Assad Inspects Army Soldiers in Jobar in Damascus at Beginning of New Year

Local Editor

The Syrian president Bashar Assad inspected at the beginning of the new year the officers and the soldiers of the army units deployed in Jobar in Damascus countryside. President Assad addressed the soldiers, asserting that their achievements in face of terrorism are behind the Syrians’ joy.

Source: Al-Manar Website 01-01-2015 – 00:38 Last updated 01-01-2015 – 02:4

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Assad elected to serve Syria, not America’s New World Order

Dec 29, 2014, Taylor Report

AUDIO LINK

Stephen Gowans, political analyst, and Phil Taylor discuss Gowans’ article, “Why Assad Refuses to Step Down,” which is based on a Paris Match interview with Assad.

In response to Paris Match, President Assad defended his right to rule democratically, to serve the Syrian People and to insist on accurate terminology: Syria has a State, not a regime.

The US State Department targets any leader (such as Milosevic, Gadhafi, Chavez/Maduro, Fidel/Raul Castro, Assad) who refuses to liberalize the economy of the country, refuses to allow foreign takeover of their natural resources, refuses to become a Western puppet.

Gowans states explicitly in his article and in the interview: “The lesson is plain: Create a good foreign investment climate, become a market for the US arms industry, turn over your resources to the West, cooperate with US military, and you can kill as many of your own people as you like, resist democracy as long as you want, and merrily trample on human rights. Just don’t insist that your economy work to the benefit of your own people.”

Credits: Why Assad Refuses to Step Down

https://gowans.wordpress.com/2014/12/05/why-assad-refuses-to-step-down/

Syrian Army Kills Scores of Terrorists across Country

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ZIONISTS ‘BOUT TO TRIP: PALESTINIANS TO OUTNUMBER JEWS IN HISTORIC PALESTINE BY 2016

DECEMBER 30, 2014

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Figures released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics on Monday suggest that Palestinians will outnumber Israeli Jews in historic Palestine within the next two years.

The results of the Palestinian census, released on the occasion of the end of 2014, show a number of other surprising figures that highlight the wide-ranging changes in demography the Holy Land is experiencing.

The census estimated that at the end of 2014 the total number of Palestinians in “historical Palestine” — meaning the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the territory where the State of Israel is located but which often referred to as ’48 Palestine — is around 6.08 million, compared to 6.10 million Jews as of the beginning of 2014.

By the end of 2016, the census bureau estimates that at current rates the number of Palestinians will eclipse that of Jews, meeting at around 6.42 million.

By 2020, however, the statistics show that the number of Palestinians will hit 7.14 million, while the Jewish population will have only reached around 6.87 million.

The demographic shift was expected to happen years ago, but the migration of more than a million people to Israel from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s — a large percentage of whom were not Jews, but were naturalized anyways due to the fact that they had Jewish relatives — delayed the change.

The census bureau surveyed not only historic Palestine, but also included Palestinians around the world in its results.

The bureau estimates that the total number of Palestinians worldwide as of the end of 2014 is 12.10 million, “of whom 4.62 million are in State of Palestine, 1.46 million in Israel, 5.34 million in Arab countries, and around 675 thousand in foreign countries.”

The statistics show the continuing impact of the Nakba — or the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel into refugee camps elsewhere — on the distribution of the Palestinian population, as well as the recurrent displacements and widespread flight since then as the result of the 1967 occupation and the effects of the occupation.

Of the 4.6 million living in the State of Palestine, the bureau estimated that around 2.83 million reside in the West Bank and 1.79 million in Gaza Strip.

“Palestinian refugees make up 43.1 percent of the Palestinian population in Palestine: 38.8 percent of them in the West Bank and 61.2 percent in Gaza Strip,” the reported added, underscoring that even within the State of Palestine itself, refugees and their descendants from the 1948 expulsions make up a sizable number.

The report also compared birth rates among the Palestinian populations spread around the world, highlighting the drastic declines in fertility rates that characterized trends in the State of Palestine.

“The average household size in Palestine was 5.2 persons in 2013 compared to 6.4 in 1997: 4.9 persons in the West Bank and 5.8 persons in Gaza Strip,” the report said.

“The total fertility rate declined during 2011-2013 to 4.1 births compared with 6.0 births in 1997. In Gaza Strip the rate was 4.5 births compared to 3.7 births in the West Bank during 2011-2013,” it added.

The rates are significantly higher than Palestinian refugees living abroad, where rates are comparatively lower.

“The total fertility rate for Palestinian woman living in Jordan was 3.3 births in 2010 compared to 2.5 in Syria in 2010 and 2.8 in Lebanon in 2011,” the report said.

Palestinian citizens of Israel also had birthrates comparatively lower than the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with averages around 3.4 births per woman. However, the number was higher than Israeli Jews, who have an average of around 3.1 births.

“The number of Palestinians living in Israel is 1.46 million, of whom about 35.4% are aged below 15 years compared to 4.3% aged 65 years and over,” the report noted.

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MEET THE JEWISH SUPREMACIST FALICS: WEST BANK SETTLEMENT FUNDERS, NETANYAHU BACKERS AND OWNERS OF DUTY FREE AMERICA

DECEMBER 30, 2014

by Alex Kane

The name Sheldon Adelson, the right-wing, pro-Israel casino mogul who has bankrolled the Republican Party, rings a bell for close observers of American politics. But how about the Falic family?

The Falics should be just as well known. Members of the family have donated millions of dollars to pro-Israel U.S. politicians from both parties. Beneficiaries of their largesse include GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney; Democrats Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Eliot Engel; the Republican National Committee; and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In addition, the family hasgiven hundreds of thousands of dollars to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political campaigns.

They have made their money through Duty Free America, which operates stores in airports around the U.S and the world where consumers buy tax-free products.

Leon Falic and his brothers bought the company in 2001. The Florida-based Falic Family Private Foundation, which receives the bulk of its funds from Duty Free Americas, has given money to a variety of pro-Israel causes, including West Bank settlements. And on December 28, the family is set to donate a Torah to Ariel University’s synagogue in honor of Fima Falic, who died in 2012. Israeli politicians will join the family in a ceremony that day. Nily Falic, the wife of the late Fima, is the national chairperson of the Friends of the IDF, a multi-million dollar operation that gives tax-free donations to the Israeli army.

The Falics are one of a number of wealthy, right-leaning Jewish American families that fund Israel’s and America’s right-wing politicians and illegal settlement projects. Hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S. tax-free foundations are poured into Israeli West Bank settlements every year. Taken together, the funds that originate in the U.S. are used for everything from infrastructure to business to security, solidifying Israeli control over the West Bank and putting a Palestinian state further out of reach.

A Duty Free Americas’ employee told me over the phone the Falics were not available for comment until Monday.

In addition to boosting the coffers of Netanyahu, Romney and Wasserman Schultz, the Falic Family has sponsored students to take a Zionist Organization of America-sponsored trip to Israel, where they visited the Falic-owned Psagot Winery, located in the settlement of Psagot, near the West Bank city of Ramallah. After Fima Falic died, the Zionist Organization of America released a statement extending “condolences to the entire Falic family on the sudden passing of Fima Falic, true Zionist and generous Israel supporter.” And as Mondoweiss’ Allison Deger reported in 2012, the family also funded an archeological dig in the settlement of Shiloh.

Tax forms I reviewed provide more details on the Falic family’s wealth, but the only detailed accounting of where donations went is in the records for fiscal year 2006. That year, the foundation gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to a range of groups related to Israel, including: $43,000 to the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, which funds East Jerusalem settlements; $15,000 to the American Friends of Likud; $104,000 to a U.S. charity that funds a yeshiva in the Hebron settlement of Kiryat Arba, populated by the most extreme Israeli settlers; $85,000 to the Central Fund of Israel, another settlement fundraising vehicle; and $63,600 to Manhigut Yehudit, the Jewish Leadership movement run by Member of Knesset Moshe Feiglin, who has proposed paying Palestinians to move out of Gaza and called for the “conquest” and “annihilation” of people in Gaza.

On December 28, the Falic family will make another show of support for West Bank settlements. Nearly 20 Falic family members are set to participate in a ceremony at Ariel University marking the donation of the Torah, according to a press statement sent by Ariel University. The family members who will participate include Nily, national chairperson of the Friends of the IDF, and Simon, the chairman of Duty Free Americas. Also participating in the ceremony will be Likud Member of Knesset Limor Livnat (who announced her retirement earlier this month), the mayor of Ariel and Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the religious leader for the Western Wall.

Ariel University is in the mega-settlement of Ariel, located deep in the occupied West Bank. In late 2012, the Israeli military recognized the university as an accredited Israeli school, the first school in a settlement to receive that recognition. (The Israeli military has authority to over the West Bank, which includes the granting of accreditation for schools.) That decision led 165 professors to publicly calling for the boycott of Ariel University.

In September, Ariel University’s administration fired an Israeli professor named Amir Hetsroni after he penned articles in Haaretzthat criticized settlements, including Ariel.

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Sheikh Imran Hosein :Destruction of American Empire, Russia and UK,Israel New Super Power

 

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2014: Two Events that Shook the World

 

Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR

The year 2014 has been a sensational year. It is the year that some hasten to bookmark as the year World War III began unobtrusively, stealthily, inexorably – involving as-yet indeterminate contestants. The tumultuous arrival of the Islamic Caliphate spearheaded by the Islamic State, the outbreak of the Ebola virus, kidnapping of 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram – the year has had its fair share of blood-curdling events.

It has been the year that the US economy showed credible signs of recovery, but in which the US also admitted defeat in a half-century old campaign to bring the Cuban revolution down on its knees. Truly, the ascendancy of right-wing Hindu fundamentalism in India, a country of 1.3 billion people, makes it an important year for a turbulent region.

All these are significant things to be noted in their own ways, but their enduring consequence to the world order remains unclear and the probability is that they may turn out to be ephemeral, although arresting at first sight for the present – ‘sound and fury signifying nothing’, in the ultimate analysis.

However, it is two major international developments that form a cluster by itself because of their profound impact on the future trajectory of world order. They are: the crisis in Ukraine and the emergence of China as the world’s largest economy.

Ukraine crisis

No single international development in the year 2014 sent such shock waves through world politics as the crisis that erupted in Ukraine following the US-sponsored ‘regime change’ in Kiev in February. At times it seemed that the international order has begun unraveling or is galloping uncontrollably toward such a process, with the United Nations reduced to a hapless observer.

At its core, the Ukraine crisis underscores that the US-led security order has been most seriously challenged by a rising non-Western power – Russia. Second, the European order has come face to face, even if implicitly, with an organizing principle based on legitimizing spheres of influence, which, having sheltered under the umbrella of a military alliance, the West never needed to explicitly accept.

Again, on an international normative terrain, the Western ideas of international order have been contested in Ukraine. The heart of the matter is that while superficially professing respect for international law, the US and Europe have been freely acting outside it to advance their interests – which, essentially, was what Kosovo, Iraq and Libya have been all about – and Russia has held out a mirror at this essentially illiberal world order, finally, and is demanding a realistic, rational calibration, failing which Moscow will offer resistance in political terms as well as through military deterrence if it becomes necessary.

Clearly, the world has not taken the West’s side in the Ukraine crisis. Even Western allies have not all joined the standoff with Russia – Italy, Hungary, Japan, Turkey or South Korea, for example. On the one hand, the non-western countries’ (the ‘Rest’) stance of equivalence between the controversial ‘regime change’ sponsored by the West in Ukraine and the subsequent Russian actions in Ukraine is tantamount to a rejection of the West’s self-identification as the guarding of the ‘liberal’ order, while on the other hand it is also a reflection of the non-Western countries’ perceptions that the West enjoys an unjustified position of privilege in the international system.

The point is, the West’s propensity to ‘weaponize’ the international system at its will through financial sanctions, asset freezes and collective embargos and boycotts has long been resented by the ‘Rest’. The Ukraine crisis promises to be the beginning of the denouement of economic sanctions as a key instrument of contemporary US coercive power.

The attention of the western media has been on the travails on the Russian economy, which blithely overlooks that the country was already entering a period of recession by the end of last year and if anything, the western sanctions have lent urgency to the Russian leadership regarding critical need of a profound economic restructuring. On the other hand, the US has overreached by going for Russia, the world’s ninth largest world economy, and this may well become the economic counterpart of the kind of military overreach that American power encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The probability is high that the urge to impose the sanctions on Russia and to drag a reluctant EU into the enterprise would only systemically affect the future potency of the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, since, ironically, Europe too might join the ‘Rest’ to question the desirability of being exposed (as it has been during the Ukraine crisis) to the predilections and political moods of the US Treasury.

The possibility cannot be ruled out that there is a US-Saudi hidden agenda to inflict pain on the Russian economy by engineering the dramatic drop in oil prices by half. The agenda will never be acknowledged and it cannot be conclusively established, but it cannot be ruled out, either. At any rate, the drop in oil prices has consequences all around for the world economy.

Equally, Ukraine crisis is accelerating the European strategy to reduce energy dependence on Russia, while on the other hand the decline in demand in the European market in combination with a long-term strategy to tap into the fast-growing Asia-Pacific market is prompting Russia to ‘look East’ for energy exports. The prospects for a serious Middle East energy pivot for Europe remain unclear as of now, and may prove elusive, but Russia’s ‘pivot’ to the Asian region is gaining traction and its impact on world energy politics cannot be underestimated.

Finally, the very future of the Western consensus hangs in the balance today due to the Ukraine crisis. The US’s trans-Atlantic leadership, European unity and the NATO’s future crucially gained due to the escalation in Ukraine. Having said that, these strategic ‘gains’ have been achieved through enormous political pressure from Washington.

However, European unity, in particular, is showing signs of fraying at the edges. No doubt, it is fragile and is lacking in leadership. Simply put, Ukraine crisis has exposed that Europe lacks a format for crisis management or a long-term strategy towards Russia.

This is already manifesting as relatively low-common-denominator reactions to the developments in Ukraine on the part of the European Union and the competing streams of opinion in Brussels in determining the EU policy in the future. All this makes the current Western consensus increasingly difficult to sustain.

End of American Century

In plain terms, America ceased to be the world’s number one economy in 2014. As Christmas was approaching, the Chinese economy just came from behind and overtook the US economy to become the largest in the world. The International Monetary Fund reported in December that when the national economic output is measured in ‘real’ terms of goods and services, China will have produced $17.6 trillion compared with America’s $17.4 trillion in the year 2014.

Put differently, China now accounts for 16.5 percent of the global economy when measured in real purchasing terms, compared with 16.3 percent for the US. If one recalls that last year China also surpassed the US for the first time in terms of global trade, it is at once clear that there has been a tectonic shift in the balance of power this year with a high reading on the Richter scale.

What it points at is that China is showing a growth rate despite the recent slowdown, which no other ten nations can match, and the trend is pointing clearly at a widening gap in coming years.

History shows that economic power is ultimately the crucial determinant of political and military power. The rise of Imperial Britain was inextricably linked to its emergence as the world’s workshop in the 18th century and the subsequent rise of colonialist capitalism, while its relative economic decline accounted for its fall by the middle of the last century, thanks to the de-colonization and the loss of captive markets that gathered momentum after World War II. Other hegemonic powers in modern history – Portugal, Spain or France – also have similar tales to tell.

Of course, 2015 will arrive in a natural course and nothing much may seem to have changed. China, in fact, is only too eager to project that it still lags far behind the US and is a mere developing country.

Clearly, what China wants to do with its new status becomes as much its business as the world’s concern. The issues are many: How to combine continued growth – and the stability that is needed for that – with the influence that befits the rise in China’s stature? As for China’s Leninist leadership, how is such phenomenal change to be reconciled with the stasis at home? How to keep the grip on political power in a society that is undergoing mammoth transformation? How to tamp down belligerent nationalism while insisting on legitimate self-assertion?

Most certainly, China does not subscribe to the imperial view of the world as a source of tribute and in modern times it has embraced the Westphalian principle of sovereign states distinguished by their wealth and power but not by qualitative hierarchy. Yet, China also happens to be a civilization pretending to be a state and may want to do something more and, at the very least, take back the place that foreigners stole from it. The Silk Road initiatives announced this year seem to fit into this paradigm.

Even China’s worst detractors do not allege that it harbors notions of global domination. Indeed, China’s preferred parish remains Asia and its engagement with the Middle East or Africa and Latin America – even Europe – is transactional and there are no imperial overtones there. At the end of the day, there are more poor people in China than anywhere else in the world – except India, of course. And the Chinese leadership’s priorities are clear when 160 million people in the country still eke out a livelihood from $1.25 a day. It is only natural that China wants to have minimal engagements abroad save those that burnish its image as a great power.

Meanwhile, China has also studied and learned lessons from the havoc wrought by the militarization of American foreign policy. It is therefore clear-headed about how far to go on Syria or Ukraine. The first idea in conflict resolution in the world arena is seldom, if ever, China’s.

Nonetheless, China’s small Asian neighbors will forever worry that China is a big country and «other countries are small countries and that is a fact». The year 2014 may be seen as the turning point when China’s quest to regain its centrality in Asia – economically and militarily – may have progressed in large measure, which it enjoyed through much of history. But China still lacks the power of attraction and remains largely an enviable development model. China stands on the verge of greatness as it leaves 2014 behind.

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Larijani from Iraq Vows Iran to Stand by Iraqi Gov’t in ISIL Fight

Al Manar

Iran’s Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said Tehran will continue to stand by the Iraqi government and nation in the fight against ISIL terrorists.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has been trying to help establish democracy and a national unity government in Iraq since the beginning of the new era in the country and now that Iraq suffers from the scourge of the ISIL terrorist grouping, the Islamic Republic considers it a duty to help its Iraqi brothers,” Larijani said during a meeting with Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi in Tehran on Tuesday.

Larijani added that Iran has stood and will stand by the Iraqi government and people.

The Iranian official said big powers created terrorism in a bid to undermine the trend of development and democracy in Syria and Iraq and now the scourge threatens the entire region.

Larijani also praised the reinforcement of the national unity government in Iraq and said solidarity among different Iraqi groups would help resolve problems and tread the path toward development.

For his part, Obeidi, praised Iran’s help to his country in different areas. He also said Baghdad is resolute in wiping out terrorists in the country.

The Takfiri ISIL militants hold some parts of Iraq and Syria under their control.

Iraqi forces, supported by the nation, have made gains against the terrorists in different parts of the Arab country, liberating towns and villages.

Source: Press TV	31-12-2014 – 11:35 Last updated 31-12-2014 – 11:35

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• Larijani: US Treatment of Terrorism Distrustful

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US vetoes Palestinian statehood bid at UN Security Council

SYRIA 360°

Posted on December 30, 2014

The UN Security Council has failed to adopt the Arab coalition’s bid calling for the creation of a Palestinian state and an end to Israeli “occupation”. The US and Australia voted against the move with 5 abstentions.

The draft resolution gathered only 8 votes in favour, so it was automatically defeated. The US however still used its veto power and voted against the resolution. Another veto power state, the UK, along with Lithuania, Nigeria, Korea and Rwanda have abstained from the vote.

An official bid for statehood was submitted to the Council Tuesday by a Jordan-led Arab coaltion. The bid featured a revised draft resolution of a similar proposal submitted earlier this month. Delegates voted on the measure Tuesday afternoon.

Highly opposed by the US and Israel, the first version of the draft resolution was submitted “in blue” to the UN Security Council last Wednesday. The Council includes five permanent members who hold veto power and ten additional members who serve two-year terms.

The resolution gives 12 months for a “just, lasting and comprehensive peaceful solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which it regards as the creation of a “sovereign and viable” Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, as well as the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the occupied territory by 2017.

Its text had already seen several amendments that concern East Jerusalem as capital of the future state of Palestine, Israeli settlement building, and Palestinian refugees’ right of return, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee member Abu Yousef told Asharq Al-Awsatnewspaper.

According to the current draft, Jerusalem is regarded as the capital of both Israel and Palestine, but the role of East Jerusalem in a future Palestinian state is not specified. “International legitimacy is our ceiling on this issue, and we cannot drop below this ceiling,” Yousef told the paper.

“I think there is very little doubt that any resolution in the Security Council that actually created a Palestinian state or called for real statehood would be vetoed,” US activist and journalist Phyllis Bennis told RT. “I think there is a big question whether the drafts that are now circulating actually do that. The French amendments in particular significantly weaken the idea that this is something that would actually create the Palestinian state.”

Bennis explained that “there is no consequence named. The resolution is not taken under either Chapter 6 or Chapter 7, which are the coercive chapters of the UN charter.” These chapters imply the use of military force and putting pressure against the state, such as sanctions.

On Tuesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said his administration would “no longer deal” with Israel in case of the resolution’s failure. “If the Arab-Palestinian initiative submitted to the Security Council to put an end to [Israeli] occupation doesn’t pass, we will be forced to take the necessary political and legal decisions,” the Algerian APS news agency quoted Abbas as saying.

Last Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called a UN bid for Palestinian statehood an “act of aggression.”

“Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is adopting measures whose sole aim is to attack Israel, with no benefit for the Palestinians,” Lieberman said in a statement.

This summer, tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank escalated, leading to the 50-day conflict between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinians. Operation Protective Edge claimed over 2,200 lives – most of them Gaza civilians.

Related

• PFLP: UNSC draft resolution provides a free waiver of Palestinian rights and must be withdrawn
• PFLP denounces al-Habbash’s sermon supporting monopolization of Palestinian voice and political direction of PA leadership

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The Year Ahead by Stephen Lendman

by Stephen Lendman

Understanding what’s ongoing is perhaps the best way to assess what’s coming. What’s happening in real time is grim.

So is next year’s outlook. More of the same and then some. Wars without end. Punishing neoliberal harshness.

Police state crackdowns on nonbelievers. Big Brother watching everyone. Freedom eroding in plain sight.

America bears full responsibility for horrific global conflicts. Rogue EU collaborators and Israel share it. Partners in high crimes against humanity.

Under or unreported. Largely out of sight and mind. Ongoing without end. In multiple war theaters. Washington’s dirty hands manipulating things.

Permanent war is official US policy. One country after another is attacked, ravaged and destroyed.

Turned to rubble. Killing millions. By wars and their aftermath. Including human exploitation. Deep impoverishment. Extreme deprivation.

Preventable diseases. Many lethal when untreated. Starvation. Daily post-war violence. Appalling human misery.

America is the greatest threat to world peace. The “greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” said Martin Luther King.

Using its resources irresponsibly. Inordinately for militarism. War-making. Corporate handouts. Benefitting its super-rich. Trillions of dollars down a black hole. Unprecedented grand theft.

While essential homeland needs increasingly go begging. In the world’s richest nation. Including healthcare. A fundamental human right. Martin Luther King saying:

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Neo-Malthusaian and then some.

Mandating no public sphere. Unrestrained corporate empowerment. Controlling nonbelievers repressively.

Inside the bubble it’s paradise. Outside is dystopian hell. Ordinary people increasingly on their own out of luck.

In the United States of inequality. Bipartisan complicity mandates it. America increasingly a ruler-serf society. Neofeudalism and then some.

Casino capitalism replaced free enterprise. At the expense of fundamental human rights. Ordinary people are swindled.

Their welfare and futures stolen. Few benefit at the expense of most others. Hardwired injustice defines America. Beautiful for its privileged few alone.

Republicans and Democrats in lockstep. On issues mattering most. Washington’s criminal class is bipartisan. Public and private corruption is rampant.

In Obama’s first term, America’s top 1% got 95% of the gain in household income. Most others got lump of coal harshness. Protracted Main Street Depression conditions.

Getting worse, not better. Around 70 million Americans rely on Medicaid for healthcare. Expiration of the so-called Obamacare mandated “fee bump” means fewer services for enrollees.

For many when most needed. Because amounts paid participating doctors will be nearly cut in half. Many won’t accept new Medicaid patients. Some may abandon current ones.

Increasingly they’ll be on their own when ill. Unable to receive a fundamental human right when most needed.

Americans can have whatever they want. Based on the ability to pay. At increasingly higher costs. With stagnant or lower incomes in inflation-adjusted dollars.

America is the United States of I don’t care. Serving its privileged class exclusively. At the expense of all others.

Inequality is institutionalized. Families struggle to get by. Human suffering is real. Poverty, unemployment, underemployment, homelessness, hunger, and despair affect growing millions.

The world’s richest country doesn’t care. Imperial priorities take precedence. So does redistributing wealth to bankers, other corporate favorites, and super-rich elites.

America was never beautiful. For sure not now. A year ago article said expect 2014 to be bloody. More global death, destruction and human misery.

Merchants of death profit more than ever. Corrupt politicians benefit at the expense of their constituents.

Polar opposite what Americans deserve. Democrats in lockstep with Republicans. On issues mattering most.

Pro-war. Pro-Wall Street. Pro-business. Pro-privilege. Pro-super-wealth. Anti-dissent. Anti-democracy.

Anti-civil and human rights. Anti-labor. Anti-environmental sanity. Anti-government of, by, and for everyone equitably and just.

Monied interests alone matter. In 2014, 3.6 million jobless Americans lost extended unemployment benefits. When most needed.

Expect millions more to lose theirs in 2015. On their own unable to find work. Highly touted recovery is fake.

Main Street Depression conditions persist. Bipartisan indifference makes things worse. Help when most needed is denied.

Obama is a serial liar. His yearend press conference repeated one canard after another. Ludicrously calling 2014 “a breakthrough year for America.”

His touted jobs recovery doesn’t exist. Numbers are fake. Manipulated to show more than actually created.

Available jobs are mostly low pay/poor or no benefit part-time or temp ones. The kinds most Americans shunned decades earlier. Two or more needed to get by.

As of December 30, the national debt exceeded $18 trillion. An all-time high. Increasing by $2.4 billion daily.

Paul Craig Roberts call Western economies and Japan’s “a house of cards.” Their economic policy opposite of what’s needed.

Supporting “over-sized banks, sovereign debt, and the US dollar.” While their “economies and the ability of populations to cope have deteriorated.”

Obama didn’t explain. Instead touted his Affordable Care Act. A healthcare rationing scheme. A boon for insurers, drug companies and large hospital chains.

Ripping off millions. Leaving many uninsured. Most underinsured. “(A)round the world, America is leading,” claimed Obama. Waging war on humanity he left unexplained.

Challenging Russia irresponsibly. Moscow considers US-dominated NATO a major threat.

Expanding east in violation of international law. Close to its border. Nuclear armed missiles target its heartland.

Three frightening Stop NATO reports should scare everyone. Headlined:

“Kiev: Poroshenko Signs Law Paving Way for NATO Absorption.” What Russia made clear it won’t tolerate.

“Ukrainian Official: Impose Martial Law, Join NATO.” Escalate war on Donbas. Challenge Russia belligerently perhaps.

“Mobilization: Ukraine Junta Prepares For ‘Continental War.’ ” Neo-Nazi national security and defense council head Okeksandr Turchynov intends greater mobilization.

Likely at Washington’s behest. Irresponsibly challenging Russia. Risking open confrontation.

Obama’s new friends are lunatics. In Europe’s heartland. One fascist regime supports another.

Is the unthinkable possible? Perhaps likely? Will global war erupt in 2015? Will Washington initiate it?

Will Americans experience homeland war for the first time since mid-19th century civil conflict? Will cities like New York, Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles be destroyed?

Will millions of Americans die? Making the world safe for monied interests. In bunkers until things subside.

Perhaps a wasteland awaiting them. An irradiated one won’t sustain human life.

Washington already wages political and economic war on Russia. With illegal sanctions. Perhaps more to come.

Manipulating oil prices lower. Attacking the ruble. Henry Kissinger once said: “Control oil and you control nations. Control food and you control people.”

Maybe Obama intends starving millions of Russians to death. Maybe by irradiating arable land. Making crop yields toxic.

America plans global dominance through two pillars and one commodity:

• Unchallenged military power.
• The dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
• Global control of oil and other energy resources.

Waging permanent wars to achieve imperial aims. Risking mass annihilation. Perhaps humanity’s survival.

America is the real evil empire. Unmatched in human history. An out-of-control killing machine. Unrestrained. Ruthless. Run by lunatics. Stomping on people relentlessly.

One genocide follows others. Winning hearts and minds doesn’t matter. Death squad diplomacy eliminates nonbelievers.

At home and abroad. Madness defines US policy. Police state harshness criminalizes right over wrong defenders.

Democracy is America’s most dangerous export. Washington tolerates the real thing nowhere. For sure not at home.

Fear-mongering persists. Enemies are invented. Crime bosses make policy. Monied interests own them.

Rule of law principles don’t matter. Nor democratic values. Or fundamental human and civil rights. Or societies fit to live in.

Dominance assures capital’s divine right. Plunder guarantees obscene profits. Money is used to make more of it. A villainous cycle persists.

Expect more of the same in 2015. Perhaps worse than ever. Continued wars without end. Greater than ever wealth disparity.

A race to the bottom leaving ordinary people increasingly on their own. Poverty, unemployment, underemployment, hunger, homelessness and deprivation worse than ever in America.

Bipartisan complicity assures it. Social safety net protections increasingly eliminated. Freedom disappearing in plain sight.

The American dream is more illusion than reality. George Carlin once said you have to be asleep to believe it.

Expect no change for the better next year. Expect more of the same and then some.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

posted by Steve Lendman @ 3:41 AM

 

PREVIOUS POSTS

• Putin’s Approval Rating v. Obama’s
• Palestine: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
• West/Russia Rapprochement?
• Low Oil Prices: Boom or Bust?
• Follow-Up Open Letter to New York Times Editors
• America’s War on Palestine
• War on Black America
• Nicht to War in Europe
• New York Times: Enemy of Truth
• A Holiday Season Message

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Putin: It Is Time to Play Your Ace in the Hole

 

By Ron Holland

“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done.”
“The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers

December 28, 2014 “ICH” – “Market Oracle” –  The entire world is watching Putin play poker with the Western politicians lead by Obama and followed by Washington quislings in London, Brussels and Berlin. America’s goal since the end of the Cold War has been to weaken by financial, economic and, if necessary, military means any real competition to its global financial and resource domination through the petrodollar and dollar world reserve currency status.

The current trade and economic sanctions against Russia and Iran follow this time-tested action that is never successful on its own, as we know from the 50-plus-year blockade of Cuba. But this strategy can lead to opposition nations retaliating by military means, often their only alternative to end blockades etc., which are an act of war and allow the US and other democracies to bring their ultimate superior military power to bare against the offending sovereign state. This worked for Lincoln against the Confederate States of America, by Woodrow Wilson against the Central Powers before World War One, against the Japanese Empire before World War Two, Iraq, Libya – the list is endless.

Recently the US has created the oil price collapse, working closely with its client state Saudi Arabia, in order to weaken the economic power of both Iran and Russia, the two main nations opposing US hegemony, foreign policy and petrodollar policy. Yes, this will play havoc with the US shale oil industry as well as London’s North Sea oil industry but oil profits pale in comparison to the importance of maintaining Western power over Russia and China.

I hope Putin realizes the US is not playing games here, as this is a financial and strategic game to the death for Washington and it’s Western allies that have foolishly followed the Goldman Sachs/central banking cartel’s deadly sovereign debt recipe and for growth and prosperity. The time is up; the debts can never be repaid and sooner or later must be repudiated one way or the other.

China is waiting in the wings as the new world economic power and while it is too big to challenge, US strategy is to take out its top two allies, Iran and Russia, to buy time for Wall Street and Washington. The strategy might be a competitive economic course of action but the risk of military consequences and even a third world war loom on the horizon and no country has ever defeated Russia in a land attack. This is risky brinkmanship just to protect our banking and Wall Street elites and their profits at the expense of the American people, I might add, but the US has done this before.

Is This Just a Repeat of the Versailles Treaty, Russian-style?

This has all happened before. It’s the same old game with different players. I fear we are watching a repeat of the Versailles Treaty, Russian-style. If you look closely at real history rather than the establishment-directed propaganda dished out to the public, you’ll realize that the Western financial elites and central banking cartel seldom change tactics. Why should they? Their financial empires continue to grow during all major wars and financial crises and if they should guess wrong, then they get taxpayers to bail them out.

The Goldman Sachs, Rothschild and Soros types control the Western democracies as well as the financial markets and use paid or blackmailed cheerleaders and front men to advance their best interests to the populace as acceptable economic or political policies.

For example, Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points statement given on January 8, 1918, claiming the war and US intervention was a moral cause to advance peace in Europe after World War One, was one of the leading reasons the Germans sued for peace. In hindsight, we know that American intervention was really instituted to prevent an Allied loss or negotiated settlement that could make it impossible for French and British banks to pay back their massive loans to the US banking establishment and thereby bankrupting our leading banks of the day.

Once the war was over the platitudes about freedom, self-determination and making the world safe for democracy dissolved into the Treaty of Versailles, probably one of the most vengeful and unfair peace treaties ever forced on a defeated foe. The entire Austrian-Hungarian empire was totally destroyed except for the small area of present Austria and Germany, which was stripped of much of its territory and subjected to a vengeful, unpayable war debt comparable to America’s current national debt today. Sadly, the treaty created the public anger and economic chaos that eventually brought Hitler to power and set the stage for the Second World War.

So Where Does Russia Go from Here?

First, the US cable pundits are suggesting that Putin might retaliate by invading Ukraine. Why would Russia want Ukraine? Except for substantial agricultural resources that can be purchased on the open market, this is a bankrupt country with a long list of failed governments. The country has become a pawn in the battle between East and West, and its people have already suffered so much. Now Russia might move in the East to protect Russian-speaking areas and could be willing to suffer the additional economic consequences of creating a land bridge to Crimea but the military option appears quite limited and counter-productive at best.

No nation will win a shooting war between the US, UK and EU versus Russia and China. The consequences are too horrible to be contemplated but Russia has an ace in the hole that can win the financial and economic battle going on today.

First, Russia should join with China in a new gold, oil and natural resource backed monetary union as an alternative to the failed debt democracy model pushed by Wall Street, the central bank cartel and self-serving politicians in the West. It simply does not work in the long term to finance prosperity and improved standards of living through mountains of debt placed on future generations.

Washington has destroyed every tax haven and bit of personal and financial privacy in the world because of its desperate need for revenue. Every financial haven has caved, including Switzerland, because they cannot hope to prevail against the US, UK and EU. The US intends to make Russia a pariah state and cut it off from trade, funds transfer, banking and Western credit markets. It will not relent until Putin is overthrown and Russia is compliant with and a supporter of the New World Order. Next in line following Russia will be China. Thus, a monetary union could provide the needed support for Russia necessary to guarantee the independence and self-determination of China.

Second, Russia should act offensively rather than defensively on the financial front by creating corporate tax-free/low income tax zones and welcoming corporations, successful individuals and entrepreneurs to take up residence and create jobs and prosperity. The Hong Kong model does work to create industry, service industry and free-market prosperity and to win, Russia needs far more than a resource-based economy.

Russia needs more population and a larger middle class and should offer residency and citizenship opportunities to productive and successful workers, entrepreneurial businesses and corporations etc. with the right of reasonable financial and corporate privacy along with the low tax benefits.

Canada, the wonderful country I live and work in today, offers permanent residency benefits and citizenship to hundreds of thousands of foreigners wanting to work and immigrate to Canada together with low corporate tax benefits.

Russia can and should do the same, although the market will require bargain prices as Russia does not have the long history of rule of law, security and peace like Canada does. Russia should look at good climate areas like Crimea and other areas around the Black Sea and maybe Kaliningrad in the north directly in the middle of the EU.

Competition, free markets, minimal regulation and low taxes are the 21st century solution to military aggression, over-indebted and resource-hungry empires. Putin said it best in his news conference last week.

“They won’t leave [the bear] alone. They will always seek to chain it. And once it’s chained, they’ll rip out its teeth and claws. The nuclear deterrence, speaking in present-day terms. As soon as this happens, nobody will need [the bear] anymore. They’ll stuff it. And start to put their hands on its Taiga [Siberian forest belt] after it. We’ve heard statements from Western officials that Russia’s owning Siberia was not fair.” – Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin, now is the time to play your ace in the hole. Russia can win the financial and economic war being waged against it but not by playing the same old game of poker where cheating prevails. Show the world that Russia is worthy of 21st century leadership in a peaceful and competitive manner by using the debt, currency and banking weaknesses of the West to defeat an opponent out to chain Russia as it has the rest of the world into surrender and serfdom.

If you are as concerned as I am about where the world is headed, consider securing a second home internationally in the right location as a means to protect you and your family. Think of it as lifestyle insurance.

Ron Holland [send him mail], a retirement consultant, works in Zurich and is a co-editor of the Swiss Mountain Vision Newsletter.

As some readers are already aware, High Alert is building an exciting new community in South America. I strongly suggest you watch this short video presentation. After viewing, simply complete the information request form and I’ll be happy to personally speak with you and share specific details about the community – click here now.

Additionally, I will be joining Jim Rogers, Anthony Wile, Wendy McElroy and others speaking at the New Colombia Conference May 13-17, 2015. Space is limited, so if you are interested in attending, click here now.

© 2014 Copyright Ron Holland – All Rights Reserved

 

Click for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French,

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

 

THE SILENT FRONT: SYRIA’S ECONOMY

DECEMBER 30, 2014

by Z. Dimitrov, Al-Masdar News

In three months, or March 2015, Syria will enter the fourth year of its bitter internal conflict. Most Syrian provinces have suffered from the ongoing insurgency, seeing battles between the Syrian Arab Army and increasingly fundamentalist insurgents which have left extensive destruction in their wake. But while government troops have managed to turn the tide against the insurgency and are now on the offensive on all but one fronts, the sight of another battle looms on the horizon – the battle for the economy.

According to the UN, the war has claimed more than 190,000 lives; another 5 million have become internally displaced, and more than 3 million have fled to other countries. These figures represent nearly half of the country’s pre-2011 population. Three Syrian provinces – Dimashq, Homs and Aleppo – have suffered extensive damage to their infrastructure and industrial assets. These are also the primary economic hubs of the country. To the northeast, the genocidal self-proclaimed Islamic State has captured almost all of Syria’s oil and gas wells; these installations were consequently targeted by airstrikes of the US-led coalition. Insurgent bombings against vital infrastructure have also contributed to occasional raw material and power shortages.

As a consequence of these events, the Syrian economy – which had amoderate pace of growth and reform before the conflict – has nearly collapsed. The cumulative effect of labour shortages, infrastructural damage and the loss of oil installations has sent the Syrian pound into a freefall. Syrians already suffering from the conflict have found themselves struggling with an inflation spike as a result. The situation is especially dire in areas still outside government control where basic utilities and communal services are scarce or simply non-existent. Healthcare experiences medication and personnel shortages, school attendance rates have dropped significantly and state administration is yet to recover in some of the areas back under government control. Industrial production fell by more than 20% in 2013 alone; gross domestic product has declined as well.

The Syrian government is thus tasked with an enormous problem to solve once the insurgency is put down – it has to revive the well-being of its citizens. Most Western analysts seem to have written off the possibility of such recovery and insist that the country will function as little more than a Russian or Iranian satellite. In a world of ideal predictions this would seem a troublingly reasonable assertion. However, most predictions on the Syrian conflict have proven false, and the economic aspect might be in for yet another wrong prognosis.

Oil & gas

The government’s overriding concern should be to bring back all Syrian extraction installations and refineries under its control. Syria’s total oil production is estimated at around 380,000 barrels per day, a large portion of which are reportedly pumped by Takfiris and then sold to Turkey. A number of tribal clans in eastern Syria control smaller wells and sell what they produce to middlemen. Recapturing oil pumps under Islamic State control will require a dedicated military campaign, but diplomacy could be used to bring the numerous tribal families under the wing of the Syrian state.

While many of the country’s oil and gas installations would likely need extensive repairs, even a moderate increase in production will stabilise the economy by providing steady revenue to an already strained budget plagued by a drastic deficit. Export is unlikely, but fuel shortages inside the country could be relieved, reducing transport expenditures for public and private usage alike.

A boost in the value of the Syrian pound will be an anticipated secondary effect. If coupled with other appropriate, well-timed fiscal measures, more options to reduce inflation and slightly increase domestic consumption will be on the table. However, until stability is restored to the entire country, these will remain stopgap measures and will provide no real solution to the country’s long-term economic necessities.

Agriculture

The other major sector of the Syrian economy will be more difficult to handle, but if managed properly, the efforts will pay off in the long-term. The problem with Syrian agriculture however predates the current conflict.

From 2006 to 2010, the country suffered its worst drought in 40 years, prompting hundreds of thousands of Syrians to leave the countryside and head for urban areas. Coupled with the effects of mismanagement and poor accountability, the situation in the agricultural sector was rather dire. Finally, the current conflict has expelled many from their rural homes, leaving the countryside severely depopulated and lacking in labour and equipment.

Government institutions will need to implement not only some costly repopulation programmes, but also carry out thorough structural reforms involving increased transparency, innovative statistical approaches and introduction of more flexible subsidisation mechanisms. It will also need to build extensive irrigation systems and stimulate cooperation between small producers in order to boost output. Syria can also reap enormous benefits from the current chill in economic relations between Russia and the EU. Syrian farmers could replace suppliers of Mediterranean produce from Italy, Greece and Cyprus on the large Russian market.

All of these measures will require significant and dedicated administrative capacity, but their correct application is sure to provide a long-term rise in employment in a sector that is capable of continously generating revenue with relatively little spending. The benefits will extend deeply into society itself, guaranteeing domestic stability through employment for a long time to come.

Industry & Innovation

With Aleppo virtually pillaged by insurgents, most of the country’s industrial sector is in a state of collapse. Even before the conflict, industry suffered from overregulation, a lack of foreign investment and no domestic innovative solutions. Most of the industrial capacity has been looted or damaged during the conflict.

For a country with a relatively well-developed system of primary and secondary education, Syria scores remarkably low in terms of innovation and competitiveness which are vital for industrial growth. The 2010 Competitiveness Report and The Arab World Competitiveness Review 2010 by the World Economic Forum scored Syria second-to-last in the broader Middle East region; only Libya was found to be less competitive. Things have certainly not improved over the next few reports for obvious reasons.

Among the numerous issues of Syrian industry pointed out in these papers, two stood out noticeably: the poor quality of Syrian goods and the low technological adoption in the sector. The causes range from inadequate training of the workforce to outdated higher education practices. These need to be decisively addressed if industry is to recover in a competitive way.

The government must also prioritise higher education in natural sciences and technology in order to create an environment of innovative solutions for the industry. As much as this may sound a nuisance in the current situation, failure to realise the potential applications of cutting-edge research will doom the government to spend precious resources on rebuilding an already obsolete industrial base with outdated practices. Acquisition of new technology from abroad, on the other hand, will be made possible only by cutting down import regulations and taxes while establishing proper cooperation agreements with technologically advanced countries.

Government planners must also take into account the vast amount of destruction throughout the country. Construction will certainly provide a noticeable industrial growth on paper, but this will only last for so long. However, the increase of construction activity will have the side benefit of generating temporary employment and livelihood for many Syrians, especially those displaced and with little specialised skills. Uniting management of displaced persons with agricultural repopulation programmes is absolutely necessary to restore the economy and society.

A war to be won

A fluid situation such as this one will undoubtedly bring about numerous reassessments; some of these measures might suddenly turn out unnecessary, while others may become more urgent than ever. In any case, the government should brace itself for the upcoming economic battle – a silent front that will not erase the memory of this catastrophe for the next generations, but one that will guarantee the wounds will heal much, much quicker.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

EU urges Israel to withdraw from pre-1967 Palestinian territories

http://drah.ps/en/index.php?act=post&id=983

Gaza,(DRAH.ps)– EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has urged the Israeli regime to withdraw from pre-1967 Palestinian territories within a three-year period.

Mogherini made the appeal in a Wednesday statement after the United Nations Security Council rejected a draft resolution demanding the recognition of an independent Palestinian state and the termination of the Israeli occupation.

Mogherini said the vote underlined the “urgency” for resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinians as well as “the need for the international community to focus on” reaching a “comprehensive” peace agreement.

“The European Union will promote and support now more than ever efforts to achieve a lasting peace,” she said.

On Tuesday, the Security Council did not adopt the draft resolution.

The resolution needed to secure at least nine votes to be adopted by the 15-member council. However, it managed to garner only eight positive votes as the US and Australia voted against the resolution and the UK, Rwanda, Nigeria, South Korea and Lithuania abstained.

In the past few months, the Palestinian national unity government has been pushing for the resolution to determine the borders of a future Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 lines.

In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, but withdrew from the enclave and lay siege to it in 2005.

Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds, and the besieged Gaza Strip, and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.

BDS – 2014 the best year so far

BDS – 2014 the best year so far

The amazing things we achieved together in 2014

By Palestinian BDS National Committee
December 27, 2014

For Palestinians and people of conscience everywhere, 2014 will be remembered as the year in which Israel carried out its bloodiest ever massacre of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza strip.

2014 was also a year of resistance that saw continued resistance and unprecedented international solidarity with Palestine and huge steps forward for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Here’s our round up of some of the key BDS developments of 2014. The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that works to lead and support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, warmly thanks each and every person who supported and contributed to the BDS movement this year.

If you can, please consider making a donation to our first ever fundraising appeal. It’ll help us to produce the resources and research our movement needs to make an even greater impact during 2015.

January

Scarlett Johansson helps bring BDS to the mainstream

The year opened with an international controversy over the decision of Hollywood A-lister Scarlett Johansson to become a brand ambassador for SodaStream, the Israeli drinks machine manufacturer that operates a factory in an illegal Israeli settlement.

The move attracted particular attention because the Lost in Translation star was also an ambassador for Oxfam, an international NGO that condemns illegal Israeli settlements. Oxfam faced huge pressure to ditch Johansson and publicly criticised her decision.

Ultimately it was Johansson who brought the saga to a close when she stepped down as an Oxfam representative, but not before social media memes about her support for Israel’s apartheid regime had gone viral and the BDS movement had received unprecedented international media attention. SodaStream’s share price suffered the first of many hits.

Dutch pension giant divests from Israeli banks
In a move that laid the foundation for other European funds to follow suit later in the year, Dutch pension fund PGGM announced it was divesting tens of millions of euros from 5 of Israel’s biggest banks due to their deep involvement in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians. The fund manages the pensions of 2.5 million people.

Veolia loses $4.5bn Boston contract
Campaigners in Boston celebrated after French multinational Veolia lost out on a $4.5bn contract following a vigorous campaign denouncing the company’s provision of infrastructure to illegal Israeli settlements.

Friends of the Earth International joins a growing BDS campaign
January also saw Friends of the Earth International signal its support for the campaign against Israeli state water company Mekorot and other boycott and divestment campaigns.

Norwegian singer Moddi cancels a scheduled gig in Israel
His decision was in direct response to a vigorous social media campaign led by BDS activists in Gaza.

February

February saw the start of Israeli Apartheid Week, which took place in more than 160 cities across more than 32 countries.

Israel panics as more European funds divest

Danish and Luxembourg investors divest from Israel
Luxembourg’s state pension fund FDC excludes nine major Israeli banks and firms and one US company because of their involvement in Israeli settlements and human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, Denmark’s largest bank Dankse Bank blacklists Israel’s Bank Hapoalim over settlement construction.

Israel and its supporters panic and attack free speech over boycott fears
Following the Scarlett Johansson scandal and a string of high profile divestment decisions by European firms and investors, the Israeli government discusses using legal action and its security services to counter the BDS movement. In the US, legislators in New York and Maryland take ultimately unsuccessful steps towards introducing legislation withdrawing public funds from any institution or academic association that supports BDS.

UK student union cancels G4S contract over role in Israeli prisons
The student union at the University of Kent in the southeast of England votes to cancel its contract with G4S following an “outcry” over its role in human rights abuses in Palestine

March

Israeli water firm loses $170m Argentina contract

The Buenos Aires municipality suspends a $170m water deal with Mekorot following a campaign over its role in Israel’s system of ‘water apartheid’. Mekorot was further targeted in a week of action that began on World Water Day.

Victory in Galway as Irish students’ union votes to join BDS movement
The motion at the National University of Ireland in Galway was passed by an almost 2 to 1 margin and follows on from the Teachers Union of Ireland’s 2013 endorsement of an academic boycott of Israel.

April

More bad news for SodaStream and Mekorot
Earth Day Network Cuts Ties with SodaStreamCannes-Film-Festival-Sodastream-Action
SodaStream had been a partner of the Earth Day initiative as part of its efforts to greenwash its role in Israeli apartheid until BDS pressure persuaded it to abandon its links with the Israeli exporter. SodaStream attempts to “greenwash” its role in Israeli apartheid by marketing itself as environmentally friendly.

Israeli state water company loses Portugal deal
Mekorot faces second major set back in as many months as Lisbon’s water company EPAL announced that it terminated a technology exchange deal following pressure from Portuguese MPs and campaign groups.

Divestment movement continues to sweep across US campuses
Students at the University of New Mexico, Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and University of California Riverside vote to support divestment from companies that help Israel violate international law. Meanwhile, the largest student petition in Florida’s history calls for divestment.

Europe’s largest teachers’ union endorses Israel boycott call
The UK’s National Union of Teachers votes to back the UK Trade Union Congress boycott policy.

May

The Bill Gates Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the world, divests from G4S. A petition signed by more than 14,000 people and demonstrations outside Gates Foundation offices in London, Johannesburg and Seattle called on the the Gates Foundation to divest from G4S because of its role in providing equipment and services to prisons where Israel holds and tortures Palestinian political prisoners.

EU bans poultry exports from illegal Israeli settlements
The decision was an implementation of the EU’s commitment not to recognise Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian territory, which came as a result of grassroots pressure and advocacy.

June

Presbyterians-divest

Years of grassroots organising pays off as the Presbyterian Church (USA) general assembly in Detroit votes to divest its holdings from three US corporations – Hewlett Packard (HP), Motorola Solutions and Caterpillar – on the basis of their well-documented record of complicity in the oppression and denial of human rights of Palestinians.

BDS pressure forces G4S to announce prison pull out
As more than 100 heroic Palestinian political prisoners continued their hunger strike for the 55th day, their longest ever, British security company G4S announces it will end its role in Israel’s prison system, albeit not until 2017. The decision resulted from the BDS campaign that has cost the company millions of dollars in contracts and compelled the Bill Gates Foundation and the US United Methodist Church, the largest US protestant church, to divest from the company.

However, the campaign against G4S is set to continue until the prison pull out takes place and it ends its role in Israel’s settlements and military.

UK victories for SodaStream campaign
Major UK retail chain John Lewis stopped stocking SodaStream and a SodaStream shop in Brighton closed following high profile campaigns over SodaStream’s role in illegal settlements in the West Bank and ethnic cleansing in the Naqab desert inside Israel.

Dutch pension giant ABP divests from two Israeli arms companies
Aryt Industries Ltd. and Ashot Ashkelon were blacklisted for their role in producing cluster munitions

July

Israel’s massacre in Gaza prompts international sanctions and boycott action

Israel began its massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, governments and people of conscience across the world take action to pressure Israel to comply with international law and human rights. Key developments includes:

The Chilean parliament votes to suspend negotiations on a new trade deal with Israel, and Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador and Peru withdraw their ambassadors.

A call for a military embargo on Israel launched by 6 Nobel laureates and dozens of celebrities is signed by more than 60,000 people.

Hundreds of thousands of people participate in demonstrations calling for an end to the siege on Gaza and for governments to impose arms embargoes and sanctions on Israel.

Dublin city council passes a resolution calling for a military embargo and the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

In Turkey, at least 12 local municipalities, a number of major business associations and a major trade union issue calls for a boycott of Israeli products

17 EU members take action against corporate complicity with Israeli crimes

Before Israel’s attack on Gaza had begun, more than 17 European governments had published online guidance warning firms of the risks involved in trade and other economic links with illegal Israeli settlements. The policy announcements followed grassroots campaigning and advocacy on the issue.

August

On August 9, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets as part of an international Day of Rage initiated by groups in Gaza. Anti-apartheid hero Desmond Tutu called the day one of the biggest ever international mobilisations on a single issue.

Thousands of supporters of Palestinian rights in the San Francisco Bay take part in pickets and demonstrations that have prevented an Israeli ship from docking at the port in Oakland for four consecutive days. By the end of August, the unloading of Israeli ships has been prevented or disrupted at ports in Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle and Long Beach.

Others key developments in August include:

Major Israeli food exporters report an unprecedented wave of cancellations in orders from Europe as the popular boycott of Israel intensifies.

In the West Bank, sales of Israeli products drop by 50% due to the growth of boycott.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, Fidel Castro and a series of other high-profile figures from central and Latin America call for BDS action and government sanctions.

The executive of the UK National Union of Students, representing 7 million British students, passed a motion in support of BDS campaigns, as did unions across Latin America.

Soros Fund Management, the family office of the billionaire investor George Soros, sells its stake in SodaStream following pressure by its Middle East partners.

September

Veolia announces Israel exit as Kuwait authorities exclude it $750m contract
Photo credit: Adri NieuwhofAuthorities in Kuwait announce they are excluding Veolia from $750m contract following campaigning by Kuwaiti groups and the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC).

Veolia announces sale of Israeli businesses
It also emerged in September that French multinational Veolia, which has lost billions of dollars of contracts as a result of campaigns over its construction of infrastructure for illegal Israeli settlements, intends to “step back from Israel as a market place” and sell most parts of its Israeli interests during 2015.

The campaign against Veolia must continue until it actually ends all aspects of its participation in Israeli violations of international law, including its involvement in illegal Jerusalem Light Rail project.

Walden Bello gives speech in Philippines congress calling for Elbit deal cancellation

Filipino Congressman, author and academic Walden Bello [above, speaking at the House of Representatives in Quezon City] adds his voice to the campaign calling on the Philippines government to cancel its deal with Israeli military company Elbit Systems

ANC joins call for complete boycott of Israel, including travel bans, in solidarity with Palestine

ANC members and leaders should not travel to Israel as the party is in solidarity with the people of Palestine, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said on Monday.

UEFA decides against Jerusalem tournament bid

The Union of European Football Associations rejects an Israeli bid to host games during the 2020 European Championships following a campaign by Palestinian sports teams and campaign groups and activists across Europe.

Over 640 Swiss artists and cultural actors demand that the Swiss Federal Council suspend military co-operation with Israel

October

SodaStream announces closure of illegal settlement factory
–

SodaStream announces it is to close its factory in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumim following a high profile boycott campaign against the company that saw retailers and investors across the world cut links with the company.

However, SodaStream reveals it is to benefit from Israel’s displacement of Palestinians in Naqab, and states that the factory shall remain open until some time during 2015. The campaign against SodaStream continues.

Kuwait boycotts 50 companies over role in illegal Israeli settlements
The blacklisted companies include some of the top corporate targets of the BDS movement, such as Veolia, Volvo, Heidelberg Cement, Dexia, Pizzarotti and Alstom.

G4S loses out on Irish government contract
Palestine activists campaigned against G4S being awarded the contract over its role in Israeli prisons and checkpoints.

Los Angeles activists block unloading of Israeli cargo ship for two days
The Block the Boat coalition of Los Angeles claimed another victory, delaying an Israeli cargo ship for more than 34 hours.

Israel excluded from Italy military exercises after protests
Public pressure forces the Italian government to exclude the Israeli military from joint military exercises it was due to take part in.

November

More than 300 political parties, trade unions and campaign groups call for the suspension of a the EU-Israel Association agreement that facilitates largely unrestricted trade between the EU and Israel and allows Israel to participate in a wide range of the Union’s programs.

Signatories to the call include Podemos, the leftist party currently leading the polls in Spain, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and other major national trade union bodies from Spain, Denmark, France and Belgium.

More US and UK campuses vote to join divestment movement
The University of California at Los Angeles becomes the sixth of nine undergraduate campuses in the UC system to call for divestment, while the biggest ever student referendum at the University of Exeter calls for the student union to join the BDS movement.

Major campaign success against G4S in the US
Durham has become the first U.S. municipality to boycott a company because of its role in Israeli violations of international law.

December

Elbit Systems loses key Brazil deal
boycott elbitThe Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul cancels a major collaboration deal with Israeli military company Elbit Systems in the wake of protests over the firm’s role in oppression of Palestinians.

US student workers’ union becomes first US labor union to back BDS
Student workers at the University of California have voted by a landslide to support the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Olive Declaration of UN conference calls for action
The UN-backed International Conference of Governments and Civil Society Organizations in Support of Palestinian Rights has called for municipalities to take action in support of Palestinian rights.

10 Security Threats Frightening ’Israel’ during 2015

الفنّانة اللبنانية جوليا بطرس تكرّم حزب الله ومقاتليه بأغنية مميّزَة!

10 Security Threats Frightening ’Israel’ during 2015

Local Editor

 

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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Most ISIS terrorists arriving in Syria via Turkey & israel

 

 

Something Strange About ISIS

I recently returned from the Terrorism and Religious Extremism Conference in Damascus. While there, I had the opportunity to meet with Syrian militia leaders. What they had to tell me and show me confirmed some of my suspicions. I already knew that the United States had trained at least 3000 ISIS “cadre” leaders at camps in Jordan. Colonel Jim Hanke US Army Special Forces (ret) had accompanied me and spoke of this during the conference.

However, the militia leaders brought evidence. They had photographed not only ISIS dead but their identity papers as well. One group of 74 killed in fighting near Kobani included 15 Ukrainians and 8 Chechens. Others included fighters from Saudi Arabia, Yemen but the rest were from North Africa. There was no gloating over the dead despite the fact the exchange took place in a restaurant at the Damas Rose, a government owned hotel in Syria. There was a sadness, a solemnity about this as even ISIS dead, reputed to be mass murderers, looked no different than others, all young, bearded though many distinctly European.

What was surprising was the lack of curiosity as to how any of these fighters had gotten into Syria in the first place. I had travelled through Lebanon, was picked up by security at the airport and, on the way to Damascus, stopped many times at military checkpoints and subjected to 4 hours of background checks at remote border crossings. Even inside Syria it took hours to get clearance despite carrying a letter from the Minister of Justice.

Simply put, jihadists don’t just walk through Lebanon. This leaves only two possibilities, they travel through Turkey, something more than obvious or they receive transit across Israel. A cursory examination of the geography of the region leaves only two other remote possibilities. One is that they manage to cross the Red Sea like Moses or they are flown in somehow, magically passing through airport security checkpoints all overseen by Interpol, America’s Department of Homeland Security and NATO financed security forces.

It is assumed that any Islamic male, traveling alone or with others, in transit toward Iraq or Syria, is a terrorist. I was certainly questioned several times. One could only assume that perhaps planes the CIA had used to transport narcotics or torture victims had been “retasked” for the purpose of bringing terrorists into Syria and Iraq. There are certainly reports of unmarked planes flying in and out of Mosul despite the fact that American fighter/interceptors maintain what they claim is a “stranglehold” on airspace in the region.

Syrian officials informally voice their own suspicions about ISIS. Though not publicly spoken of, they are of the opinion that American and Israeli advisors are serving with ISIS. Based on an analysis of ISIS tactical capabilities and their apparent access to secure communications, easily jammed by the US if they wished, such beliefs are not without foundation. Simply put, not everyone can operate complex American built mobile artillery pieces or armoured vehicles. ISIS seems to have no problem with this or any difficulty acquiring Stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft as well.

It is claimed that these missiles move from Libya, through Sinai and somehow magically jump over Israel. Oddly, none seemed to make their way into Gaza as evidenced during last summer’s Israeli air assault.

One key area of what appears to be tacit cooperation between the “Islamic State” and NATO, namely Turkey, is seen in the looting of Syria. As with Lebanon, Turkey maintains well defended borders. However, there is more than adequate proof that whenever ISIS moves into an area of Syria or even Iraq, the Turks aren’t far behind. Like locusts, streams of heavy trucks, engineers, equipment movers join ISIS, stealing everything of value and moving it past the border into Turkey, a border that refugees spend days waiting to pass. However, a hundred heavy trucks carrying away a Syrian automobile assembly plant is able to negotiate the Turkish border without a hiccup.

Similarly, entire banks, cash, computers systems, vault and all have made the trip into Turkey followed by endless antiquities that find their way into the auction houses of London, New York and Paris. Unless ISIS is infected with an altruistic love of all things Turkish, it is reasonable to assume they are in it together, sharing the spoils. As ISIS is a “named terror organization” by both the US and EU, any individual or organization that is involved either directly or indirectly, no matter through how many hands, in commerce is guilty of “material support of terrorism.” For a state, such as Turkey, such violations necessitate sanctions. For an individual, be they a London art dealer or German machine tool broker, typical punishment should involve rendition, torture and gulag imprisonment.

Instead, American and European war profiteers openly trade with ISIS, no fear of sanctions or the all-powerful Office of Foreign Asset Control getting involved. The “fix” is obviously in, looted cities, looted museums, looted banks, all to be shared as long as politicians get their cut.

To say that there is something strange about ISIS is perhaps the understatement of all time. Can we call them “The Not Very Islamic State?” What they seem to have is friends, people who give them intelligence help, satellite photos, people who train them to operate complex American weapons, people who shepherd their personnel around like diplomats. What they also have are business partners, partners who are clearly above the law. Who has that kind of influence?

Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2014/12/31/something-strange-about-isis/

Kiev Regime’s Official Policy for East Ukraine is Starvation, Torture, Rape and Murder

Kiev Regime’s Official Policy for East Ukraine is Starvation, Torture, Rape and Murder

 

Imagine a sign pinned to the podium on the floor of the US Senate that reads Ferguson will be ours! Pictured on it is an armored personnel carrier with the United States flag driving over a mountain of corpses. This picture shown below says just that about Donbass. This is Kiev’s official statement on mass murder for the area. This was pinned to the podium on the floor of the Ukrainian Senate (Verkhovna Rada).

President Petro Poroshenko and his government have run out of wiggle room to deflect charges of genocide any more.

On December 18^th the newly appointed Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Senate) deputy Semen Semenchenko, formerly commander of the battalion “Donbass” warned that Ukraine intends to pursue terrorists from Donbass anywhere in the world. The terrorists from Donbass Semenchenko wants to pursue is anyone that did not leave when the ATO began.

Andrey Biletsky, former “Azov” battalion commander, Ukrainian nationalist ideologist, and a favorite in Victoria Nuland’s circles ( Biletsky was made a Verkhovna Rada deputy by Arseni Yatsenyuk) made clear who those terrorists are in an interview with Foreign Policy .

“Unfortunately, among the Ukrainian people today there are a lot of ‘Russians’ (by their mentality, not their blood), ‘kikes,’ ‘Americans,’ ‘Europeans’ (of the democratic-liberal European Union), ‘Arabs,’ ‘Chinese’ and so forth, but there is not much specifically Ukrainian… It’s unclear how much time and effort will be needed to eradicate these dangerous viruses from our people.”

Biletsky, a new Senator who is being groomed for the Ukrainian presidency thinks even his American handlers are part of the virus infecting Ukraine.

Rape is Official Policy in Ukraine?

His Azov battalion (with Nazi insignia)  are showing their true American and European values in Mariupol by gang raping women prisoners at prison every night, torturing, and murdering some of them. This is someone that describes Americans and democratic values as a dangerous virus that need to be eradicated making sure your US tax dollars hard at work again.

According to an article that was published in the Kharkov News by Rita Samoilov on December 25^th 15-20 women prisoners at penal colony #107 are taken to the military camp every night and raped by the Azov battalion. Earlier in the year I reported the same behavior at the mines in Lower Krynka by Aydar battalion which resulted in reports of mass rape, torture, and mass graves found on the site where over 5000 Ukrainian cleansing troops and national guard were camped. Upon checking the allegations the OSCE found them to be true. Kiev responded by making Aydar the new model of policing in Ukraine.

One of the nurses at a hospital that treats the torture victims after the fact is saying that they are working to save the lives of some of the women that are dropped off with expanding construction foam stuffed inside their vaginas and anuses. Originally it was an employee of the prison that brought this to light by calling Rita Samoilov about the story.

The women are treated this way because they are considered to be terrorists in a city where not having pro- nazi contacts on your phone is enough to get you arrested. Is it as ok for Ukrainian nazis to rape women prisoners as it is fellow soldiers?

In Mariupol the Ukrainian government is directly responsible for the welfare of the women in the penal system. Could a US governor walk away from this kind of scandal unscathed? If governor Rick Perry was suspected of even knowing (Ukraine is the same size as Texas) a state crime this big might be going on broadcast news would be all over it. The investigations would be swift and he would NOT be allowed to conduct them himself.

In Odessa, a city Poroshenko described as Ukrainized after the May pogrom; Ukraine is bringing in tanks and armored personnel carriers to hunt for separatists. The cleansing crews arriving on December 30, 2014 are going through social media lists arresting people that have done nothing against Ukraine.

Lets be clear; this isn’t State sanctioned rape and torture on Kiev’s part. This is the Ukrainian government providing the rape and torture victims. The women are kept in prison, many for the charge of separatism. This is State sanctioned rape of prisoners by every country and government outside of Ukraine that is supporting Kiev that won’t step in and investigate it.

Ukraine Where Murder is the base of your financial planning

Why would people volunteer to do this? One Ukrainian volunteer that was captured twice answered this question to a large degree. They asked him why he came back? The volunteer (not a conscript) said the first time he was in Donbas he made enough money to purchase a car. He came back because he wanted to make money and buy a house.

This murder for hire mentality is prevalent inside the cleansing battalions. These battalions are committing most of the atrocities and do so with definite rewards in mind. Look at the Rada in Kiev today. The more land they clear of people, the more property they are given. To do so the people that live in those cities, towns, and homes need to go one way or the other. If you can’t scare them, kill them.

According to an article in livejournal Since June 2014 members of ATU and family members of deceased servicemen in the territorial bodies Goszemagentstva ( Dept of Land Resources)was filed 15,582 applications for land .

These represent land grants given by the Ukrainian government for how effective they have been getting rid of separatists. The cleansing battalions don’t fight in the war. They murder and rob. They torture and rape. They fill tractor trailer loads with the possessions robbed from the murdered and displaced they want to keep or sell. They like their work.

Free Speech, law and order in Ukraine

The city of Kharkov is outside of Donbass. It is and has been under Ukrainian control this whole time. Kharkov has a strong anti-maidan movement in it. In the new democratic Ukraine on November 22 Victor a VK anti-maidan group editor was arrested and taken for questioning by the SBU (Ukrainian FBI). VK (V Kontakte) is the Russian version of Facebook. The group editor is the person that publishes the posts for the group on the page.

Victor who clearly wasn’t in Donbass and not a militia member was tortured for 4 days before being dumped on the side of the road in a coma. He never regained consciousness and died on November 26^th. The official cause of death on the certificate from the hospital was pneumonia. Four days earlier Victor’s family says he was healthy.

Every one of Victor’s fingers were broken and bent to the back of his hand. His finger nails were pulled out. Every rib was broken. Alexander’s skull was split. This was just questioning. He was never charged formally.

This is the same Kiev government that promised amnesty for anyone that did not participate in the war and included amnesty for people that guarded warehouses for instance according to Andrey Lysenko the speaker of the National Security and Defense Council in Kiev.

This is happening today all across Ukraine from Lviv (Galicia, western Ukraine) to the Kiev controlled areas inside the neutral area outside Donbass. The only area the official Ukrainian style of questioning isn’t happening is Donbas.

Ukraine’s Official position on the Humanitarian Blockade

In Ukraine, news can’t be reported until it is cleared through official channels. Reporters that go against this on a good day find themselves out of work. On a bad day they are sent to the front lines in Donbass as conscripts in the army.

In an effort to shape public opinion popular news presenter Natalya Stanko stated bluntly that Kiev should bomb Donbass into oblivion because bombing them was nobler and starving people to death was to slow. Linguistically the word for “death” she chose referred to slimy undesirable creatures, not typically referenced for people.

In the video below Ukrainian senator Semen Semonchenko explains the reason why they won’t let humanitarian convoys into Donbass is that there is no humanitarian crisis there at all. According to him if the pensioners that had their payments cut off want to reinstate them all they needed to do was to go to a city in Ukrainian control like Slavyansk and apply there.

Semenchenko then stated that the humanitarian cargo they stopped was needed for a city that had a real humanitarian crisis- one in Kiev’s control since mid summer. If the people there were getting their pensions, utilities, or heat like he said Donbass pensioners could get what does this mean?

Semenchenko left out the fact that without having a living permit (Propiska) in a city, you can’t apply for anything.

The positions of the Ukrainian government are also clear in the tank battles that have been raging near Donetsk over the last few days. Towns inside the supposed neutral area have been attacked by Ukrainian tank battalions. Towns inside Donbass have been lost to Kiev and then won back over the last few days and nights. The attacks continue. Kiev never abided by the Minsk agreements or the cease fire.

All of this will seem small if Kiev is allowed to attack again. Since the peace started they kept the convoys of weapons and ammunition moving into Donbass. The probing attacks they have conducted point to a large offensive starting very soon, possibly within days.

Should American or European money be used to fund this?

The humanitarian crisis in Donbass continues to grow rapidly. Currently the only direct help coming in is from Russia. Please consider donating to humanitarian groups working directly in Donbass.

AirAsia Flight QZ8501: Mysterious Chinese Man Predicted Disappearance 2 weeks ago

AirAsia Flight QZ8501: Mysterious Chinese Man Predicted Disappearance 2 weeks ago 

楼主：老百姓有自己的乐 时间：2014-12-15 20:15:00 点击：3259111 回复：
国际大黑手把马航MH370和马航MH17劫持和击落后，作为世界第六大航空公司的马航基本垮了，处于要死不活的状态

现在，大黑手又把目标锁定在亚航，一如既往，必须搞垮亚航，因为亚航也属于马来西亚

鉴于黑手的势力过于强大，心肠过于狠毒，建议出行的中国旅客，远离亚航，别成为另一个MH370的牺牲品
楼主发言：39次 发图：0张

GOOGLE TRANSLATE

Landlord: people have their own music time: 2014-12-15 20:15:00 Hits: 3259111 replies:

International Black Hand and the Malaysia Airlines MH370 Malaysia Airlines MH17 after the hijacking and shot down, as the world’s sixth-largest airline Ma Hangji this collapse, in a lethargic state

Now, the big black hand again targeted in AirAsia, as always, must ruin AirAsia, AirAsia also belongs to Malaysia because

Given Blackhand forces too powerful, too vicious heart, suggested that the Chinese passenger travel, away from AirAsia, do not become a victim of another MH370
Landlord statement: hair Figure 39: 0

In an eerie blog post about two weeks ago, a mysterious Chinese man had warned that an AirAsia plane was going to disappear or meet a tragic end. And about a fortnight later, AirAisa flight QZ8501 disappeared from the air traffic control radar system on the morning of 27 December.

The post has gone viral on social media and discussion forums such as Reddit, with people reacting in astonishment on how the person could have predicted it. The man behind the post apparently explains that the same people who brought down MH370 were going to attack another Malaysian airlines flight or an AirAsia plane.

The post alleges that an organisation called “The International Black Hand” is behind the disappearance of the airplanes. Black Hand is the term that is understood to be a metaphor for the shadowy organisation that does its work behind the scenes, or it may refer to a number of underground, anarchic organisations, many of which have ties to Islamist groups.

“Black Hand hijacked and shot down MH370 and MH17. This has pretty much killed the 6^th largest airline — Malaysian airline,” the post read, according to a loose translation by a Reddit member.

“Now the Black Hand is targeting AirAsia to ruin this airline because it too belongs to Malaysia. Given how powerful the Black Hand is, I suggest that all Chinese planning to travel, should avoid AirAsia, so that you don’t disappear like those on MH370,” it read.

“You could be happily vacationing, working, or studying aboard, but if you go on Malaysian airline or AirAsia, you’re dead, be careful everyone,” he warned urging people to inform all their family members and friends to avoid Malaysian airline and AirAsia.

When asked by blog followers how he could he be confident about this and when another person made a joke calling him a ‘conspiracy nut, the poster who recognised himself as ‘Landlord’ replied: “All you civilians get away from the airline. You can still hide, all those who can see the post can still save themselves… Don’t be a victim, go hide. Avoid Malaysian airline and AirAsia. Life is precious and your safety is important (sic),” he urged.

The Chinese version of the Epoch Times also notes the warning put forward by the mysterious ‘Landlord’. Not much is known about this person, but there is an ongoing conspiracy theory that the man in question is a Chinese intelligence official, or a hacker who got sensitive information and was trying to save as many people as possible without creating a big ruckus.

The person appeared to be desperate to reach out with the message to as many people as possible as he is was reportedly spamming the thread, repeatedly warning people about the impending attack. He had stopped posting the message only a few days before flight QZ8501 disappeared, it has been noted.

 

Involvement of Saudi, Jordan in Backing ISIL in Iraq is Proven by the Documents found

Involvement of Saudi, Jordan in Backing ISIL is Proven by the Documents found

A Popular Mobilization commander announced on Tuesday finding documents in southern Tikrit that prove the involvement of a number of neighboring countries in supporting the takfiri terrorist group of ISIL in Iraq.

The commander added that the clearing operation that the Mobilization troops are carrying out in the area resulted in finding large number of documents in addition to lots of equipment and vehicles that hold Saudi and Jordanian plates numbers and that were sent to ISIL as a gift to support the terrorist group.

The ISIL militants control some parts of Syria and Iraq. They have engaged in crimes against humanity in the areas under their control, including mass murdering local civilians as well as captured army and security officers while terrorizing people from diverse communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians.

•Hamas: Palestinian government has failed Gaza

• Hamas: Palestinian government has failed Gaza

Haniya accuses government of failing to keep its commitments to rebuild war-torn Gaza Strip.

Middle East Online

A long way to reconstruct Gaza Strip GAZA CITY – The Palestinian consensus government has failed to meet its commitment to rebuild the war-torn Gaza Strip, former Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya has said. Speaking late on Monday shortly after a ministerial delegation from the West Bank arrived in Gaza, Haniya accused the government of failing “to keep its commitments, by not carrying out reconstruction, nor unifying institutions under the Palestinian Authority nor organising elections.” The national consensus government took office in June following a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, ending seven years of rival administrations in the West Bank and Gaza. Technocratic in nature, its mandate was to unify governance of the two territories and prepare for elections. It was later tasked with rebuilding Gaza after a deadly summer war with Israel, which claimed nearly 2,200 Palestinian lives. A spate of bombings last month targeting the property of Fatah officials in Gaza prompted prime minister Rami Hamdallah to cancel a scheduled visit. Haniya accused the government of acting selectively in a manner that was “harmful” to Gaza and said he was “not optimistic” that the current visit would manage to get things “back on track”. “Unfortunately, the government has not managed to prove it is the government of the entire Palestinian people,” said Haniya, the Gaza-based deputy head of Hamas’s politburo. His remarks, broadcast on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa television, were made several hours after eight ministers and more than 40 other government officials from Ramallah arrived to kickstart the reconstruction of Gaza, which has yet to begin. The massive task of rebuilding the territory, where more than 96,000 homes were damaged or destroyed leaving more than 100,000 people homeless, has hardly begun, with Palestinian officials accusing Israel of restricting the entry of crucial building supplies. The unity government was tasked with managing the reconstruction but the process has been bogged down by infighting between Hamas and Fatah. Diplomatic sources also say a UN-brokered mechanism agreed with Israel and the Palestinians which would facilitate the entry of construction supplies has taken longer than expected to get up and running.

USA & Australia vote against UN Palestine statehood resolution, although USA would have vetoed if necessary

UN Security Council rejects Palestine statehood resolution

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — The UN Security Council failed to adopt a resolution on Palestinian statehood that was strongly opposed by the United States on Tuesday.

China, France and Russia were among the eight countries that voted in favor of the text, but the resolution fell short of winning the nine “yes” votes necessary for adoption in the 15-member council.

Australia and the United States voted against, and five other countries abstained, including Britain.

The resolution drafted by the Palestinians and backed by Arab countries would have paved the way to a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

It set a 12-month deadline for Israel to reach a final peace deal with the Palestinians and called for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories by the end of 2017.

Security Council member Jordan had requested the vote despite opposition from the United States, which argued that the resolution did not address Israel’s security concerns and set arbitrary deadlines.

“This resolution sets the stage for more division, not for compromise,” US Ambassador Samantha Power told the council. “This text addresses the concerns of just one side.”

Power defended the US position in favor of direct talks, saying “peace will come from hard choices and compromises that must be made at the negotiating table.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry had lobbied in the days leading up to the vote, calling 13 foreign ministers to explain the American opposition.

Washington was not, however, compelled to resort to its veto power to block the measure — a move that could have undermined US standing in the Arab world.

A US veto risked angering key Arab allies, including partners in the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

Argentina, Chad, Chile, Jordan and Luxembourg joined China, France and Russia in supporting the resolution.

Lithuania, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Korea abstained, along with Britain.

Diplomatic sources said Nigeria had been expected to support the resolution and changed its stance at the last minute.

France votes ‘yes’

France’s envoy said he backed the resolution because of an “urgent need to act” and vowed to continue pressing for a UN role in reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

“Our efforts must not stop here. It is our responsibility to try again, before it’s too late,” said Francois Delattre.

International alarm is growing over the ongoing violence and the failure to restart negotiations that last broke down in April, when Kerry led a push for peace.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the vote underlined the “urgency” for Israel and the Palestinians to urgently resume peace negotiations.

“The European Union will promote and support now more than ever efforts to achieve a lasting peace based on this two-state vision together with international partners, including in the region,” she said.

On Tuesday, a Palestinian teenager was seriously wounded by Israeli gunfire in the southern West Bank, according to family members. The army said he had thrown a suspected explosive device at troops.

The incident came a day after Israeli forces shot and killed a young man in the northern West Bank, the 2,335th Palestinians to be killed by Israel so far this year.

The vote capped a three-month campaign by the Palestinians at the United Nations to win support for a resolution that sets a timeframe for ending the Israeli occupation.

Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour accused the council of failing to shoulder its responsibilities and vowed to seek other venues to gain recognition.

“The Palestinian people and the world can no longer wait. That message, despite the regrettable outcome today, is especially clear,” he told the council.

Mansour said the Palestinian leadership will meet Wednesday to decide on the next steps.

The Palestinians have said they are prepared to join the International Criminal Court to launch legal action against Israel and use other international fora to press their case if the resolution fails.

Israel — represented by the mission’s number three Israel Nitzan — delivered a terse, four-sentence address to the council.

“I have news for the Palestinians — you cannot agitate and provoke your way to a state,” he said.

“I urge the council to stop indulging the Palestinians and put an end to their march of folly.”

Ma’an staff contributed to this report.