Group items tagged

The disaster in Ukraine may be termed aggression against Russia by the U.S. and its NATO allies. This is a contemporary version of Euro-fascism, which differs from the previous face of fascism during World War II in that it employs “soft” power with just some elements of armed action in cases of extreme necessity, as well as the use of Nazi ideology as a supplementary rather than an absolute ideology. One of the main defining elements of Eurofascism has been preserved, however, and that is the division of citizens into superior ones (those who support the “European choice”) and inferior ones, who have no right to their own opinions and toward whom all is permitted. Another feature is the readiness to use violence and commit crimes in dealing with political opponents. The final aspect that needs to be understood, is what drives the rebirth of fascism in Europe; without grasping this, it is impossible to develop a resistance plan and save the Russian world from this latest threat of Euro-occupation.

The theory of long-term economic development recognizes an interrelationship between long waves of economic activity and long waves of military and political tension. Periodic shifts from one dominant technological mode to the next alternate with economic depressions, wherein increased government spending is used as an incentive for overcoming the crisis. The spending is concentrated in the military-industrial complex, because the liberal economic ideology allows enhancement of the role of the state only for national security objectives. Therefore, military and political tension is promoted and international conflicts provoked, to justify increased defense spending. This is what is happening at present: the U.S. is attempting to resolve its accumulated economic, financial, and industrial imbalances at other countries’ expense, by escalating international conflicts that will allow it to write off debts, appropriate assets belonging to others, and weaken its geopolitical rivals. When this was done during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the result was World War II. The American aggression against Ukraine pursues all of the above-mentioned goals. First, economic sanctions against Russia are intended to wipe out billions of dollars of U.S. debt to Russia. A second objective is to take over Ukrainian state assets, including the natural gas transport system, mineral deposits, the country’s gold reserves, and valuable art and cultural objects. Third, to capture Ukrainian markets of importance to American companies, such as nuclear fuel, aircraft, energy sources, and others. Fourth, to weaken not only Russia, but also the European Union, whose economy will sustain an estimated trillion-dollar loss from economic sanctions against Russia. Fifth, to attract capital flight from instability in Europe, to the USA.

Thus, war in Ukraine is just business for the United States. Judging by reports in the media, the U.S. has already recouped its spending on the Orange Revolution and the Maidan by carrying off treasures from the ransacked National Museum of Russian Art and National Historical Museum, taking over potential gas fields, and forcing the Ukrainian government to switch from Russian to American nuclear fuel supplies for its power plants. In addition, the Americans have moved ahead on their long-term objective of splitting Ukraine from Russia, turning what used to be “Little Russia” into a state hostile to Russia, in order to prevent it from joining the Eurasian integration process. This analysis leaves no room for doubt about the long-term and consistent nature of the American aggression against Russia in Ukraine. Washington is directing its Kiev puppets to escalate the conflict, rather than the reverse. They are also inciting the Ukrainian military against Russia, aiming to drag Russian ground forces into a war against Ukraine. They are encouraging the Nazis there to initiate new combat operations. This is a real war, organized by the United States and its NATO allies. Just like 75 years ago, it is being waged by Eurofascists against Russia, with the use of Ukrainian Nazis cultivated for this purpose.

And here's the spin war verdict: the current Malaysia Airlines tragedy - the second in four months - is "terrorism" perpetrated by "pro-Russian separatists", armed by Russia, and Vladimir Putin is the main culprit. End of story. Anyone who believes otherwise, shut up. Why? Because the CIA said so. Because Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton said so. Because batshit crazy Samantha "R2P" Power said so - thundering at the UN, everything duly printed by the neo-con infested Washington Post. [1] Because Anglo-American corporate media - from CNN to Fox (who tried to buy Time Warner, which owns CNN) - said so. Because the President of the United States (POTUS) said so. And mostly because Kiev had vociferously said so in the first place.

Right off the bat they were all lined up - the invariably hysterical reams of "experts" of the "US intelligence community" literally foaming at their palatial mouths at "evil" Russia and "evil" Putin; intel "experts" who could not identify a convoy of gleaming white Toyotas crossing the Iraqi desert to take Mosul. And yet they have already sentenced they don't need to look any further, instantly solving the MH17 riddle.

It doesn't matter that President Putin has stressed the MH17 tragedy must be investigated objectively. And "objectively" certainly does not mean that fictional "international community" notion construed by Washington - the usual congregation of pliable vassals/patsies. And what about Carlos?

Dozens of men, women and children were killed in the early hours of Sunday as Israel indiscriminately shelled the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiya. Some sixty bodies have already been removed from the rubble of homes and apartment buildings, and the number of injured is more than two hundred, Palestinian health ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra told local media.

But the true death toll could be even higher. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it coordinated a two-hour “humanitarian truce” to allow the rescue of the injured and the removal of bodies.

The latest massacre brings to more than 420 the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, now entering its second week. More than 3,000 people have been injured and tens of thousands have fled their homes, with many seeking shelter in UN-run schools.

The US-led bombing campaign in Syria is targeting the Al Nusrah Front, an official branch of al Qaeda, as well as the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that is one of Al Nusrah's fiercest rivals. Before they were launched, the air strikes were framed as being necessary to damage the Islamic State, a jihadist group that has seized large swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq. But in recent days US officials signaled that they were also concerned about al Qaeda's presence in Syria, including the possibility that al Qaeda operatives would seek to use the country as a launching pad for attacks in the West. Several well-connected online jihadists have posted pictures of the Al Nusrah Front positions struck in the bombings. They also claim that al Qaeda veterans dispatched from Afghanistan to Syria, all of whom were part of Al Nusrah, have been killed. US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal confirmed that the Al Nusrah Front has been targeted in the operations, but could not verify any of the specific details reported on the jihadist sites.

Among the Al Nusrah Front positions targeted in the bombings are locations where members of the so-called "Khorasan group" are thought to be located. Ayman al Zawahiri, the emir of al Qaeda, sent the group to Syria specifically to plan attacks against the US and its interests. The group, which takes its name from al Qaeda's Khorasan shura (or advisory) council, includes experienced al Qaeda operatives who have been involved in planning international terrorist attacks for years. Al Fadhli's presence in Syria was first reported by the Arab Times in March. Shortly thereafter, The Long War Journal confirmed and expanded on this reporting. [See LWJ report, Former head of al Qaeda's network in Iran now operates in Syria.] The Long War Journal reported at the time that al Fadhli's plans "were a significant cause for concern among counterterrorism authorities." The New York Times reported earlier this month that al Fadhli is a leader in the Khorasan group in Syria. Unconfirmed reports on jihadist social media sites say that al Fadhli was killed in the bombings. Neither US officials, nor al Qaeda has verified this reporting. The fog of war often makes it difficult to quickly confirm whether an individual jihadist has been killed, wounded, or survived unscathed. Initial reports should be treated with skepticism and there is no firm evidence yet that al Fadhli has been killed.

After only one hour of floor debate, and no allowed amendments, the House of Representatives today passed legislation that opponents believe may give brand new authorization to the U.S. government to conduct domestic dragnets. The USA Freedom Act was approved in a 338-88 vote, with approximately equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans voting against. The bill’s supporters say it will disallow bulk collection of domestic telephone metadata, in which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has regularly ordered phone companies to turn over such data. The Obama administration claims such collection is authorized by Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which is set to expire June 1. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently held that Section 215 does not provide such authorization. Today’s legislation would prevent the government from issuing such orders for bulk collection and instead rely on telephone companies to store all their metadata — some of which the government could then demand using a “specific selection term” related to foreign terrorism. Bill supporters maintain this would prevent indiscriminate collection.

However, the legislation may not end bulk surveillance and in fact could codify the ability of the government to conduct dragnet data collection. “We’re taking something that was not permitted under regular section 215 … and now we’re creating a whole apparatus to provide for it,” Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., said on Tuesday night during a House Rules Committee proceeding. “The language does limit the amount of bulk collection, it doesn’t end bulk collection,” Rep. Amash said, arguing that the problematic “specific selection term” allows for “very large data collection, potentially in the hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions.” In a statement posted to Facebook ahead of the vote, Rep. Amash said the legislation “falls woefully short of reining in the mass collection of Americans’ data, and it takes us a step in the wrong direction by specifically authorizing such collection in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.”

“While I appreciate a number of the reforms in the bill and understand the need for secure counter-espionage and terrorism investigations, I believe our nation is better served by allowing Section 215 to expire completely and replacing it with a measure that finds a better balance between national security interests and protecting the civil liberties of Americans,” Congressman Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said in a statement explaining his vote against the bill.

More children in Yemen are at risk of dying from hunger and lack of health services than from bombs and bullets, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned today amid ongoing fighting across the Gulf country.Briefing the press in Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson Christophe Boulierac warned that 120,000 children in Yemen remain at immediate risk of severe malnutrition over the coming three months if health and hygiene services failed to resume normal functioning.Mr. Boulierac explained that restrictions on commercial imports of fuel and food are largely to blame for the rapidly deteriorating situation facing the country’s children.He added that another 2.5 million children under five years of age were at immediate risk of diarrhoea while 1.2 children were likely to suffer from preventable diseases such as pneumonia and measles as vaccination campaigns had ground to a halt.

More than 1,400 people have been killed and 300,000 have fled their homes in nearly three months of fighting in the war-torn Gulf nation. Emergency relief and medical teams from abroad are struggling to fly in to scale-up the humanitarian operation to address the needs of increasingly vulnerable Yemenis.Insecurity and lack of fuel have also limited access to and delivery of services. Partners report difficulty providing medical services as result of the current security situation and continued airstrikes targeting Haradh, Sa'ada and Sana'a. Food relief partners have reported they have had to suspend assistance in several districts due to lack of fuel. Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), confirmed that regular commercial imports of fuel had become the main issue and called for them to increase. The primary obstacle, he explained, was an inspection regime instituted by a recent Security Council resolution and which had resulted in a crippling effect on humanitarian operations.In addition to the limited access to fuel, food imports had also been impacted, cautioned Mr. Laerke as he noted that 90 percent of the country depended on their food from imports.Against that backdrop, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) – which also addressed the briefing – cited reports of 484 suspected cases of dengue fever with two reported deaths.

A spokesperson for the WHO said the UN agency was on the ground and trying to send rapid diagnostic kits for both dengue and malaria but could not confirm the dengue cases without lab testing. The spokesperson added that between 19 March and 4 May the number of casualties across the country had shot up to 1,439 deaths and 5,951 injuries, including 71 children deaths.

U.S. law enforcement officials announced another terror arrest on Monday, after arming a mentally ill man and then charging him with having guns. ABC News quoted a “senior federal official briefed on the arrest” as saying: “This is a very bad person arrested before he could do very bad things.” But in a sting reminiscent of so many others conducted by the FBI since 9/11, Alexander Ciccolo, 23, “aka Ali Al Amriki,” was apparently a mentally ill man who was doing nothing more than ranting about violent jihad and talking (admittedly in frightening ways) about launching attacks—until he met an FBI informant. At that point, he started making shopping lists for weapons. The big twist in this story: Local media in Massachusetts are saying Ciccolo was turned in by his father, a Boston Police captain. The FBI affidavit says the investigation was launched after a “close acquaintance … stated that Ciccolo had a long history of mental illness and in the last 18 months had become obsessed with Islam.”

Unless you read Russian or monitor the free blogosphere, you might not have noticed this, but something big just happened in Russia: Kerry, Nuland and a large State Department delegation have traveled to Sochi were they met with Foreign Minister Lavrov and then with President Putin.  With the latter they spent over 4 hours.  Not only that, but Kerry made a few rather interesting remarks, saying that the Minsk-2 Agreement (M2A) was the only way forward and that he would strongly caution Poroshenko against the idea of renewing military operations.

Unless you read Russian or monitor the free blogosphere, you might not have noticed this, but something big just happened in Russia: Kerry, Nuland and a large State Department delegation have traveled to Sochi were they met with Foreign Minister Lavrov and then with President Putin.  With the latter they spent over 4 hours.  Not only that, but Kerry made a few rather interesting remarks, saying that the Minsk-2 Agreement (M2A) was the only way forward and that he would strongly caution Poroshenko against the idea of renewing military operations.

To say that this is a stunning development would be an understatement. For one thing, this means that the so-called “isolation of Russia” is now officially over, even for the “Indispensable Empire”. Second, this is, as far as I know, the first official US endorsement of M2A.  This is rather humiliating for the US considering that M2A was negotiated without the Americans. Third, for the very first time the US has actually warned the Ukronazi junta against a military attack.  This, at a time when the Ukronazis are in a state of bellicose frenzy and Poroshenko just promised to re-conqueor not only the Donetsk Airport, but all of the Donbass and even Crimea, show that for the very first time the US and Kiev are not on the same page.

The US's National Security Agency is destroying democracy by collecting data on everyone in the world, says the agency's former technical director, William Binney. This, he says, is a situation he feels partly responsible for.

"I have a good idea of the problems they were having and actually I started a lot of the programmes they are using to spy on everybody. So I am feeling kind of responsible for this, so I'm trying to turn it around. And we are starting to have some success, by the way." Binney explained the NSA is seeking to map everybody in the electronic world, so any electronic transaction can be used, stored and manipulated. "I would say they are very good at collecting data and storing data, but they are very bad at analysing it, because they are collecting everything."

Binney explained US media had covered the NSA's PRISM programme extensively when details emerged. "Well, the PRISM programme was just a miniscule amount of data compared to the Upstream [programme]. The Upstream was the big programme and that's where they are tapping the fibre lines and pulling the data off as it floats by. "Of course, that is the real programme that is collecting the massive amounts of data that's all done under Executive Order 1333, meaning it has no oversight by courts of Congress in the United States. So they're collecting everything on everybody." Binney also outlined an NSA programme named Treasure Map, aimed at mapping the entire global communications network and every device on it, all the time. "What this means is they want to monitor the location of everybody in the world using a device; that being approximately four billion people. "And they want to have that knowledge every minute of the day."

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has declared a level 3 state of emergency in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, following the serious escalation of attacks by Israeli forces and violent settlers against Palestinians, which has included assaults and serious violations against PCRS staff and ambulances.

Over the weekend PRCS crews found themselves under attack from Israeli forces and violent settlers. PRCS: On Sunday the 4th of October, Israeli occupation soldiers attacked a PRCS’ ambulance in the line of duty in front of Al Quds University in Abou Diss, firing rubber bullets and tear gas grenades at it. On the 2nd of October, occupation soldiers attacked an ambulance in Al Eissawiyeh to the North of Jerusalem. They then proceeded to arrest an injured Palestinian from inside the ambulance. In Boureen (Nablus Governorate), settlers prevented a PRCS’ ambulance from discharging its humanitarian duty and smashed its windshield. The next day, five PRCS’ paramedics were beaten up by soldiers in Jerusalem. That same day, another group of soldiers attacked with their batons another PRCS’ ambulance in the Old City of Jerusalem Also on the same day, occupation soldiers severely beat another ambulance crew in Jabal Al Taweel (Al-Bireh), wounding two paramedics. They then kidnapped an injured Palestinian from inside the ambulance, firing tear gas grenades and rubber bullets at it. According to the New York Times, PRCS has reported “some 500 injuries in recent days”. This was published before “at least four Palestinians were shot by Israeli army live fire” last night, according to the International Middle East Media Center and countless more people will no doubt be injured in the coming days.

PRCS was officially recognized as part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in 2006 making these assaults on their staff and crews a blatant violation of international humanitarian law as specified in the Geneva Convention. So where’s the international community in all this? PRCS rightly points out: PRCS urges the International Community, represented by the UN General Assembly and Security Council, to shoulder their responsibilities by taking the necessary steps to make Israeli occupation authorities comply with IHL provisions, and to put an end to the targeting of civilians and their properties. It calls on these parties to compel Israel to respect IHL provisions regarding the respect of medical and PRCS’ emblems, and recalls that the occupying power is obliged to protect emergency, medical and relief personnel and to facilitate their safe access to the sick and wounded. How long are they going sit there and do nothing year after year as Palestine burns? With Jerusalem at a breaking point; incitement and provocations from all quarters, fanatical civilians, extremist elected officials and an army run amok, who is going to stop them? Unfortunately is it probably not going to be the beseeching words of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society that will thrust this crisis front and center. But it’s worth asking over and over, what’s it going to take for some outside party, like the international community, to put their collective foot down? Or are we going wait until after some random fanatic or a fanatical government has destroyed Al Aqsa?

The United States faces a tough task undoing the damage inflicted by allegations it has spied on leaders of allied countries, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.

Reports that the US National Security Agency tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone and conducted widespread electronic snooping in nations such as France, Italy, Spain and elsewhere have sparked anger among American allies."It's not very pleasant when you are spied on ... so the leaders are angry. I understand them," Medvedev told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.Medvedev suggested such spying was not unusual, but he added that "it is assumed that it is not done in such an absolutely cynical way"."Can the situation be calmed? I think it's possible. But to be honest, no assurances will help here," he said. "What can you say in this situation? 'Sorry, we won't do it anymore' or 'We will not try to listen in on you'? Nobody will believe it."

The snooping scandal is a result of disclosures of U.S. secrets made to media organisations by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who fled the United States and has been living in asylum in Russia since August.Spy scandals strained relations between Russia and the United States during Medvedev's 2008-2012 presidency and have continued to do so since Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin last year.Former KGB spy Putin said Russia would shelter Snowden only if he stopped harming the United States, but the president ignored U.S. pleas to send the American home to face espionage charges.The decision to grant Snowden asylum seemed to underscore Putin's accusations that the United States preaches to the world about rights and freedoms it does not uphold at home.A German lawmaker said he met Snowden in Moscow on Thursday and that the former NSA contractor was willing to come to assist investigations into alleged U.S. surveillance of Merkel.

is there any doubt at all that the US government repeatedly tried to mislead the world when insisting that this system of suspicionless surveillance was motivated by an attempt to protect Americans from The Terrorists™? Our reporting has revealed spying on conferences designed to negotiate economic agreements, the Organization of American States, oil companies, ministries that oversee mines and energy resources, the democratically elected leaders of allied states, and entire populations in those states.Can even President Obama and his most devoted loyalists continue to maintain, with a straight face, that this is all about Terrorism? That is what this superb new Foreign Affairs essay by Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore means when it argues that the Manning and Snowden leaks are putting an end to the ability of the US to use hypocrisy as a key weapon in its soft power.Speaking of an inability to maintain claims with a straight face, how are American and British officials, in light of their conduct in all of this, going to maintain the pretense that they are defenders of press freedoms and are in a position to lecture and condemn others for violations? In what might be the most explicit hostility to such freedoms yet – as well as the most unmistakable evidence of rampant panic – the NSA's director, General Keith Alexander, actually demanded Thursday that the reporting being done by newspapers around the world on this secret surveillance system be halted (Techdirt has the full video here):

The head of the embattled National Security Agency, Gen Keith Alexander, is accusing journalists of "selling" his agency's documents and is calling for an end to the steady stream of public disclosures of secrets snatched by former contractor Edward Snowden."I think it's wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 – whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn't make sense," Alexander said in an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog."We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don't know how to do that. That's more of the courts and the policy-makers but, from my perspective, it's wrong to allow this to go on," the NSA director declared. [My italics]There are 25,000 employees of the NSA (and many tens of thousands more who work for private contracts assigned to the agency). Maybe one of them can tell The General about this thing called "the first amendment".I'd love to know what ways, specifically, General Alexander has in mind for empowering the US government to "come up with a way of stopping" the journalism on this story. Whatever ways those might be, they are deeply hostile to the US constitution – obviously. What kind of person wants the government to forcibly shut down reporting by the press?Whatever kind of person that is, he is not someone to be trusted in instituting and developing a massive bulk-spying system that operates in the dark. For that matter, nobody is.

Israel and the Palestinian resistance organization Hamas may be close to a long-term truce for Gaza, an advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said. Although murmurs of a such a deal have appeared in media for months, the official’s comments would appear to give them slightly more weight. In an interview with Alresalah, a Gaza-based newspaper close to Hamas, on Monday, Yasin Aktay also said that Israel and Turkey were nearing a deal over Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara. Israel’s May 2010 assault on the ship, part of a Gaza-bound flotilla, killed nine Turkish citizens and a Turkish teen who held US citizenship, badly damaging relations between the two countries. The Turkish official said there had been significant progress toward a long-term truce that would end Israel’s 8-year blockade of Gaza. Aktay, deputy chairman of Turkey’s ruling AK party, said that the recent visit of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to Ankara was related to the effort. Up until now there has been no visible progress on the long-term truce that was supposed to be discussed within weeks of the 26 August 2014 ceasefire that ended Israel’s 51-day assault on Gaza. More than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children, were killed in Gaza last summer and more than 100,000 people remain in need of permanent shelter due to the lack of reconstruction since then.

“The talks about the Mavi Marmara are taking place in a manner that is linked and intertwined to Hamas’ talks about the truce,” Aktay told Alresalah, adding that the siege of Gaza had become a “Turkish issue.” In September 2011, Turkey imposed unprecedented sanctions on Israel, reducing diplomatic and military ties over the Mavi Marmara attack. Turkey has demanded an Israeli apology, compensation for its victims and an end to the blockade of Gaza. Aktay said that Turkey had pledged to build a seaport and rebuild Gaza’s airport if an agreement is reached. He also said that there had been talks between Turkey and the government of Cyprus over the establishment of a maritime corridor to Gaza via Cyprus. A working paper proposing such a link was published by the Gaza-based human rights organization Euromid last year. But Aktay acknowledged there have been significant obstacles: “Every time we reach an advanced stage in the negotiations on Mavi Marmara, Israel attacks Gaza again and things go back to zero.”

The Minsk-2 ceasefire agreement is dead but no one wants to bury the rotting corpse. Since it was signed in February of this year the Donbas governments and Russia have bent over backward to comply with the terms of that agreement hoping against hope that the Kiev junta would do the same. They hoped in vain.

Poroshenko and his fascist allies instead have refused to change the constitution to accommodate the concerns of the Donbas republics, have tried to suppress the Communist Party and other parties in opposition, have refused to withdraw heavy weaponry from the line of contact, have maintained increasingly heavy artillery attacks on the civilian populations and areas and cut off routes for essential foodstuffs, medical aid and technical equipment. Rather than enjoying a ceasefire, the peoples of the Donbas are under a state of siege. Poroshenko openly calls for a military solution to the crisis and has increased the draft in the west. The NATO alliance continues to pour in its forces disguised as “advisers” and “mercenaries” and puts additional pressure on Russia with multiple military exercises from the Baltic to Bulgaria, where more tanks have been recently dispatched to “send Russia a message.” The reality of the situation was stated on the 18th of August when President Putin stated, “It was the Donbas militias that suggested withdrawing all military equipment with calibre under 100mm. Unfortunately, the opposite side didn’t do that. On the contrary, according to the available data, it is concentrating its units there, including those reinforced with military hardware.” He continued to pay lip service to the Minsk-2 agreement, stating, “As for the Minsk-2 agreement, I believe there is no alternative for resolving the situation and that peace will prevail in the long run… “ and continued with “Our task is to minimize the losses with which we will come to this peace.”

There can be no doubt that the Minsk-2 agreements do provide the framework for a peaceful settlement of the impasse but there is also no doubt that the Kiev and NATO forces have no intention of abiding by its terms and are preparing for another offensive. Putin also stated, “I hope that it will not come to direct large scale clashes.” Yet, the people of the Donbas would be surprised to be told that the thousands of shells raining down on them from the Kiev junta’s artillery in order to provoke those clashes do not count. Bu what is the purpose of this state of siege? Since the Donbas forces have proved their strength and resilience the Kiev regime has little hope of achieving the total destruction of those forces and imposing its will on the Donbas. Kiev and NATO also know that Russia does not want to be drawn into a direct clash with NATO that could lead to a general war. In consequence the Kiev-NATO axis have decided to engage in operations that have direct political repercussions designed to disrupt the Russian-Donbas alliance or to paralyze it and try to enlist new allies. At the same time they have decided to make the war more costly for the Donbas and Russia both in military and economic terms, and to try to bring about a gradual exhaustion of their physical and moral resistance. We see this strategy being played out with the constant increase of economic warfare against Russia, which is clearly the ultimate target, the increasing use of propaganda including the planting in the media of the most absurd stories about Russia and its government, the use, once again of the OSCE observes as intelligence agents for NATO as happened in the Yugoslav war, and, in the political sphere, attempts by the United States and Britain to humiliate Russia with the politically motivated attempt to set up a tribunal regarding the downing of flight MH17.

The Israeli military on Wednesday stormed a camp for displaced Syrians near the boundary line between the 70 percent of the Golan Heights occupied by Israel and the rest of Syria, according to Syrian activists. The al-Shahaar refugee camp is located near Jabata al-Khashab, a Syrian town in the Quneitra province. The area is mostly controlled by Syrian opposition forces fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “This camp includes a large number of civilians fleeing the fighting between opposition forces and the regime, and who were forced today to go to Jabata al-Khashab in search of refuge after the Israeli army’s raid,” Abu Hamza al-Jowlani, a media activist, told al-Araby al-Jadeed in an Arabic-language report. Jabata al-Khashab, a nearby town, is located within the boundary lines of the United Nations-administered “buffer zone” between the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan and the rest of the area.

After instructing the camp’s residents to leave, the Israeli army also destroyed tents, according to Syria Mubasher, a Syrian opposition-affiliated news site.  “Israeli army soldiers entered the al-Shahaar camp accompanied by several armored vehicles,” Syria Mubasher reported in Arabic, citing witnesses. “After ordering [the residents] to evacuate, [the Israelis] took and destroyed the tents with no people in them, and returned to the other side of the boundary line,” the report stated. Although Israel claims that it is a neutral bystander in the Syrian civil war, which began as a popular uprising against the Assad regime in 2011, it regularly intervenes in Syria.

As readers of WhoWhatWhy know, our site has been one of the very few continuing to explore the fiery death two years ago of investigative journalist Michael Hastings, whose car left a straight segment of a Los Angeles street at a high speed, jumped the median, hit a tree, and blew up.Our original report described anomalies of the crash and surrounding events that suggest cutting-edge foul play—that an external hacker could have taken control of Hastings’s car in order to kill him. If this sounds too futuristic, a series of recent technical revelations has proven that “car hacking” is entirely possible. The latest just appeared this week.

Hackers, seeking to demonstrate the vulnerability of automobiles to remote attacks, were able to largely take over the Jeep Cherokee driven by a writer for the tech magazine Wired:Their code is an automaker’s nightmare: software that lets hackers send commands through the Jeep’s entertainment system to its dashboard functions, steering, brakes, and transmission, all from a laptop that may be across the country.They were able to make his car decelerate suddenly, causing the writer to “narrowly avert death” at the hands of a semi-trailer coming up behind him.In an earlier demonstration, they had been able to do similar things with other vehicles:In the summer of 2013, I drove a Ford Escape and a Toyota Prius around a South Bend, Indiana, parking lot while they sat in the backseat with their laptops, cackling as they disabled my brakes, honked the horn, jerked the seat belt, and commandeered the steering wheel.

All of this is increasingly drawing the attention—and action— of the authorities. U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA), members of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, introduced legislation Tuesday seeking to establish federal standards for security and privacy of drivers in today’s computer-laden cars.What we do not hear is any discussion about whether the risk has gone beyond the realm of possibility…to a reality.

The disastrous miscalculation made by the United States in signing a military agreement with Turkey at the expense of the Kurds becomes daily more apparent. In return for the use of Incirlik Air Base just north of the Syrian border, the US betrayed the Syrian Kurds who have so far been its most effective ally against Islamic State (Isis, also known as Daesh). In return for this deal signed on 22 July, the US got greater military cooperation from Turkey, but it swiftly emerged that Ankara’s real target was the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Action against Isis was almost an afterthought, and it was hit by only three Turkish airstrikes, compared to 300 against the bases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). President Barack Obama has assembled a grand coalition of 60 states, supposedly committed to combating Isis, but the only forces on the ground to win successive victories against the jihadis over the past year are the ruling Syrian-Kurdish Party (PYD) and its People’s Protection Units (YPG). Supported by US air power, the YPG heroically defeated the Isis attempt to capture the border city of Kobani during a four-and-a-half month siege that ended in January, and seized the Isis crossing point into Turkey at Tal Abyad in June.

The advance of the Syrian Kurds, who now hold half of the 550-mile Syrian-Kurdish border, was the main external reason why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered the US closer cooperation, including the use of Incirlik, which had previously been denied. The domestic impulse for an offensive by the Turkish state against the Kurds also took place in June when the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) won 13 per cent of the vote in the Turkish general election, denying Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) a majority for the first time since 2002. By strongly playing the Turkish nationalist and anti-Kurdish card, Mr Erdogan hopes to win back that majority in a second election on 1 November.There are signs of a growing understanding in Washington that the US was duped by the Turks, or at best its negotiators deceived themselves when they agreed their bargain with Ankara. Senior US military officers are anonymously protesting in the US media they did not know that Turkey was pretending to be going after Isis when in practice it was planning an offensive against its 18 million-strong Kurdish minority.

But in July, the US plan to create such a moderate force was humiliatingly knocked on the head when Jabhat al-Nusra attacked and kidnapped many of this US-trained force as they entered Syria from Turkey. It now seems certain that Nusra had been tipped off by Turkish intelligence about the movements of the US-backed unit known as “Division 30”. Turkey apparently did this because it does not want the US to have its own surrogate in Syria. According to an investigation by Mitchell Prothero of the McClatchy news organisation, citing many Syrian sources in Turkey, the Turkish motive was to destroy the US-run movement, which was intended to number 15,000 fighters targeting Isis. Its disintegration would leave the US with no alternative but to train Turkish-sponsored rebel groups whose primary aim is to topple Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. The article quotes a Syrian rebel commander in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa, 30 miles north of the Syrian border, as saying that the Turks “don’t want anything bad to happen to their allies – Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham – along the border, and they know that both the Americans and the Syrian people will eventually recognise that there’s no difference between groups such as Nusra, Ahrar and Daesh.”

The Turkish government Tuesday denied accusations by Syrian rebels that its intelligence service had tipped off an al Qaida-linked group that then abducted the commander and 20 members of a U.S.-trained group of Syrian fighters about to confront the Islamic State.In a statement to McClatchy, which first reported on Monday the allegations from multiple Syrian rebel groups that the Nusra Front had been alerted by the Turkish government, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office said it denied “the allegations in the strongest terms possible. The idea that Turkey, a key supporter of the Train and Equip Program, would seek to undermine its own interests in Syria is ludicrous.” The statement was attributed to a senior member of the prime minister’s office.The dispute centers around the arrival into Syria of the first 54 members of a program by a coalition of anti-Islamic State members – including the U.S., Jordan, the United Kingdom and Turkey – to train and equip carefully vetted Syrian rebels for the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. The so called “T&E” group is part of a moderate Syrian rebel group known as Division 30, which has drawn members from a variety of units that were once under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army. The FSA led the initial military uprising against the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad before being eclipsed by a number of jihadist and Islamist groups, including the Islamic State.

On July 29, the 54 fighters and their commander, Col. Nadim Hassan, arrived in Azaz, along the Turkish border, where they were immediately abducted or attacked by the Nusra Front. Hassan and about 20 of his men remain held by Nusra, which has declared the group an American front designed to target Islamists, despite the group’s repeated insistence that it would only participate in operations against the Islamic State, which Nusra, despite sharing a common ideology and origins in al Qaida in Iraq, also fights.

The United States has frequently clashed with both the Syrian opposition and Turkey over the role of Islamist groups in the Syrian civil war. But many of America’s allies in the region and inside Syria have been loath to cut ties to the groups and continue to cooperate with them both politically and on the battlefield. The Turkish prime minister’s statement added that – despite a widespread belief among other Syrian rebel groups and many regional analysts that it has cooperated with Nusra in the past – it considers Nusra a terrorist organization and has no official contact. “We regard the claims as part of a defamation campaign against Turkey,” the statement said. “In the past, we have repeatedly stated that the government of Turkey designates and treats al Nusra Front as a terrorist organization. There has been absolutely no change in our policy toward the organization.”EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERESpeaking on the condition of anonymity, a Turkish intelligence official said that the breakdown in security, which left the future of the $500 million training program in grave doubt, was the result of members of Division 30 openly advertising their movements on social media.

This improvised shell (using cylinders of gas) are called "artillery of hell", and are a staple of the indiscriminate shelling by Syrian rebels.  How much accuracy do you think that they have?  Yesterday, in response to advances by Syrian regime troops in Zabadani, Syrian rebels started to shell the hell out of rif Idlib.  How come those shells are not as infamous as barrel bombs (which have been used to Western media acclaim) by Lebanese Army against Nahr Al-Barid refugee camp in 2007.

Hamas officials on Wednesday rejected demands by Fateh leadership to hand over rule of the Gaza Strip and called for an “uprising” against Palestinian Authority security forces.

Fateh leader Azzam al-Ahmad had said on Sunday that Hamas “foiled” efforts towards a unity government, and that the group must hand over rule of the Gaza Strip as a condition for forming the new government. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the Fateh leader’s comments created tension and were “untrue,” blaming the failure to form a unity government on Fateh’s “factionalism.” He added that Fateh’s calls to reform the unity government were a media maneuver, reiterating his movement’s willingness to form the government based on national consensus. The unity government formed in June 2014 repeatedly failed to overcome divisive issues between Hamas and Fateh, and the PLO appointed a committee last month to lead negotiations for reforming the government. The consultations have yielded little consensus thus far and received criticism by non-Fateh factions, who convened earlier this month to condemn recent PA arrests as hindering the negotiation process.

More than 20 years on, however, Hamas and other factions continue to accuse the PA of acting on Israel’s behalf through security cooperation. On July 7, Hamas accused the PA of having detained more than 200 of its members in the West Bank, in a sweep that MP Khalil al-Haya charged was aimed solely at “assisting the occupier” against anti-Israeli militants. Hamas leader Abd al-Rahman Shadid said at the time that many of those detained were left with signs of torture, and that the arrest campaign was part of an organized project aiming to “eradicate the movement.”