Yet another example of the appalling standards of modern journalism from the Guardian, with journalists not thinking about what they write, and of the fakery of the industry of “analysts” that leech off the “War on Terror”.
Zhukov has analysed some 30,000 violent attacks in the Caucusus region and found that in most cases there is substantial chatter between instigators followed by a claim of responsibility for the incident
Really? 30,000 attacks analysed, including researching the internet traffic of the perpetrators and their public statements?
That is rather a lot of work. Firstly you have to identify the attack and identify the perpetrator. Then you have to access their internet use and go through it looking for relevant reading, comments or relevant messages.
Let us presume you have such good access to the security services that they do all of that for you, and serve up the results to you on a plate, and that you trust their diligence, honesty and analytical ability sufficiently to work just from what you were given. If you were being served up ready to analyse dossiers of relevant internet traffic of perpetrators of attacks, how many such dossiers could you in any meaningful way analyse in a working day to form a view on the individual? Perhaps four?
Now let us presume four weeks holiday a year and five working days a week. It would take you 33 years of solid work, doing nothing else in your professional life, to analyse thirty thousand cases. That is to make the startling assumption that there is meaningful material on as many as thirty thousand cases to analyse, and you have access to it.
30,000 attacks analysed? Bullshit. Pure bullshit.
To compound which the Guardian also brings us that silk suited leech on public funds, Ed Husain of the discredited Quilliam Foundation. What passes for mainstream media analysis on security issues is risible.
O/T plea to the moderators,
Can you please come clear the spam bots out of the Why I’m Convinced Anna Ardin thread? They’re getting a bit out of hand. Thanks.
Thinks…
How do I get Sophie Habbercake (who is lovely, and I want to marry her) to post again? I know, a post about Israel will bring her dad out. And while he isn’t watching…
As long as it doesn’t have to be the full Orthodox deal, Sophie, I’m yours.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/04/gaza-herb-farm-israeli-siege.html
Yes its Zen Koan time again ! “Was the ALMIGHTY more silent in Rwanda or Cambodia? All ruminations to be submitted by the next 15 years please !!
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/locals-say-israeli-tanks-bulldozers-enter-gaza/
Israel imposed a military no-go zone around the Gaza Strip’s borders, known as the buffer zone. Palestinians are barred from accessing the land in the buffer zone or building in the area. According to the Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, the area contains most of Gaza’s valuable arable land.
dearest dragon, please be aware that Sophie Habbercake is not your type, firstly she is alive and not made of the same rotten flesh, that banished her stalking dad to the shed, her flesh is fresh and not to your liking.
But you must be hungry and one swipe of your tail could most likely demolish that shed, open it like a tin of out of date pig meat and hey presto…. feeding time.
Al Mezan Issues its Quarter Report on Israeli Violations in Gaza Strip
On Wednesday 3 April 2013, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights issued its quarter report on the Israeli violations of international humanitarian law against the population of the Gaza Strip during the first four months of 2013.
The report showed that two persons were killed by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF), 30 persons were injured, and 5 of whom were children.In addition, the IOF arrested 45 Palestinians. The report highlighted that the IOF carried out 13 limited incursions into the Gaza Strip. It also showed that the IOF escalated attacks against fishermen; it carried out 38 attacks against them.
The report started with general introduction then it talked about International Humanitarian Law (IHL) principles which are applied on the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and the Israeli obligations under IHL. The report also presents statistical information on Al Mezan’s monitoring and documentation notes during the reporting period.
The highlighted the IOF systematic attack Palestinian civilians and their properties near the borders. These attacks come in the context of ongoing Israeli efforts to enforce the so-called ‘security buffer zone’ that extends 300 meters along the Gaza Strip’s borderlines with Israel. These attacks prevent hundreds of Palestinian farmers from farming their lands which are located near the border-line with Israel. The report presented the negative impacts of Israeli practices on the lives of Palestinian farmers.
At the end of the report Al Mezan expressed its condemnation of the Israeli continuous violations against civilians in the Gaza Strip and imposing restriction on them in violation of IHL.
The Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights reiterated its previous calls on international community to take action to bring to a swift end the violations of international law perpetrated in the oPt including the siege which represents the illegal collective punishment of the Gaza population.Al Mezan stressed the importance of bringing to an end the ‘policy of immunity’ pursued by the international community in relation to violations of human rights and IHL in the oPt.
http://www.mezan.org/en/details.php?id=16719&ddname=reports&id2=6&id_dept=14&p=center
Israel is the first and only country to unilaterally suspend relations with the UNHRC and was absent from its Universal Periodic Review by that body:
http://www.upr-info.org/+Newsletter-37-Israel-first-country+.html
Love is blind, Nevermind…;-)
It’s always fun to see what comes out of the woodwork when a certain rogue state is mentioned, though…
More from the ludicrous claims department of the Labour party. Their best EU civil servant Ms. Ashton, berating smokers about their dangerous habits, the report on her existence is calling her weak, with a uniquely poor management.
She can’t really be bothered about it, cause when she leaves, her ample EU pay/pension will ensure that she will never have to work again.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/report-criticizes-eu-foreign-policy-chief-catherine-ashton-a-895933.html
This Palestinian report is apparently accepted by Israel’s IMRA outlet, which repeats it in full:
http://www.qassam.ps/news-6917-Khudari_Gaza_harbor_project_to_be_tabled_with_Erdogan.html
Which may have some bearing on why John Kerry* was so anxious that Turkey’s Erdogan should not visit Gaza.
Imagine – if Gaza had a viable port, it would be able to trade. It would be able to have an economy! And if a major regional power backed it, the IDF’s inevitable acts of piracy would be harder to get away with. Intolerable, obviously.
*i.e.Israel
More ludicrous “news”:
“There is “limited but growing” evidence that Syrian government troops have used chemical weapons, UK Prime Minister David Cameron says.”
“It is extremely serious, this is a war crime.” [no irony]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22305444
What is worrying of course is the public acceptance of such obvious bullshit.
I wonder what Clegg and Miliband will have to say?
Oh goody, I see the thread’s topic has now opened up to the much broader “Ludicrous claims”. I like it. Ok, here’s a now-on-topic Ludicrous Claim from Stateside. The poor dears have gotten soooo frustrated at not being able to extradite someone from Sweden for conspiracy to commit espionage that they’ve gone and unsealed a sealed indictment on a nine-year-old case, gosh darn it!:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-7/#comment-404933
Chloe Smith’s previous employer, the old boy network schemers, and three other accountant firms had some considerable help from treasury insiders to avoid taxes.
Surely that is ludicrous enough for Osborne to put aside his rolled up banknote and act against these schemers who have far more resources than our tax authorities.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/26/accountancy-firms-knowledge-treasury-avoid-tax
Even more bullshit news
“New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the Boston Marathon bombing suspects planned to detonate the rest of their explosives in Times Square.”
“Before REPORTEDLY telling investigators [ Dzhokhar Tsarnaev] and his brother planned an attack on Times Square, he had said they were planning to go to New York “to party” after the bombings.”
“Following 16 hours of interrogation, Mr Tsarnaev stopped responding to investigators’ questions after being read his legal rights to remain silent and have a lawyer, US media report.”
[NO LAWYER PRESENT so we have to believe the FBI?]
“Mr Bloomberg said there was no evidence New York was currently a target, but that the Tsarnaevs’ alleged plan proved the city remained a prime location for people who want to “bomb and kill Americans”.
“On Thursday afternoon, police vehicles lined Times Square in a show of force, with officers standing SHOULDER TO SHOULDER.” [where have I heard that before?]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22303552
Things are getting somewhat surreal
“Mr Bloomberg said there was no evidence New York was currently a target, but that the Tsarnaevs’ alleged plan proved the city remained a prime location for people who want to “bomb and kill Americans”.
How true. When I visited New York many years ago, I was profoundly impressed by the number of Americans you could find there. Many more than in Helsinki.
Anyone looking for a smile this morning?
I recommend this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/mark-steel-if-every-boston-marathon-runner-had-a-gun-theyd-be-safe-right-8588137.html
Mark Steel in today’s Independent is rather good on Boston –
….“We got ’em, we GOT ’EM,” roared a series of men, waving flags into cameras as if they’d won an Olympic medal. And once the story wasn’t so much a human tragedy as a triumph for the USA, I couldn’t help thinking “Oh, you ARE masterful aren’t you, managing with no more resources than the army, SWAT teams, marines, an assortment of helicopters, the FBI and the entire population of Boston to track down a lunatic covered in blood who’d been shot through the neck and was wriggling about in a boat in someone’s garden. I wonder who you’ll meet in the SECOND round of the World Hide and Seek championships.”
The strangest part is that this excitement doesn’t usually happen on the occasions that a madman in America gets captured after going on the rampage in a school or shopping centre with the machine-guns he’s constitutionally entitled to carry. For example, there were no joyous celebrations when James Holmes was captured after blasting 12 people dead in a cinema in Denver. I suppose that, unlike in Boston, the people of Denver just aren’t party-going types…. [continues]
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/mark-steel-if-every-boston-marathon-runner-had-a-gun-theyd-be-safe-right-8588137.html
Two minds with but a single copy of the Indie, Dreoilin. Genuine coincidence, but sorry.
That did raise a smile indeed, thanks Dreolin.
This story will no doubt raise expectations for Chinese Investments in Israel, being beastly with pigs is just down their line.
http://dailywail.com/animal-cruelty-in-china/
See the comments below here. The programme Jerusalem – An Archaeological Mystery was taken off by the BBC last night.
http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/wctz4/jerusalem-an-archaeological-mystery-story
Incidentally the new director of news at the BBC to replace Helen Boaden is James Harding.
“Harding, who is Jewish, will also have to leave behind the pro-Israeli line of the Times. In a debate at the Jewish Community Centre For London in 2011, Harding said “I am pro-Israel” and that in reporting on the Middle East, “I haven’t found it too hard” because “the Times has been pro-Israel for a long time”. However, he also stressed the need for balanced news reporting and said he was also in favour of a Palestinian state.
While Murdoch has never said why he wanted to replace Harding, many have speculated that the Times’s falling circulation and combined with the editor’s critical stance over the phone-hacking scandal were to blame.
But those in the know say it was simpler than that. “There was a sense that the paper needed more of an edge, needed to be a more newsy paper,” said one insider.
The paper had long had a “cerebral” tone under editors such as William Rees Mogg and Peter Stothard. Thomson, Harding’s immediate predecessor – like him, imported from the Financial Times – had been tasked with shaking it up and when he went to New York in late 2007 to run the newly acquired Wall Street Journal he handed the mantle to Harding.
“James tried to make the paper more newsy and although he had all the right reflexes, hard news that upsets people wasn’t in his culture like it would be if he had come from the Telegraph or the Daily Mail,” said one insider.
Another former colleague added: “[Robert] Thomson wasn’t anti-establishment, he just couldn’t care less what people thought. Harding cared deeply. He will fit in well at the BBC.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/16/james-harding-times-bbc#history-link-box
“See the comments below here. The programme Jerusalem – An Archaeological Mystery was taken off by the BBC last night. ”
I was looking forward to it too.
Statement by the BBC:-
“We originally acquired Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story to supplement BBC Four’s season exploring the history of archaeology. However, we have decided that it does not fit editorially and are no longer planning to show it as part of the season.”
They must think we’re all daft.
“Following 16 hours of interrogation, Mr Tsarnaev stopped responding to investigators’ questions after being read his legal rights to remain silent and have a lawyer, US media report.”
I don’t have any problem believing that. But I still find it slightly odd that someone/anyone can grow up in the USA and not know about their Miranda rights. If they don’t learn about it in school, surely they see enough about it in TV programmes and Hollywood films?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning
Arbed and others; thanks for keeping the ‘Anna Ardin is a liar’ thread alive.
Assange may have been forced ‘up the river’ in London’s Ecuadorean Embassy for almost a year, is, thus far still generating output. His ‘run for cover’ from the flesh eating ‘zombies’ has already cost the British tax-payer some £5M according to Scotland Yard.
No problem Komodo.
Nevermind, I find it very hard to read about animal cruelty. And there’s a lot of it going on – especially in China it would appear.
Some horrible stuff here
http://features.peta.org/ChineseFurFarms/
Mark Golding, 12.39pm
My pleasure. It’s worth popping by that thread from time to time. I hear people think this whole Sweden/Cuba business may go very deep (or very high up, if you prefer), considering this Velaquez lady’s marriage to an official in the Swedish Foreign Office who was at one time himself involved in placing student interns in foreign embassies. (Anna Ardin travelled to Cuba carrying funds for a right-wing opposition group there (and was subsequently deported from Cuba as a result) on behalf of the Social Democrats Christian Brotherhood (the same people who organised Assange’s trip to Stockholm in 2010), but her ‘internships’ abroad (she also interned in the US embassy in Stockholm, I believe, and the embassy in Argentina) must have been vetted by the Swedish Foreign Office. There are people digging like crazy into this story as we speak.
If you would be unemployed and it would be up to me to appoint a new chief constable for the Met, Arbed, you would be it, your sleuthing is superb, thanks for popping in now and then reminding us of the latest.
When were these two accusers last seen in public, I ask myself, why is the Swedish Government covering up this story further, digging themselves deeper into the hole?
Is this a pay off of sorts, entry of a certain Swedish family, running many of their nations companies, into the NYSE, in return for Assange’s hide?
Hahaha…
The Syrian regime is retaking swathes of al Nusra-held territory, so out come the WMD fears!
And the corporate media (good call, whoever decided to call the that) hoovers the shit up.
Yes, the Syrian regime has got the upper hand, so of course they’re going to risk demonisation by using nerve gas. Makes perfect sense.
Only Israel and the US can use banned weaponry with impunity. Only they can kill countless children and get away with it.
Why, thank thee kindly Nevermind (though I’m not sure I have quite the right mindset for employment with the Met, frankly)
Your theory regarding the Bonniers and the NYSE is as good as any. It’s now becoming apparent that the upper echelons in Sweden is as awash with corruption as our own dear benighted isle.
I’ll just copy here my latest post on the Why I’m Convinced Anna Ardin is a Liar thread, to fill you in that the shit has well and truly hit the fan in Sweden over this news.
But, seriously, just exactly whose buttons are being pressed by the US DoJ in this sudden public pronouncement? First the Swedish Foreign Office denies it knows anything about it, then reverses that position. Then says the official this Velaquez woman is married to left the FO, but there’s documentary proof he sat on a forum deciding on Swedish policy regarding Libya/he’s on their Council of Ministers. (More links provided in the Why I’m Convinced thread, if anyone’s interested) And it shouldn’t be forgotten that there was hoohah in Sweden recently about Carl Bildt’s own spying in passing top secret Swedish government documents to Washington (and then to the CIA) back in the 1970s. And that, apparently, this lady and her husband are neighbours, or near-neighbours, of Carl Bildt himself. All very cosy…
Swedish citizens, by now, must realise that their foreign office and justice system are intrinsically linked to less than judicial practises.
Soon we have to chain Komodo to a tractor for the rotten smell wafting over, otherwise he”l start swimming the North Sea, leaving young Sophie Habbercake alone with her stalking daddy.
No doubt you would have already seen this site from Professor Blogg, clearly point to the failings of the Swedish judiciary. Its worth a read for those who have not seen it yet.
Those who do not want to see why Sweden has nosedived from a law abiding state to a US lackey, feel free to make your case.
http://ferrada-noli.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/rigged-documentary-on-julian-assange-in.html
sorry.
Thanks, Nevermind – yes, I’ve read that one. Perhaps you’ll be interested in this one…
Anna Ardin’s now-deleted blog post (Poor Anna, everything she writes somehow gets preserved anyway, haha) about her deportation from Cuba in 2006.
https://www.flashback.org/sp25035413 (Google translate required)
It’s particularly interesting in that it mentions “permission from SAPO” [Sweden’s security service] and a final-night dinner “at an embassy” (note that “an” – not “the” Swedish embassy in Cuba, “an” embassy there…)
Then couple that with this, US Lady-Spy’s hubby’s role in placing students interns in foreign embassies:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oMAUVfJNokwJ:www.liu.se/utbildning/program/polkand/student/filkatalog/praktikplatser/vt%25202007/1.121256/praktik-Lissabon-vt2007-ny.doc+Anders%2BKviele&cd=9&hl=sv&ct=clnk&gl=se
His name – Anders Kviele – is given as the primary contact at the bottom.