The U.S. put a Yemeni warlord on a terrorist list. One of its close allies is still arming him. - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-us-put-a-yemeni-warlord-on-a-terrorist-list-one-of-its-close-allies-is-still-arming-him/2018/12/28/f3c4fb5b-f366-4570-b27b-75a3ed0f0f52_story.html
TAIZ, Yemen — In 2017, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on a powerful Yemeni Islamist warlord, accusing him of being a “prominent military instructor” and fundraiser for #al-Qaeda who had also at one point “served with” the Islamic State and financed its forces.
But Abu al-Abbas is not on the run. He is not even in hiding.
By his own admission, Abbas continues to receive millions of dollars in weapons and financial support for his fighters from one of Washington’s closest Middle East allies, the United Arab Emirates [..]
]]>#GoFundMe raises nearly $5 million for Trump’s border wall | TheHill
▻https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/422197-gofundme-raises-more-than-1-million-for-trumps-border-wall
The fundraiser’s total continued to climb on Wednesday after the White House dropped its demand that $5 billion for Trump’s border wall be included in a government funding bill.
#mur
]]>IS #eos a SCAM? | EOS #ico suffers collusion allegations | Complete analysis
▻https://hackernoon.com/is-eos-a-scam-eos-ico-suffers-collusion-allegations-complete-analysis-e2
Is EOS ICO a scam?Top Fundraiser EOS ICO faces collusion allegationsThe highest record earning project, EOS is now facing speculations of being a scam since the leaking of a spreadsheet by Shi Feifei, a Huobi employee.Everything about EOSEOS is a decentralized project in the #blockchain space that aims to radically improve what is already on the market. The decentralized operating system intends to provide an easy alternative for all the developers to design a dApp.EOS became the talk of the town soon as they launched their ICO by announcing that they will be raising funds over a period of a whole year while most other ICOs aim to finish their sale as soon as possible. The objectives behind this strategy were (according to EOS)To stabilize the price.To gain confidence among investors by (...)
]]>Trump Insider Wanted to Sell Social Media Surveillance Tools to Abusive Governments, Leaked Documents Suggest
▻https://theintercept.com/2018/06/22/broidy-circinus-spying-tunisia-romania-uae
Earlier this year, it was reported that Elliott Broidy, a convicted felon in a 2009 bribery case and a top Donald Trump fundraiser, proffered meetings with the president to foreign regimes who were also potential clients of his defense firm Circinus. Little is known about Circinus, but purported company documents obtained by The Intercept contain plans to peddle social media surveillance software to repressive regimes. The Circinus website paints the contractor as an red-blooded defender (...)
#sécuritaire #spyware #exportation #activisme #web #surveillance
]]>Emails show UAE-linked effort against Tillerson - BBC News
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43281519
The BBC has obtained leaked emails that show a lobbying effort to get US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sacked for failing to support the United Arab Emirates against regional rival Qatar.
Major Trump fundraiser and UAE-linked businessman Elliott Broidy met Mr Trump in October 2017 and urged him to sack Mr Tillerson, the emails reveal.
In other emails, he calls the top US diplomat “a tower of Jello”, “weak” and says he “needs to be slammed”.
Mr Broidy says Qatar hacked his emails.
“We have reason to believe this hack was sponsored and carried out by registered and unregistered agents of Qatar seeking to punish Mr Broidy for his strong opposition to state-sponsored terrorism,” a spokesman for the businessman said.
He said some of the emails “may have been altered” but did not elaborate.
Saudi Arabia, UAE and a number of Arab countries cut diplomatic ties with Qatar in June 2017 over its alleged support for terrorism, a claim which it denies. The unprecedented move was seen as a major split between powerful Gulf countries, who are also close US allies.
Qatari royal ’held against will’ in UAE
Nations silent on Tillerson Qatar blockade plea
The BBC has asked the Qatar embassy in Washington for a response to the accusations.
Mr Broidy’s defence company Circinus has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with the UAE, according to the New York Times newspaper.
He had recently returned from the UAE when he met Mr Trump at the White House in October.
What did the emails say?
According to a memorandum he prepared of the meeting, Mr Broidy urged continued support of US allies the UAE and Saudi Arabia and advised Mr Trump against getting involved in last year’s row with Qatar.
Mr Broidy called Qatar “a television station with a country” - alluding to broadcaster Al Jazeera - and said it was doing “nothing positive”, according to the emails.
He said he touted a regional counter-terrorism force being set up by the UAE that his company was involved with, and suggested that the US president “sit down” with Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and a top UAE military commander.
“I offered that MBZ [the crown prince] is available to come to the US very soon and preferred a quiet meeting in New York or New Jersey. President Trump agreed that a meeting with MBZ was a good idea,” Mr Broidy wrote in an email.
He also said he advised the president on Mr Tillerson - who was “performing poorly and should be fired at a politically convenient time”.
Mr Tillerson had criticised the blockade of Qatar and called for it to be eased, in comments that contrasted with Mr Trump’s support for the move.
Mr Tillerson spent most of the first year in his position embattled and weakened.
Last autumn, in a rare move for the soft-spoken secretary, the state department held a press conference in which Mr Tillerson pushed back against reports he had called the president “a moron”.
Who did Mr Broidy email?
He emailed a detailed account of his meeting with the president to George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman with decades of experience serving as an interlocutor between the Middle East and Washington.
Sources familiar with the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and possible links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, tell the BBC that Mr Nader has become a person of interest and has been questioned in recent weeks.
Investigators questioned Mr Nader and other witnesses on whether there were any efforts by the Emiratis to buy political influence by directing money to Mr Trump’s presidential campaign, according to a New York Times report.
What else was in the leaked emails?
Mr Broidy also detailed a separate sit-down with Mr Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, according to the emails.
After Mr Broidy criticised Qatar extensively to Mr Kushner, “Jared’s demeanour was very passive and pleasant but he seemed to not want to engage on this issue,” he wrote to Mr Nader.
Kushner Companies - owned by the family of Jared Kushner - is reported to have in April 2017 sought financing from Qatar for its flagship property at 666 5th Avenue, New York.
However, Mr Kushner has maintained that he has had no role in his family’s business since joining the White House last year.
Has anyone else claimed to have been hacked?
UAE ambassador to Washington Yousef al-Otaiba - who in diplomatic circles is known as the most effective and influential ambassador in Washington - has himself been a recent victim of email hacking.
It’s well known in Washington that Mr Otaiba and Mr Kushner have enjoyed close relationship.
Industry experts looking at both hacks have drawn comparisons between the two, showing reason to suspect links to Qatar.
“This is rinse and repeat on Otaiba,” a source familiar with the hack told the BBC.
The UAE has also been known to use similar tactics, and was accused of hacking Qatari government websites prior to the blockade, according to the FBI.
]]>A Paywall for #Kedistan ? The choice is yours…-Kedistan
▻http://www.kedistan.net/2017/09/12/paywall-for-kedistan-the-choice-is-yours
@Ad Nauseam - It’s been a year now we launched a fundraiser to insure Kedistan’s survival and growth. You still haven’t had the unpleasant experience of bumping up against the mention « to read the rest of this article… » or a drop-down box saying : « Please disactivate your ad block ». Against all « good advice (...)
Kedistan / #Mediarezo
]]>American Destiny?
▻http://cphmag.com/american-destiny
““From agricultural workers to those toiling on the factory floor,” write the editors of Aperture magazine #226, American Destiny, “from regional cities weathering years of postindustrial decline to refugee populations assimilating into the heartland, the projects in this issue are bound by an urge to explore the social and political landscape of the United States.” I cannot take offense at that for a variety of reasons. To begin with, as I have probably made clear on this site for years now, I very much think that exploring “the social and political landscape of the United States” is a necessary and worthwhile goal. What is more, I have the highest regard for many of the artists featured in American Destiny — they are at the forefront of American photography.
Still, there is a gaping hole. Having looked through the magazine a few times now, one group of people is completely underrepresented. It’s the group that most powerfully shapes all the various things on display: the wealthy. As far as I can tell, there is one photograph of wealthy people — Mark Neville photographed what looks like a wealthy couple at an art fundraiser (you want to keep that word in mind, fundraiser). Maybe there are more pictures of wealthy people in the magazine. I just haven’t found them, yet.
Indirectly, though, wealth is present through both the form of the magazine and its advertizing. The folks photographed by, say, Jim Golberg and Donothan Wylie or Katy Grannan are probably unlikely to go to Art Basel. They’re unlikely to use the services of Swann Auction Galleries, and I’m not sure how many of them will consider the Fujifilm X-T2 camera (which comes at a price tag of $1,599 at the time of this writing, body only). The ads in American Destiny, in other words, are aimed at a very different socioeconomic group, the one missing in the pictures.
There’s a lot of talk about privilege in the art world, for many good reasons. The way this usually is explored is to focus one’s camera, or (metaphorical) pen, or paint and canvas, or whatever else on other people’s privilege. In the world of photography, this is usually inverted by focusing on other people’s lack of privilege — hence all those photographers traversing the country with their expensive cameras to photograph underprivileged people who, conveniently enough for mental stereotypes, live in “the heartland,” and who are poor, or they live in “regional cities weathering years of postindustrial decline” etc. Again, I don’t really have a problem with that, because obviously, there are many stories to be told.”
]]>Liberal Elites Hate the Left
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/liberal-elites-hate-the-left
In 2013, President Obama, speaking at a fundraiser in Medina, Washington — home to a small community of wealthy donors — expressed a sentiment that has become all too common among Democratic Party...
]]>Exclusive: Prominent GOP Neoconservative to Fundraise for Hillary Clinton | Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/23/exclusive-prominent-gop-neoconservative-to-fundraise-for-hillary-clin
A prominent neoconservative intellectual and early promoter of the Iraq War is headlining an official campaign fundraiser for Hillary Clinton next month, Foreign Policy has learned. The move signals a shift in the Clinton campaign’s willingness to associate with prominent Republicans and is the latest sign of how far some GOP defectors are willing to go to block a Donald Trump presidency.
#Robert_Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, will speak at a Hillary for America fundraiser in Washington’s Logan Circle neighborhood on July 21. According to an invite obtained by FP, the “event will include an off-the-record conversation on America’s continued investment in NATO, key European allies and partners, and the EU.”
]]>George and Amal Clooney Co-Hosting $34,300-A-Person Clinton Fundraiser With Pro-Israel Mega-Donor
▻http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/george-and-amal-clooney-co-hosting-34300-person-clinton-fundraiser-pro-isr
Hollywood A-lister George Clooney and his lawyer-activist wife Amal have cultivated a reputation for defending human rights.
But on April 16th, they will hold a high-priced, pro-Hillary Clinton fundraiser at their mansion alongside co-host Haim Saban—a fervent Israel supporter who has called for Muslim-Americans to be deprived of key civil rights protections and for the United States to consider ruthlessly bombing Iran
This is not the first time that the media mogul Haim Saban, and his wife Cheryl, have raised large sums for the Clinton campaign. As AlterNet previously reported, the couple together directly contributed $5 million to the Hillary Clinton Super PAC—Priorities USA Action—between 2015 and 2016.
Three million of those dollars came in after Clinton wrote a letter to Haim Saban in which she pledged to “work together” to defeat the growing BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement to win human rights and self-determination for Palestinians. Clinton has repeatedly vowed to make a close relationship with the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a centerpiece of her presidency if she is elected.
]]>3 associations musulmanes récoltent +100 000$ pour reconstruire les églises noires incendiées aux Etats-Unis - Huffington Post
▻http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/muslims-raise-over-100000-to-help-rebuild-black-churches-in-the-sout
Three Muslim organizations have raised over $100,000 to rebuild black churches in the South.
In the days following the shooting of nine people inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, a string of church fires at black worship centers in the South raised alarm on social media.
Authorities have not indicated that the fires are connected to Charleston, but the blazes made headlines in the wake of what many believe to have been the worst incident of racist terrorism in years. The Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, the Arab-American Association of New York and Ummah Wide wanted to make sure these churches were restored as soon as possible.
The organizations joined forces to launch the “Respond With Love” campaign on July 2, stating on their fundraising page that “ALL houses of worship are sanctuaries, a place where all should feel safe.”
The fundraiser started off with a goal of $10,000, but they hit that target within hours, Linda Sarsour, executive director of AAANY, said to HuffPost in an email. They increased the target amount a few more times, and the support kept flooding in.
The campaign closed on July 18, just after the end of the holy month of Ramadan, with a final total of $100,470.
Faatimah Knight, a theology student and one of the campaign’s organizers, believes “Respond With Love” went viral because it contributes to a colorful, nuanced narrative about the Muslim community.
“It awakens [in] some and confirms in others that Muslims are diverse and varied and that many of our concerns are domestic concerns,” Knight wrote in an email to HuffPost. “Also, Respond with Love is an anti-racism effort and there are many people in this country who are tired of racist rhetoric and racist motivated violence.”
Sarsour guesses the majority of the donors were Muslims, based on the surnames of the 2,016 people who donated.
“Our campaign gave people the opportunity to take an extra step beyond just verbal solidarity,” Sarsour said to HuffPost. “Our campaign united people of all faiths, it resonated and the fact that it was lead by Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan gave the campaign more meaning and legitimacy.”
Sarsour said the Respond With Love team is leaning towards donating the money to the larger “Rebuild The Churches Fund,” which was organized by the Episcopal Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, Missouri. That campaign has independently raised over $200,000 to rebuild six churches in Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida — other churches may be added to the list.
“We hope this campaign encouraged non-Black Muslims to support the BlackLivesMatter Movement and remain committed to ending anti-Black racism in America,” Sarsour said to HuffPost. “We have a [lot] of work to do. This is just the beginning.”
]]>Media Roundup : BDS, Pride & Palestine, and 1-800 Mossad
▻http://blog.palestine-studies.org/2015/07/07/media-roundup-bds-pride-palestine-and-1-800-mossad
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign published an open letter – which also serves as a policy statement – addressed to Israeli-American billionaire and Democrat party donor and fundraiser Haim Saban (who recently held a fundraising dinner for Mrs. Clinton) expressing the presidential aspirant’s opposition to BDS. Mr. Saban has teamed up with Republican donor/fundraiser and fellow pro-Israel partisan Sheldon Adelson to set up and fund anti-BDS efforts. Source: Palestine Square
]]>The Crowd-Funding Phenomenon Continues – Comic Raises $1.2M on Kickstarter (+Q&A with Creator Rich Burlew)! | Singularity Hub
►http://singularityhub.com/2012/03/06/the-crowd-funding-phenomenon-continues-%E2%80%93-comic-raises-1-2m-o
In his latest update, Burlew gave some insight into the hard numbers: $1,254,120 was pledged from 14,952 backers, about 0.32% (less than $4000) was not received due to errors on the part of backers, and $106,800 was given to Amazon Payments and Kickstarter in fees. That leaves Burlew with about $1,142,000 for the reprints and all the new goals he has for his webcomic.
SH: Has this fundraiser altered your business model or were pre-orders for the books (through the reward system) so dominant that you’re in the same model, just on a larger scale?
RB: Definitely the latter. The fundraiser has been incredibly successful in generating sales (as well as wider interest in the comic) but ultimately, I can’t run one of these every few months and expect to get another million dollars each time. The likelihood of me ever getting anything close to this response again is very low, so I’m treating it as a one-time opportunity. That’s the main reason why I’m trying to use as much of the excess funding to make permanent improvements to my business—buying new equipment, upgrading the server, and so on. That way, when the attention dies down and I’m back to doing things the way I’ve always done them, there will be concrete long-term benefits to me and the readers.
SH: What was the secret to your success on Kickstarter, and how much do you think can be repeated by other projects in the future?
RB: The most obvious secret is to already have an audience to sell to. The best way to get that audience is to put out a product of reliable quality over a long enough period of time that potential backers have no doubts about your ability to pull off whatever it is you’re promising to pull off. I’ve been drawing The Order of the Stick for almost nine years, and I’ve already printed and delivered seven books in that time. While some of them have had the sort of production delays you would expect from a small business, the fact is that I had a pretty good track record when it comes to self-publishing. So when I went out and said, “Hey, I need some funds up front if you want to get more books,” no one thought that I wasn’t capable of actually turning those funds into books. And because I’ve drawn well over a thousand pages of comics, most of them viewable for free, they also knew the exact quality level to expect for any additional stories that I threw in to sweeten the deal. That level of confidence is essential if you want a lot of people to give you money for something that doesn’t exist yet.
]]>#Cancer Culture - S. Lochlann Jain
►https://anthropology.stanford.edu/people/lochlann-s-jain
Usually cancer is studied as a distinct, finite, disease that some unfortunate people get. Nevertheless, over half of all Americans will be diagnosed with an invasive cancer. In this book, based in extensive analysis of the history, politics, and science of cancer, as well as years of fieldwork, I examine the ways that cancer is not separate from, but is central to medical, political, and social economies.
lire en particulier “Be Prepared” et “Cancer Butch”
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