Daily Archives: 6. September 2016


06.09.2016 - 19:29 [ Nick Turse / Truthout ]

Mission Impossible: Keeping Track of US Special Ops in Africa

Independent assessments suggest just the opposite. Data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland show, for example, that terror attacks have spiked over the last decade, roughly coinciding with AFRICOM‘s establishment. Before it became an independent command in 2007, there were fewer than 400 such incidents annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the number reached nearly 2,000.

Similarly, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which uses media reports to monitor violence, shows that „conflict events“ have jumped precipitously, from less than 4,000 to more than 15,000 per year, over the same span.

06.09.2016 - 17:56 [ Rudaw ]

Iraq: French artillery arriving on Mosul frontlines

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Artillery from France is arriving at the frontlines in the war against Islamic State in Iraq and a French aircraft carrier is preparing to leave for the Middle East in advance of the operation to retake Mosul, the French Defense Minister announced on Tuesday.

“We decided to bolster our support of the Iraqi forces this autumn, with the aim of recapturing Mosul,” Jean-Yves Le Drian stated at a meeting of military officials in Paris. “At this very moment, artillery is arriving close to the frontline.”

06.09.2016 - 17:53 [ Techdirt ]

Court To Cops: Residing In A State Where Marijuana Is Legal Does Not Automatically Make A Motorist ‚Suspicious‘

Colorado legislators legalized recreational marijuana use and now law enforcement agencies in bordering states are camping out on highways hoping for easy busts. All roads in and out of the state are now „drug corridors.“ This has led to suspicionless stops and seizures by police officers — predicated on nothing more than a vehicle being on a strip of highway leading to or from a supposed „source“ state.

06.09.2016 - 17:52 [ Torrentfreak ]

Warner Bros. Flags Its Own Website as a Piracy Portal

The screenshot below, taken from the following DMCA notice, lists the official Warner page of the 2008 Batman movie The Dark Knight among various reported pirate links.

06.09.2016 - 11:54 [ Truthout ]

Iraqi Woman Uses Chilcot Report in War Crimes Lawsuit Against George W. Bush

Sundus Saleh, an Iraqi woman, first filed her lawsuit against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz in September 2013. Alleging that the Iraq War constituted an illegal crime of aggression, Saleh filed the suit on behalf of herself and other Iraqis in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

The district court dismissed Saleh‘s lawsuit in December 2014, saying the defendants acted within the scope of their employment when they planned and carried out the Iraq War. Saleh then appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

06.09.2016 - 10:46 [ Al-Masdar News ]

Cousin of Saudi Ambassador killed fighting for ISIS in Iraq

‘Abdel-Salaam Al-Subhan’s death sparked outrage in Iraq after Thamer Al-Subhan refused to denounce the actions of his cousin. Finally, after several days of trading insults with the Saudi Ambassador, the Iraqi government has requested that Riyadh send a replacement for Thamer Al-Subhan, citing his anti-Iraq comments as the primary reason for the turmoil.

06.09.2016 - 07:54 [ RT ]

Brasilien nach dem Kalten Putsch: Wall Street kontrolliert erneut die brasilianischen Finanzen

Am Tag zuvor hatte die Politikerin 14 Stunden lang alle nur denkbaren Fragen der Senatoren beantwortet. Sie befassten sich überwiegend mit dem Vorwurf einer verfehlten Wirtschaftspolitik. Ein Delikt oder Verbrechen konnte ihr jedoch nicht nachgewiesen werden. Die zu Beginn des Amtsenthebungsverfahrens erhobenen Vorwürfe der Korruption wurden nicht einmal mehr erwähnt.

06.09.2016 - 07:37 [ Daily Mail ]

‚We can‘t let the internet become the wild, wild West‘: Obama reveals ‚death stare‘ between him and Putin came during tense, 90-minute-long G20 discussion about Russian cyber-attacks on America

– Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin were seen glaring at each other Monday
– Fierce ‚death stare‘ came as part of a side meeting about cyber-attacks
– Obama complained about cyber-attacks on America by Russia
– He also wants rules for how countries use the web, as with weapons
– The pair also failed to come up with a solution for Syria during the meeting
– Comes as Syrian government troops resumed their siege of Aleppo

06.09.2016 - 06:48 [ Portal 21amerika.de ]

USA organisieren Konferenz zur Freiheit des Internets in Kuba, Kritik aus Havanna

Josefina Vidal, Generaldirektorin der Abteilung für die USA im Außenministerium, kritisierte sowohl die Inhalte als auch das OCB selbst. Die US-Behörde habe die Konferenz anberaumt, um den Einsatz neuer Technologien für einen Wechsel des politischen Systems in Kuba zu forcieren. Die Konferenz werde von der gleichen US-Behörde organsiert und finanziert, welche die Propagandasender Radio und TV Martí betreibt, so Vidal. Beide werden von der kubanischen Regierung als subversive Programme eingestuft. Die Politik des OCB ist daher auch ein zentrales Thema bei den laufenden Annäherungsgesprächen zwischen beiden Ländern.

06.09.2016 - 05:50 [ Electronic Frontier Foundation ]

Word Games: What the NSA Means by “Targeted” Surveillance Under Section 702

Why PRISM and Upstream are „Mass,“ Not „Targeted,“ Surveillance

06.09.2016 - 05:43 [ Press TV ]

Russia, Saudi announce deal on oil

Their comments came in a joint statement after a meeting at the G20 summit in China. Russia‘s Energy Minister Alexander Novak described the announcement as marking a „new era“ in cooperation between Russia and Saudi Arabia and insisted it would have a „critical significance“ for oil markets.

06.09.2016 - 05:38 [ RT Deutsch ]

Juristische Zaubertricks, um einen illegalen Krieg zu legitimieren – Teil 2

„Eindeutige Angriffskriege als Verteidigung zu deklarieren, zeigt, wie sich die USA mit unglaublicher Arroganz und Frechheit über Regeln und Gesetze hinwegsetzen, aber gleichzeitig von Recht und Gesetz schwafeln.“

Diese Aussage bedarf jedoch einer Ergänzung, denn die politischen Führungskräfte der europäischen NATO-Länder machen bei der scheinheiligen, juristischen Scharade zur „Legalisierung“ imperialer Kriege bereitwillig mit.

06.09.2016 - 05:35 [ World Socialist Web Site ]

Obama and the US secret war in Laos

American dominance in Asia, however, was only established through a series of criminal neo-colonial wars—in particular in Korea and Indochina—that cost the lives of millions, as well as countless diplomatic intrigues and CIA-backed coups. The bloodiest coup, in Indonesia in 1965-66, involved the slaughter of at least a half million workers, peasants and members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).

The CIA’s secret war in Laos ranks among American imperialism’s worst war crimes. Between 1964 and 1973, the US conducted 580,000 missions and dropped more than two million bombs on a country less than the size of New Zealand.

06.09.2016 - 05:28 [ Radio Utopie ]

Merkel als militärische Matrone internationaler U-Boot-Kriegsflotten

(2015) Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) und das vom französische Staat kontrollierte Konsortium Direction des Constructions Navales (DCNS) stehen in Konkurrenz zu einem japanischen Mitbewerber. Das Auftragsvolumen beträgt 35,7 Milliarden Dollar. „Ich möchte deutlich klarstellen, dass die Bundesregierung das deutsche Angebot unterstützt, welches von den Privatunternehmen eingereicht worden ist“, so Merkel. „Wir glauben, dass es attraktiv ist mit seinen Möglichkeiten in den australischen Produktionsstätten und der Schaffung neuer Arbeitsplätze.“

06.09.2016 - 05:24 [ German Foreign Policy ]

Sprungbrett in den Pazifik

Darüber hinaus müssten die beiden Staaten ihre „Anti-Terror-Kooperation“ verdichten. Zudem hieß es, die Außen- und die Verteidigungsminister Deutschlands und Australiens sollten sich jährlich zu „Deutsch-Australischen 2+2-Gesprächen“ treffen.[6] Für den heutigen Dienstag kündigt die Bundesregierung die Teilnahme von Verteidigungsministerin Ursula von der Leyen und Außenminister Frank-Walter Steinmeier an den ersten „2+2-Gesprächen“ in Berlin an.