#Pakistan Embassy Spies

[fgjjfg-blog1]

Before you say anything I never specified that my leaving is going to be permanent. I knew that will come back some day.

Also this a masterpost showcasing my aus that I made. (WARNING:A lot of it is subject to change and their will be bad drawings that I will remake.)

Spyfell:

In world where the black and white faction are devide as ever, they are an ex spy and a soldier who later left their work because on unsatisfaction and disagreement with the government thanks for fell!gray (for fell!black) and fell!purple (fell!white) . (Also the even happened after the "good ending" where they realise the flaws in their faction, leaving their nations behind and become friends since I don't think I could write a political drama or anything like that.)

Azriel Archibald (Fell!White) :

Orientation and gender: Gay, cis male

Backstory: He is an experiment created by the government as a weapon. It his past he was constant tested and train in cruel ways which lead to trauma. Also I imagine him having a toy ship that he use to play and protend to be a captain to combat the stress out as a kid. His left his job as agent due to disagreement with the government and because he felt horrible here because of his sexuality. Since he was created for them he faked his death go by Azriel Archibald as a fake name, I don't it would make him leave so easily.

Personality: He is a bug eyed, caring, timid, nervous, interested in helping others for the sake of it, clever and somewhat flamboyant person. Due the fact he is an expiriment, he has cat-like eye that can see in the dark pretty decently and feathers as body hair. Also he likes listening to old early 20 centuries music and has a journal where he vents and writes his thoughts on.

Here's some references sheets and concept art:

casual outfit concept. (old)

Casual outfit concept 2 (old)

Formal work outfit pixel art. (old)

Kazimir(Fell!Black):

Orientation and gender identity : Straight male

Backstory:He was corporal. Later left his job due to disagreements with the government and doubts if he is doing the right thing.

He loyal, brave, unstressed, a bit stubborn person, doesn't talks his fellings and later secretly really interested in jrpgs and his favourite is UNDERFELL. (Yep, underfell just exist as an indie game the same way undertale does in our world). In term of more negative he is more weapon and battle savvy then normal savvy.

Early version plus concept:

Remake:

Fell!Gray:

I haven't design her and purple yet but Imagine her formal outfit being both gray and purple. Beside that she a vigilante who help Kazimir change his mind about his ruling when he started losing thrust in them. They met when Kazimir was lost in a snowstorm in the middle of the forest and was force spend some nights with her in a cabin.

Fell!Purple:

He is a gay man and an activist who is against the war and the oppression. He helped Azriel to accept his sexuality and motivated him to leave his job. In term of design he a hippy with regular colored skin.

Azra Hayat:

She made Azzy also she is from Pakistan like nation. Beside that she is hardworking, stoic looking, collective, loyal and was devoted to make Azriel excellent agent. She later regret what she did to him and understand why he left. Also I am interested seeing her visit him in a fanfic.

Miscellaneous info:Both are not "immortal" and can die permanently. They are taller then their prime self. I believe this is the first au I started making.

Spyswap:

At first I thought to swap the spies with themselves but I denied because I thought that this concept was lame. Intil I decide to swap them with the gray spy and then the au was born.

Backstory for Swap!Black and Swap!White: They once met as children. They started as friends before developing fillings for one another. (Yeah there isn't much info on them.)

Spy 1(Swap!Black):He is a member of the gray embassy. He still childish and playful like his prime self but he also clingy often giving physical to his husband Spy 2 (more on him later),is unbothered, cocky ,charismatic, talk dramatic from time to time like a narrater and hates doing chores. Also he is an optimist but typically is the one to make a stupid mistake that could cause to fail a mission but that doesn't bother him. He is flamboyant and like being in spotlight and looking heroic and hates camouflages and disguise. On the brighter side he is clever, very clever and is the one who typically come up plans. (Also he likes brown chocolate)

Spy 2(Swap!White):He also a member of the gray embassy. He still our book reader with a sense of good manners but he hard working, foodie, doesn't get sarcasm or Spy 1 jokes very much and he more passimistic. He isn't known to be much creative with his plans compare to Spy 1 and often ask him for help. Unlike him however he is patience, mature, does more chores then 1 and constantly remind him to do his.

Both:Are married, does fight sometimes however they're NOT cruel or sadistic as the prime selfs. They even be will shocked when they learn what their prime self's relationship is like. Also they are gay and Christians (I say that since in my multiverse the prime spies are bisexual). I left it ambiguous if they are cis or not. Also they are better as agents then the prime spies simular way gray spy is (accept they can outsmarted by her even if it's less likely). Also they don't really care about Gray vs Black and White conflict and are not really nationalistic toward their faction. They just "join in" on the conflict because of the job. They prefer stopping bad guys. (Although they are stubborn and it's hard to them to see the other person's prospective sometimes.)

Here's concept art/references. (Not that swap!Black is the one who weare simular clothing to Gray spy with the same cape thing while swap!White wears more startard suit.)

the last image is their finalised design. (however imagine Spy 1 to be a bit buff with smaller torso.)

Grayberry/Berry/John Dagger:

Orientation and gender: Straight male.

He is sort of a parody of Underswap Sans. Friendly, flamboyant, says "Wowzers!" when he is estatic his eyes turn into stars etc. However he isn't that much of a pacifist compare to Sans and understand that he can't redeem everyone although he still believes second chances to an extend. On the brighter side he love his fathers and they are basically his idols. He wants to become a secret agent like them and likes to roll play as one. On the negative side he's greedy, a little hypocritical and a bit dumb and gullible (I imagine him going on character arc or something) Also he's around 12.

(oh boy he looks like Satan)

The Lady in Black and White/BNR(Swap!Gray) (also it's pronounced /ˈbaɪ.nə.ɹɪ/):

Orientation and gender: Straight female

Personality:She is a bitch. She envious of them for being greater agents then and also being in a relationship with someone since she's single . She is cruel, sadistic, hate being left out and has a big ego but she does have standards like sometime she can cancelled one of her plans when the family celebrating a holliday or being in despair. Still on the brighter she can be a little sarcastic and loves her faction. Her win rate against them is 25%.

Here is the first sketches of her.

Here is her final design.

Miscellaneous changes: Spy 1 and 2 are the ones who created a machine that could travel between universe and often explore the multiverse. Their home works like multiverse hq even if is just a fancy house.

God vs God:

A heavy important universe feeled with godlike beings who keep the balance in the multiverse. It also themed after classic mythology.

Goth(G!Black):

Orientation and gender :Biro-ace, cis male.

He is the god of death and manage a place within the roots of the tree of life that deside who dieds. He HATES his job and he is more interested in the mortal world and wants to behave and act like a human unlike his fellow gods. Dispite being a god he can only teleport across the multiverse via some form of phasing trough, have above average strength (around wall level or so), summon a scythe and kill any mortal organic being with simple touch. So he constantly wears hoodie, gloves and sweetpants, to protect others from dangerous touch. In term of personality he is lay back, emo-ish with great interested in scary things, he typically refused to use his powers just to fit in. In terms negatives he is careless and a bit selfish but I imagine him going through a character arc to changes himself.

Concept art:

(Yes he only has thighs and floots in air up to 10 meters.)

Also he is black now. He has been drawing him that way after I made the first digital drawing of him.

Lux(G!White):

Orientation and gender: Straight male

He is the God of Life. He doesn't like how Goth loves the mortal world think it would make him lazy. He does simular job to him only that he is focusing around who live and who is getting resurrected/birth within the cloud leafs on the tree of life.

Miscellaneous info :

They both have finite number of minions for their job. As for more gods there is G!Gray who the goddess of justice and neutrality, G!Green god of luck and success, Alex, a character I thought to create for a deferent au but I lost motivation,they are genderfluid and the god of love, affection and relationships.

Timeline

Azzy and Kazzy left their jobs and country.

1 and 2 made a portal to travel to deferent aus.

First they meet White and Black.

Second they meet Kazimir and Azriel

Then the events of my first fanfic happened here.

Later Azra meet Azzy again.

Fanfic

Minor aus:

Little spy:

Y'know that stop motion Spy vs Spy shorts?

This is basically that. In this everything looks like a stop motion set and the spies are like really small (around 3 decimeters) and there are just 9 years old. However they live like adult because cartoon logic. Dispite being childish they are not very different from the primes ones. However in this au there are not actually spies, they just "role play" as ones in their antics. In actually they make gadgets for the government and the top secrets info it's just patents for their separate company. Also Gray Spy who is like 10 year old in au. She sort of a "frenemy" of them. Original she was interested in their rivelry making a scoreboard for who is going to win the most. However eventually after realise that it's almost aways 50/50 she lost interest and she thought it was boring and repetitive. So she decided to start trying to convince them to stop fight peaceful. It didn't work but she keep going. Beside that she is a tomboy, one sided and likes to hang out with them sometimes despite if she doesn't why they are trying to kill eacher.

SpyNegative:

An simple au for a chart that was working on. Basically Negative!White is a general who wear blacks clothes with blue accents wants to kill Negative!Black. Negative!Black is poor person who just wants to leave the country.

SpyHorror:

Gray Spy found Black Spy at abandoned town. He wear bandages at his head and his hand is chop off. Also White Spy is a monster.

Cringe:

A disbelief parody. Purple Spy commits genoside and kills Black Spy and Grey Spy. That puts White Spy in disbelief (due to special chemical that makes him act like papyrus he inserted into his drink) and fights him by summoning bones and and blasters learned thanks to a YouTube tutorial. Only phases 1-5 are canon. Lady in Gray almost comes back but jokingly didn't.

Changes to the prime universe:

Black Spy's real name is Jackle Xander Dagger and White Spy's Heckle Yuri Joke. (Yes, this is a reference to the video game, their fanon names based on the Joke and Dagger dept. and the name of the comic in Sweden I believe? Also this implies to Spy 1 and 2) They are both transgender and bisexual. Also some of things stated in my ask blog are canon here like both faction being one at some point, White Spy loving white chocolate and Black Spy loving doners. And... yeah I ship them. No I would be focus around their romance much for the most part. Also Gray Spy real name is Ann Z this is the same for BNR.

Miscellaneous info:

Purple Spy is real in this multiverse and likes to cause mischief and chaos from time to time. (Also I ship him with green spy)

Also fresh is real. I love and want them in my multiverse.

Ps:Yes, you draw them just give credit in the description of your post. (Just don't draw any inappropriate or offencive) Also you could redesign but don't change their gender identity or sexuality.

[morningmantra]

Pakistani ISI Operative Arrested at Indian Embassy in Russia, Accused of Spying on India-Russia Relations

Pakistani spies target Indian embassy in Moscow, with ISI agent detained by Indian authorities for sharing sensitive military and government information, posing significant threat to India's security.

The Indian embassy in Moscow is being targeted by Pakistani spies. At one point, they increased their activity there. Pakistani ISI agent working at Indian embassy Pakistan is suspected of spying on the strategic relationship between India and Russia. The ISI allegedly placed a spy in the Indian embassy in Moscow, who was later detained by the UP Anti-Terrorism Squad in Meerut. The accused,…

[newsaryavart]

जासूसी प्रकरण के खुलासे से पाकिस्‍तान को लगी मिर्ची, भारतीय राजनयिक को तलब किया सांकेतिक तस्‍वीर हाइलाइट्स पाकिस्तान को जासूसी के आरोप में अपने उच्चायोग से दो अधिकारियों को निष्कासित किए जाने पर लगी मिर्ची …

[96thdayofrage]

If 9/11 was a modern Pearl Harbor, then imagine that Franklin Roosevelt had responded to that attack by covering up any evidence of Japan’s involvement, blaming and invading the Soviet Union instead, and then spending the next two decades selling the Japanese Empire billions of dollars in weapons, regularly wining and dining their leadership, and helping them commit war crimes in other parts of the world. This is basically what happened between the United States and Saudi Arabia since that day in 2001.

Even before the attacks, it was understood that, as part of the delicate balance of power keeping the royals in place at the top, the Saudi government was helping fund and export Islamic extremism around the world, in line with the wishes of the radical clerics by whose assent they ruled. The Saudi government was a distinctly unhelpful force in previous terrorism investigations, stonewalling US attempts to get Osama bin Laden and refusing US requests to arrest or execute him when Sudan offered to hand him over. According to one US counterterrorism official, that would’ve meant “we probably never would have seen a September 11th.” Then there was the fact that most of the hijackers were Saudi nationals, as bin Laden himself was.

Since the release in 2016 of the redacted “twenty-eight pages” of the 9/11 Commission report George Bush had tried to keep secret, Saudi government culpability for the attack has gone form mere smoke to a West Coast–style wildfire. We found out that, in 1999, two Saudi nationals who claimed their tickets from Phoenix to Washington had been paid for by the Saudi Embassy they were traveling to, and who the FBI later determined had “connections to terrorism,” did a “dry run” for the attacks, forcing their plane to make an emergency landing because of their suspicious behavior.

We also found out that the eventual hijackers “were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government,” including workers at that embassy, a Saudi diplomat in Los Angeles, and at least two possible Saudi spies. One of these alleged spies was paid directly out of the account of the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar, and by the charity his wife ran. Meanwhile, a year before the pages were declassified, the government quietly declassified another document: an Al Qaeda operative’s US pilot certificate, enclosed in a Saudi embassy envelope. That same operative would later claim that, while recruiting him to carry out an attack on the United States, a Saudi religious figure used the term “Your Highness,” while discussing his jihadi qualifications with a man over the phone.

There was more than enough evidence to warrant a comprehensive investigation, with the results released publicly — and, at minimum, serious diplomatic and even economic consequences for the House of Saud if their complicity was confirmed beyond doubt.

Instead, the American public’s fury and the vast military resources of the US government were immediately directed against the impoverished and backward government of Afghanistan. And, perversely, the Bush administration, and the media that worked lockstep with it, turned Saudi Arabia into a trusted partner to prosecute Bush’s “crusade” against terrorism.

“We’re going to need support from places like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and others,” retired Air Force major general Perry Smith told NPR on September 13 about waging war on Afghanistan. Nine days later, a New York Times editorial praised Bush for “wisely” realizing “the importance of enlisting major Muslim nations like Pakistan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia in the antiterrorist coalition.” “Saudi Arabia possesses an array of assets that can be critical in the war against terrorism,” read another op-ed.

Even the proto-Trumpist Pat Buchanan, who opposed the Afghanistan war, included Saudi Arabia in a list of “our Arab allies” that would be negatively impacted by a war on Afghanistan. A Honolulu Star-Bulletin column taking vengeful callers to task the day after the attack chided one who called for bombing Saudi Arabia, claiming that “the Saudis usually are on our side.”

[opedguy]

U.S. Kills Ayman Al-Zawahri

LOS ANGELS (OnlineColumnist.com), Aug. 2, 2022.--Killing al-Qaeda No. 1, 71-year-old Ayman al-Zawahr in a predator drone attack Sunday, July 13, in the post Sherpur district of Kabul, where warlords and key members of the Taliban live, stunned the Taliban.  CIA officials completed its surgical mission without a hitch.  Unlike the death of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden May 2, 2011, Sunday’s extra-judicial assassination went flawlessly, with any mishaps, unlike what happened for Navy Seal Team 6  in Abbottabad, Pakistan that killed Bin Laden.  Hitting Zawahri on his balcony required precise intelligence of months, knowing his exact whereabouts after eluding U.S. officials since Bin Laden’s death.   Hit by a hellfire missiles at 6.18 AM local time in Kabul, the CIA figure out how al-Zawahri spent his time, leaving the exact coordinates and time to complete the attack.  No collateral damage occurred from the hellfire missile strike.

President Joe Biden took to the airwaves Monday afternoon to share the successful military operation against one of the key Sept. 11 masterminds, who, together with Bin Laden, plotted the worst attack in U.S. history.  Al-Zawahri was also involved in the 1998 attack the killed hundreds on U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, among the first recognition that Osama bin Landen was on a rampage against the United States.  Less that two years later, Bin Laden and al-Zawahri struck the U.S.S. Cole Oct. 12, 2000 in the Port of Aden,  killing 17 U.S. sailors.  Bin Lade and al-Zawahri were partners in crime, menacing U.S. targets, before conducting the whopper of terrorist attacks Sept. 11, 2001, destroying the World Trade Center Twin Towers, damaging the Pentagon and taking down United Flight 93 in Shanskville, PA, all told killing nearly 3,000 U.S. citizens.

Killing al-Zawahri was long over due, though he was essentially retired from any active terrorists activities. “Now justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more,” said 79-year-old President Joe Biden yesterday.  “No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out,” said Biden, in a scripted message.  Killing al-Zawhahri was largely symbolic because he was no longer an active threat to U.S. interests, despite playing a integral role in several past attacks, including Sept. 11,  “There were no casualties as the house was empty,” said Abdul Nafi Takor, the Taliban Spokesman.  Taliban officials accused the U.S. of violating the Feb. 28, 2020 Doha Agreement that eventually led to the U.S. withdrawing all its forces from Afghanistan Aug. 15, 2021, but not before 12 U.S. soldiers were killed Aug. 26, 2021 in suicide bombing.

Taliban officials negotiating in Doha, Qatar promised they would keep al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists out of Afghanistan, let alone Kabul.  For al-Zawahri to be given a residence in Kabul’s  Sherpur district shows that it was authorized by Taliban leader Mullah Haibatulllah Akhunzada, a direct violation of the Doha Agreement.  Like Bin Lden living for years in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Zawahri figured he’d be safe living in Kabul, right under the U.S. radar.. Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said he could not offer DNA confirmation of al-Zawahri’s death.  “We’re not going to get that kind of confirmation,” Kirby said, though saying they had visual evidence of Zawahri’s death.  Kirby said U.S. intel had “high confidence” of Zawahri’s death, for whatever skeptics questioned the CIA operation.  When the U.S. left Afghanistan, concerns were raised about counterintelligence operations.

Targeting al-Zawahri indicates the U.S. still has spies on the ground in Kabul, something that embarrasses the Taliban, no doubt causing a crackdown, leading to arrests of anyone suspected of spying.  Secretary of State Anton Blinke, 59, said the Taliban “grossly violated” the Doha Agreement, especially prohibiting harboring terrorists.  Zawahri’s drone strike was similar to the one Jan. 3, 2020 that killed 63-year-old Iran’s Al-Qud’s leader Qasem Soleimani.  “The message has been very, very clearly sent not just to al-Qaeda but to anybody that might harbor them,” Kirby said.  CIA counterintelligence officials found that al-Zawahri’s family had been relocated to the safe house in Kabu, figuring, as it turns out, that al-Zawahri was there too.  To hit him on the balcony showed that al-Zawhri’s liked to spend his time outdoors in the sun where the CIA finally made the kill-shot.

Zawahri was part of the old al-Qaeda leadership that inflicted so much misery on U.S. targets in the late ‘90s and early ‘2000s, before the ultimate attack Sept. 11, 2001.  Killing al-Zawahri lets the terrorists know that plotting against the U.S. comes with price, no matter how long it takes.  Biden deserves credit for relentlessly pursuing terrorist targets despite consumed with the U.S. proxy war against the Russian Federation.  Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said today that if the U.S. labels Russia a “terrorist state,” the Russian Federation will cut diplomatic relations with Washington.  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) passed a non-biding resolution branding Russia a “terrorist state.”  Both know that there’s a big difference between terrorists like Bin Laden and al-Zawahri and 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

[breakingasia-blog]

Chinese Uighurs in Saudi Arabia Face Impossible Choice

The Chinese mission in Saudi Arabia stopped renewing passports for the ethnic Muslim minority more than two years ago, in what campaigners call a pressure tactic exercised in many countries to force the Uighur diaspora to return home. Half a dozen Uighur families in Saudi Arabia who showed AFP their passports -- a few already expired and some approaching the date -- said they dread going back to China, where over a million Uighurs are believed to be held in internment camps. "Even animals in other countries are allowed to have passports," said the 30-year-old religious student in the Muslim holy city of Medina, whose passport expired in 2018. "Either they should renew my passport or let me drop my nationality. They make us feel like worthless humans." The community, now offered a one-way travel document suitable only for a trip to China, faces an impossible choice: return home at the risk of detention or remain illegally in the kingdom under constant fear of deportation. "Refusing passport renewals is part of China's strategy to smoke out the Uighur diaspora, forcing them to return to China," Norway-based Uighur linguist Abduweli Ayup told AFP. "What awaits them on the other side is detention." Amplifying the community's fears is the conspicuous silence of Muslim-majority states -- from Pakistan to Egypt -- over China's treatment of Uighurs as they avoid crossing Beijing, an economic powerhouse. Particularly concerning is Beijing's deepening ties with Saudi Arabia -- the epicenter of the Muslim world and home to Islam's two holiest sites -- which has reportedly condoned the Uighur policy of China, the top importer of Saudi oil. Saudi Arabia supports "China's rights to take counter-terrorism and de-extremism" measures, Chinese state media quoted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as saying last year. This year, China threw its support behind the kingdom over its handling of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder trial, which triggered global criticism after Prince Mohammed's closest aides were absolved of blame. China threw its support behind Saudi Arabia over its handling of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder trial Untraceable Only a few hundred Uighurs are estimated to be in Saudi Arabia, a disenfranchised community of mainly seminary students, traders and asylum seekers, many cut off from their detained families in China. Many are wary of what they suspect are Chinese spies and some are forced to live in hiding, a Uighur businessman in the kingdom said, showing AFP copies of eight expired passports of fellow Uighurs that have rendered them illegal. "Within the next two years, expect many more Uighurs to become stateless," he said. Many have fled while they can, often heading to Turkey or Sweden. A Uighur student in the kingdom told AFP that three of his friends deported since late 2016 have become "untraceable" after arriving in China, likely now in the so-called re-education camps that Beijing says are meant to counter extremism. Ayup told AFP he had confirmed five deportation cases from Saudi Arabia since 2017. Other Uighur campaigners say the number is higher. Similar extraditions have been reported from Egypt and Thailand. It is unclear whether Riyadh carried out deportations under pressure from China or if they were swept up in the kingdom's broad crackdown on illegal expatriates. Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment. The Chinese embassy in Riyadh told AFP it does not "cooperate with Saudi authorities to deport Uighurs". When asked about their refusal to renew passports, it only said it had not stopped consular services for their Uighur "brothers and sisters". Multiple members of the ethnic minority said they feared visiting the Chinese mission in the kingdom as some had had their passports invalidated even before the expiry date. Only a few hundred Uighurs are estimated to be in Saudi Arabia We Feel Helpless In a letter sent last year to the Chinese consulate in the western city of Jeddah, a group of Uighur students asked why it was renewing passports for the ethnic Han community in the kingdom while ignoring their requests. "We are from the same country," said the letter seen by AFP. "For two years we haven't been able to contact our fathers, mothers and brothers in China... We have heard they are imprisoned because of our study in Saudi Arabia." Chinese authorities target Uighurs with links to 26 "sensitive" countries, including Saudi Arabia, on the grounds they were prone to "extremist thought", several campaigners said citing government documents.  Chinese authorities target Uighurs with links to 26 "sensitive" countries, including Saudi Arabia, on the grounds they were prone to "extremist thought" Uighurs with connections to the Islamic kingdom are particularly vulnerable amid what observers call Beijing's "anti-Saudization" campaign to tackle influences that are blamed for introducing extremism in Chinese Islam. "Greeting someone in Arabic, independent study of the Koran and even naming one's son Mohammed or Saddam are all primary markers of extremism, which can result in detention or prison sentences for Uighurs," Darren Byler, a University of Colorado researcher, told AFP. The Uighur families deny any extremist links. "I don't want to get pregnant and bring a child into this world -- the baby will get a blue document and a bleak future," said one young Uighur woman, referring to the one-way travel permit. "We feel helpless." To learn more about Ethnic Minorities around the world, visit the Joshua Project Read the full article

[antisemitism-eu]

Germany indicts alleged Iranian spy accused of targeting Israel group

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

Iran has a vast espionage infrastructure in Germany that coordinates with its embassy in Berlin.

The federal prosecutor in Germany announced on Monday the indictment of a Pakistani man allegedly commissioned by Iran’s regime to spy on the head of the German-Israel friendship society, as well as economic entities.  

The indictment of the 31-year-old citizen of Pakistan, Syed Mustufa H, said he is suspected of intelligence activity from July 2015 to July 2016 on behalf of Iran's regime. The federal prosecutor alleged that Syed Mustufa H spied on "institutions and persons."

read more The New Antisemite: http://ift.tt/2hTWxVv

[galleryyuhself]

Clare Hollingworth, Reporter Who Broke News of World War II, Dies at 105

By MARGALIT FOX

From a single gust of wind, Clare Hollingworth reaped the journalistic scoop of the century.

Ms. Hollingworth, the undisputed doyenne of war correspondents, who died on Tuesday in Hong Kong at 105, was less than a week into her first job, as a reporter for the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, on that windy day in 1939.

Driving alone on the road from Gleiwitz, then in Germany, to Katowice, in Poland — a distance of less than 20 miles — she watched as the wind lifted a piece of the tarpaulin that had been erected on the German side to screen the valley below from view.

Through the opening, Ms. Hollingworth saw, she later wrote, “large numbers of troops, literally hundreds of tanks, armored cars and field guns” concealed in the valley.

She knew then that Germany was poised for a major military incursion. Hastening back across the border to the Polish side, she telephoned her editor with the news, a world exclusive.

Continue reading the main story The date was Aug. 28, 1939, and her article, published the next day, would become, as the British paper The Guardian wrote in 2015, “probably the greatest scoop of modern times.”

On Sept. 1, Hitler’s forces invaded Poland, marking the start of World War II.

For the next four decades, Ms. Hollingworth (who over the years contributed articles to The Telegraph, The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune and The Wall Street Journal) covered World War II from Eastern Europe, the Balkans and North Africa; the Greek and Algerian civil wars; hostilities between Arabs and Jews in the waning days of the British mandate in Palestine; and the Vietnam War, among other conflicts.

Often under fire, occasionally arrested and possessed of such a keen nose for covert information that from time to time she was accused of being a spy — both by local governments and by the British — Ms. Hollingworth was friend, or foe, to seemingly everyone in a position of power in the world at midcentury.

Ms. Hollingworth in 1985. Credit United News/Popperfoto, via Getty Images She obtained the first interview with Mohammed Reza Pahlavi after he became the shah of Iran in 1941, and what was very likely among the last, after he was deposed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.

In 1965, wanting to cover hostilities between India and Pakistan but discovering that reporters were barred from the front, she simply secured permission from an old acquaintance, Indira Gandhi, who was then India’s minister of information and broadcasting.

Ms. Hollingworth was also one of the first Western journalists to report regularly from China, opening The Telegraph’s Beijing bureau in 1973.

Her other major scoops included a 1963 article for The Guardian in which she cautiously identified the British intelligence agent Kim Philby as the long-sought “third man” in the ring of Soviet spies then known to include the Englishmen Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess. Another was a 1968 article for The Telegraph in which she reported the United States’ incipient plans for peace talks with Vietnam. (The talks opened in Paris later that year and were concluded in 1973.)

Ms. Hollingworth was never so happy, she often said, as when she was roaming the world equipped with little more than a toothbrush, a typewriter and, if need be, a revolver. Embedded long before the term was applied to journalists, she slept in trucks and in trenches, at times buried up to her neck in sand for warmth on cold desert nights. She once held off an armed Algerian policeman by threatening to hit him about the head with a shoe.

Had her eyesight not begun to fail some 20 years ago, it was a life, Ms. Hollingworth made clear, that she would gladly have continued to the end of her days.

“I must admit that I enjoy being in a war,” she told The Telegraph in 2011, on the eve of her 100th birthday.

In 1989, though nearly 80 and nominally retired, Ms. Hollingworth, attired in a safari suit, her working uniform of choice for 60 years, was spotted in Tiananmen Square shinnying up a lamppost for a bird’s-eye view of the government’s violent crackdown against civilian protesters.

She periodically slept on the floor of her home in Hong Kong well into her 90s, just to keep from going soft.

Through all her travels, with all their attendant rigors, there was only one thing, Ms. Hollingworth said, that she truly could not abide. “I do not mind not washing for a week or more,” she wrote, “but I do hate getting fleas in my hair.”

Her Graham Greene existence, with its typewriter, revolver and most particularly its fleas, was a far cry from the life her conventional, well-heeled British parents had envisioned for her — one of quiet propriety, dutiful wifehood, charity balls and hunting.

Clare Hollingworth was born on Oct. 10, 1911, in Knighton in central England, outside Leicester. As a child, she enjoyed touring the historic battlefields of England and France with her father, who ran the family’s boot and shoe factory.

At her parents’ insistence, the young Ms. Hollingworth attended domestic science college in Leicester, an experience that did nothing to make the prospect of hearth and home attractive. (“Although it is useful to be able to make an omelet,” she later wrote, “my domestic science training caused me to hate having anything to do with housework.”)

Partly in deference to her upbringing, she became engaged “to a suitable young man,” though she soon broke off the engagement and further scandalized her parents by announcing her intention to become a journalist.

“My mother thought journalism frightfully low, like a trade,” Ms. Hollingworth said in the 2011 interview with The Telegraph. “She didn’t believe anything journalists wrote and thought they were only fit for the tradesmen’s entrance.”

In the 1930s, Ms. Hollingworth attended the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London and afterward studied at the University of Zagreb, then in Yugoslavia.

Working for the League of Nations Union, a peace and social justice group established in Britain in 1918, she was dispatched to Warsaw.

There, in early 1939, she aided thousands of refugees from the Sudetenland — the region of Czechoslovakia that had been annexed by the Nazis in October 1938 — arranging travel documents that would let them cross into Poland. She wrote about their plight for small publications in Britain.

The Telegraph learned of Ms. Hollingworth’s work in Poland, and on Aug. 25, 1939, while she was visiting London, it hired her as a correspondent. Assigned to cover the prelude to war in the region, she flew to Warsaw the next day.

From Warsaw she traveled to Katowice, commandeering an official car from the British consul general there. It was in that car, Union Jack boldly flying, that she drove over the border, past astonished Nazi guards and into Germany on Aug. 28.

Ms. Hollingworth’s scoop comprised two parts. The first was her story of Aug. 29, about the advent of war. The second was her report on the start of the war itself.

Awakened by explosions at dawn on Sept. 1, Ms. Hollingworth, from her quarters in Katowice, saw German bombers overhead and the flash of artillery fire in the distance.

She telephoned a friend at the British Embassy in Warsaw.

“The war has begun!” she cried.

“Are you sure, old girl?” he said. Her published article notwithstanding, Ms. Hollingworth later wrote, British officialdom persisted in thinking that war remained weeks away.

She held the receiver out the window as German tanks roared outside. The embassy was persuaded and soon, too, was her editor.

Ms. Hollingworth’s article on the start of hostilities appeared in The Telegraph the next day. Her work from this period is unbylined — few reporters were accorded bylines then — a state of affairs she pronounced as being for the best: It simultaneously spared her parents familial anxiety and social indignity.

What followed was more than 40 years of chasing danger, for it was in the most dangerous places, Ms. Hollingworth often said, that the best stories lay.

Traveling with British troops in North Africa, she was buried in the sands for the night when she awoke to the sounds of a German reconnaissance party. “A sneeze would have brought death to us all,” she later wrote. She held her breath in the darkness, and the party passed unseeing.

In Vietnam, a sniper’s bullet narrowly missed her head.

Ms. Hollingworth’s first husband, Vandeleur Robinson, whom she married in 1936, divorced her for desertion 15 years later. (“When I’m on a story, I’m on a story — to hell with husband, family, anyone else,” she told The Guardian in 2004.) Her second husband, Geoffrey Hoare, a journalist whom she married in the early 1950s, died in 1965.

Her death was confirmed by Patrick Garrett, her grandnephew and her biographer. Her survivors include a stepdaughter, Hilary Sandre.

Over time, some members of the British press grew alienated by what they saw as Ms. Hollingworth’s imperious manner. “Ms. Hollingworth’s snobberies are very tiring, her cozy relations with British embassies irritating,” the English journalist Robert Fisk wrote, reviewing her 1990 memoir, “Front Line.”

But she remained a widely admired, even venerated, figure, a recipient of the Order of the British Empire in 1982 and a perennial fixture at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong, where she had made her home since the early 1980s.

Her other books include “The Three Weeks’ War in Poland” (1940), “There’s a German Just Behind Me” (1942), “The Arabs and the West” (1952) and “Mao and the Men Against Him” (1985).

As Ms. Hollingworth made clear in later interviews, though there was no dearth of wars to accompany her old age, she did not truly expect to be called upon to cover them. Yet to the end of her life she slept with her passport and a pair of shoes within easy reach, just in case.

[brajeshupadhyay]

Classified documents relating to movement of Indian Army units recovered from Pakistan High Commission officials held for espionage

New Delhi: Classified documents related to the movement and deployment of the Indian Army were recovered from the two officials of High Commission of Pakistan when they were apprehended for indulging in espionage activities. They were later expelled by the government.

Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir were caught red-handed on Sunday from Karol Bagh in a joint operation by Military intelligence, Special cell and IB team while obtaining documents of the Indian security establishment from an Indian and handing him over money and a phone.

The FIR against them says the two were trying to get information about Indian Railways and the armed forces on the basis of money on the directions of ISI. It says that when the two were caught, the ISI agent who was working as driver tried to flee under a plan and the glasses of Pakistan Embassy vehicle were broken. He was caught with some difficulty.

"Card recovered from Abid was bearing number 568285962134 in the name of Nasir Gotam 5/0 Nayyar Gautam R/o 32/7, B Block, Geeta Colony Delhi and was containing a photograph of Abid. Three classified documents and Aadhaar Card recovered from Abid were seized separately and were taken into police possession through seizure memo," reads the copy of FIR.

"Two classified documents recovered from Tahir were seized and were taken into police possession through seizure memo. They further revealed that since long, they were cultivating many sources in Indian Railway, Indian Armed Forces on the directions of their ISI mentor. The recovered documents are of confidential nature related to the Indian army, are illegally in the possession of Abid and Tahir," it says.

Abid wanted to lure and trap the railway staff and then acquire information about the movement of Army units via trains, Delhi Police said on Monday. They said that investigation in the espionage case revealed that Hussain operated under several fake identities to lure persons working in organisations and departments to get information.

Officials said that he posed by the name of Gautam and said he was brother of a media person to establish contact with an individual working in Indian Railways. They said he tried to gain his confidence by pretending that he needed information about rail movements for his brother who was supposedly doing a story on Indian Railways and for which he was willing to pay money.

The real motive, they said, was to lure and trap railway staff and then acquire information about the movement of Army units and hardware via trains.

Sources said the Military Intelligence laid a trap for two Pakistan High Commission (PHC) employees who eventually turned out to be working for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

An audio-video has also been gathered by the Military Intelligence where Abid can be seen meeting a decoy (a person from the Indian security whose purpose was to gather information from the spy). He can be heard falsely stating that he is an Indian Army Field Post Office (FPO) Employee and went for exercise in a forward area. He offers job to the decoy and mentions that four clerks in the Indian Army were working for him.

The Military Intelligence laid a trap to capture the two ISI spies and traced their contacts. They also captured audio/video of meetings of spies and the first meeting of Hussain was recorded on 16 February this year.

They initially claimed to be Indian nationals and produced their fake Aadhaar cards, but later confessed to be officials of the High Commission (PHC) working for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3cqEoGn

[axomlive]

India's forgotten war with China

New Post has been published on http://www.asomlive.com/entertainment/art-culture-books/indias-forgotten-war-with-china.html

India's forgotten war with China

New Delhi, May 26 The only India-China conflict that remains etched in our collective memory is the 1962 war, which India tragically lost. But five years later, in 1967, India and China faced off once again in the heights of Cho La and Nathu La at the Sikkim border. This time, overcoming the odds, India triumphed.

The fallout of these forgotten battles was immense. China shied away from actively allying with Pakistan and the US during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. And despite several stand-offs in the past half a century, Beijing has never again launched a military offensive against India.

The book ‘Watershed 1967: India’s Forgotten War with China’, written by Probal Dasgupta, an ex-Indian Army officer who served in the Gorkha Regiment for several years, tells us why these battles ushered in an era of peace. It is based on extensive research and interviews with army officers and soldiers who participated in these historic battles. Here are some excerpts from the book:

The Tipping Point: A Tale of Spies and a Breach at the Watershed

For twenty-six-year-old Krishnan Raghunath, Peking was a window to discover China. As a teenager growing up in India, Raghunath had lived through the heady days of the 1950s when slogans of ‘Hindi-Chini bhai bhai’ rent the air. In his early youth in the 1960s the war ended all bonhomie between the two countries. So, as a young foreign service officer, a posting as the second secretary at the Indian embassy in Peking in 1965 was an opportunity to better understand China. At the embassy he was heading the Information Services of India (ISI). Among ISI’s challenges was to cope with the restrictions on exchange of information that the communist government posed for them in China.

June was the beginning of the summer season in Peking. Midsummer rains would pelt the city every time the temperatures rose. June 4, 1967 began as any other regular day for Raghunath. At the hour past midday, he settled into his car along with his colleague P. Vijai and set off towards the Western Hills to visit the temple of the Sleeping Buddha. Along the way, a curious Raghunath noticed the decrepit remains of another temple and stopped the car. He fished out his camera and began to take pictures of it. As he looked through the aperture of his camera to take more shots, he felt a light tap on his shoulder.

A bystander asked him why he was taking pictures in a sensitive military zone where photography was prohibited. Before Raghunath could realize what was happening, the two Indian diplomats were surrounded by soldiers of the PLA. A harried Raghunath tried to reason with the people around him that he did not mean to take photographs for any spying purposes and that he was only interested in the ruins of the temple. The Chinese, however, believed that Raghunath was using the pretext of the temple nearby to click pictures in a prohibited military zone. Upon inspection, their identity cards as embassy staffers were confiscated. The two were whisked into a vehicle and taken away. That evening, news broke about the unprecedented arrest of two Indian diplomats by Chinese authorities.

The Indian embassy immediately swung into action. The diplomats had been accused by China of spying. Denials followed and clarifications were issued that they had not indulged in any espionage activities. But China maintained that Raghunath and Vijai were taking illicit pictures in a sensitive area that had a prohibited military facility close by. The Ministry of Foreign Aff airs in Peking alleged that the diplomats had been trying to create a topographical map of a ‘prohibited area’. According to the Chinese, ‘Upon discovering them, soldiers of the Chinese PLA guarding the area immediately urged them to desist and asked them to leave. K. Raghunath and P. Vijai, however, paid no heed whatsoever and continued to hang around and take photographs of the prohibited area stealthily.’ The Chinese government withdrew Krishnan Raghunath’s diplomatic status and declared Vijai a persona non grata.

Over a week later, on June 13, about 15,000 people gathered at the Peking Municipal People’s Higher Court for the trial of the two Indian diplomats accused of spying on China. Raghunath and Vijai were ‘tried’ and found guilty of espionage. Raghunath was sentenced to ‘immediate deportation’ by the court and told to leave the country forthwith, while Vijai was given three days to leave China. However, despite the different orders, they were brought to the airport at Peking the following morning where an irate mob awaited them. Red Guards kicked and punched the Indian diplomats. A cordon of members of the Indian embassy staff who tried to protect them were also assaulted. Raghunath was forced to walk through a jeering mob of Red Guards, who jostled, kicked and spat on him. Vijai was dragged with his head shoved down, his shoes tearing off in the melee. The humiliation of the two diplomats was meant to send a loud message to India: beware.

In Delhi, the news gave rise to shock and anger and was received with angry protests from political parties. The Indian government believed that the Chinese government had violated international norms by making a film on the confessions of two Indian diplomats for use as propaganda against Indian espionage in China. The Jana Sangh, which was trying to cultivate a muscular Hindu Indian identity, seized the opportunity to try to press the government into a corner. China had thrown down the gauntlet to India’s young prime minister who had built up an early reputation for a certain kind of decisiveness that swung between foolhardiness and brilliant audacity. Indira Gandhi would respond soon.

In response to the Chinese belligerence, Chen LuChih, the first secretary of the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, was accused of gathering vital intelligence from India and carrying on subversive activities on Indian soil. Chen was stripped of his diplomatic immunity and ordered to register under the Foreigners’ Registration Act.

Unlike China, India didn’t bother with a trial. The next day, on June 14, the external affairs ministry ordered his immediate deportation to China. The government now turned towards Hsieh Cheng-Hao, who was the third secretary of the embassy, and accused him of subversive activities too. He was promptly declared persona non grata and ordered to leave India within seventy-two hours. The Indian government had responded with alacrity and unusual boldness, showing the heart to return China’s compliment. By now public emotions were riled up. The very next day after the deportation order, crowds gathered outside the Chinese embassy in Delhi, demonstrating vociferously as political parties pounced on the opportunity, instigating mobs to break into the embassy compound and go on a rampage. The mob smashed windows, set fire to a garage, tore down the Chinese flag and assaulted members of the embassy staff. That day seven members of the embassy staff, including Chen Lu-Chih and Hsieh Cheng-Hao, had to be taken to hospital.

The attack on the Chinese embassy set off alarms in Peking. Taking serious note of the violence in Delhi, the Chinese government sent a notice to Ram Sathe, the Indian charge d’affaires in Peking, that the Indian embassy staff’s safety could no longer be guaranteed. Protesters soon gathered outside Sathe’s residence, tearing down the windows of his house, sending the occupants scurrying for safety. The Indian embassy was also under siege with sixty-three men, women and children holed up inside. The hostility on both sides had crossed diplomatic lines. The danger to the lives of the diplomats on both sides was beginning to raise international concern. The likelihood of another war loomed dangerously close.

In Peking, Western diplomats rushed to intervene and decided to deliver food to the persons trapped inside the Indian embassy. But the Western food convoy was turned back by the Red Guards and the police.

India sent a note that unless the siege was lifted ‘appropriate counter measures’ would be adopted. Armed sentries arrived at the Chinese embassy in New Delhi the following day with specific instructions for the Chinese diplomats: the occupants were ordered not to leave the building. India was not about to back off, even if it meant that the embassy staff in both countries ended up being detained as prisoners.

Looking for a possible detente, the Chinese foreign ministry suggested sending an aircraft to Delhi to bring back their diplomats injured in the attack in Delhi. The Indian government responded with a similar request for its diplomats holed up in Peking. China, however, turned down their request. But they didn’t seem to anticipate that India was in no mood to capitulate. The following day, as a Chinese aircraft touched down in Delhi to take back the diplomats, the government in Delhi refused to provide refuelling facilities for the aircraft. Finally, after assurances, an injured Hsieh Cheng-Hao was allowed to leave Delhi on June 21. Chen Lu-Chih was kept under detention and deported three days later.

The demonstrations outside the Indian embassy in Peking, somewhat staged, were called off soon after. Sathe was told that the embassy staff were free to leave the compound and return to their flats. The Indians responded with a reciprocal gesture and withdrew their sentries at the Chinese embassy. The staff could now step out of the embassy in Delhi, though their personal safety remained unguaranteed.

India had matched China for every stride and even outwitted the adversary on occasions. After having mirrored each other’s unyielding and harsh steps, peace overtures from both sides also started to mimic each other. An uneasy truce was established and the ugly diplomatic fracas didn’t blow up into a military crisis. Th e bickering, though, resumed when the Chinese embassy accused Indian customs of seizing literature that contained Mao Zedong’s works. The Indian government, their note complained, was preventing the Chinese staff from their right to study Mao’s thought. To the Chinese, this was the larger conspiracy of capitalism at play.

The rivalry between India and China had begun to worry the West. The diplomatic stand-off had attracted international attention and shortly manifested itself on the border. As if on cue, attention turned to the tiny Himalayan outpost of Nathu La.

Since 1965 the Chinese had been attempting to dominate the border by various means. They used to make regular broadcasts from loudspeakers at Nathu La, pointing out to Indian troops the pathetic conditions in which they lived, their low salaries and lack of amenities, comparing them to those enjoyed by Chinese officers. Sagat had loudspeakers installed on the Indian side and played similar messages in Chinese every day. Throughout 1966 and early 1967, Chinese propaganda, intimidation and attempted incursions into the Indian territory continued. As mentioned earlier, the border was not marked and there were several vantage points on the watershed which both sides thought belonged to them. Patrols which walked along the border often clashed, resulting in tension, and sometimes even casualties.

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

5 key questions forward of ICJ verdict on Kulbhushan Jadhav: Three years on, India hopes Pakistan might be restrained from violating Vienna Conference

http://tinyurl.com/y48g2t5p The Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ) is all set to announce the decision within the Kulbhushan Jadhav case on Wednesday. The Hague-based ICJ, which is the UN’s high courtroom, mentioned it “will ship, on Wednesday 17 July 2019, its Judgment within the Jadhav case (India v. Pakistan).” The ruling might be learn out in public at 1300 GMT, it added. India insists that Jadhav was not a spy and says he was kidnapped in Pakistan. New Delhi is asking the Worldwide Court docket of Justice to order Islamabad to annul the sentence. India’s legal professionals informed the courtroom in February that it was “farcical case” based mostly on “malicious propaganda”, whereas Pakistan’s legal professionals hit again by accusing Jadhav of “terrorism.” The final listening to coincided with a pointy spike in tensions between the 2 nuclear-armed neighbours after a suicide bombing in Kashmir, though relations have since improved. Listed below are the 5 key questions associated to the case.  *** 1. What’s the case on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice all about? In essence, India desires the Worldwide Court docket of Justice to order Pakistan to launch Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Iran resident tried and sentenced to dying as a spy by a navy courtroom in Pakistan. Pakistan is reported to have arrested Jadhav on Three March, 2016. India was knowledgeable of his arrest on 25 March, 2016. New Delhi made sixteen requests for consular entry to Jadhav. Islamabad both denied these requests outright or made consular entry to Jadhav conditional on Indian help within the investigation. Then, on 10 April, 2017, Pakistan introduced Jadhav had been convicted and sentenced to dying by a navy courtroom for “espionage and sabotage actions.” The failure to present Jadhav consular entry, India has argued, vitiates his whole trial. 2. What does consular entry imply? International nationals arrested whereas abroad have to be promptly knowledgeable of their proper to speak with their Embassy or Consular put up, to allow them to obtain ample authorized help. This proper is assured by the Vienna Conference on Consular Relations, 1963, and has been upheld in a number of Worldwide Court docket of Justice judgments. Pakistan, nevertheless, mentioned {that a} bilateral settlement on consular entry the 2 nations signed in 2008 overrides the Vienna Conference. That settlement says “every authorities shall present consular entry inside three months to nationals of 1 nation below arrest, detention or imprisonment within the different nation.” 3. What does India hope from the Worldwide Court docket of Justice? India desires the ICJ to restrain Pakistan from “performing in violation of the Vienna Conference and worldwide legislation by giving impact to the sentence or the conviction in any method, and directing it to launch the convicted Indian Nationwide forthwith.” As well as, it has demanded that Pakistan shouldn’t be allowed to strive Jadhav once more, even after granting him consular entry, saying that nation’s navy courtroom system ���doesn’t fulfill the requirements of due course of”. Pakistan has not made Jadhav’s trial information public, which makes it arduous to evaluate the proof towards him. Nevertheless, experiences have mentioned that he was tried below the Official Secrets and techniques Act, 1923, for “espionage and sabotage actions towards Pakistan”. Pakistan’s Military Act, 1952, permits navy courts to listen to instances that come up out of the Official Secrets and techniques Act. 4. Does the Vienna Conference apply to Jadhav? Pakistan claims that the Vienna Conference can not presumably apply to spies, since that can create an absurd state of affairs: “Consular officers (of a State that’s sending someone to spy) shall have the suitable to go to, converse, and talk, correspond with the nationwide (the person or lady who is distributed to spy).” Nevertheless, the plain language of the Vienna Conference itself has no exception carved out for spies, terrorists or anybody else. Certainly, such a caveat would enable governments to disclaim consular entry to overseas nationals by merely alleging that they have been concerned in such acts-thus defeating the purpose of getting a treaty within the first place. 5. Is Pakistan obliged to simply accept the judgment of the Worldwide Court docket of Justice? In principle, sure. The Vienna Conference contains an optionally available protocol, making it necessary for signatory-nations to simply accept the jurisdiction of the Worldwide Court docket of Justice when disputes come up. Each India and Pakistan are signatories. The judgments of the Worldwide Court docket of Justice are binding. There’s a hole between principle and actuality, although. In 2004, the Worldwide Court docket of Justice ordered that 51 Mexican nationals convicted by the USA of America be given recent trials. America Supreme Court docket, nevertheless, held that the judgment couldn’t override nationwide legal guidelines ruling out such a assessment. In 2005, the USA withdrew from the optionally available protocol. America continues to execute overseas nationals denied consular entry throughout their trial, most lately Mexican citizen Roberto Moreno Ramos. Your information to the newest cricket World Cup tales, evaluation, experiences, opinions, dwell updates and scores on https://www.firstpost.com/firstcricket/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2019.html. 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[veale2006-blog]

9/11 Cover-Up

September 11, 2001 Long but worth the read..... 9/11 was one of the most pivotal events in world history. Its impact will be felt for years to come. You owe it to yourself to go beyond the sound bites and the simplified official story. This is an extremely complicated story with numerous players and motives. The 9/11 facts here don't all make sense or fit neatly together. It's a story full of espionage, deceit, and lies. But if forces out there are tricking us, they can only succeed if we, the general public, remain ignorant and passive.

I limit my sources on this 9/11 timeline to the mainstream media. It's not that one can only trust the major media. Much of the best reporting today is coming from alternative media. Yet many people are initially very skeptical. Some of the 9/11 cover-up facts below are very hard to believe. Yet remember that each entry is reported by respected mainstream media sources and can easily be verified by clicking on the links provided to the original source. After seeing the importance of what's being hidden, you will very likely want to join in working together to build a brighter future.

America's top military leaders drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in US cities to trick the public into supporting a war against Cuba in the early 1960s. Approved in writing by the Pentagon Joint Chiefs, Operation Northwoods even proposed blowing up a US ship and hijacking planes as a false pretext for war. [ABC News, 5/1/01, Pentagon Documents]

1980s: Osama bin Laden runs a front organization for the mujaheddin–Islamic freedom fighters rebelling against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The CIA secretly backs the mujaheddin. Pakistan's Prime Minister Bhutto, understanding the ferocity of Islamic extremism, tells then President George Bush, "You are creating a Frankenstein." [MSNBC, 8/24/98, Newsweek, 10/1/01, more]

1994: Two attacks take place which involve hijacking planes to crash them into buildings, including one by an Islamic militant group. In a third attack, a lone pilot crashes a plane at the White House. Yet after Sept. 11, over and over aviation and security officials say they are shocked that terrorists could have hijacked airliners and crashed them into landmark buildings. [New York Times, 10/3/01]

1996: The Saudi Arabian government is financially supporting Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and other extremist groups. After 9/11, the Bush Administration does nothing to confront the Saudi leadership over its support of terror organizations and its refusal to help in the investigation. [New Yorker, 10/22/01, more]

1996-1999: The CIA officer in charge of operations against Al Qaeda from Washington writes, "I speak with firsthand experience (and for several score of CIA officers) when I state categorically that during this time senior White House officials repeatedly refused to act on sound intelligence that provided multiple chances to eliminate Osama bin Laden." [Los Angeles Times, 12/5/04]

1996-2001: Federal authorities have known for years that suspected terrorists with ties to bin Laden were receiving flight training at schools in the US and abroad. One convicted terrorist confessed that his planned role in a terror attack was to crash a plane into CIA headquarters. [Washington Post, 9/23/01]

1996-Sept 11, 2001: Taliban envoys repeatedly discuss turning bin Laden over, but the US wants to be handed bin Laden directly, and the Taliban want to turn him over to some third country. About 20 more meetings on giving up bin Laden take place up till 9/11, all fruitless. [Washington Post, 10/29/01]

1997: Former National Security Advisor Brzezinski publishes a book portraying Eurasia as the key to world power, and Central Asia with its vast oil reserves as the key to domination of Eurasia. He states that for the US to maintain its global primacy, it must prevent any adversary from controlling that region. He notes that because of popular resistance to US military expansionism, his ambitious strategy can't be implemented "except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." [The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives]

1998: An Oklahoma City FBI agent sends a memo warning that "large numbers of Middle Eastern males" are getting flight training and could be planning terrorist attacks. [CBS, 5/30/02] A separate CIA intelligence report asserts that Arab terrorists are planning to fly a bomb-laden aircraft into the WTC (World Trade Center). [New York Times, 9/19/02, Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/18/02, more]

Aug 1998: Within minutes of each other, truck bombs blow up the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing more than 220. For some of the time that bin Laden's men were plotting to blow up the two embassies, US intelligence was tapping their phones. [Newsweek, 10/1/01]

Dec 1998: A Time magazine cover story entitled "The Hunt for Osama," reports that bin Laden may be planning his boldest move yet - a strike on Washington or possibly New York City. [Time, 12/21/98]

Late 1998-Early 2000: On at least three occasions, spies in Afghanistan report bin Laden's location. Each time, the president approves an attack. Each time, the CIA Director says the information is not reliable enough and the attack cannot go forward. [New York Times, 12/30/01, more]

Sept 1999: A US intelligence report states bin Laden and Al-Qaeda terrorists could crash an aircraft into the Pentagon. The Bush administration claims not to have heard of this report until May 2002, though it was widely shared within the government. [CNN, 5/18/02, AP, 5/18/02, Guardian, 5/19/02]

Nov 1999: The head of Australia's security services admits the Echelon global surveillance system exists. The US still denies it exists. BBC describes Echelon's power as "astounding." Every international telephone call, fax, e-mail, or radio transmission can be listened to by powerful computers capable of voice recognition. They home in on key words, or patterns of messages. [BBC, 11/3/99]

Jan 2000: George Bush Sr. meets with the bin Laden family on behalf of the Carlyle Group. He also met with them in 1998. Bush's chief of staff could not remember that this meeting took place until shown a thank you note confirming the meeting. [Wall Street Journal, 9/27/01, Guardian, 10/31/01]

Summer 2000: A secret military operation named Able Danger identifies four future 9/11 hijackers, including lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, as a potential threat and members of Al Qaeda. Yet none of this is mentioned later in the 9/11 Commissions' final report. When questioned, the 9/11 commission's chief spokesman initially says that staff members briefed about Able Danger did not remember hearing anything about Atta. Days later, however, after provided detailed information, he says the uniformed officer who briefed two staff members had indeed mentioned Atta. [New York Times, 8/11/05, more]

Sept 2000: The think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) writes the blueprint for a global "Pax Americana." Written for the Bush team before the 2000 election, Rebuilding America's Defenses is a plan for maintaining global US preeminence and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests. The plan shows Bush intends to take control of the Persian Gulf whether or not Saddam Hussein is in power. It advocates the transformation of the US military. But, "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbour". [BBC, 2/14/07, Sunday Herald, 9/7/02, read report, more]

2000 - 2001: The military conducts exercises simulating what the White House later says is unimaginable: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties. One imagined target is the WTC. [USA Today, 4/19/04] Another is the Pentagon. [Military District of Washington (Army), 11/3/00]

Jan 2001: A flight school alerts the FAA. Hijacker Hani Hanjour lacks English and flying skills needed for his commercial pilot's license. An FAA official then sits next to him in class. The official offers a translator to help him pass, but the flight school says this is against the rules. [AP, 5/10/02] Yet despite poor flying skills, official reports later state Hanjour executes a 330 to 360 degree turn of AA Flight 77 over Washington on 9/11 in under four minutes and manages a precision hit on the Pentagon. [NY Times, 10/16/01, NTSB, 2/19/02]

Jan 2001: After the elections, US intelligence agencies are told to "back off" investigating the bin Ladens and Saudi royals. There have always been constraints on investigating Saudis. [BBC, 11/6/01, more]

Spring 2001: Military and government documents are released that seek to legitimize the use of US military force in the pursuit of oil. One article advocates presidential subterfuge in the promotion of conflict and "explicitly urge[s] painting over the US's actual reasons for warfare as a necessity for mobilizing public support for a conflict." [Sydney Morning Herald, 12/26/02, more]

May 2001: US security chiefs reject Sudan's offer to turn over voluminous files about bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Sudan has made this offer repeatedly since 1995. [Guardian, 9/30/01, more]

May 2001: Secretary of State Powell gives $43 million in aid to the Taliban government. [Los Angeles Times, 5/22/01, CNN 5/17/01] This follows $113 million given in 2000. [State Dept. Fact Sheet, 12/11/01]

May 2001: The US introduces "Visa Express" program allowing any Saudi Arabian to obtain visas through their travel agent instead of appearing at a consulate in person. [US News and World Report, 12/12/01] Five hijackers use Visa Express to enter the US. [Congressional Intelligence Committee, 9/20/02]

May-Aug 2001: A number of the 9/11 hijackers make at least six trips to Las Vegas. These "fundamentalist" Muslims drink alcohol, frequent strip clubs, and smoke hashish. Some even have strippers perform lap dances for them. [San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/01, Newsweek, 10/15/01]

June 13, 2001: Egyptian President Mubarak through his intelligence services warns the US that bin Laden's Islamic terrorist network is threatening to kill Bush and other G8 leaders at their July economic summit meeting in Italy. The terrorists plan to use a plane stuffed with explosives. [NY Times, 9/26/01]

June 28, 2001: CIA Director George J. Tenet has been "nearly frantic" with concern. A written intelligence summary for national security adviser Condoleezza Rice says: "It is highly likely that a significant al Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks." Rice will later claim that everyone was taken by complete surprise by the 9/11 attack. By late summer, one senior political appointee says, Tenet had repeated this threat "so often that people got tired of hearing it." [Washington Post, 5/17/02]

July 4-14, 2001: Bin Laden reportedly receives kidney treatment from Canadian-trained Dr. Callaway at the American Hospital in Dubai. Telephoned several times, the doctor declines to answer questions. During his stay, bin Laden allegedly is visited by one or two CIA officers. [Guardian, 11/1/01, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/31/01, Times of London, 11/1/01, UPI, 11/1/01, more]

July 10, 2001: A Phoenix FBI agent sends a memorandum warning about Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons. He suspects bin Laden's followers and recommends a national program to check visas of suspicious flight-school students. The memo is sent to two FBI counter-terrorism offices, but no action is taken. [New York Times, 5/21/02] Vice President Cheney says in May 2002 that he opposes releasing this memo to congressional leaders or to the media and public. [CNN, 5/20/02]

July 24, 2001: Larry Silverstein's $3.2 billion 99-year lease of the WTC is finalized. Silverstein hopes to win $7 billion in insurance from the destruction of the WTC towers. [NY Times, 02/16/03, Newsday, 09/25/02]

July 26, 2001: Attorney General Ashcroft stops flying commercial airlines due to a threat assessment. [CBS, 7/26/01] He later walks out of his office rather than answer questions about this. [AP, 5/16/02, more]

Late July 2001: The US and UN ignore warnings from the Taliban foreign minister that bin Laden is planning an imminent huge attack on US soil. The FBI and CIA also fail to take seriously warnings that Islamic fundamentalists have enrolled in flight schools across the US. [Independent, 9/7/02, more]

Summer 2001: Intelligence officials know that al Qaeda both hopes to use planes as weapons and seeks to strike a violent blow within the US, despite government claims following 9/11 that the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks came "like bolts from the blue." [Wall Street Journal, 09/19/02, CNN, 9/12/02]

Summer 2001: Russian President Putin later says publicly that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the US of suicide pilots training for attacks on US targets. [Fox, 5/17/02]

Late summer 2001: Jordanian intelligence agents go to Washington to warn that a major attack is planned inside the US and that aircraft will be used. Christian Science Monitor calls the story "confidently authenticated" even though Jordan later backs away from it. [CS Monitor, 5/23/02]

Aug 5-11, 2001: Israel warns US of an imminent Al Qaeda attack. [Fox News, 5/17/02]

Aug 6, 2001: President Bush is warned by US intelligence that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners. The White House waits eight months after 9/11 to reveal this fact. [New York Times, 5/16/02] Titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US," the intelligence briefing specifically mentions the World Trade Center. Yet Bush later states the briefing "said nothing about an attack on America." [CNN, 4/12/04, Washington Post, 4/12/04,

White House, 4/11/04, CNN, 4/10/04, Intelligence Briefing, 8/6/01, more]

Aug 22, 2001: Top counter-terrorism expert John O'Neill quits the FBI due to repeated obstruction of his al-Qaeda investigations and a power play against him. He was the government's "most committed tracker of bin Laden and al-Qaeda." The next day he starts a new job as head of security at the WTC. He is killed weeks later in the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attack. [New Yorker, 1/14/02]

Aug 24, 2001: Frustrated with lack of response from FBI headquarters about detained suspect Moussaoui, the Minnesota FBI begins working with the CIA. The CIA sends alerts calling him a "suspect 747 airline suicide hijacker."

Three days later an FBI Minnesota supervisor says he is trying to make sure that Moussaoui does not "take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center." [Senate Intelligence Committee, 10/17/02] FBI headquarters chastises Minnesota FBI for notifying the CIA. [Time, 5/21/02] FBI Director Mueller will later say "there was nothing the agency could have done to anticipate and prevent the [9/11] attacks." [Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/18/02, more]

Sept 10, 2001: A particularly urgent warning may have been received the night before the attacks, causing some top Pentagon brass to cancel a trip. "Why that same information was not available to the 266 people who died aboard the four hijacked commercial aircraft may become a hot topic on the Hill." [Newsweek, 9/13/01] "A group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns." [Newsweek, 9/24/01, more]

Sept 10, 2001: Former president Bush is with a brother of Osama bin Laden at a Carlyle business conference. The conference is interrupted the next day by the attacks. [Washington Post, 3/16/03]

Sept 10, 2001: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld announces that by some estimates the Department of Defense "cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." CBS later calculates that 25% of the yearly defense budget is unaccounted for. A defense analyst says, "The books are cooked routinely year after year." [DOD, 9/10/01, CBS, 1/29/02] This announcement was buried by the next day's news of 9/11.

Sept 11, 2001: Warren Buffett, the second richest man on Earth [BBC, 6/22/01], schedules a charity event inside Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. A small group of business leaders attend, including at least one who would otherwise have died in the WTC. [SF Business Times, 2/1/02, Forbes 10/15/01] Bush flies to this same base that day, where there is an underground command center. [CNN, 9/12/01, CBS, 9/11/02]

Sept 11, 2001: Recovery experts extract data from 32 WTC computer drives revealing a surge in financial transactions. Illegal transfers of over $100 million may have been made through some WTC computer systems immediately before and during the disaster. [Reuters, 12/18/01, CNN, 12/20/01, more]

Sept 11, 2001: In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, a US intelligence agency (the National Reconnaissance Office or NRO) was all set for an exercise at 9 AM on September 11th in which an aircraft would crash into one of its buildings near Washington, DC. [AP, 8/22/02] Four war games were also in progress at the time of the attacks. [C-SPAN Congressional Testimony, 3/11/05, more]

Sept 11, 2001: The entire continental United States is defended by only seven air bases and 14 military jets. [CNN, 9/9/03, Newsday, 9/23/01]

September 11, 2001–Timeline for the Day of the Attacks Department of Defense (6/1/01) and FAA (7/12/01) procedure: In the event of a hijacking, the FAA hijack coordinator on duty at Washington headquarters requests the military to provide escort aircraft. Normally, NORAD escort aircraft take the required action. The FAA notifies the National Military Command Center by the most expeditious means. [DOD/, 6/1/01, FAA, 7/12/01, FAA 7/12/01]

If NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) hears of any difficulties in the skies, they begin the work to scramble jet fighters [take off and intercept aircraft that are off course]. Between Sep 2000 and June 2001 fighters were scrambled 67 times. [AP, 8/12/02] When the Lear jet of golfer Payne Stewart didn't respond in 1999, F-16 interceptors were quickly dispatched. According to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to Payne's stricken Lear about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact with his plane. [Dallas Morning News, 10/26/99, more]

8:20 AM (approx.): Air traffic controllers suspect Flight 11 has been hijacked. [NY Times, 9/15/01, more]

8:40 AM: NORAD is notified of hijacking. [NY Times, 10/16/01, 8:38 AM Washington Post, 9/15/01]

8:46 AM: Flight 11 crashes into the WTC (World Trade Center) north tower. [approximately 26 minutes after controllers lost contact][New York Times, 9/12/01]

8:46 AM: President Bush later states, "I was sitting outside the classroom and I saw an airplane hit the tower. The TV was on." [CNN, 12/4/01] "When we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building." [White House, 1/5/02] There was no live coverage of the first crash on TV and President Bush was in a classroom reading with children at the time of the second crash. How could he forget this?

8:52 AM: Two F-15s take off from Otis Air Force Base. [Washington Post, 9/15/01] They go after Flight 175. Major General Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, states "the pilots flew like a scalded ape, topping 500 mph but were unable to catch up to the airliner. We had a nine-minute window, and in excess of 100 miles to intercept 175,'' he said. ''There was just literally no way.'' [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] F-15's fly at up to 2.5 times the speed of sound [1875 mph or 30+ miles a minute or 270+ miles in nine minutes] and are designed for low-altitude, high-speed, precision attacks. [BBC]

8:56 AM: By this time, it is evident that Flight 77 is lost. The FAA, already in contact with the Pentagon about the two hijackings out of Boston, reportedly doesn't notify NORAD of this until 9:24, 28 minutes later. [see 9:10 AM for comparison, New York Times, 10/16/01]

9:03 AM: Flight 175 crashes into the south WTC tower. [23 minutes after NORAD notified, 43 minutes after air traffic control lost contact with pilots][New York Times, 9/12/01, CNN, 9/12/01]

9:10 AM: Major General Paul Weaver states Flight 77 came back on the (radar) scope at 9:10 in West Virginia. [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] Another report states the military was notified of Flight 77 several minutes after 9:03. [Washington Post, 9/15/01]

9:24 AM [? - see above]: The FAA, who 28 minutes earlier had discovered Flight 77 off course and heading east over West Virginia, reportedly notifies NORAD. A Pentagon spokesman says, "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way." [Newsday, 9/23/01, New York Times, 10/16/01] Yet since the first crash, military officials in a Pentagon command center were urgently talking to law enforcement and air traffic control officials about what to do. [New York Times, 9/15/01]

9:28 AM: Air traffic control learns that Flight 93 has been hijacked. [MSNBC, 7/30/02]

9:38 AM: Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon. [42 minutes or more after contact was lost, one hour after NORAD notification of first hijacking][New York Times, 10/16/01, 9:43 CNN, 9/12/01]

9:59 AM: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses. [New York Times, 9/12/01]

10:10 AM: Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania. [42 minutes after contact was lost, 90 minutes after NORAD notification of first hijacking. What happened to sophisticated military radar systems and jet fighter scramble procedures? ][CNN, 9/12/02]

10:28 AM: The World Trade Center north tower collapses. [CNN, 9/12/01, NY Times, 9/12/01]

5:20 PM: Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapses. [CNN, 9/12/01] Though the media claims fires brought the building down, the building's owner Larry Silverstein later recounts the story of the collapse of this 47-story skyscraper in a PBS documentary America Rebuilds, "I remember getting a call from the fire department commander. ... I said ... maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it. And they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse." [PBS Documentary, more]

Sept 11, 2001: Did the Air Force send up planes after the hijacked aircraft? The Air Force won't say. It says they keep about 20 F-15 and F-16 fighters on duty with Air National Guards along the nation's coastline, ready to inspect unknown aircraft entering U.S. airspace. "We can scramble and be airborne in a matter of minutes," said an Air Force spokesperson. Some airline pilots are wondering whether the FAA did enough to try to prevent the crashes. [Wall Street Journal, 09/14/01]

Sept 11, 2001: Six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners make a tape recording describing the events, but the tape is later destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it. [Washington Post, 5/6/04, New York Times, 5/6/04]

Sept 11, 2001: Hours after the attacks, a "shadow government" is formed. Key congressional leaders say they didn't know President Bush had established this government-in-waiting. Some Congressmen state the administration should have conferred about its plans. [CBS, 3/2/02, Washington Post, 3/2/02, more]

Sept 11, 2001: A National Public Radio correspondent states: "I spoke with Congressman Ike Skelton who said that just recently the director of the CIA warned that there could be an attack - an imminent attack - on the United States of this nature. So this is not entirely unexpected." [NPR, 9/11/01]

Sept 12, 2001: Senator Orrin Hatch says the US was monitoring bin Laden supporters and overheard them discussing the attack. [AP, 9/12/01] Why has the media not explored the fact that the US could monitor private communications of al-Qaeda on 9/11?

Sept 13-19, 2001: Members of bin Laden's family are driven or flown under FBI supervision to a secret assemblypoint in Texas and then to Washington, where they leave the country on a private plane when most flights were still grounded. Top White House officials personally approve these evacuations. [New York Times, 9/4/03, Boston Globe, 9/20/01, New York Times, 9/30/01, more]

Sept 14, 2001: The two black boxes for Flight 77 are found. [PBS, 9/14/01] FBI Director Robert Mueller later says Flight 77's data recorder provides altitude, speed, headings and other information, but the voice recorder contains "nothing useful." [CBS, 2/23/02] Yet they refuse to release the recordings.

Sept 15-16, 2001: U.S. military sources give the FBI information that several of the 9/11 hijackers, including leader Mohamed Atta, may have received training at U.S. military installations. Three hijackers listed their address on drivers licenses and car registrations as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla. Atta graduated from the US International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The media drops the story after the Air Force issues a statement saying that while the names are similar, "we are probably not talking about the same people."

[Newsweek, 9/15/01, Washington Post, 9/16/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/15/01, more] Yet the military provides no detailed information to refute the claims in these articles.

Sept 19, 2001: The FBI claims that there may have been six hijacking teams on the morning of 9/11. [New York Times, 9/19/01] Authorities have identified teams that total as many as 50 infiltrators who supported or carried out the strikes. About 40 of the men have been accounted for. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/01] Yet only one person, Moussaoui, is later charged.

Sept 20-23, 2001: "Five of the alleged hijackers have emerged, alive, innocent and astonished to see their names and photographs appearing on satellite television. ... The hijackers were using stolen identities, and investigators are studying the possibility that the entire suicide squad consisted of impostors." [quote from London Times, 9/20/01, see also BBC]. Yet these same individuals are later officially established as the 9/11 hijackers in the 2004 9/11 Commission Report. For more on this, click here.

Oct 2, 2001: The Patriot Act is introduced in Congress. The next day, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D) accuses the Bush administration of reneging on an agreement on this anti-terrorist bill. [Washington Post, 10/4/01] Anthrax letters are sent to Leahy and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D) on October 9. [CNN, 11/18/01]

Oct 10-11, 2001: After consulting with the FBI and CDC, Iowa State University in Ames destroys anthrax spores collected over seven decades. On Oct 25, the White House homeland security director confirms publicly the anthrax letters sent to Leahy and others contained the Ames strain. [New York Times, 11/9/01]

Nov 12, 2001–Mar 25, 2002: 13 renowned microbiologists mysteriously die over the span of less than five months. All but one are killed or murdered under unusual circumstances. Some are world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others are the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others are experts in the theory of bioterrorism. [Globe and Mail, 5/4/02]

Nov 12: Benito Que, 52, an expert in infectious diseases–killed in carjacking, later deemed possible stroke. [Globe and Mail, 5/4/02] Nov. 16: Don Wiley, 57, one of the world's leading researchers of deadly viruses–body found in Mississippi River. [CNN, 12/22/01]

Nov 21: Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, 64, an expert in adapting germs and viruses for military use–stroke. [New York Times, 11/23/01] Dec 10: Dr. Robert Schwartz, 57, a leading researcher on DNA sequencing analysis–slain at home. Washington Post, 12/12/01]

Dec 14: Nguyen Van Set, 44, his research organization had just come to fame for discovering a virus which can be modified to affect smallpox–dies in an airlock in his lab. [Sydney Morning Herald, 12/12/01]

Jan 2002: Ivan Glebov (bandit attack) and Alexi Brushlinski (killed in Moscow), both world-renowned members of the Russian Academy of Science. [Pravda, 2/9/02]

Feb 9: Victor Korshunov, 56, head of the microbiology sub-faculty at the Russian State Medical University–killed by cranial injury. [Pravda, 2/9/02] Feb 11: Ian Langford, 40, one of Europe's leading experts on environmental risk–murdered in home. [London Times, 2/13/02]

Feb 28 (2): Tanya Holzmayer, 46, helped create drugs that interfere with replication of the virus that causes AIDS, and Guyang Huang, 38, a brilliant scholar highly regarded in genetics–murder/suicide. [San Jose Mercury News, 2/28/02]

Mar 24: David Wynn-Williams, 55, an astrobiologist with NASA Ames Research Center–killed while jogging. [London imes, 3/27/02]

Mar 25: Steven Mostow, 63, an expert on the threat of bioterrorism–private plane crash. [KUSA TV/NBC, 3/26/02]

Dec 2001: The US engineers the rise to power of a former Unocal Oil employee, Hamid Karzai, as the interim president of Afghanistan. Looking at the map of the big US bases in Afghanistan, one is struck that they are identical to the route of the projected oil pipeline. [Chicago Tribune, 3/18/02, more]

Dec 25, 2001: Leading structural engineers and fire-safety experts believe the investigation into the collapse of the WTC is "inadequate." They note that the current team of 20 or so investigators has inadequate financial and staff support, has been prevented from interviewing witnesses and from examining the disaster site. They couldn't even get detailed blueprints of the World Trade Center. The decision to rapidly recycle the steel beams from the WTC means definitive answers may never be known. [New York Times, 12/25/01]

Jan 1, 2002: Zalamy Khalilzad is appointed by Bush as special envoy to Afghanistan. [BBC, 1/1/02, Chicago Tribune, 3/18/02] Khalilzad once lobbied for the Taliban and worked for an American oil company that sought concessions for pipelines in Afghanistan. [Independent, 1/10/02]

Jan 4, 2002: An editorial in the respected trade magazine Fire Engineering states that there is good reason to believe that the "official investigation," blessed by FEMA, into the WTC collapse is a "half-baked farce" that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests are clearly not full disclosure.

"Respected members of the fire protection engineering community are beginning to raise red flags, and a resonating theory has emerged: The structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers." [Fire Engineering, 1/02]

Jan 24, 2002: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle claims that on this day Cheney calls him and urges that no 9/11 inquiry be made. He is repeatedly pressured thereafter. [CNN, 1/29/02, Newsweek, 2/4/02, more]

Feb 6, 2002: CIA Director Tenet tells a Senate hearing that there was no 9/11 intelligence failure. When asked about the CIA on 9/11, he states that the 9/11 plot was "in the heads of three or four people." He rejects any suggestion that the CIA failed to do its job. [USA Today, 2/7/02]

Feb 21, 2002: A ban on poppy growing by the Taliban in July 2000 along with severe droughts reduced Afghanistan's opium yield by 91% in 2001. Yet the UN expects its 2002 opium crop to be equivalent to the bumper one of threeyears ago. Afghanistan is the source of 75% of the world's heroin. [Guardian, 2/21/02] Why is the US unable to control opium production which had almost stopped?

Mar 2, 2002: The 9/11 collapse of the 47-story WTC building 7 was the first time a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise in the US has ever collapsed in a fire. [New York Times, 3/2/02] Building 7 was where the SEC was storing files related to numerous Wall Street investigations. The files for approximately 3,000 to 4,000 cases were destroyed. [National Law Journal, 9/17/01] Lost files include documents that could show the relationship between Citigroup and the WorldCom bankruptcy. [The Street, 8/9/02, more]

Mar 13, 2002: Bush says of bin Laden: "I truly am not that concerned about him." [White House, 3/13/02] Military chief Myers states: "the goal has never been to get bin Laden." [CNN/DOD, 4/6/02]

Apr 19, 2002: FBI Director Mueller: "We have not uncovered a single piece of paper that mentioned any aspect of the 9/11 plot. The hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind." [FBI, 4/19/02, Los Angeles Times, 4/30/02] Yet investigators have amassed a ''substantial'' amount of e-mail traffic among the hijackers. [USA Today, 10/1/01] The laptop computer of Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker, was confiscated weeks before 9/11, yet FBI headquarters systematically dismissed and undermined requests by Minneapolis FBI agents to search the computer. [Time, 5/21/02, CNN, 5/27/02]

May 15, 2002: For the first time, the White House admits that Bush was warned about bin Laden hijacking aircraft and wanting to attack the US in Aug 2001. It is unclear why they waited eight months to reveal this. The Press Secretary states that while Bush had been warned of possible hijackings, "the president did not receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers." Yet the August presidential memo left little doubt that the hijacked airliners were intended for use as missiles and that US targets were intended. [New York Times, 5/16/02, Washington Post, 5/16/02, Guardian, 5/19/02]

May 17, 2002: Dan Rather says that he and other journalists haven't been properly investigating since 9/11. He graphically describes the pressures to conform after the attacks. [Guardian, 5/17/02, more]

May 21, 2002: A memo is released in which Minnesota FBI agent Coleen Rowley writes to FBI Director Mueller, "I have deep concerns that a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of facts by you and others at the highest levels of FBI management has occurred and is occurring." [Time, 5/21/02] CNN calls the memo a "colossal indictment of our chief law-enforcement agency." [CNN, 5/27/02] Time magazine later names Rowley one of three "Persons of the Year" for 2002. [Time, 12/22/02]

May 23, 2002: President Bush says he is opposed to establishing a special, independent commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before 9/11. [CBS, 5/23/02]

May 30, 2002: FBI Agent Robert Wright formally accuses the FBI of deliberately curtailing investigations that might have prevented 9/11. He is under threat of retribution if he talks to members of Congress about what he knows. [Fox News/Reuters, 5/30/02, more] He also accuses the agency of shutting down his 1998 criminal probe into alleged terrorist-training camps in Chicago and Kansas City. Wright has written a book, but the agency won't let him publish it or even give it to anyone. [LA Weekly, 8/2/02]

July 23, 2002: The New York City government decides that many of the audio and written records of the Fire Department's actions on 9/11 should never be released. The New York Times had filed a lawsuit seeking numerous records concerning the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, including firsthand accounts by scores of firefighters and chiefs. [New York Times, 7/23/02]

Sept 11, 2002: On the first anniversary of 9/11, New York Times writes, "One year later, the public knows less about the circumstances of 2,801 deaths at the foot of Manhattan in broad daylight than people in 1912 knew within weeks about the Titanic." The former police commissioner of Philadelphia says: "You can hardly point to a cataclysmic event in our history when a blue-ribbon panel did not set out to establish the facts and suggest reforms. That has not happened here." [New York Times, 9/11/02]

Oct 5, 2002: Congressional investigators say the FBI's efforts to block their inquiry makes them skeptical of FBI assertions. They also say the Justice Department has joined the FBI in fighting congressional requests for information, while the CIA has been antagonistic. [New York Times, 10/5/02]

Oct 16, 2002: The CIA, FBI, and NSA all testify that no individual at their agencies has been punished or fired for any of the missteps surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks. [Washington Post, 10/18/02]

Oct 21, 2002: No more than six of the 19 hijackers were interviewed by US officials before being granted visas.

This contradicts the State Department's claim that 12 had been interviewed. Of 15 hijackers, none filled in the visa documents properly. All 15 of them should have been denied entry to the country. "The system was rigged in their favor from the get-go." [Washington Post, 10/22/02, ABC News, 10/23/02] In December 2002, two top Republican senators report that if State Department personnel had merely followed the law in Saudi Arabia, 9/11 would not have happened. [AP, 12/18/02, more]

Oct 27, 2002: A report from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's Defense Science Board recommends the creation of a super-intelligence body (P2OG) which would launch secret operations to "stimulate reactions" among terrorists and states owning weapons of mass destruction. It would prod terrorist cells into action, thus exposing them to quick-response attacks by US forces. [Los Angeles Times, 10/27/02, more]

Oct 29, 2002: Of over 800 people rounded up since 9/11, only 10 have been linked to the hijackings and probably will turn out to be innocent. [Newsweek, 10/29/02] Though many were held for months, the vast majority were never charged with anything other than overstaying a visa. [New York Times, 7/11/02]

Nov 27, 2002: Bush names Henry Kissinger to lead an independent investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks. [New York Times, 11/28/02] He is a highly controversial figure. Documents released by the CIA strengthen suspicions that Kissinger was actively involved in a covert plan to assassinate thousands of political opponents in six Latin American countries. He is also famous for his obsession with secrecy. [BBC, 4/26/02] "Indeed, it is tempting to wonder if the choice of Mr. Kissinger is not a clever maneuver by the White House to contain an investigation it long opposed." [New York Times, 11/29/02]

Dec 13, 2002: Kissinger resigns as chairman of the new 9/11 investigation citing controversy over potential conflicts of interest with his business clients. [CNN, 12/13/02, BBC, 12/14/02]

Dec 16, 2002: Bush replaces Kissinger with Thomas Kean as chairman. Kean promises a thorough investigation. [AP, 12/17/02] He will devote one day a week to the commission. [Washington Post, 12/17/02]

Jan 13, 2003: The worldwide turmoil caused by US government policies goes not exactly unreported, but entirely de-emphasized. Guardian writers are inundated by e-mails from Americans asking why their own papers never print what is in UK papers. If there is a Watergate scandal lurking in this administration, it is unlikely to be [Washington Post's Bob] Woodward or his colleagues who will tell us about it. If it emerges, it will probably come out on the web. "That is a devastating indictment of the state of American newspapers." [Guardian, 1/13/03]

March 26, 2003: Though the investigation into the space shuttle Columbia tragedy cost $50 million and the Ken Starr investigation of Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky ran $64 million, the White House balks at increasing funding beyond $3 million for the 9/11 Commission's investigation into the worst terror attack ever. The latest effort to curtail funding has angered victims of the attacks. "The White House decision was another in a long line of efforts to water down or shrink the panel's role." [Time, 3/26/03, MSNBC, 9/20/06]

July 22, 2004: The 9/11 Commission Report is published. It fails to mention that a year before the 9/11 attacks, a secret Pentagon project named Able Danger had identified four 9/11 hijackers, including leader Mohamed Atta. The Commission spokesperson initially states members were not informed of this, but later acknowledges they were. [New York Times, 8/11/05, more] The report also completely fails to investigate the collapse of WTC 7.

Nov 19, 2004: The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is becoming a reality. Afghanistan has surpassed Colombia as the world's biggest gross producer of illicit narcotics, heroin being the "main engine of economic growth" and the "strongest bond" among tribes that previously fought constantly. What we have here now is a narco-economy where 40 to 50 percent of the GDP is from illicit drugs. [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/19/04] How does a country controlled by the US become the largest producer of illegal drugs? For a possible answer, click here.

Nov 17, 2005: Former FBI Director Louis Freeh: "The Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry. Yet the 9/11 Commission inexplicably concluded that it 'was not historically significant.' This astounding conclusion—in combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger ... raises serious challenges to the commission's credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself." [Wall Street Journal, 11/17/05, more]

2004 - 2005: A growing number of top government officials and public leaders express disbelief in the official story of 9/11. Some even believe 9/11 may have been an inside job. 100 prominent leaders and forty 9/11 family members sign a statement calling for an unbiased inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the attacks to occur. [Various Publications]

August 9, 2006: A shocking new book by the 9/11 Commission co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton says we still don't know the whole truth about 9/11. The book outlines repeated misstatements by the Pentagon and the FAA. Untrue–the military's original timeline of United Flight 93. Equally untrue, the government's timeline for American Flight 77 and details about fighter jets scrambled to intercept it. CNN News anchor Lou Dobbs: "The fact that the government would permit deception ... and perpetuate the lie suggests that we need a full investigation of what is going on." [CNN, 8/9/06 , MSNBC/AP, 8/4/06, more]

2006-2014: Over 50 senior government officials from the military, intelligence, Cabinet and Congress, and over 100 highly respected professors, including engineers, physicists, architects, philosophers and theologians publicly criticize The 9/11 Commission Report as flawed, and call for a new, independent investigation. Over 2,000 architects and engineers have created a website calling for a new investigation. Some even claim rogue elements of government were involved in the attacks. [Officials, Professors, Architects and Engineers]

Mysterious Deaths of 9 11 Witnesses (MUST SEE) - THESE ARE NOT COINCIDENCES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suQitX2GmTU

Conclusive Evidence the 9/11 Planes were NOT REAL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUoqwUVOxHE&feature=youtu.be

AWAKENING - 9/11 Cover Up  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNZ90uNvrYI

This is the 9/11 Cover Up  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzkd0C2t2s8

The Secret History of 9/11 - Full Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVh9WgGxuIY

The Truth Behind 9-11 Attack [Part 1 of 9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arub097L5Co

9/11 False Flag Conspiracy - Finally Solved (Names, Connections, Motives)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAAztWC5sT8

9/11 FALSE FLAG Of the horrific attacks that took place that day, there are seemingly endless postulations and conspiracies as to what really went on. Millions of dollars of United and American Airlines “put-option” stocks were traded in the week leading up to the attack. There were blatant business ties between the Bush family and Osama bin Laden. Only one flight was allowed in the air after the attacks, flying 140 Saudi nationals home to safety. And these are just a few of the conspicuous events tied to that day.

But the use of those events as justification to go to war, ostensibly makes 9/11 a false flag event used as an imperialist grab of oil reserves, miring us in an endless conflict with no light at the end of the tunnel. Terrorism persists, Operation Iraqi Freedom created a bigger monster in ISIS, and the situation in Afghanistan is still a quagmire. But the truth behind the events of that day still remain shrouded by government cover-ups and harsh ridicule of those who dare to question that narrative. All the elements of the events that have transpired since that day are the classic building blocks of a false flag operation. And a majority of Americans believe the government is concealing information about 9/11, while 15 percent believe the towers were brought down in a controlled demolition.

Pray for the families that lost their love ones from such a senseless evil act of life. We must hold those that let this happen accountable!!!

May Yeshua the Messiah bless you, Love, Debbie

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Sanctions left and sanctions right. Financial mostly, taxes, tariffs, visas, travel bans, confiscation of foreign assets, import and export prohibitions and limitations; and also punishing those who do not respect sanctions dished out by Trump, alias the US of A, against friends of their enemies. The absurdity seems endless and escalating exponentially, as if there was a deadline to collapse the world. Looks like a last-ditch effort to bring down international trade in favor of — what?  Make America Great Again? – Prepare for US mid-term elections? Rally the people behind an illusion? – Or what? All looks arbitrary and destructive. All is, of course, totally illegal by any international law or, forget law, which is not respected anyway by the empire and its vassals, but not even by human moral standards. Sanctions are destructive. They are interfering in other countries sovereignty. They are made to punish countries, nations, that refuse to bend to a world dictatorship. Looks like everybody accepts this new economic warfare as the new normal. Nobody objects. And the United Nations, the body created to maintain Peace, to protect our globe from other wars, to uphold human rights, this very body is silent. Out of fear? Out of fear that it might be ‘sanctioned’ into oblivion by the dying empire?  Why cannot the vast majority of countries – often it is a ratio of 191 to 2 (Israel and the US) – reign-in the criminals? Imagine Turkey – sudden massive tariffs on aluminum (20%) and steel (50%) imposed by Trump, plus central bank currency interference had the Turkish Lira drop by 40%, and that ‘only’ because Erdogan is not freeing US pastor Andrew Brunson, who faces in Turkey a jail sentence of 35 years for “terror and espionage”. An Izmir court has just turned down another US request for clemency, however, converting his jail sentence to house arrest for health reasons. It is widely believed that Mr. Brunson’s alleged 23 years of ‘missionary work’ is but a smoke screen for spying. President Erdogan has just declared he would look out for new friends, including new trading partners in the east – Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine, even the unviable EU, and that his country is planning on issuing Yuan-denominated bonds to diversify Turkey’s economy, foremost the country’s reserves and gradually moving away from the dollar hegemony. Looking out for new friends, may also include new military alliances. Is Turkey planning to exit NATO? Would turkey be ‘allowed’ to exit NATO given its strategic maritime and land position between east and west?  Turkey knows that having military allies that dish out punishments for acting sovereignly in internal affair spells disaster for the future. Why continue offering your country to NATO, whose only objective it is to destroy the east, the very east which is not only Turkey’s but the world’s future? Turkey is already approaching the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and may actually accede to it within the foreseeable future. That might be the end of Turkey’s NATO alliance. What if Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China and many more countries not ready to bow to the empire, would jail all those spies embedded in the US Embassies or camouflaged in these countries’ national (financial) institutions, acting as Fifth Columns, undermining their host countries’ national and economic policies? Entire cities of new jails would have to be built to accommodate the empire’s army of criminals. Imagine Russia – more sanctions were just imposed for alleged and totally unproven (to the contrary: disproven) Russian poisoning of four UK citizens with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok – and for not admitting it. This is a total farce, a flagrant lie, that has become so ridiculous, most thinking people, even in the UK, just laugh about it. Yet, Trump and his minions in Europe and many parts of the world succumb to this lie and out of fear of being sanctioned, they also sanction Russia. What has the world become?  Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, would be proud for having taught the important lesson to the liars of the universe: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of Pigs”. That’s what we have become – a herd of pigs. Fortunately, Russia too has moved away so far already from the western dollar-controlled economy that such sanctions do no longer hurt. They serve Trump and his cronies as mere propaganda tools – show-offs, “we are still the greatest!”. Venezuela is being sanctioned into the ground, literally, by from-abroad (Miami and Bogota) Twitter-induced manipulations of her national currency, the Bolívar, causing astronomical inflation – constant ups and downs of the value of the local currency, bringing the national economy to a virtual halt. Imported food, pharmaceuticals and other goods are being deviated at the borders and other entry points, so they will never end up on supermarket shelves, but become smuggle ware in Colombia, where these goods are being sold at manipulated dollar-exchange rates to better-off Venezuelan and Columbian citizens. These mafia type gangs are being funded by NED and other similar nefarious State Department financed “NGOs”, trained by US secret services, either within or outside Venezuela. Once infiltrated into Venezuela – overtly or covertly – they tend to boycott the local economy from within, spread violence and become part of the Fifth Column, primarily sabotaging the financial system. Venezuela is struggling to get out of this dilemma, which has people suffering, by de-dollarizing her economy, partly through a newly created cryptocurrency, the Petro, based on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and also through a new Bolivar, in the hope of putting the brakes on the spiraling bursts of inflation. This scenario reminds so much of Chile in 1973, when Henry Kissinger was Foreign Secretary (1973-1977), and inspired the CIA coup, by “disappearing” food and other goods from Chilean markets, killing legitimately elected President Allende, bringing Augusto Pinochet, a horrendous murderer and despot, to power. The military dictatorship brought the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of people and lasted until 1990. Subjugating Venezuela might, however, not be so easy. After all, Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary Chavista experience and a solid sense of resistance. Iran is being plunged into a similar fate. For no reason at all, Trump reneged on the five-plus-one pronged so-called Nuclear Deal, signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015, after almost ten years of negotiations. Now, of course, driven by the star-Zionist Netanyahu – new and ‘the most severe ever’ sanctions are being imposed on Iran, also decimating the value of their local currency, the Rial. Iran, under the Ayatollah, has already embarked on a course of “Resistance Economy”, meaning de-dollarization of their economy and moving towards food and industrial self-sufficiency, as well as increased trading with eastern countries, China, Russia, the SCO and other friendly and culturally aligned nations, like Pakistan. However, Iran too has a strong Fifth Column, engrained in the financial sector, that does not let go of forcing and propagating trading with the enemy; i.e., the west, the European Union, whose euro-monetary system is part of the dollar hegemony, hence posing similar vulnerability of sanctions as does the dollar. China – the stellar prize of the Big Chess Game – is being ‘sanctioned’ with tariffs no end, for having become the world’s strongest economy, surpassing in real output and measured by people’s purchasing power, by far the United States of America. China also has a solid economy and gold-based currency, the Yuan which is on a fast track to overtake the US-dollar as the number one world reserve currency. China retaliates, of course, with similar ‘sanctions’, but by and large, her dominance of Asian markets and growing economic influence in Europe, Africa and Latin America, is such that Trump’s tariff war means hardly more for China than a drop on a hot stone. North Korea – the much-touted Trump-Kim mid-June Singapore summit – has long since become a tiny spot in the past. Alleged agreements reached then are being breached by the US, as could have been expected. All under the false and purely invented pretext of DPRK not adhering to her disarmament commitment; a reason to impose new strangulating sanctions. The world looks on. It’s normal. Nobody dares questioning the self-styled Masters of the Universe. Misery keeps being dished out left and right, accepted by the brainwashed to-the-core masses around the globe. War is peace and peace is war. Literally. The west is living in a “peaceful” comfort zone. Why disturb it?  If people die from starvation or bombs, it happens far away and allows us to live in peace. Why bother?  Especially since we are continuously, drip-by-steady drip, being told it’s right. In a recent interview with PressTV I was asked why does the US not adhere to any of their internationally or bilaterally concluded treaties or agreements? Good question. Washington is breaking all the rules, agreements, accords, treaties, is not adhering to any international law or even moral standard, simply because following such standards would mean giving up world supremacy. Being on equal keel is not in Washington’s or Tel Aviv’s interest. Yes, this symbiotic and sick relationship between the US and Zionist Israel is becoming progressively more visible; the alliance of the brute military force and the slick and treacherous financial dominion, together striving for world hegemony, for full spectrum dominance.  This trend is accelerating under Trump and those who give him orders, simply because “they can”. Nobody objects. This tends to portray an image of peerless power, instilling fear and is expected to incite obedience. Will it? What is really transpiring is that Washington is isolating itself, that the one-polar world is moving towards a multipolar world, one that increasingly disregards and disrespects the United States, despises her bullying and warmongering, killing and shedding misery over hundreds of millions of people, most of them defenseless children, women and elderly, by direct military force or by proxy-led conflicts – Yemen is just one recent example – causing endless human suffering to people who have never done any harm to their neighbors, let alone to Americans. Who could have any respect left for such a nation, called the United States of America, for the people behind such lying monsters? This behavior by the dying empire is driving allies and friends into the opposite camp – to the east, where the future lays, away from a globalized One-World-Order, towards a healthy and more equal multi-polar world. – It would be good, if our world body, the members of the United Nations, created in the name of Peace, would finally gather the courage and stand up against the two destroyer nations for the good of humanity, of the globe, and of Mother Earth. http://clubof.info/

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on https://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/demise-dollar-hegemony/

Sanctions, Sanctions, Sanctions – the Final Demise of the Dollar Hegemony?

by Peter Koenig

Sanctions left and sanctions right. Financial mostly, taxes, tariffs, visas, travel bans – confiscation of foreign assets, import and export prohibitions and limitations; and also punishing those who do not respect sanctions dished out by Trump, alias the US of A, against friends of their enemies. The absurdity seems endless and escalating – exponentially, as if there was a deadline to collapse the world. Looks like a last-ditch effort to bring down international trade in favor of — what? – Make America Great Again? – Prepare for US mid-term elections? – Rally the people behind an illusion? – Or what?

All looks arbitrary and destructive. All is of course totally illegal by any international law or, forget law, which is not respected anyway by the empire and its vassals, but not even by human moral standards. Sanctions are destructive. They are interfering in other countries sovereignty. They are made to punish countries, nations, that refuse to bend to a world dictatorship.

Looks like everybody accepts this new economic warfare as the new normal. Nobody objects. And the United Nations, the body created to maintain Peace, to protect our globe from other wars, to uphold human rights – this very body is silent – out of fear? Out of fear that it might be ‘sanctioned’ into oblivion by the dying empire? – Why cannot the vast majority of countries – often it is a ratio of 191 to 2 (Israel and the US) – reign-in the criminals?

Imagine Turkey – sudden massive tariffs on aluminum (20%) and steel (50%) imposed by Trump, plus central bank currency interference had the Turkish Lira drop by 40%, and that ‘only’ because Erdogan is not freeing US pastor Andrew Brunson, who faces in Turkey a jail sentence of 35 years for “terror and espionage”. An Izmir court has just turned down another US request for clemency, however, converting his jail sentence to house arrest for health reason. It is widely believed that Mr. Brunson’s alleged 23 years of ‘missionary work’ is but a smoke screen for spying.

President Erdogan has just declared he would look out for new friends, including new trading partners in the east – Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine, even the unviable EU, and that his country is planning issuing Yuan-denominated bonds to diversify Turkey’s economy, foremost the country’s reserves and gradually moving away from the dollar hegemony.

Looking out for new friends, may also include new military alliances. Is Turkey planning to exit NATO? Would turkey be ‘allowed’ to exit NATO – given its strategic position maritime and land position between east and west? – Turkey knows that having military allies that dish out punishments for acting sovereignly in internal affair – spells disaster for the future. Why continue offering your country to NATO, whose only objective it is to destroy the east – the very east which is not only Turkey’s but the world’s future? Turkey is already approaching the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and may actually accede to it within the foreseeable future. That might be the end of Turkey’s NATO alliance.

What if Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China – and many more countries not ready to bow to the empire, would jail all those spies embedded in the US Embassies or camouflaged in these countries’ national (financial) institutions, acting as Fifth Columns, undermining their host countries’ national and economic policies? – Entire cities of new jails would have to be built to accommodate the empire’s army of criminals.

Imagine Russia – more sanctions were just imposed for alleged and totally unproven (to the contrary: disproven) Russian poisoning of four UK citizens with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok – and for not admitting it. This is a total farce, a flagrant lie, that has become so ridiculous, most thinking people, even in the UK, just laugh about it. Yet, Trump and his minions in Europe and many parts of the world succumb to this lie – and out of fear of being sanctions, they also sanction Russia. What has the world become? – Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, would be proud for having taught the important lesson to the liars of the universe: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of Pigs”. That’s what we have become – a herd of pigs.

Fortunately, Russia too has moved away so far already from the western dollar-controlled economy that such sanctions do no longer hurt. They serve Trump and his cronies as mere propaganda tools – show-offs, “we are still the greatest!”.

Venezuela is being sanctioned into the ground, literally, by from-abroad (Miami and Bogota) Twitter-induced manipulations of her national currency, the Bolívar, causing astronomical inflations – constant ups and downs of the value of the local currency, bringing the national economy to a virtual halt. Imported food, pharmaceuticals and other goods are being deviated at the borders and other entry points, so they will never end up on supermarket shelves, but become smuggle ware in Colombia, where these goods are being sold at manipulated dollar-exchange rates to better-off Venezuelan and Columbian citizens. These mafia type gangs are being funded by NED and other similar nefarious State Department financed “NGOs”, trained by US secret services, either within or outside Venezuela. Once infiltrated into Venezuela – overtly or covertly – they tend to boycott the local economy from within, spread violence and become part of the Fifth Column, primarily sabotaging the financial system.

Venezuela is struggling to get out of this dilemma which has people suffering, by de-dollarizing her economy, partly through a newly created cryptocurrency, the Petro, based on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and also through a new Bolivar – in the hope of putting the breaks on the spiraling bursts of inflation. This scenario reminds so much of Chile in 1973, when Henry Kissinger was Foreign Secretary (1973-1977), and inspired the CIA coup, by “disappearing” food and other goods from Chilean markets, killing legitimately elected President Allende, bringing Augusto Pinochet, a horrendous murderer and despot to power. The military dictatorship regime brought the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of people and lasted until 1990. Subjugating Venezuela might, however, not be so easy. After all, Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary Chavista experience – and a solid sense of resistance.

Iran – is being plunged into a similar fate. For no reason at all, Trump reneged on the five-plus-one pronged so-called Nuclear Deal, signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015, after almost ten years of negotiations. Now – of course driven by the star-Zionist Netanyahu – new and ‘the most severe ever’ sanctions are being imposed on Iran, also decimating the value of their local currency, the Rial. Iran, under the Ayatollah, has already embarked on a course of “Resistance Economy”, meaning de-dollarization of their economy and moving towards food and industrial self-sufficiency, as well as increased trading with eastern countries, China, Russia, the SCO and other friendly and culturally aligned nations, like Pakistan. However, Iran too has a strong Fifth Column, engrained in the financial sector, that does not let go of forcing and propagating trading with the enemy, i.e. the west, the European Union, whose euro-monetary system is part of the dollar hegemony, hence posing similar vulnerability of sanctions as does the dollar.

China – the stellar prize of the Big Chess Game – is being ‘sanctioned’ with tariffs no end, for having become the world’s strongest economy, surpassing in real output and measured by people’s purchasing power, by far the United States of America. China also has a solid economy and gold-based currency, the Yuan – which is on a fast track to overtake the US-dollar as the number one world reserve currency. China retaliates, of course, with similar ‘sanctions’, but by and large, her dominance of Asian markets and growing economic influence in Europe, Africa and Latin America, is such that Trump’s tariff war means hardly more for China than a drop on a hot stone.

North Korea – the much-touted Trump-Kim mid-June Singapore summit – has long since become a tiny spot in the past. Alleged agreements reached then are being breached by the US, as could have been expected. All under the false and purely invented pretext of DPRK not adhering to her disarmament commitment; a reason to impose new strangulating sanctions. The world looks on. Its normal. Nobody dares questioning the self-styled Masters of the Universe. Misery keeps being dished out left and right – accepted by the brainwashed to-the-core masses around the globe. War is peace and peace is war. Literally. The west is living in a “peaceful” comfort zone. Why disturb it? – If people die from starvation or bombs – it happens far away and allows us to live in peace. Why bother? – Especially since we are continuously, drip-by-steady drip being told its right.

In a recent interview with PressTV I was asked, why does the US not adhere to any of their internationally or bilaterally concluded treaties or agreements? – Good question. – Washington is breaking all the rules, agreements, accords, treaties, is not adhering to any international law or even moral standard, simply because following such standards would mean giving up world supremacy. Being on equal keel is not in Washington’s or Tel Aviv’s interest. Yes, this symbiotic and sick relationship between the US and Zionist Israel is becoming progressively more visible; the alliance of the brute military force and the slick and treacherous financial dominion – together striving for world hegemony, for full spectrum dominance. This trend is accelerating under Trump and those who give him orders, simply because “they can”. Nobody objects. This tends to portray an image of peerless power, instilling fear and is expected to incite obedience. Will it?

What is really transpiring is that Washington is isolating itself, that the one-polar world is moving towards a multipolar world, one that increasingly disregards and disrespects the United States, despises her bullying and warmongering – killing and shedding misery over hundreds of millions of people, most of them defenseless children, women and elderly, by direct military force or by proxy-led conflicts – Yemen is just one recent examples, causing endless human suffering to people who have never done any harm to their neighbors, let alone to Americans. Who could have any respect left for such a nation, called the United States of America, for the people behind such lying monsters?

This behavior by the dying empire is driving allies and friends into the opposite camp – to the east, where the future lays, away from a globalized One-World-Order, towards a healthy and more equal multi-polar world. – It would be good, if our world body, the members of the United Nations, created in the name of Peace, would finally gather the courage and stand up against the two destroyer nations for the good of humanity, of the globe, and of Mother Earth.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog; and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

[cleopatrarps]

Pakistan and U.S. Restrict Diplomats’ Travel, Adding New Strain on Ties

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan on Friday placed travel restrictions on United States diplomats based in the country, the latest in a series of retaliatory measures that threaten to plunge already strained relations to their worst level in years.

The restrictions in Pakistan were imposed on the same day that the United States barred diplomats working at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington from traveling outside of a 25-mile radius around the city without approval.

The United States has long complained that Pakistani police and security officials frequently harass American diplomats and their staff with traffic stops and citations that require considerable time and effort to resolve. Six weeks ago, the State Department threatened to impose a travel restriction on Pakistan’s Washington diplomatic corps if the harassment did not end by Friday.

On Friday, American officials imposed the restrictions.

In a letter from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered to the American Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistani officials said that they had established a fast-track mechanism on April 27 to address American complaints about harassment but had yet to receive a single complaint through it.

While the State Department’s restrictions apply only to diplomats assigned to the embassy in Washington and their family members, Pakistan’s restrictions apply to all American diplomats stationed anywhere in Pakistan.

Pakistan imposed other restrictions as well, including banning tinted windows on embassy cars and the use of diplomatic plates on diplomats’ personal vehicles. Both sides said they would waive their respective restrictions on a case-by-case basis.

“We have received official notification of new restrictions placed on U.S. diplomats in Pakistan,” said Gregory McLean, a State Department spokesman.

Asked whether the United States would respond to Pakistan’s even tougher measures, Mr. McLean declined to say.

“We are in regular communication with our Pakistani counterparts,” he said. “We do not discuss details of diplomatic conversations.”

Security concerns have constrained some travel by American diplomats in Pakistan, but the new limits make it impossible for diplomats to leave some of the country’s major cities.

In January, the Trump administration announced that it had suspended nearly all of the $1.3 billion in annual security aid given to Pakistan, an announcement that came just three days after President Trump complained on Twitter that Pakistan had “given us nothing but lies & deceit” and accused it of providing “safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan.”

The Trump administration has also sought to strengthen ties with India, Pakistan’s bitter rival.

Shuja Nawaz of the Atlantic Council, a research group based in Washington, said the reciprocal travel restrictions signaled “a further slide in this fraught relationship.”

Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States who now serves as a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based research group, said in an interview that Pakistan had long treated American diplomats with intense suspicion, assuming that most were spies “because Pakistan’s own spy agency is so ubiquitous.”

Last month, an American military attaché was barred from leaving Pakistan after his vehicle struck a motorcycle and killed one of its riders in Islamabad, an accident that has received wide attention in Pakistan.

Haroon Janjua reported from Islamabad, and Gardiner Harris from Washington.

The post Pakistan and U.S. Restrict Diplomats’ Travel, Adding New Strain on Ties appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2IxkdLU via News of World

[dani-qrt]

Pakistan and U.S. Restrict Diplomats’ Travel, Adding New Strain on Ties

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan on Friday placed travel restrictions on United States diplomats based in the country, the latest in a series of retaliatory measures that threaten to plunge already strained relations to their worst level in years.

The restrictions in Pakistan were imposed on the same day that the United States barred diplomats working at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington from traveling outside of a 25-mile radius around the city without approval.

The United States has long complained that Pakistani police and security officials frequently harass American diplomats and their staff with traffic stops and citations that require considerable time and effort to resolve. Six weeks ago, the State Department threatened to impose a travel restriction on Pakistan’s Washington diplomatic corps if the harassment did not end by Friday.

On Friday, American officials imposed the restrictions.

In a letter from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered to the American Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistani officials said that they had established a fast-track mechanism on April 27 to address American complaints about harassment but had yet to receive a single complaint through it.

While the State Department’s restrictions apply only to diplomats assigned to the embassy in Washington and their family members, Pakistan’s restrictions apply to all American diplomats stationed anywhere in Pakistan.

Pakistan imposed other restrictions as well, including banning tinted windows on embassy cars and the use of diplomatic plates on diplomats’ personal vehicles. Both sides said they would waive their respective restrictions on a case-by-case basis.

“We have received official notification of new restrictions placed on U.S. diplomats in Pakistan,” said Gregory McLean, a State Department spokesman.

Asked whether the United States would respond to Pakistan’s even tougher measures, Mr. McLean declined to say.

“We are in regular communication with our Pakistani counterparts,” he said. “We do not discuss details of diplomatic conversations.”

Security concerns have constrained some travel by American diplomats in Pakistan, but the new limits make it impossible for diplomats to leave some of the country’s major cities.

In January, the Trump administration announced that it had suspended nearly all of the $1.3 billion in annual security aid given to Pakistan, an announcement that came just three days after President Trump complained on Twitter that Pakistan had “given us nothing but lies & deceit” and accused it of providing “safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan.”

The Trump administration has also sought to strengthen ties with India, Pakistan’s bitter rival.

Shuja Nawaz of the Atlantic Council, a research group based in Washington, said the reciprocal travel restrictions signaled “a further slide in this fraught relationship.”

Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States who now serves as a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based research group, said in an interview that Pakistan had long treated American diplomats with intense suspicion, assuming that most were spies “because Pakistan’s own spy agency is so ubiquitous.”

Last month, an American military attaché was barred from leaving Pakistan after his vehicle struck a motorcycle and killed one of its riders in Islamabad, an accident that has received wide attention in Pakistan.

Haroon Janjua reported from Islamabad, and Gardiner Harris from Washington.

The post Pakistan and U.S. Restrict Diplomats’ Travel, Adding New Strain on Ties appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2IxkdLU via Online News