of Africa are hunted down. Thousands have been brutally tortured and executed. Rape of Black women is a favored weapon of NATO’s Islamists. Many of the female bodies found show signs of rape, beatings and torture. Large numbers of Black Africans make up the ranks of the Green Resistance.”

I quoted one Tripoli resident as saying:

“Everyone is terrified of the NTC and their armed gangs. We have seen with our own eyes what they are capable of – they are animals. All around us people are being rounded up and imprisoned. We have no way of knowing how many have been murdered. Anyone who is associated with Qaddafi or suspected of loyalty to him is at risk. Even people who have worked for people who are known supporters of the leader have been rounded up and tortured. I personally know of many persons who were just working for people associated with the leader who have been taken away and never seen again. If you are black you are an immediate suspect – these rebels call black Libyans “abd” means slave and they are rounding them up just because they are black – it is making me sick and ashamed.”

“…What these rebels have done to their own people is disgusting – some of the acts of torture I can’t even speak about. There has been a lot of rape. I wept when I learned of what these animals did to the leader’s female bodyguards – they are not human and that is why there is so much fear. Any known Qaddafi loyalists who have not been able to get out of Libya have to stay underground. Libyans are afraid to talk to other Libyans – anyone could be an informer. It feels like the last days are upon us – Libya has been turned into a living hell.”

The imperialist media, including CNN was completely silent regarding all of these crimes against humanity, despite the fact that genocide in the form of an ethnic and ideological cleansing pogrom was unfolding right before our eyes. There was no outcry from the UN or the North Atlantic Tribes. No time or motive for outcry – having shared the spoils, these callous warlords had already moved on to their next victim – Syria.

So why now?

Could it be that the Green Resistance is gaining ground? Could it be that although they killed Qaddafi and buried him in an unmarked grave (they know why), his dangerous (for them) ideas are better known now than before?  Could it be that Muammar Qaddafi’s vision for a United States of Africa could once again re-surface?

Prior to the overthrow of the Jamahiriya, thousands of Africans travelled to Libya to work, and they prospered. Employment opportunities existed across a range of occupations, including teachers, librarians, nurses, hotel workers, chefs, mechanics, electricians, construction workers and unskilled laborers. They were able to send money home to their families. African businesses and companies also traded extensively in Libya. There was zero tolerance in the Jamahiriya for the mistreatment of Libyan or migrant workers or anyone for that matter. I know of many foreigners who received favorable judgements in employment disputes.

The destruction of this most prosperous and  just African country was led by France, who now dares to call for a special meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the crimes committed against African migrants “by Libyans”. This is devil-speak. The same devil who, in the words of the Honorable Minister Farrakhan, “unleashed the demons” that are now committing these and other heinous crimes, is trying to sow more discord by talking about “Libyan crimes”. Where was CNN and the French government when these same gangs of demons were committing the atrocities described above?

We have known since the first day of NATO’s invasion that this was perhaps one of the most racist and atrocious crimes of the 21st century. The question that we must ask ourselves is why CNN, the French government and others who led the charge in 2011, are all of a sudden concerned about the plight of Africans in Libya. Minister Farrakhan calls it “deceptive intelligence”, and warns us that, “every time the serpent raises its head it should be de-capitated”.

Let us resist this crude attempt to divide and ruin us yet again. Let us not be distracted and misled by imperialist propaganda. Let us make sure that our enemies do not set our agenda, causing us to react to their devious attempts to pit us against each other. Let us set our own agenda for our second liberation. Crimes against Black Africans and Qaddafi loyalists, of every complexion, began in Libya in 2011, and continue to this day, unabated.  Thousands languish in detention centers, Libyans of every complexion and migrants from all over Africa. Those carrying out these crimes on the ground are the foot soldiers and thugs of the criminal masterminds of the hell that is now Libya. Arrest warrants should be issued immediately for Nicolas Sarkozy, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, David Cameron, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Emir Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani to name but a few.

I end with a message to “All our Brothers and Sisters in Africa and the Diaspora” from long time Revolutionary Committee Movement member, Dr. Salem Zubeidy:

“This letter is addressed to our brothers, officials, and residents of the sub-Saharan African countries, who are characterized by dark features….

There have been many reactions and statements by African leaders, politicians, organizations and institutions following an investigation published by CNN that there are markets for the selling of Africans of dark skin in Libya …

No one stopped to question the validity of this report, and where is the market? When did this happen? Where do the (alleged) slaves go?

Then, no one asked how the channel got to the supposed market, and how was it able to video the “auction”? What is the purpose of the American channel to broadcast such a program that distorts an entire people, and accuses them of committing a heinous crime that is not accepted by a reasonable mind and not approved by any logic?

We can find explanations and justifications for a US channel harboring suspicious purposes in fueling separation and instigating seditions.

As an answer to the voices and forces that see in this an opportunity to falsify the facts, and play down the Libyan people’s accomplishments, side by side with their African brothers and sisters in the golden times of the al-Fateh Revolution, it behooves us to clarify some points:

1. Libya, which you know has been hijacked since the Fall of 2011, and its capabilities are being controlled by criminal gangs that had been enabled by means of the Western war machine of NATO, after destroying the foundations of the state.

2. Libya was the Bureau of the liberation movements, which trained, armed and equipped thousands of young people in the southern regions of Africa, Rhodesia, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola, and enabled them to return with their full military gear, with Libyan advisers, to fight the battles of liberation.

3. Libya offered total support to the struggle of Cabral in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde and dispatched Libyan officers as volunteers to fight alongside him, some of whom are still living witnesses amongst us.

4. Libya presented absolute support for revolutionary and progressive regimes in African countries seeking liberation from imperialism and neo-colonialism in the Congo, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Chad, and others.

5. Libya alone has resisted the Barcelona process, which had as an objective the separation of the light-skinned in the north of the continent linking them with the Mediterranean in the so-called “Mediterranean Organization” and established the CEN-SAD in response to the Barcelona process, to prove the unity of the continent.

6. Libya fought the battle for the unification of the continent and the affirmation of its freedom, identity, and dignity through pressing for the establishment of the African Union.

7. Libya embraced African political opposition movements, supporting their programs and bringing many of their leaders to power.

8. Libya represented the ongoing battle for peace, development, and construction. It convened dozens of meetings, organized dozens of mediation affairs and reconciliations. It also invested huge sums in important projects in most countries of the continent …

We can go on in more detail, but we just want to tell you and the world that your Libyan brothers and sisters cannot accept to disassociate themselves from their continent, no matter how the enemies of Africa try.”

A full statement from Libyan People’s National Movement (LPNM) can be found at:

Libyan People’s National Movement Statement About Media Coverage of the Slave Trade in Libya

25 November 2017

Gerald A. Perreira is chairperson of the Guyanese organizations Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG) and Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP), International Secretary for ARM (African Revolutionary Movement) and executive member of the Caribbean Chapter of the Network for Defense of Humanity. He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Al Fatah Revolution, and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Libya. He can be reached at mojadi94@gmail.com.

By rt.com
Washington is militarizing the Asia-Pacific, “pumping” weapons and kit into Japan and South Korea in an “absolutely disproportionate” response to the North Korean threat, the Russian Foreign Minister said. Tokyo won’t be calling the shots, he warned.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, was speaking to reporters after hosting his Japanese counterpart, Taro Kono, on Friday in Moscow. The top diplomat said Moscow deems unacceptable “attempts to pump armaments and military equipment into the [Asian] region, and to militarize it citing the North Korean nuclear threat.”

“We believe measures taken by the US and its allies in the region are absolutely disproportionate to what is required,” Lavrov added. Russia has voiced deep concern over the fact that “either Japan or South Korea is becoming a territory hosting the US global missile defense system being deployed in the region under the guise of [responding to] North Korean threat.”

He said that a similar American ballistic missile shield is being deployed in Europe, with Washington claiming it is to protect the continent from Iran’s missiles. “If you look at the map,” Lavrov stated, “you will see this US missile defense system is miraculously surrounding Russia and China.”

Disagreeing with a remark by Foreign Minister Kono, who said the US-built missile defense shield will not damage Russia-Japan ties, Lavrov said: “As we know the Americans, we quite seriously doubt they would agree to hand control over some element of this global missile defense system to someone else.”

He reiterated that Aegis Ashore system – parts of which recently went online in Romania, with more under construction in Poland – can also be equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles – the kind of weapon whose land-based variants are prohibited under the 1987 US-Russia Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Moscow does not welcome Pyongyang’s “missile and nuclear ventures that blatantly violate a UN Security Council resolution”, Lavrov told his Japanese counterpart. In the meantime, Russia as well as China “insist that other parts of the resolution, particularly the ones that call for revival of talks [with North Korea], should also be implemented.”

READ MORE: US Navy aircraft with 11 on board crashes into ocean southeast of Okinawa

The meeting comes at a time of heightened tensions in the Korean peninsula. Over the past months, Washington has been signaling that it was considering military actions against North Korea, but stopped short of delivering verbal threats. However, the US and its regional allies Japan and South Korea stepped up military exercises involving long-range bombers, carrier strike groups and amphibious forces.

In November, three US carrier strike groups held tri-carrier, multinational drills off the Korean coast in the latest show of force in the region. The USS ‘Ronald Reagan’, USS ‘Nimitz’ and USS ‘Theodore Roosevelt’ were joined by Japan’s ‘Ise’, ‘Inazuma’ and ‘Makinami’ warships, as well as close to a dozen South Korean ships. North Korea furiously condemned the maneuvers, which also involved US B-1 strategic bombers.

Next month, the US and South Korea’s militaries will be carrying out Vigilant Ace wargames, featuring six F-22 Raptor and four F-35A Lightning American stealth jets, as well as thousands of troops.

24 November 2017

Source: https://www.rt.com/news/410874-us-japan-militarization-asia/

By Simon Adams

Last Wednesday an international court found Ratko Mladić, the notorious “butcher of Bosnia,” guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. As Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, Mladić’s troops forced thousands of civilians to flee from “ethnic cleansing” – a cruel euphemism that will forever be associated with the wars in the former Yugoslavia. At the time Mladić appeared all-powerful and untouchable, presiding over the genocide at Srebrenica and wantonly committing war crimes. He will now die in prison.

It took decades for international justice to catch up with Mladić. And while the verdict is a welcome warning to other perpetrators, it also poses the uncomfortable question of whether the international community is doing enough to hold those responsible for atrocities today accountable for their crimes?

Last month, at a meeting held at the United Nations in New York, I argued that “democracy in Myanmar cannot be built on the bones of the Rohingya.” Sitting between the former Foreign Minister of Bangladesh and the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, those were my concluding remarks regarding the quickest and most brutal episode of ethnic cleansing of our times. They were made to a room crowded with diplomats, UN bureaucrats and human rights activists who were gathered because since 25 August more than 622,000 Rohingya have crossed the border from Myanmar (Burma) into Bangladesh.

The Rohingya are fleeing so-called “clearance operations” carried out by the Myanmar military in Rakhine State, including widespread killings, rape, and the burning of more than 280 villages. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has described these attacks as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

The Rohingya, a distinct Muslim ethnic group in an overwhelmingly Buddhist country, have been persecuted for generations. Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law does not recognize the estimated 1 million Rohingya as one of the country’s “national races,” rendering them stateless. Other discriminatory laws restrict their freedom of movement and access to employment and education. In short, the conditions under which the Rohingya minority live in Myanmar constitute a uniquely Southeast Asian form of apartheid.

The military’s operations began as collective punishment for a coordinated attack on police and army barracks by Rohingya militants armed mainly with knives. One week later, the Commander of Myanmar’s military, General Min Aung Hlaing, described the “Bengali problem” (he refuses to use the term Rohingya) as an “unfinished job” that previous governments had failed to complete. Atrocities committed against the Rohingya population since then constitute crimes against humanity under international law. They may ultimately prove to be genocidal in intent.

The response of the UN Security Council has been tepid at best. It took ten weeks for the Council just to issue a Presidential statement condemning the atrocities. The reason for the delay is that China is a powerful ally of the Generals who still dominate Myanmar. China is also Myanmar’s largest supplier of arms. But facing global outrage, China eventually agreed to a unanimous Presidential statement rather than a legally-binding resolution. Words, but no action.

Despite the Security Council’s inertia, the flow of Rohingya refugees has ebbed. This is not because atrocities were halted, but because Myanmar’s military has largely finished its job. Possibly as much as 80% of the Rohingya population have fled. And no one knows how many more are dead or displaced inside Myanmar. Unfinished business, indeed.

My comment at the UN regarding the bones of the Rohingya was a response to those who see these atrocities as unconscionable, but ultimately, as a lesser priority than the political preservation of Myanmar’s frail democracy under Aung San Suu Kyi. The greatest threat to Myanmar’s democracy today, however, is the impunity of its Generals. What kind of a country will Myanmar be if they are allowed to successfully impose their scorched earth policy on Rakhine State? They will certainly have no incentive to respect the human rights of the other 135 ethnic groups who live within Myanmar’s borders.

But there is an alternative. First, the international community should suspend all bilateral ties with Myanmar’s military. All senior officers with command responsibility for ethnic cleansing should also face targeted sanctions. And all international trade, aid and investment programs in Rakhine State should be scrupulously reviewed. The local authorities and the Myanmar military must not be allowed to profit from the seizure of Rohingya crops, livestock and land.

The United States, Canada, European Union and others have already imposed some of these measures, but all UN member states should do so.

Secondly, influential international friends of Aung San Suu Kyi need to continue to lobby her to implement the recommendations of the Rakhine Commission. Led by Kofi Annan, the Commission has offered practical suggestions to end the persecution of the Rohingya and ease conflict in Rakhine. Not by coincidence, its final report was released on 24 August, the day before the current conflagration began. Expeditiously implementing the Commission’s recommendations would weaken those inside Myanmar’s military who still prefer to conduct domestic policy with bayonets and bullets.

Finally, we need to recognize that the international community has utterly failed the Rohingya. Despite years of warnings about the risk of mass atrocities, including by my own organization, a number of governments took refuge in the idea that quiet diplomacy – including acquiescing to Myanmar’s insistence on not publicly mentioning the Rohingya – would create space for gentle reform. Instead it had the reverse affect, encouraging those generals who desired a final solution in Rakhine State and wanted to test the limits of Aung San Suu Kyi’s moral authority.

Unlike Ratko Mladić’s victims, Rohingya refugees should not have to wait two decades for justice. It is time to amplify the voices of those calling for the Myanmar authorities to uphold their responsibility to protect the Rohingya. This will require more than hand wringing. It will necessitate holding General Min Aung Hlaing and all those responsible for ethnic cleansing in Myanmar accountable for their actions. What is at stake is not just the fate of the Rohingya, but the very idea of an international community that is prepared to defend universal rights.

24 November 2017

Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ratko-mladi%C4%87-international-justice-and-the-bones-of_us_5a188351e4b068a3ca6df7ce?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

By Jonathan Cook

Nazareth: Can anyone still doubt that access to a relatively free and open internet is rapidly coming to an end in the west? In China and other autocratic regimes, leaders have simply bent the internet to their will, censoring content that threatens their rule. But in the “democratic” west, it is being done differently. The state does not have to interfere directly – it outsources its dirty work to corporations.

As soon as next month, the net could become the exclusive plaything of the biggest such corporations, determined to squeeze as much profit as possible out of bandwith. Meanwhile, the tools to help us engage in critical thinking, dissent and social mobilisation will be taken away as “net neutrality” becomes a historical footnote, a teething phase, in the “maturing” of the internet.

In December the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to repeal already compromised regulations that are in place to maintain a semblance of “net neutrality”. Its chairman, Ajit Pai, and the corporations that are internet service providers want to sweep away these rules, just like the banking sector got rid of financial regulations so it could inflate our economies into giant ponzi schemes. [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/21/net-neutrality-rules-to-be-ditched-as-expected-fcc-decision-sparks-protests]

That could serve as the final blow to the left and its ability to make its voice heard in the public square.

It was political leaders – aided by the corporate media – who paved the way to this with their fomenting of a self-serving moral panic about “fake news”. Fake news, they argued, appeared only online, not in the pages of the corporate media – the same media that sold us the myth of WMD in Iraq, and has so effectively preserved a single party system with two faces. The public, it seems, needs to be protected only from bloggers and websites.

The social media giants soon responded. It is becoming ever clearer that Facebook is interfering as a platform for the dissemination of information for progressive activists. It is already shutting down  accounts, and limiting their reach. These trends will only accelerate. [https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/ive-been-banned-from-facebook-for-sharing-an-article-about-false-flags-678c24358fde]

Google has changed its algorithms in ways that have ensured the search engine rankings of prominent leftwing sites are falling through the floor. It is becoming harder and harder to find alternative sources of news because they are being actively hidden from view. [https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/] [http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2017-09-30/googles-new-search-engine-bias-is-no-accident/]

Google stepped up that process this week by “deranking” RT and Sputnik, two Russian news sites that provide an important counterweight – even if one skewed in its pro-Russia agenda – to the anti-Russia propaganda spouted by western corporate media. The two sites will be as good as censored on the internet for the vast majority of users. [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42065644]

RT is far from a perfect source of news – no state or corporate media is – but it is a vital voice to have online. It has become a sanctuary for many seeking alternative, and often far more honest, critiques both of western domestic policy and of western interference in far-off lands. It has its own political agenda, of course, but, despite the assumption of many western liberals, it provides a far more accurate picture of the world than the western corporate media on a vast range of issues. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_YLPUvBcDM]

That is for good reason. Western corporate media is there to shore up prejudices that have been inculcated in western audiences over a lifetime – the chief one being that western states rightfully act as well-meaning, if occasionally bumbling, policemen trying to keep order among other, unruly or outright evil states around the globe.

The media and political class can easily tap into these prejudices to persuade us of all sorts of untruths that advance western interests. To take just one example – Iraq. We were told Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaeda (he didn’t and could not have had); that Iraq was armed with WMD (it wasn’t, as UN arms inspectors tried to tell us); and that the US and UK wanted to promote democracy in Iraq (but not before they had stolen its oil). There may have been opposition in the west to the invasion of Iraq, but little of it was driven by an appreciation that these elements of the official narrative were all easily verified as lies.

RT and other non-western news sources in English provide a different lens through which we can view such important events, perspectives unclouded by a western patrician agenda.

They and progressive sites are being gradually silenced and blacklisted, herding us back into the arms of the corporate propagandists. Few liberals have been prepared to raise their voices on behalf of RT, forgetting warnings from history, such as Martin Niemoller’s anti-Nazi poem “First they came for the socialists”. [https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392#]

The existing rules of “net neutrality” are already failing progressives and dissidents, as the developments I have outlined above make clear. But without them, things will get even worse. If the changes are approved next month, internet service providers (ISPs), the corporations that plug us into the internet, will also be able to decide what we should see and what will be out of reach.

Much of the debate has focused on the impact of ending the rules on online commercial ventures. That is why Amazon and porn sites like Pornhub have been leading the opposition. But that is overshadowing the more significant threat to progressive sites and already-embattled principles of free speech.

ISPs will be given a much freer hand to determine the content we can can get online. They will be able to slow down the access speeds of sites that are not profitable – which is true for activist sites, by definition. But they may also be empowered to impose Chinese-style censorship, either on their own initiative or under political pressure. The fact that this may be justified on commercial, not political, grounds will offer little succour.

Those committed to finding real news may be able to find workarounds. But this is little consolation. The vast majority of people will use the services they are provided with, and be oblivious to what is no longer available.

If it takes an age to access a website, they will simply click elsewhere. If a Google search shows them only corporately approved results, they will read what is on offer. If their Facebook feed declines to supply them with “non-profitable” or “fake” content, they will be none the wiser. But all of us who care about the future will be the poorer.

23 November 2017

Source: https://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/23/from-an-open-internet-back-to-the-dark-ages/

By Trévon Austin

All but admitting that Google is engaged in censorship, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, announced that Google will create algorithms designed to “de-rank” web sites such as RT and Sputnik on its news delivery services.

In a question and answer session at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada over the weekend, Schmidt laid out Google’s intentions. When asked if the internet giant had a role in preventing the “manipulation of information,” Schmidt stated, “We are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of sites—it’s basically RT and Sputnik.”

In response to a question about “Russian propaganda,” Schmidt replied, “We are well of aware of it, and we are trying to engineer the systems to prevent that. But we don’t want to ban the sites—that’s not how we operate.” Instead, Schmidt said he viewed the “misuse of information” as bugs in a program. “If you’re misusing information, then our programs are not doing a good enough job of properly ranking it.”

During the session, Schmidt claimed that he was “very strongly not in favor of censorship,” while at the same time professing faith in the “ranking” process that is used to demote content not deemed authoritative—clearly a form of censorship, since ranking is used to make certain web sites virtually invisible on “Google News” and similar news aggregators.

Schmidt added that Google’s algorithm was capable of detecting “repetitive, exploitative, false, and weaponized” information, but did not elaborate how such criteria are defined.

The World Socialist Web Site has been engaged in a campaign to expose Google’s efforts to censor left-wing and anti-war sites. Since it discovered that its search traffic originating from Google had dropped by 74 percent since April of this year, the WSWS has provided detailed data showing that Google is effectively banishing the WSWS from its lists of articles and news sources. The WSWS has published an Open Letter and launched a petition drive to demand that Google end its censorship of the WSWS and other left-wing, progressive and anti-war web sites.

Google has refused to respond to the WSWS’ allegations, even after the New York Times published an article based on an interview with the chairman of the WSWS International Editorial Board, David North, describing the systematic and obvious purging of the WSWS from its search requests.

However, Schmidt’s statements over the weekend amount to an admission that Google is actively censoring sites because of their political views.

The blacklisting of media platforms RT and Sputnik is part of a broader campaign of internet censorship, backed by the US intelligence agencies and supported politically by the Democratic Party, in particular.

Earlier this month, RT America was forced by the US Justice Department to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The platform has been a prime target of the efforts of tech companies, including Twitter, Facebook and Google, to combat so-called “extremist content,” a term that embraces information and opinions at odds with the policies and propaganda of the government.

The report released last January by the intelligence agencies on alleged “Russian meddling” in the 2016 elections makes clear that the government defines social and political dissent as tantamount to foreign subversion. The report stated: “RT broadcast, hosted and advertised third-party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates. The RT hosts asserted that the US two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a ‘sham.’”

The popularity of RT and other news platforms critical of the US government reflects the mood of broad layers of the American public. An NBC poll in July reported that 76 percent of Americans were worried about a war breaking out with North Korea, and 59 percent preferred diplomacy to solve conflicts with that country. A report by the anti-communist Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation revealed that most young people in the US, age 21 to 29, preferred socialism to capitalism.

US politicians such as Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claim that RT is an arm of the Kremlin, used to “sow divisions” within the United States. This month’s congressional hearings on “extremist content” on the internet were replete with demands for social media companies to take decisive action in censoring “harmful content.”

At one of the hearings, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California, questioned Google’s legal counsel on why it took so long for YouTube to remove RT as a “preferred” channel. She demanded to know, “Why did Google give preferred status to Russia Today, a Russian propaganda arm, on YouTube?”

Representative Jackie Speier from California asserted that RT “seeks to influence politics and fuel discontent in the United States.” She asked, “Why have you not shut down RT on YouTube?… The intelligence community says it’s an arm of one of our adversaries.”

The American people do not need RT to understand that the political system is corrupt and dominated by Wall Street. The results of the McCarthyite witch-hunt over supposed “Russian interference”—algorithms to promote “authoritative content,” the demoting of “extremist content,” the blacklisting of left-wing sites—have set a dangerous precedent. The hysterical campaign against Russia, including RT, has served as a cover for a frontal attack on the First Amendment rights to free speech and political expression.

21 November 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/21/google-announces-moves-to-censor-rt-and-sputnik/

By Spencer Woodman

Global inequality has worsened since the millennium, with a new report finding the richest 1 percent account for half of the world’s wealth.

The world’s top 1 percent held 45.5 percent of all household wealth in 2000. Now, they hold 50.1 percent, according to Credit Suisse’s annual Global Wealth Report.

The report highlights that Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWIs) – people who are worth more than $50 million – as being the driving force behind the gap. This group of wealth holders has grown five-fold since 2000.

“While the bottom half of adults collectively own less than 1 percent  of total wealth, the richest decile (top 10 percent of adults) owns 88 percent of global assets, and the top percentile alone accounts for half of total household wealth,” the report said.

It was also the wealthy who benefited from the global fortunes following the 2008 global financial crisis with wealth inequality rising across all regions, except for China where median wealth declined.

The report offers a reminder that anti-poverty groups aren’t the only ones publishing eye-popping numbers on global inequality; the severe numbers are also being confirmed by the financial services firms that specialize in helping the rich grow their assets.

“It fits broadly along with the things we really noticed this year — that is, the massive increase of wealth in just one unit,” Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at Oxfam International, said of today’s report.

The report comes a little more than a week after ICIJ and more than 90 media partners around the world released the Paradise Papers, an investigation that seeks to shed light on the offshore financial services industry, a significant driver of greater shares of wealth accumulating at the top.

The investigation revealed ways in which the offshore world offers billionaires and the companies they own a means to reduce their taxes under a deep veil of financial privacy, allowing them to grow their assets in dazzling exponentials.

“You’ve got a direct link between tax havens and this explosion in the wealth of the super-rich which we see in the report today,” Lawson said.

“They’re using industrial levels of tax avoidance to make sure their fortunes are shielded from the tax man. They’d be less wealthy if they paid the tax they owe.”

The Paradise Papers investigation, based on a trove of millions of leaked files from leading offshore law firm Appleby,  shed light on the use of these havens by some of the world’s wealthiest individuals.

The files revealed that James Simons, a hedge fund billionaire and top US political donor, used the low-tax jurisdiction of Bermuda to quietly grow one of the largest private trust funds ever discovered. It also showed how multinational corporations like Apple and Nike have avoided billions in taxes, often using mazes of offshore entities that shift earnings and assets overseas — away from public scrutiny and tax collectors.

“The offshore industry makes “the poor poorer” and is “deepening wealth inequality,” Brooke Harrington, a certified wealth manager and Copenhagen Business School professor, told ICIJ’sreporters for the Paradise Papers investigation.

“There is this small group of people who are not equally subject to the laws as the rest of us, and that’s on purpose,” Harrington said.

While the Paradise Papers provide a view into the elaborate mechanisms by which the wealthy move their assets away from public coffers, today’s Credit Suisse report shows how these maneuvers have manifested in broad terms, although the report does not name offshore services providers or tax avoidance as drivers of its findings.

“This is clearly a crisis… and it is a crisis that is getting a lot worse.”
— Max Lawson

The report states that half the world’s population — 3.5 billion adults with wealth below $10,000 — account for just 2.7 percent of global wealth.

“In contrast…the 36 million millionaires comprise less than 1% of the adult population, but own 46% of household wealth,” the report said.

The growth of “financial assets,” commonly defined as stocks, bonds and other investments, has outpaced the growth of real assets, like homes and land — with the rich benefiting handsomely from this trend.

This has been most true, according to the report, in wealthier countries, where  millionaires and billionaires fare far better than those in poor countries.

“The United States continued its remarkable unbroken spell of gains after the financial crisis,” the report states, noting that many countries in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa saw growth of less than one percent – or even shrinking overall wealth. Credit Suisse attributed this to “adverse currency movements.”

“This is clearly a crisis,” said Oxfam’s Lawson. “And it is a crisis that is getting a lot worse.”

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/wealth-inequality-crisis-as-richest-1-percent-account-for-half-the-worlds-wealth/

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

The Western Media Refute Their Own Lies

Not only do they confirm that the Pentagon has been training the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons, they also acknowledge the existence of a not so secret “US-backed plan to launch a chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad’s regime”

London’s Daily Mail in a 2013 article confirmed the existence of an Anglo-American project endorsed by the White House (with the assistance of Qatar) to wage a chemical weapons attack on Syria and place the blame on Bashar Al Assad.

(Update; April 8, 2017) Trump’s decision to strike a Syrian airbase in retaliation for Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against his own people confirms that the “False Flag” Chemical Weapons attack scenario first formulated under Obama is still “on the table”.  Our analysis (including a large body of Global Research investigative reports) confirms unequivocally that Trump is lying, the Western media is lying and most of America’s allies are also lying.

The following Mail Online article was published and subsequently removed. Note the contradictory discourse: “Obama issued warning to Syrian president Bashar al Assad”, “White House gave green light to chemical weapons attack”.

This Mail Online report published in January 2013 was subsequently removed from Mail Online. For further details click here

The Pentagon’s Training of  “Rebels” (aka Al Qaeda Terrorists) in the Use of Chemical Weapons

CNN accuses Bashar Al Assad of killing his own people while also acknowledging that the “rebels” are not only in possession of chemical weapons, but that these “moderate terrorists” affiliated with Al Nusra are trained in the use of chemical weapons by specialists on contract to the Pentagon.

In a twisted logic, the Pentagon’s mandate was to ensure that the rebels aligned with Al Qaeda would not acquire or use WMD, by actually training them in the use of chemical weapons (sounds contradictory):

“The training [in chemical weapons], which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.

The nationality of the trainers was not disclosed, though the officials cautioned against assuming all are American. (CNN, December 09, 2012, emphasis added)

The above report by CNN’s award winning journalist Elise Labott (relegated to the status a CNN blog), refutes CNN’s numerous accusations directed against Bashar Al Assad.

Who is doing the training of terrorists in the use of chemical weapons?  From the horse’s mouth: CNN

Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons

And these are the same terrorists (trained by the Pentagon) who are the alleged target of  Washington’s counterterrorism bombing campaign initiated by Obama in August 2014:

“The Pentagon scheme established in 2012 consisted in equipping and training Al Qaeda rebels in the use of chemical weapons, with the support of military contractors hired by the Pentagon, and then holding the Syrian government responsible  for using the WMD against the Syrian people.

What is unfolding is a diabolical scenario –which is an integral part of military planning– namely a situation where opposition terrorists advised by Western defense contractors are actually in possession of chemical weapons.

This is not a rebel training exercise in non-proliferation. While president Obama states that “you will be held accountable” if “you” (meaning the Syrian government) use chemical weapons, what is contemplated as part of this covert operation is the possession of chemical weapons by the US-NATO sponsored terrorists, namely “by our” Al Qaeda affiliated operatives, including the Al Nusra Front which constitutes the most effective Western financed and trained fighting group, largely integrated by foreign mercenaries. In a bitter twist, Jabhat al-Nusra, a US sponsored “intelligence asset”, was recently put on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

The West claims that it is coming to the rescue of the Syrian people, whose lives are allegedly threatened by Bashar Al Assad. The truth of the matter is that the Western military alliance is not only supporting the terrorists, including the Al Nusra Front, it is also making chemical weapons available to its proxy “opposition” rebel forces.

The next phase of this diabolical scenario is that the chemical weapons in the hands of Al Qaeda operatives will be used against civilians, which could potentially lead an entire nation into a humanitarian disaster.

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/pentagon-trained-syrias-al-qaeda-rebels-in-the-use-of-chemical-weapons/