Tag Archives: imperialism
Julian Assange exposes Google collaboration with NSA et al
It has been revealed today, thanks to Edward Snowden, that Google and other US tech companies received millions of dollars from the NSA for their compliance with the PRISM mass surveillance system. http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm So just how close is Google to the US securitocracy? Back in 2011 I had a meeting with Eric Schmidt, the […]
American Civil Liberties Union lives up to their creed
In a detailed legal attack on the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone call data, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in court papers filed Monday that the sweeping data gathering violates the Constitution and should be halted. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/us/nsa-phone-data-collection-is-illegal-aclu-says.html?ref=us The A.C.L.U. cited the writings of George Orwell and the comprehensive East German surveillance portrayed […]
Egypt turns police state focus from Muslim Brotherhood
The Egyptian authorities have begun cracking down on other dissenters, sometimes labeling even liberal activists or labor organizers as dangerous Islamists. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/world/middleeast/egypt-widens-crackdown-and-meaning-of-islamist.html?pagewanted=1&ref=middleeast Ten days ago, the police arrested two left-leaning Canadians — one of them a filmmaker specializing in highly un-Islamic movies about sexual politics — and implausibly announced that they were members of […]
Tens of thousands protest corruption in Philippines
Tens of thousands of Filipinos protested in Manila on Monday, outraged over accusations that an estimated $141 million in public money had been diverted into the coffers of politicians and their associates. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/world/asia/filipinos-stage-anticorruption-protest-in-manila.html?ref=world The peaceful four-hour rally was fueled in part by photographs posted on social media sites by the daughter of one of the […]
Egyptian people: US, islamists allied in Divide and Conquer
When the conversation in Egypt turns to politics, the predominant topic is the conspiracy between the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood to destroy Egypt. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/world/middleeast/as-egyptians-ignore-curfew-talk-of-a-us-brotherhood-conspiracy.html?ref=world The idea is widespread among supporters of the military, which ousted the Muslim Brotherhood’s elected president, Mohamed Morsi, last month. For journalists who ventured out Saturday night in violation […]
Egypt military uses propaganda to thwart defections
The Egyptian military has enlisted Muslim scholars in a propaganda campaign to persuade soldiers and policemen that they have a religious duty to obey orders to use deadly force against supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/world/middleeast/egypt.html?hp generals are worried about insubordination in the ranks, after security forces have killed hundreds of their fellow […]
EU bank deal gives Cyprus, warm water port to Russia
European leaders engineered a harsh bailout deal for this tiny Mediterranean nation in March and the Russians are now in a position to get something that has previously eluded even Moscow’s most audacious oligarchs: control of a so-called systemic financial institution in the European Union. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/world/europe/russians-still-ride-high-in-cyprus-after-bailout.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world “They wanted to throw out the Russians but in […]
UK bullies journalists: “there’s no need to write any more”
Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian newspaper, said that two months ago he was contacted by “a very senior government official claiming to present the views of the prime minister,” David Cameron. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/world/europe/british-news-organization-has-advantages-in-secrets-battle-with-government.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world There were two meetings in which officials “demanded the return or the destruction of the material we were working on,” and in […]
CIA admits overthrowing democracy in Iran because of oil
The C.I.A. has admitted orchestrating the 1953 coup that toppled democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran after he tried to nationalize his country’s oil wealth, which was controlled by Britain, according to a declassified document. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/middleeast/cia-orchestrated-1953-coup-in-iran-document-confirms.html?ref=world The agency’s role in the coup has long been known, but George Washington University’s National Security Archive, […]
Banksters JPMorgan investigated for bribery
Federal authorities have opened a bribery investigation into whether JPMorgan Chase hired the children of powerful Chinese officials to help the bank win lucrative business. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, is a 1977 federal law that bans United States companies from giving “anything of value” to a foreign official to win “an improper advantage” in […]
Assange says libertarians only hope for US
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange praised United States Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and his father, Dr. Ron Paul, during an interview Friday in which he said the family has been among the biggest supporters his whistleblowing group has in Congress. The Paul family, added Assange, have been “the strongest supporters of the fight against the US […]
US Defense Department sets up military base in Jordan
The Defense Department is using a warehouse to coordinate support for Jordan’s military as the kingdom copes with a refugee crisis spawned by civil war in neighboring Syria — and to help prepare if violence spills across the border. The Pentagon deployed Patriot air-defense missile batteries here, along with F-16s to train with the Jordanian […]
Brazil stands their ground on US data spying
Resentment has festered in Brazil since revelations of the surveillance practices emerged in July, detailing how the agency established a data collection center in Brasília and prioritized Brazil, with its vast telecommunications hubs and large population of 200 million, as among the agency’s most spied-upon countries. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/world/americas/in-brazil-kerry-is-told-spying-sows-distrust.html?ref=world Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota issued the unusual expression […]
US spying leviathan holds on to telephone records
The US spying programme “touches” 1.6% of internet traffic in fact reveal the vast scale of snooping, a senior security researcher has said. The figures were “utterly meaningless” since the memorandum is vague about where the data is taken from. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23669003 Caspar Bowden told the BBC that the National Security Agency (NSA) was a “surveillance […]
TSA violates 4th amendment and ushers in US police state
At Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyond-airport-security.html?pagewanted=1&ref=us The squad was not with the Washington police department or Amtrak’s police force, but was one of the Transportation Security Administration’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squads — VIPR […]
Amazon will lead destruction of EU unions with robots
Amazon was facing strikes at warehouses in Germany, its second-biggest market. Unions there say the company has imported American-style business practices — in particular, an antipathy to organized labor — that stand at odds with European norms. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/business/workers-of-amazon-divergent.html “In Germany, the idea that warehouse workers are going to be getting opposition from an employer when […]
Monarchy absolves pedophilia tourism in Morocco
The Moroccan king pardoned a Spanish man convicted of raping 11 children aged between four and 15. The paedophile was among 48 jailed Spaniards freed by King Mohammed VI, sparking angry protests and violent clashes with police in Rabat on Friday. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23565418 Daniel Galvan Vina, believed to be in his sixties, was sentenced to 30 […]
Islamist prison breaks may be connected to Syrian conflict
Interpol cited prison escapes in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan, and asked its members to examine if they were connected. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23560889 In the most recent escape, 248 prisoners were sprung from a jail in north-west Pakistan. Militants used automatic weapons and bombs to break down the walls of the jail in Dera Ismail Khan on 30 […]
Drone killings escalate in Pakistan
There were more drone strikes in Pakistan last month than any month since January. Three missile strikes were carried out in Yemen in the last week alone. And after Secretary of State John Kerry told Pakistanis on Thursday that the United States was winding down the drone wars there, officials back in Washington quickly contradicted […]
Dirty Babylon 