organization:central intelligence agency

  • Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp : un retour à la normale après une grosse panne
    https://www.latribune.fr/technos-medias/internet/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-un-retour-a-la-normale-apres-une-grosse-panne-

    Facebook a annoncé être de nouveau opérationnel à 100% après une grosse panne qui a affecté mercredi ses différents services dans le monde (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram et WhatsApp).

    Selon le site Downdetector, qui répertorie des pannes de différents services internet, des usagers des plateformes de Facebook ont vu de premières difficultés apparaître aux alentours de 12h GMT.

    « Le problème a été résolu depuis et nous devrions fonctionner de nouveau à 100%, pour tout le monde », a annoncé le réseau social dans un tweet à 00H06 GMT jeudi, en regrettant « tout désagrément » lié à cette panne.

    Des milliers d’utilisateurs dans différentes régions du monde ont signalé des défaillances, principalement en Europe et en Amérique du Nord, selon DownDetector. Les particuliers, comme les entreprises et les organisations, ont été affectés.

    « Oui, nous sommes touchés par #instagramdown (#panneinstagram), nous aussi », a tweeté la CIA. « Non, nous ne l’avons pas provoquée. Non, nous ne pouvons pas vous dépanner. Avez-vous essayé d’éteindre et de relancer ? »

    Un porte-parole de Facebook, qui s’exprimait aussi au nom d’Instagram et de WhatsApp, a expliqué qu’une « opération de maintenance » avait accidentellement provoqué une défaillance empêchant le partage de photos et de vidéos, ont rapporté des médias américains.

    Mi-mars, Facebook avait connu la plus longue panne de son histoire, de près de 24 heures, due à un problème de serveurs, suscitant des réactions mi-amusées, mi-éplorées d’internautes retrouvant « la vraie vie » et s’épanchant sur internet via d’autres réseaux.

    Facebook, contactée par l’AFP, n’avait pas fourni de détails sur cette panne mercredi soir.

  • Portrait d’un imposteur, charlatan, facho, stipendié par la CIA, belliciste et misogyne (j’en oublie). Théophraste R. - 30 Juin 2019 - LGS
    https://www.legrandsoir.info/portrait-d-un-imposteur-charlatan-facho-stipendie-par-la-cia-bellicist

    Eduqué par un précepteur nazi envoyé au Tibet par Hitler, il a été jusqu’en 1959 le chef d’une théocratie si féroce que « son peuple » martyr, avec une espérance de vie de 37,5 ans, était en danger de disparition.

    En avril 1999, il a lancé un appel au gouvernement britannique afin qu’il libère l’ex-dictateur fasciste chilien Augusto Pinochet, arrêté au cours d’une visite en Angleterre (1).

    Il était l’ami du gourou japonais https://www.legrandsoir.info/le-dalai-lama-vient-de-perdre-un-ami.html de la secte Aum, Shoko Asahara qui le sponsorisait et qui a défrayé la chronique de l’horreur en faisant gazer au sarin des passagers du métro de Tokyo le 20 mars 1995.

    Il est subventionné depuis 1959 par la CIA. En 1998, son représentant à Washington a avoué : «  C’est un secret dévoilé, nous ne le contestons pas.  »

    Le 27 juin 2019, il s’est exprimé à la BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48772175 sur l’immigration en Europe, qu’il souhaite limitée, faute de quoi «  l’Europe pourrait devenir « musulmane ou africaine  ». Elargissant le slogan de nos fascistes («  La France au Français !  ») il a déclaré «  Europe is for Europeans  ».
    Le « chef » si peu spirituel d’une frange minoritaire des bouddhistes envisage de se réincarner en femme, mais «  il faudra qu’elle soit attirante  ». Il n’a pas dit : «  je ne me vois pas en boudin  », mais on l’a entendu.

    Despote, #charlatan, #facho, stipendié par la CIA, belliciste (partisan de la guerre en Irak et en Afghanistan), misogyne, tel est l’individu que notre site dénonce depuis des années dans de nombreux articles (2) quand la classe politico-médiatique se prosterne devant lui.

    Théophraste R. Auteur du pamphlet (que j’hésite à publier) : «  Le dalaï lama est un sale con  ».

    Notes. 
(1) Pendant les 25 années d’emprisonnement de Nelson Mandela, il s’est tu. C’est pourquoi, malgré ses efforts, et contrairement à Raul Castro, il n’a pas été autorisé à assister aux funérailles du leader Sud-Africain en décembre 2013.

    (2) Voir aussi le livre : « Dalaï lama pas si zen », de Maxime Vivas (Editions Max Milo, 2011).

    #dalaï_lama #misogynie #tibet #chine #religion #bouddhisme #femmes #politique #histoire #censure #manipulation #asile #asie #Nelson_Mandela #théocratie #augusto_pinochet #europe #migrations #emmanuel_macron #macron Curieux que #brigitte_macron, ne figure pas sur la photographie, ce devait être une demande de sa #sainteté pour qui les #femmes sont des . . . .

    • J’ai aucune raison de défendre un dirigeant religieux hein, mais on peut pas appeler ça du journalisme quoi. Article débile sans aucune source, qui mélange des trucs vrais et faux exorès (moi j’arrive jamais à avoir confiance à chaque fois que je lis le Grand soir, je pige jamais si c’est un contenu copié d’autre part, un article écrit exprès, et d’où sortent les infos, etc).

      Rien que la première phrase « putaclic » n’a aucun sens « Eduqué par un précepteur nazi envoyé au Tibet par Hitler » : il a jamais été éduqué par un précepteur étranger… il a juste croisé la route de l’alpiniste https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Harrer pendant un moment, aucun rapport avec son éducation.

      Enfin bref, super le journalisme quoi… Si c’est pour critiquer une religion, ou des personnes de pouvoir (très bien !), j’attends plus que ce genre de merde, personnellement…

  • MoA - Tian An Men Square - What Really Happened (Updated)
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/tiananmen-square-do-the-media-say-what-really-happened.html

    June 04, 2019
    Tian An Men Square - What Really Happened (Updated)

    Since 1989 the western media write anniversary pieces on the June 4 removal of protesters from the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The view seems always quite one sided and stereotyped with a brutal military that suppresses peaceful protests.

    That is not the full picture. Thanks to Wikileaks we have a few situation reports from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing at that time. They describe a different scene than the one western media paint to this day.

    Ten thousands of people, mostly students, occupied the square for six weeks. They protested over the political and personal consequences of Mao’s chaotic Cultural Revolution which had upset the whole country. The liberalization and changeover to a more capitalist model under Deng Xiopings had yet to show its success and was fought by the hardliners in the Communist Party.

    The more liberal side of the government negotiated with the protesters but no agreement was found. The hardliners in the party pressed for the protest removal. When the government finally tried to move the protesters out of the very prominent square they resisted.

    On June 3 the government moved troops towards the city center of Beijing. But the military convoys were held up. Some came under attack. The U.S. embassy reported that soldiers were taken as hostages:

    TENSION MOUNTED THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON AS BEIJING RESIDENTS VENTED THEIR ANGER BY HARASSING MILITARY AND POLICE PERSONNEL AND ATTACKING THEIR VEHICLES. STUDENTS DISPLAYED CAPTURED WEAPONS, MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND VEHICLES, INCLUDING IN FRONT OF THE ZHONGNANHAI LEADERSHIP COMPOUND. AN EFFORT TO FREE STILL CAPTIVE MILITARY PERSONNEL OR TO CLEAR THE SOUTHERN ENTRANCE TO ZHONGNANHAI MAY HAVE BEEN THE CAUSE OF A LIMITED TEAR GAS ATTACK IN THAT AREA AROUND 1500 HOURS LOCAL.

    There are some gruesome pictures of the government side casualties of these events.

    Another cable from June 3 notes:

    THE TROOPS HAVE OBVIOUSLY NOT YET BEEN GIVEN ORDERS PERMITTING THEM TO USE FORCE. THEIR LARGE NUMBERS, THE FACT THAT THEY ARE HELMETED, AND THE AUTOMATIC WEAPONS THEY ARE CARRYING SUGGEST THAT THE FORCE OPTION IS REAL.

    In the early morning of June 4 the military finally reached the city center and tried to push the crowd out of Tiananmen Square:

    STUDENTS SET DEBRIS THROWN ATOP AT LEAST ONE ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER AND LIT THE DEBRIS, ACCORDING TO EMBOFF NEAR THE SCENE. ABC REPORTED THAT ONE OTHER ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER IS AFLAME. AT LEAST ONE BUS WAS ALSO BURNING, ACCORDING TO ABC NEWS REPORTERS ON THE SQUARE AT 0120. THE EYEWITNESSES REPORTED THAT TROOPS AND RIOT POLICE WERE ON THE SOUTHERN END OF THE SQUARE AND TROOPS WERE MOVING TO THE SQUARE FROM THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE CITY.

    The soldiers responded as all soldiers do when they see that their comrades get barbecued:

    THERE HAS REPORTEDLY BEEN INDISCRIMINATE GUNFIRE BY THE TROOPS ON THE SQUARE. WE CAN HEAR GUNFIRE FROM THE EMBASSY AND JIANGUOMENWAI DIPLOMATIC COMPOUND. EYEWITNESSES REPORT TEAR GAS ON THE SQUARE, FLARES BEING FIRED ABOVE IT, AND TRACERS BEING FIRED OVER IT.

    Most of the violence was not in the square, which was already quite empty at that time, but in the streets around it. The soldiers tried to push the crowd away without using their weapons:

    THE SITUATION IN THE CENTER OF THE CITY IS VERY CONFUSED. POLOFFS AT THE BEIJING HOTEL REPORTED THAT TROOPS ARE PUSHING A LARGE CROWD OF DEMONSTRATORS EAST ON CHANGANJIE. ALTHOUGH THESE TROOPS APPEAR NOT TO BE FIRING ON THE CROWD, POLOFFS REPORT FIRING BEHIND THE TROOPS COMING FROM THE SQUARE.

    With the Square finally cleared the student protest movement ebbed away.

    Update (June 5)

    Peter Lee, aka Chinahand, was there on the ground. He just published his eyewitness account written down at that time.

    Western secret services smuggled some 800 of the leaders of their failed ’color revolution’ out of the country, reported the Financial Times:

    Many went first to France, but most travelled on to the US for scholarships at Ivy League universities.

    The extraction missions, aided by MI6, the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, and the CIA, according to many accounts, had scrambler devices, infrared signallers, night-vision goggles and weapons.

    bigger

    /End of Update

    It is unclear how many people died during the incident. The numbers vary between dozens to several hundred. There is no evidence that the higher numbers are correct. It also not known how many of the casualties were soldiers, or how many were violent protesters or innocent bystanders.

    The New York Times uses the 30th anniversary of the June 4 incidents to again promote a scene that is interpreted as successful civil resistance.

    bigger

    He has become a global symbol of freedom and defiance, immortalized in photos, television shows, posters and T-shirts.

    But three decades after the Chinese Army crushed demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square, “Tank Man” — the person who boldly confronted a convoy of tanks barreling down a Beijing avenue — is as much a mystery as ever.

    But was the man really some hero? It is not known what the the man really wanted or if he was even part of the protests:

    According to the man who took the photo, AP photographer Jeff Widener, the photo dates from June 5 the day after the Tiananmen Square incident. The tanks were headed away from, and not towards, the Square. They were blocked not by a student but by a man with a shopping bag crossing the street who had chosen to play chicken with the departing tanks. The lead tank had gone out its way to avoid causing him injury.

    The longer video of the tank hold up (turn off the ghastly music) shows that the man talked with the tank commander who makes no attempt to force him away. The scene ends after two minutes when some civilian passersby finally tell the man to move along. The NYT also writes:

    But more recently, the government has worked to eliminate the memory of Tank Man, censoring images of him online and punishing those who have evoked him.
    ...
    As a result of the government’s campaign, many people in China, especially younger Chinese, do not recognize his image.

    To which Carl Zha, who currently travels in China and speaks the language, responds:

    Carl Zha @CarlZha - 15:23 utc - 4 Jun 2019

    For the record, Everyone in China know about what happened on June 4th, 1989. Chinese gov remind them every year by cranking up censorship to 11 around anniversary. Idk Western reporters who claim people in China don’t know are just esp stupid/clueless or deliberately misleading

    In fact that applies to China reporting in general. I just don’t know whether Western China reporters are that stupid/clueless or deliberately misleading. I used to think people can’t be that stupid but I am constantly surprised...

    and

    Carl Zha @CarlZha - 15:42 utc - 4 Jun 2019

    This Image was shared in one of the Wechat group I was in today. Yes, everyone understood the reference

    bigger

    Carl recommends the two part movie The Gate To Heavenly Peace (vid) as the best documentary of the Tiananmen Square protests. It explores the political and social background of the incident and includes many original voices and scenes.

    Posted by b on June 4, 2019 at 03:00 PM

    #Chine #4689

  • The New York Times and its Uyghur “activist” - World Socialist Web Site
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/09/uygh-m09.html

    9 May 2019 - The New York Times has furnished a case study of the way in which it functions as the conduit for the utterly hypocritical “human rights” campaigns fashioned by the CIA and the State Department to prosecute the predatory interests of US imperialism.

    While turning a blind eye to the gross abuses of democratic rights by allies such as Saudi Arabia, the US has brazenly used “human rights” for decades as the pretext for wars, diplomatic intrigues and regime-change. The media is completely integrated into these operations.

    Another “human rights” campaign is now underway. The New York Times is part of the mounting chorus of condemnation of China over its treatment of the Turkic-speaking, Muslim Uyghur minority in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

    In an article on May 4 entitled “In push for trade deal, Trump administration shelves sanctions over China’s crackdown on Uyghurs,” the New York Times joined in criticism of the White House, particularly by the Democrats, for failing to impose punitive measures on Beijing.

    The strident denunciations of China involve unsubstantiated allegations that it is detaining millions of Uyghurs without charge or trial in what Beijing terms vocational training camps.

    The New York Times reported, without qualification, the lurid claims of US officials, such as Assistant Secretary of Defence Randall Schriver, who last Friday condemned “the mass imprisonment of Chinese Muslims in concentration camps” and boosted the commonly cited figure of up to a million to “up to three million” in detention. No evidence has been presented for either claim.

    The repression of the Uyghurs is completely bound up with the far broader oppression of the working class by the Chinese capitalist elites and the Chinese Communist Party regime that defends their interests. The US campaign on the Uyghurs, however, has nothing to do with securing the democratic rights of workers, but is aimed at stirring up reactionary separatist sentiment.

    The US has longstanding ties to right-wing separatist organisations based on Chinese minorities—Tibetans as well as the Uyghurs—that it helped create, fund and in some cases arm. As the US, first under President Obama and now Trump, has escalated its diplomatic, economic and military confrontation with China, the “human rights” of Uyghurs has been increasingly brought to the fore.

    Washington’s aim, at the very least, is to foment separatist opposition in Xinjiang, which is a crucial source of Chinese energy and raw materials as well as being pivotal to its key Belt and Road Initiative to integrate China more closely with Eurasia. Such unrest would not only weaken China but could lead to a bloody war and the fracturing of the country. Uyghur separatists, who trained in the US network of Islamist terrorist groups in Syria, openly told Radio Free Asia last year of their intention to return to China to wage an armed insurgency.

    The New York Times is completely in tune with the aims behind these intrigues—a fact that is confirmed by its promotion of Uyghur “activist” Rushan Abbas.

    Last weekend’s article highlighted Abbas as the organiser of a tiny demonstration in Washington to “pressure Treasury Department officials to take action against Chinese officials involved in the Xinjiang abuses.” She told the newspaper that the Uyghur issue should be included as part of the current US-China trade talks, and declared: “They are facing indoctrination, brainwashing and the elimination of their values as Muslims.”

    An article “Uyghur Americans speak against China’s internment camps” on October 18 last year cited her remarks at the right-wing think tank, the Hudson Institute, where she “spoke out” about the detention of her aunt and sister. As reported in the article: “I hope the Chinese ambassador here reads this,” she said, wiping away tears. “I will not stop. I will be everywhere and speak on this at every event from now on.”

    Presented with a tearful woman speaking about her family members, very few readers would have the slightest inkling of Abbas’s background, about which the New York Times quite deliberately says nothing. Abbas is a highly connected political operator with long standing ties to the Pentagon, the State Department and US intelligence agencies at the highest level as well as top Republican Party politicians. She is a key figure in the Uyghur organisations that the US has supported and funded.

    Currently, Abbas is Director of Business Development in ISI Consultants, which offers to assist “US companies to grow their businesses in Middle East and African markets.” Her credentials, according to the company website, include “over 15 years of experience in global business development, strategic business analysis, business consultancy and government affairs throughout the Middle East, Africa, CIS regions, Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and Latin America.”

    The website also notes: “She also has extensive experience working with US government agencies, including Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Justice, and various US intelligence agencies.” As “an active campaigner for human rights,” she “works closely with members of the US Senate, Congressional Committees, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the US Department of State and several other US government departments and agencies.”

    This brief summary makes clear that Abbas is well connected in the highest levels of the state apparatus and in political circles. It also underscores the very close ties between the Uyghur organisations, in which she and her family members are prominent, and the US intelligence and security agencies.

    A more extensive article and interview with Abbas appeared in the May 2019 edition of the magazine Bitter Winter, which is published by the Italian-based Center for Studies on New Religions. The magazine focuses on “religious liberty and human rights in China” and is part of a conservative, right-wing network in Europe and the United States. The journalist who interviewed Abbas, Marco Respinti, is a senior fellow at the Russell Kirk Centre for Cultural Renewal, and a board member of the Centre for European Renewal—both conservative think tanks.

    The article explains that Abbas was a student activist at Xinjiang University during the 1989 protests by students and workers against the oppressive Beijing regime, but left China prior to the brutal June 4 military crackdown that killed thousands in the capital and throughout the country. At the university, she collaborated with Dolkun Isa and “has worked closely with him ever since.”

    Dolkun Isa is currently president of the World Uyghur Congress, established in 2004 as an umbrella group for a plethora of Uyghur organisations. It receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy—which is one of the fronts used by the CIA and the US State Department for fomenting opposition to Washington’s rivals, including so-called colour revolutions, around the world.

    Isa was the subject of an Interpol red notice after China accused him of having connections to the armed separatist group, the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation, a claim he denied. East Turkestan is the name given to Xinjiang by Uyghur separatists to denote its historic connections to Turkey. None of the Western countries in which he traveled moved to detain him and the red notice was subsequently removed, no doubt under pressure from Washington.

    Bitter Winter explained that after moving to the US, Abbas cofounded the first Uyghur organisation in the United States in 1993—the California-based Tengritagh Overseas Students and Scholars Association. She also played a key role in the formation of the Uyghur American Association in 1998, which receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Last year its Uyghur Human Rights Project was awarded two NED grants totaling $320,000. Her brother Rishat Abbas was the association’s first vice-chairman and is currently the honorary chairman of the Uyghur Academy based in Turkey.

    When the US Congress funded a Uyghur language service for the Washington-based Radio Free Asia, Abbas became its first reporter and news anchor, broadcasting daily to China. Radio Free Asia, like its counterpart Radio Free Europe, began its existence in the 1950s as a CIA conduit for anti-communist propaganda. It was later transferred to the US Information Agency, then the US State Department and before being incorporated as an “independent,” government-funded body. Its essential purpose as a vehicle for US disinformation and lies has not changed, however.

    In a particularly revealing passage, Bitter Winter explained: “From 2002–2003, Ms. Abbas supported Operation Enduring Freedom as a language specialist at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” In the course of the interview with the magazine, Abbas attempted to explain away her involvement with the notorious prison camp by saying that she was simply acting on behalf of 22 Uyghurs who were wrongfully detained and ultimately released—after being imprisoned for between four to 11 years!

    Given the denunciations of Chinese detention camps, one might expect that Abbas would have something critical to say about Guantanamo Bay, where inmates are held indefinitely without charge or trial and in many cases tortured. However, she makes no criticism of the prison or its procedures, nor for that matter of Operation Enduring Freedom—the illegal US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq that resulted in the deaths of a million civilians.

    It is clear why. Abbas is plugged into to the very top levels of the US state apparatus and political establishment in Washington. Her stints with Radio Free Asia and at Guantanamo Bay are undoubtedly not the only times that she has been directly on the payroll.

    As Bitter Winter continued: “She has frequently briefed members of the US Congress and officials at the State Department on the human rights situation of the Uyghur people, and their history and culture, and arranged testimonies before Congressional committees and Human Rights Commissions.

    “She provided her expertise to other federal and military agencies as well, and in 2007 she assisted during a meeting between then-President George W. Bush and Rebiya Kadeer, the world-famous moral leader of the Uyghurs, in Prague. Later that year she also briefed then First Lady Laura Bush in the White House on the Human Rights situation in Xinjiang.”

    It should be noted, Rebiya Kadeer is the “the world-famous moral leader of the Uyghurs,” only in the eyes of the CIA and the US State Department who have assiduously promoted her, and of the US-funded Uyghur organisations. She was one of the wealthiest businesswomen in China who attended the National People’s Congress before her husband left for the US and began broadcasting for Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. She subsequently fled China to the US and has served as president both of the World Uyghur Congress and the American Uyghur Association.

    The fact that Russan Abbas is repeatedly being featured in the New York Times is an indication that she is also being groomed to play a leading role in the mounting US propaganda offensive against China over the persecution of the Uyghurs. It is also a telling indictment of the New York Times which opens its pages to her without informing its readers of her background. Like Abbas, the paper of record is also plugged into the state apparatus and its intelligence agencies.

    #Chine #Xinjiang_Weiwuer_zizhiqu #USA #impérialisme #services_secretes

    新疆維吾爾自治區 / 新疆维吾尔自治区, Xīnjiāng Wéiwú’ěr zìzhìqū, englisch Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

  • BALLAST | Daniel Tanuro : « Collapsologie : toutes les dérives idéologiques sont possibles »
    https://www.revue-ballast.fr/daniel-tanuro-collapsologie-toutes-les-derives-ideologiques-sont-possi

    Les nom­breux effets du dérè­gle­ment cli­ma­tique sont sous nos yeux. La non linéa­ri­té de ce pro­ces­sus rend les pro­jec­tions futures incer­taines, mais il ne fait aucun doute que le modèle éco­no­mique domi­nant en est l’une des prin­ci­pales causes. Ancien ingé­nieur agro­nome et auteur de L’Impossible capi­ta­lisme vert, Daniel Tanuro défend une alter­na­tive éco­so­cia­liste : une rup­ture radi­cale avec le pro­duc­ti­visme — qui a long­temps impré­gné les cou­rants socia­listes majo­ri­taires. Mais de l’urgence à la catas­trophe, il n’est par­fois qu’un pas, que la col­lap­so­lo­gie fran­chit sans hési­ter : ses par­ti­sans vont affir­mant que l’effondrement de la civi­li­sa­tion que nous connais­sons aura lieu dans un ave­nir très proche, et qu’il est déjà trop tard pour agir des­sus. Tanuro se porte en faux ; nous en dis­cu­tons.

    #effondrements #collapsologie (vs) #écosocialisme

  • The CIA tried to recruit at an American Library Association convention — and the librarians fought back – Alternet.org
    https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/the-cia-tried-to-recruit-at-an-american-library-association-convention-and

    A group of librarians demanded the American Library Association abide by its values on Friday as they staged a protest of the CIA’s presence and recruitment at the professional organization’s annual conference.

    At the convention, which is taking place June 20-25 in Washington, D.C., the CIA is among the hundreds of exhibitors.

    Being an exhibitor at one of its gatherings, the American Library Association (ALA) says, “provides the best and most comprehensive opportunity to reach decision makers in the library field.”

    The protesters say the CIA’s track record provides ample evidence it should not be provided that opportunity.

    “The CIA is recruiting at #alaac19,” said organizer and Library Freedom Project founder Alison Macrina on Twitter. “Everything they stand for is a violation of the values of librarianship, so we protested.”

    The protesters laid out their motivation in a statement they handed out at the action. According to the Library Journal, the statement said, in part:

    The CIA has participated for decades in the violent overthrow of governments while propping up dictators all over the world. The CIA believes in absolute secrecy for itself, but total surveillance for all others. The CIA makes use of ultra-secretive ‘black sites’ to conduct torture and extrajudicial detention. We need not list their entire history to show that library workers should not be associated with them, that the CIA’s actions are incompatible with the values of librarianship.

    “In an era where democracy is in jeopardy, where the government and its agencies are under the control of a dangerous white supremacist regime,” the statement added, “library workers must take a stand against undemocratic forces — particularly those as powerful as the CIA.”

    That language builds on and mirrors a call from an open letter released last year.

    Authored by Macrina and Dustin Fife and entitled “No Legitimization Through Association: the CIA should not be exhibiting at ALA,” the letter was published right after the ALA’s 2018 annual conference, when the CIA was also an exhibitor.

    “We refuse to lend credence to the CIA through association and we ask our fellow library workers to join us,” it said. “We should not allow them space to recruit library workers to become intelligence analysts, which was the focus of their booth.”

    “Library workers are powerful,” the statement added. “We have a strong reputation in our local communities and across the world as being steadfast stewards of democracy, intellectual freedom, equity, and social justice. We attempt to honor these values through our collections, programs, and services and we recognize that our libraries need continuous examination in a systemically unjust society. Those values should extend to all that we do. A more democratic world is possible, and we believe that library workers can be at the forefront of this charge.”

    At this year’s event, during a Saturday membership meeting, a resolution calling for a ban on CIA recruitment at all ALA conferences and meetings failed over objections that the CIA’s free speech would be violated.

    Macrina says that’s “a facile argument.”

    The conference, Macrina told Common Dreams, “is a ticketed, private space. We abide by a code of conduct there. It is absolutely reasonable for us to decide who gets to be in such a space. If the KKK wanted to exhibit, I believe we’d reject them. This is not a First Amendment issue.”

    #Bibliothèques #CIA #ALA #American_Library_Association #First_amendment

  • Détails macabres et responsabilité de l’Arabie saoudite : le cinglant rapport de l’ONU sur la mort de Jamal Khashoggi
    https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/06/19/details-sinistres-et-mise-en-cause-de-l-arabie-saoudite-le-cinglant-rapport-

    Après six mois d’enquête, le rapport appelle notamment la communauté internationale à mettre le prince héritier saoudien Mohamed Ben Salman sous sanctions.

    Mise en cause du prince héritier saoudien Mohamed Ben Salman, appel à l’imposition de sanctions contre lui, demande d’ouverture d’une enquête internationale, révélation de détails macabres sur le déroulement des faits : le rapport de l’experte onusienne Agnès Callamard sur l’assassinat du journaliste et opposant saoudien Jamal Khashoggi, éliminé le 2 octobre par des agents du royaume à Istanbul, est particulièrement embarrassant pour les autorités de Riyad.

    Ce gros document, d’une centaine de pages, est l’aboutissement de six mois d’enquête et d’une centaine d’interviews, menées en Turquie, bien sûr, le lieu du crime, mais aussi à Washington, Paris, Londres, Bruxelles, Berlin et Ottawa. Ce travail a été conduit par Mme Callamard, ancienne experte d’Amnesty International, en sa qualité de rapporteure du Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’ONU sur les exécutions extrajudiciaires, et par son équipe, composée de trois autres personnes : Duarte Nuno Vieira, un expert légiste, Paul Johnston, un enquêteur criminel, et Helena Kennedy, spécialiste des droits de l’homme.

    Le rapport conclut à la responsabilité de l’Arabie saoudite, en tant qu’Etat, dans l’assassinat de Jamal Khashoggi. Concernant le rôle exact de Mohamed Ben Salman, surnommé « #MBS », l’homme fort de la couronne, considéré par la CIA comme le commanditaire du meurtre, le rapport n’apporte pas d’éléments nouveaux mais il conforte ces soupçons.

    #paywall

  • The Church Committee - United States Senate Select Committee to Stu...
    https://diasp.eu/p/9207850

    The Church Committee - United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities

    By the early years of the 1970s, a series of troubling revelations had appeared in the press concerning intelligence activities. First came the revelations by Army intelligence officer Christopher Pyle in January 1970 of the U.S. Army’s spying on the civilian population and Senator Sam Ervin’s Senate investigations produced more revelations. Then on December 22, 1974, The New York Times published a lengthy article by Seymour Hersh detailing operations engaged in by the CIA over the years ... involving assassination attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments were reported for the first time. In addition, the (...)

  • Venezuela : qu’y a-t-il derrière les déclarations de M. Pompeo critiquant la désunion de l’opposition ?
    • celle-ci est réelle, mais…
    • les É.-U. ont aussi commis leur lot d’erreurs. Rappel : M. Pompeo avant d’être nommé secrétaire d’état fin avril 2018, s’est occupé du cas du Venezuela au poste précédent, directeur de la CIA depuis janvier 2017
    • Leopoldo López, ne supportant pas la mise en avant de Juan Guaidó, est très probablement à l’origine de la tentative de coup d’état du 30 avril, anticipant sans prévenir personne [et sans doute pas Guaidó lui-même] sur les grands rassemblements prévus pour le lendemain
    • l’opposition commence à craindre que les É.-U. ne fassent affaire directement avec les militaires, la laissant hors du coup.

    ¿Qué hay detrás de la frustración de EE UU con la oposición a Maduro ? – El Nacional / BBC Mundo
    http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/bbc-mundo/que-hay-detras-frustracion-con-oposicion-maduro_284613

    El jefe de la diplomacia de EE UU, Mike Pompeo, indicó en una grabación secreta que mantener unidos a los opositores venezolanos es “diabólicamente difícil”. Pero algunos creen que esto disimula los propios errores de Washington
    […]
    El creciente descontento de EE UU con la oposición venezolana ya era un secreto a voces en Washington. Pero ahora es más evidente que nunca.

    Sin embargo, algunos creen que detrás de esta frustración del gobierno de Donald Trump hay equivocaciones en su propia estrategia hacia Venezuela.

    «Es injusto que Pompeo lance este tipo de críticas a la oposición (venezolana) cuando los mayores errores los cometieron los encargados de formular la política de EE UU», dice Roger Noriega, que fue subsecretario de Estado para América Latina durante el gobierno de George W. Bush, a BBC Mundo.
    […]
    [Pompeo] Apuntó que los intereses en conflicto de los enemigos y rivales de Maduro impidieron su derrocamiento en el fallido levantamiento opositor del 30 de abril.

    «(Maduro) No confía nada en los venezolanos. No lo culpo. No debería. Todos estaban conspirando contra él. Lamentablemente, todos estaban conspirando para sí mismos», indicó Pompeo.

    Aunque dijo confiar en que Maduro se verá obligado a abandonar el poder, aclaró que desconoce cuándo ocurrirá esa partida que calificó como «necesaria pero completamente insuficiente» para lograr un cambio en Venezuela.

    Pompeo dijo que confiaba en que Maduro finalmente se vea obligado a retirarse, pero «no podría decirte el momento».

    En sectores de la administración Trump empieza a cundir la impaciencia porque sus esfuerzos no están generando de momento el cambio de gobierno deseado por Washington.
    […]
    La oposición venezolana ha evitado por ahora responder en público los comentarios de Pompeo, que de hecho suponen un revés de su principal aliado.

    «Las palabras de Pompeo nos dolieron porque parece que la culpa de que Maduro haya resistido es nuestra falta de unidad, y eso no es cierto», dijo al corresponsal de BBC Mundo en Venezuela, Guillermo Olmo, un diputado opositor venezolano que no quiso ser identificado.

    «Nos preocupa que, visto que Maduro resiste, se busque una solución con los militares y se nos deje a nosotros fuera», señala el diputado.

    Desde que en enero Guaidó se proclamara presidente, los líderes opositores han mostrado públicamente su apoyo a la estrategia que lidera el joven político.

    Sin embargo, hay recelos por el papel de Leopoldo López, mentor de Guaidó y protagonista en el intento de levantamiento del 30 de abril.

    Ese día fue liberado por miembros del servicio de inteligencia (Sebin) del arresto domiciliario en el que llevaba varios años tras haber sido condenado en 2014.

    «Lo del 30 de abril fue algo que Leopoldo López hizo por su cuenta y riesgo, sin comunicarlo, y ahora ha hecho que el problema de unidad sea real», afirmó la fuente de la oposición.

    «Estamos unidos en torno a Guaidó. El suyo es el liderazgo del momento, pero Leopoldo sigue tratando de influir y eso está poniendo las cosas más difíciles», agregó.

  • MoA - June 04, 2019 - Tiananmen Square - Do The Media Say What Really Happened ?
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/tiananmen-square-do-the-media-say-what-really-happened.html


    Le bloggeur Moon of Alabama (#MoA) et un commentateur de son article nous rappellent qu’il y a des informations fiables qui démentent le récit préféré en occident à propos des événements du square Tiananmen il y a trente ans.

    Since 1989 the western media write anniversary pieces on the June 4 removal of protesters from the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The view seems always quite one sided and stereotyped with a brutal military that suppresses peaceful protests.

    That is not the full picture. Thanks to Wikileaks we have a few situation reports from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing at that time. They describe a different scene than the one western media paint to this day.

    Ten thousands of people, mostly students, occupied the square for six weeks. They protested over the political and personal consequences of Mao’s chaotic Cultural Revolution which had upset the whole country. The liberalization and changeover to a more capitalist model under Deng Xiopings had yet to show its success and was fought by the hardliners in the Communist Party.

    The more liberal side of the government negotiated with the protesters but no agreement was found. The hardliners in the party pressed for the protest removal. When the government finally tried to move the protesters out of the very prominent square they resisted.

    On June 3 the government moved troops towards the city center of Beijing. But the military convoys were held up. Some came under attack. The U.S. embassy reported that soldiers were taken as hostages:

    TENSION MOUNTED THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON AS BEIJING RESIDENTS VENTED THEIR ANGER BY HARASSING MILITARY AND POLICE PERSONNEL AND ATTACKING THEIR VEHICLES. STUDENTS DISPLAYED CAPTURED WEAPONS, MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND VEHICLES, INCLUDING IN FRONT OF THE ZHONGNANHAI LEADERSHIP COMPOUND. AN EFFORT TO FREE STILL CAPTIVE MILITARY PERSONNEL OR TO CLEAR THE SOUTHERN ENTRANCE TO ZHONGNANHAI MAY HAVE BEEN THE CAUSE OF A LIMITED TEAR GAS ATTACK IN THAT AREA AROUND 1500 HOURS LOCAL.

    There are some gruesome pictures of the government side casualties of these events.

    Another cable from June 3 notes:

    THE TROOPS HAVE OBVIOUSLY NOT YET BEEN GIVEN ORDERS PERMITTING THEM TO USE FORCE. THEIR LARGE NUMBERS, THE FACT THAT THEY ARE HELMETED, AND THE AUTOMATIC WEAPONS THEY ARE CARRYING SUGGEST THAT THE FORCE OPTION IS REAL.

    In the early morning of June 4 the military finally reached the city center and tried to push the crowd out of Tiananmen Square:

    STUDENTS SET DEBRIS THROWN ATOP AT LEAST ONE ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER AND LIT THE DEBRIS, ACCORDING TO EMBOFF NEAR THE SCENE. ABC REPORTED THAT ONE OTHER ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER IS AFLAME. AT LEAST ONE BUS WAS ALSO BURNING, ACCORDING TO ABC NEWS REPORTERS ON THE SQUARE AT 0120. THE EYEWITNESSES REPORTED THAT TROOPS AND RIOT POLICE WERE ON THE SOUTHERN END OF THE SQUARE AND TROOPS WERE MOVING TO THE SQUARE FROM THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE CITY.

    The soldiers responded as all soldiers do when they see that their comrades get barbecued:

    THERE HAS REPORTEDLY BEEN INDISCRIMINATE GUNFIRE BY THE TROOPS ON THE SQUARE. WE CAN HEAR GUNFIRE FROM THE EMBASSY AND JIANGUOMENWAI DIPLOMATIC COMPOUND. EYEWITNESSES REPORT TEAR GAS ON THE SQUARE, FLARES BEING FIRED ABOVE IT, AND TRACERS BEING FIRED OVER IT.

    Most of the violence was not in the square, which was already quite empty at that time, but in the streets around it. The soldiers tried to push the crowd away without using their weapons:

    THE SITUATION IN THE CENTER OF THE CITY IS VERY CONFUSED. POLOFFS AT THE BEIJING HOTEL REPORTED THAT TROOPS ARE PUSHING A LARGE CROWD OF DEMONSTRATORS EAST ON CHANGANJIE. ALTHOUGH THESE TROOPS APPEAR NOT TO BE FIRING ON THE CROWD, POLOFFS REPORT FIRING BEHIND THE TROOPS COMING FROM THE SQUARE.

    With the Square finally cleared the student protest movement ebbed away.

    Western secret services smuggled some 800 of the leaders of their failed ’color revolution’ out of the country, reported the Financial Times in 2014:

    Many went first to France, but most travelled on to the US for scholarships at Ivy League universities.

    The extraction missions, aided by MI6, the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, and the CIA, according to many accounts, had scrambler devices, infrared signallers, night-vision goggles and weapons.

    It is unclear how many people died during the incident. The numbers vary between dozens to several hundred. It also not known how many of them were soldiers, and how many were violent protesters or innocent bystanders.

    The New York Times uses the 30th anniversary of the June 4 incidents to again promote a scene that is interpreted as successful civil resistance.

    He has become a global symbol of freedom and defiance, immortalized in photos, television shows, posters and T-shirts.

    But three decades after the Chinese Army crushed demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square, “Tank Man” — the person who boldly confronted a convoy of tanks barreling down a Beijing avenue — is as much a mystery as ever.

    But was the man really some hero? It is not known what the the man really wanted or if he was even part of the protests:

    According to the man who took the photo, AP photographer Jeff Widener, the photo dates from June 5 the day after the Tiananmen Square incident. The tanks were headed away from, and not towards, the Square. They were blocked not by a student but by a man with a shopping bag crossing the street who had chosen to play chicken with the departing tanks. The lead tank had gone out its way to avoid causing him injury.

    The longer video of the tank hold up (turn off the ghastly music) shows that the man talked with the tank commander who makes no attempt to force him away. The scene ends after two minutes when some civilian passersby finally tell the man to move along. The NYT also writes:

    But more recently, the government has worked to eliminate the memory of Tank Man, censoring images of him online and punishing those who have evoked him.
    ...
    As a result of the government’s campaign, many people in China, especially younger Chinese, do not recognize his image.

    To which Carl Zha, who currently travels in China and speaks the language, responds:

    Carl Zha @CarlZha - 15:23 utc - 4 Jun 2019

    For the record, Everyone in China know about what happened on June 4th, 1989. Chinese gov remind them every year by cranking up censorship to 11 around anniversary. Idk Western reporters who claim people in China don’t know are just esp stupid/clueless or deliberately misleading

    In fact that applies to China reporting in general. I just don’t know whether Western China reporters are that stupid/clueless or deliberately misleading. I used to think people can’t be that stupid but I am constantly surprised...

    and

    Carl Zha @CarlZha - 15:42 utc - 4 Jun 2019

    This Image was shared in one of the Wechat group I was in today. Yes, everyone understood the reference

    Carl recommends the two part movie The Gate To Heavenly Peace (vid) as the best documentary of the Tiananmen Square protests. It explores the political and social background of the incident and includes many original voices and scenes.

    Posted by b on June 4, 2019 at 03:00

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tiananmen-square-world-marks-30-years-since-massacre-as-china-censors-all-mention/ar-AACl8Sy?li=BBnbcA1
    https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=Tiananmen&exact_phrase=&any_of=&exclude_words=&document_dat
    https://twitter.com/Obscureobjet/status/1135970437886881792
    https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING15390_a.html
    https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING15411_a.html
    https://www.ft.com/content/4f970144-e658-11e3-9a20-00144feabdc0
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/asia/tiananmen-tank-man.html
    http://www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun/item/984-the-truth-about-tankman/984-the-truth-about-tankman.html
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk


    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/asia/tiananmen-tank-man.html
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gtt2JxmQtg&feature=youtu.be

    –---

    Here’s Minqi Li — a student of the “right” (liberal) at the time ["How did I arrive at my current intellectual position? I belong to the “1989 generation.” But unlike the rest of the 1989 generation, I made the unusual intellectual and political trajectory from the Right to the Left, and from being a neoliberal “democrat” to a revolutionary Marxist"] — about 1989.

    It is in the preface of his book “The Rise of China”, which I don’t recommend as a theoretical book. It doesn’t affect his testimony though:
    The 1980s was a decade of political and intellectual excitement in China. Despite some half-hearted official restrictions, large sections of the Chinese intelligentsia were politically active and were able to push for successive waves of the so-called “emancipation of ideas” (jiefang sixiang). The intellectual critique of the already existing Chinese socialism at first took place largely within a Marxist discourse. Dissident intellectuals called for more democracy without questioning the legitimacy of the Chinese Revolution or the economic institutions of socialism.
    [...]
    After 1985, however, economic reform moved increasingly in the direction of the free market. Corruption increased and many among the bureaucratic elites became the earliest big capitalists. Meanwhile, among the intellectuals, there was a sharp turn to the right. The earlier, Maoist phase of Chinese socialism was increasingly seen as a period of political oppression and economic failure. Chinese socialism was supposed to have “failed,” as it lost the economic growth race to places such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Many regarded Mao Zedong himself as an ignorant, backward Chinese peasant who turned into a cruel, power-hungry despot who had been responsible for the killing of tens of millions. (This perception of Mao is by no means a new one, we knew it back in the 1980s.) The politically active intellectuals no longer borrowed discourse from Marxism. Instead, western classical liberalism and neoliberal economics, as represented by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, had become the new, fashionable ideology.
    [...]
    As the student demonstrations grew, workers in Beijing began to pour onto the streets in support of the students, who were, of course, delighted. However, being an economics student, I could not help experiencing a deep sense of irony. On the one hand, these workers were the people that we considered to be passive, obedient, ignorant, lazy, and stupid. Yet now they were coming out to support us. On the other hand, just weeks before, we were enthusiastically advocating “reform” programs that would shut down all state factories and leave the workers unemployed. I asked myself: do these workers really know who they are supporting?
    Unfortunately, the workers did not really know. In the 1980s, in terms of material living standards, the Chinese working class remained relatively well-off. There were nevertheless growing resentments on the part of the workers as the program of economic reform took a capitalist turn. Managers were given increasing power to impose capitalist-style labor disciplines (such as Taylorist “scientific management”) on the workers. The reintroduction of “material incentives” had paved the way for growing income inequality and managerial corruption.
    [...]
    By mid-May 1989, the student movement became rapidly radicalized, and liberal intellectuals and student leaders lost control of events. During the “hunger strike” at Tiananmen Square, millions of workers came out to support the students. This developed into a near-revolutionary situation and a political showdown between the government and the student movement was all but inevitable. The liberal intellectuals and student leaders were confronted with a strategic decision. They could organize a general retreat, calling off the demonstrations, though this strategy would certainly be demoralizing. The student leaders would probably be expelled from the universities and some liberal intellectuals might lose their jobs. But more negative, bloody consequences would be avoided.
    Alternatively, the liberal intellectuals and the student leaders could strike for victory. They could build upon the existing political momentum, mobilize popular support, and take steps to seize political power. If they adopted this tactic, it was difficult to say if they would succeed but there was certainly a good chance. The Communist Party’s leadership was divided. Many army commanders’ and provincial governments’ loyalty to the central government was in question. The student movement had the support of the great majority of urban residents throughout the country. To pursue this option, however, the liberal intellectuals and students had to be willing and able to mobilize the full support of the urban working class. This was a route that the Chinese liberal intellectuals simply would not consider.
    So what they did was … nothing. The government did not wait long to act. While the students themselves peacefully left Tiananmen Square, thousands of workers died in Beijing’s streets defending them.

    Posted by: vk | Jun 4, 2019 3:21:31 PM

    #Chine #démocratie #histoire #4689

  • More Good News for Assange : Swedish Court Blocks Extradition ; US Sa...
    https://diasp.eu/p/9155201

    More Good News for Assange: Swedish Court Blocks Extradition; US Says No Vault 7 Indictment.... Imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange scored two legal victories on Monday when a Swedish court refused prosecutors’ request to have Assange arrested and extradited from Britain to Sweden, while the U.S. Justice Dept. said it would not prosecute Assange for the publication of the CIA Vault 7 files, according to a report in Politico. The Uppsala District Court rejected a request for a European Arrest Warrant for Assange based on a reopened 2010 investigation into sexual assault allegations that has been twice dropped before. Without the warrant Assange cannot be extradited to Sweden to be questioned. #Assange #SWEDEN #COURT #EXTRADITION #LEGAL #USA #ENGLAND #CIA #VAULT_7 (...)

  • #Patrice_Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century | Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja | Global development | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/17/patrice-lumumba-50th-anniversary-assassination

    Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was assassinated 50 years ago today, on 17 January, 1961. This heinous crime was a culmination of two inter-related assassination plots by American and Belgian governments, which used Congolese accomplices and a Belgian execution squad to carry out the deed.

    #afrique #rdc #résistance

    • Thomas Giefer, le grand réalisateur de films documentaires sur le mouvement ’68 en Allemagne a retrouvé l’un des membres belges du commado qui a assassiné Patrice Lumumba. En 1999 peu de temps avant sa mort celui-ci donne sa version des événements dans un film qui retrace les développements qui ont mené à la mort du premier ministre congolais. Dan le film Thomas Giefer parle aussi avec l’assassin de la CIA chargé de l’exécution.

      Oui, il y a des sous-titres !

      Patrice Lumumba - Mord im Kolonialstil (2000)
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOwPERiRyOw

      AGDOK - Mitglieder | Thomas Giefer | Film / Funk, Journalist | Vita
      http://member.agdok.de/de_DE/members_detail/8097/vita

      Thomas Giefer | DFFB
      https://dffb-archiv.de/dffb/thomas-giefer

      Thomas Giefer
      https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Giefer

      Harun Farocki Institut » Thomas Giefer
      https://www.harun-farocki-institut.org/en/tag/thomas-giefer-en

      Instructions on how to Pull off Police Helmets

      News from the archive : INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PULL OFF POLICE HELMETS and UNTITLED OR : NIXON COMES TO BERLIN, both made in 1969.
      https://www.harun-farocki-institut.org/en/2017/11/30/november-2017-instructions-on-how-to-pull-off-police-helmets

      Farocki presumed the films to be lost. Surprisingly, they resurfaced just now, in November 2017. Thomas Giefer , dffb student of the year 1967 and one of the 18 students relegated in 1968, found them among the films he kept from the time.

      Here’s an image from INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PULL OFF POLICE HELMETS, filmed from the Steenbeck by Giefer.

      Farocki about the film: »According to Fritz J. Raddatz, Rosa Luxemburg cried when she read Marx’s concept of value. I was just as disappointed by the Cine-Tracts made in May 1968 in Paris and shown shortly afterwards in Berlin.

      I must have been expecting something more like television news coverage; in much the same way, each crowd which saw our handbill films during those years was similarly disappointed. Because we didn’t make ‘real’ films, as my mother called them, it seemed to them that their cause wasn’t being acknowledged in suitably official form, something which workers’ films and Fassbinder were later to achieve.

      We made this spot during one of the many breaks in filming a somewhat reckless film about playgroups by Susanne Beyeler. Wolfgang Gremm stripped naked on a flat roof and played a policeman. We played on the anti-humanist provocation of showing, purely technically, how to fight a policeman, but didn’t go so far as to use an androgynous, long-haired actor – something which Gremm, the fattest and shortest-haired of us all, accepted with a grin.«

      #Congo #Kongo #film #histoire #Berlin #1968

  • ضابط إسرائيلي : قمنا باغتيال سمير القنطار في سوريا بمساعدة أحد قادة فصائل المعارضة السورية | رأي اليوم
    https://www.raialyoum.com/index.php/%d8%b6%d8%a7%d8%a8%d8%b7-%d8%a5%d8%b3%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%a6%d9%8a%d9%84%d9%8a

    Un officier israélien à la retraite déclare sur une chaîne israélienne que l’assassinat de Samir Kountar, proche du Hezbollah, en 2015 à Damas a été rendu possible grâce à des informations d’un « membre de l’opposition syrienne »... On apprend aussi que des commandos israéliens se seraient infiltrés en Syrie en prétextant apporter des soins aux blessés syriens [de l’opposition on suppose].

    #syrie #israël

    • L’original du Jerusalem Post en anglais

      Mossad, Saudi intel officials get along well, says former chief - Arab-Israeli Conflict - Jerusalem Post
      https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Mossad-Saudi-intel-officials-get-along-well-says-former-chief-590531

      “You can be an enemy when you are walking from the room, but when you are sitting together, you can share your experience, you can talk a lot, and you can deal with many obstacles,” he continued.

      Mossad and Saudi Arabian intelligence agents communicate well, the agency’s former chief indirectly revealed in an interview with Intelligence Matters podcast host and former CIA director Michael Morell Wednesday.

      Discussing the strength of cooperation between agents of different countries’ intelligence agencies, Tamir Pardo started rattling off many of the usual suspects with whom the Mossad cooperates, and then unexpectedly tossed in the Saudis.

      Before talking about the relationship between the CIA and Israel and the United States, even to speak to Arab countries that you don’t have any kind of relation, when you meet people from your profession, it’s so easy, okay?” Pardo said.

      You can be an enemy when you are walking from the room, but when you are sitting together, you can share your experience, you can talk a lot, and you can deal with many obstacles,” he continued.

      Finally, Pardo said that when intelligence agencies “are looking for certain qualities, and whether you’re serving in the CIA, the MI6, or one of any other country, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, you need the same people, the same qualities. So it’s quite easy… They can fight each other very well, but they can talk and communicate very well.

      In November and December 2017, there was a flurry of rare public confirmation of contacts between Israel and the Saudis by former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, minister Yuval Steinitz and then-CIA director Mike Pompeo.

      However, Pardo’s statement dated the Israeli-Saudi intelligence cooperation back to an earlier period, since he served as Mossad director from 2011 until March 2016.

      Furthermore, Pardo’s statement was a much more personal reflection about his dealings with intelligence agents from Saudi Arabia and other countries – implying that Mossad-Saudi dealings are often similar to dealings with traditional allied intelligence agencies.

      Besides cooperation, Pardo reflected on the current tensions between Iran, Israel and the US.

      Asked by Morell if Iran sought “the elimination of the State of Israel,” he replied: “Look, that’s what they are stating, okay? I think that they know that that’s an illusion. Maybe it’s good for their own propaganda, and it might serve us if we want to do a few things, but it’s – come on. When they are facing reality, they will never be able to do it. It doesn’t matter which kind of weapon they’re going to hold.

      The reason, he said, is “because I believe that we know how to defend ourselves. We showed it when we were a very young country, against, let’s say, combined forces from all Arab countries. Now we have peace with some of them, and quite good relations with others. So I think that maybe for them, it’s a dream, but it’s more an illusion than a dream.

      Despite Pardo’s confidence that Iran does not endanger Israel’s existence, he did warn of multiple threats from the Islamic Republic.

      One is the nuclear program,” said the former Mossad chief. “The other [is] their vision that they’re going to have a corridor between Tehran and the Mediterranean Sea. And the third thing is [to] be dominant in many other countries by supporting minorities like they’re doing in Yemen, like they did in South America, in certain places in Africa.

      Pardo also told Morell that cyberattacks pose a major concern.

      I believe it’s the biggest threat that the free world, our planet, is dealing with these days,” the spy chief said. “You can compare it to a nuclear threat that we used to see during the Cold War days.

  • Target – Zielscheibe
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uARTIKU-VM

    Il y des scènes interessantes qui montrent #Paris, #Hambourg et #Berlin en 1984/1985, on nous popose une bonne copie d’un point de passage entre Berlin-Ouest et Berlin-Est qui possède une qualité quasi documentaire.

    Autrement le montage consiste dans un mélange incroyable de lieux qui n’ont aucun rapport en réalité, un pont qui mène à la « Speicherstadt » à Hambourg figure comme pont berlinois et pour les scènes de la fin on « quitte Berlin » alors que c’était strictement impossible à l’époque. Les villages de la « banlieue berlinoise » consistent en maisons fabriqués avec des pierres qu’on ne trouve pas dans la région où tout est construit en briques, en bois et en boue seche

    J’aime bien la trame style b-picture , le jeu des acteurs est O.K.

    A l’époque le monde hetero ne se rendait pas encore compte de l’existence du #SIDA alors le jeune Matt Dillon avait droit à quelques scènes de baise d’une qualité acceptable. C’est un film américain alors on ne va pas très loin dans ce qu’on nous montre et Gene Hackman reste fidèle à sa femme alors que sa copine espionne est très amoureuse de lui. Il y a un vieux #stasi dans une chaise roulante, de la trahison etc.

    Target (1985 film) - Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_(1985_film)

    Target is a 1985 American mystery thriller film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Matt Dillon and Gene Hackman.
    ...
    Cast

    Gene Hackman - Walter Lloyd/Duncan (Duke) Potter
    Matt Dillon - Chris Lloyd/Derek Potter
    Gayle Hunnicutt - Donna Lloyd
    Josef Sommer - Barney Taber
    Guy Boyd - Clay
    Viktoriya Fyodorova - Lise
    Herbert Berghof - Schroeder
    Ilona Grübel - Carla
    James Selby - Ross
    Ray Fry - Mason
    Tomas Hnevsa - Henke
    Jean-Pol Dubois - Glasses/Assassin
    Robert Ground - Marine Sergeant
    Véronique Guillaud - Secretary American Consulate
    Charlotte Bailey - Receptionist
    Randy Moore - Tour Director
    Jacques Mignot - Madison Hotel Clerk
    Robert Liensol - Cafe Vendor

    #film #cinéma #guerre_froide #espionnage #USA #anticommunisme #DDR

    • @aude_v #SPOILER

      Je ne sais pas si le film est qualifié pour entrer dans la liste des flicks « culte », mais il a quelques éléments remarquables comme le vieux stasi qui se révèle finalement comme la seule personne à qui Gene Hackman peut faire confiance et qui ne le trahit pas. Il y a une histoire sous-jacente entre pères ennemis à cause de la guerre dans laquelle ils sont engagés. C’est ce destin d’homme qui les unit et permet un dénouement heureux de l’intrigue. L’essentiel se joue entre hommes adultes.

      Les personnages du fils Matt Dillon (Chris/Derek) et de l’épouse Gayle Hunnicutt sont neutres en ce qui concerne le traitement du sujet de la confiance. Gene Hackman a abandonné une vie d’aventures pour eux. La famille est sacrée donc il n’y a pas de trahison.

      Le fils est un boulet en pleine révolte pubertaire, et Gene ne peut pas vraiment compter sur lui. En ce qui concerne les femmes c’est tout aussi incertain : Son fils tombe amoureux d’une femme fatale allemande bien blonde Ilona Grübel (Carla) qui essaie de le tuer, la femme de Gene reste kidnappée jusqu’au dénouement, alors on ne sait rien sur elle, et sa copine Victoria Fyodorova (Lise) reste énigmatique.

      On ne sait jamais si on peut faire confiance aux femmes ...

      C’est pourquoi le dénouement se passe sous forme d’une belle déclinaison du sujet demoiselle en détresse avec son repartition de rôles hyper-classiques.

      Un moment drôle arrive quand papa Gene révèle à fiston Matt que toute la famille a changé de nom pour échapper aux persécution des espions est-allemands. Le petit est choqué et fait une scène digne de La Cage aux folles de Molinaro.

      Vu sous cet angle le film a certaines qualités de deuxième degré à cause du contraste entre d’un côté le personnage principal ultra-masculin joué par Gene Hackman et les femmes blondes très dures, et de l’autres côté les hommes CIA lâches aux allures homos efféminés, enfin rien n’est comme il semble .Voilà ce qui se doit dans un thriller avec des espions et des nenettes sexy .

      Bon, l’histoire est assez tirés par les cheveux, mais enfin ...

      https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilona_Gr%C3%BCbel
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayle_Hunnicutt
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Fyodorova

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damsel_in_distress

  • Les droits de la voix (1/2) : Quelle écoute pour nos systèmes ?
    https://linc.cnil.fr/les-droits-de-la-voix-12-quelle-ecoute-pour-nos-systemes

    Alors que nous donnons chaque jour de la voix auprès de nos interfaces, il est essentiel de faire un état des lieux des problématiques juridiques entourant le traitement de ces données éminemment personnelles. Voici le premier de nos deux articles consacrés à la question. Alors que la parole est généralement associée à une certaine volatilité – ne dit-on pas que les paroles s’envolent et que les écrits restent ? – la généralisation des usages des technologies de traitement automatique de la parole induit (...)

    #Marriott #CIA #MI5 #Amazon #Alexa #Nest #biométrie #[fr]Règlement_Général_sur_la_Protection_des_Données_(RGPD)[en]General_Data_Protection_Regulation_(GDPR)[nl]General_Data_Protection_Regulation_(GDPR) #écoutes #profiling #voix #Safe_Harbor #domotique #CNIL (...)

    ##[fr]Règlement_Général_sur_la_Protection_des_Données__RGPD_[en]General_Data_Protection_Regulation__GDPR_[nl]General_Data_Protection_Regulation__GDPR_ ##Wikileaks

  • Où est le mandat d’arrêt suédois ? — Craig MURRAY, Naomi WOLF
    https://www.legrandsoir.info/ou-est-le-mandat-d-arret-suedois.html

    Dans le cas de l’accusation en Suède dont le délai de prescription a été dépassé, l’accusation était que pendant un acte sexuel consensuel, Julian Assange a délibérément déchiré le préservatif, sans consentement. Je suis tout à fait d’accord que si c’est vrai, cela équivaudrait à une agression sexuelle.


    Mais le préservatif déchiré remis à la police suédoise comme preuve ne contenait pas l’ADN d’Assange - une impossibilité physique s’il l’avait porté pendant les rapports sexuels. Et l’auteur de l’accusation avait déjà été expulsé de Cuba parce qu’elle travaillait pour la CIA. Alors je répète :devons-nous toujours croire l’accusateur ?

    Pour une fois, je suis d’accord avec les blairites pour dire que si un mandat était émis par Suède, la demande suédoise devrait supplanter la demande américaine, notamment parce que le viol est un crime beaucoup plus grave. Comme la seule raison pour laquelle Julian Assange a demandé l’asile était qu’il considérait les accusations suédoises comme une ruse pour le mettre en détention en vue de son extradition vers les États-Unis, je dirais également que, si un mandat de la Suède devait apparaître, Assange devrait pouvoir partir volontairement et sans résistance juridique supplémentaire, la demande d’extradition américaine étant supplantée par la suédoise.

    Mais ne retenez pas votre souffle. Aucun mandat ne viendra. Les États qui ont si soigneusement coordonné son arrestation et sa détention, synchronisée avec la publication du rapport Muellergate et les affirmations démentes du gouvernement équatorien sur les excréments [que Julian Assange aurait étalé] sur les murs [de l’Ambassade], n’ont plus besoin de l’affaire suédoise.

    Encore une fois. Où est le mandat d’arrêt de la Suède ? Y a-t-il encore des gens qui ne comprennent pas que les accusations suédoises n’ont jamais été qu’une ruse de la CIA ?

    Craig Murray
    ex-ambassadeur du Royaume-Uni

  • The Complete Mercenary
    https://theintercept.com/2019/05/03/erik-prince-trump-uae-project-veritas

    How Erik Prince Used the Rise of Trump to Make an Improbable Comeback When Erik Prince arrived at the Four Seasons resort in the Seychelles in January 2017 for his now-famous meetings with a Russian banker and UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed, he was in the middle of an unexpected comeback. The election of Donald Trump had given the disgraced Blackwater founder a new opportunity to prove himself. After years of trying and failing to peddle a sweeping vision of mercenary warfare around the (...)

    #militarisation #activisme #sécuritaire #US_Defense_Intelligence_Agency_(DIA) #CIA #manipulation #écoutes #web #surveillance (...)

    ##US_Defense_Intelligence_Agency__DIA_ ##malware

  • Director del Instituto Ron Paul: «Guaidó ahora vale más muerto que vivo para la CIA y para la oposición» - RT
    https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/313572-guaido-valer-muerto-vivo-cia

    Tras el fallido intento de Juan Guaidó de derrocar al presidente venezolano, Nicolás Maduro, «ahora vale más muerto que vivo no solo para la CIA», sino también «para su propia gente de la oposición», advierte Daniel McAdams, director ejecutivo del Instituto que lleva el nombre de Ron Paul, el excongresista y excandidato presidencial que lo invitó este martes a su programa ’Liberty Report’ para analizar la situación en Venezuela.

    Paul, que dedicó su programa a los intentos fallidos de Guaidó de derrocar al Gobierno con ayuda de Washington, se mostró preocupado antes la posibilidad de que el país latinoamericano se vea sumido en una ola de violencia a gran escala en caso de alguna provocación. «Si hay una [operación de] bandera falsa o si matan a algún funcionario importante de cualquier lado, no se puede decir qué podría pasar», advirtió el político republicano.

    «Figura desdichada»

    En este sentido, McAdams señaló que el propio Guaidó, con su historial tras no haber podido movilizar la protesta contra el Gobierno de Maduro, podría ser el objetivo de este tipo de provocación.

    El experto explica que el líder opositor «ha sido una especie de figura desdichada hasta ahora», en el sentido de que «llama a las protestas masivas y nadie aparece». «No creo que en este momento se dé cuenta de que, en realidad, ahora vale más muerto que vivo, no solo para la CIA, sino también para su propia gente de la oposición», alerta.

  • #Venezuela and Binary Choice - Craig Murray
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/05/venezuela-and-binary-choice

    When a CIA-backed military coup is attempted by a long term #CIA puppet, roared on by John Bolton and backed with the offer of #Blackwater mercenaries, in the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, I have no difficulty whatsoever in knowing which side I am on.

    [..,]

    The resort to #violence forces binary choice.

    #choix #pétrole

  • 1969, de Gaulle
    http://www.dedefensa.org/article/1969-de-gaulle

    1969, de Gaulle

    Ce commentaire marquant l’anniversaire d’un demi-siècle du départ de la vie politique du général de Gaulle, un an avant sa mort, vaut aussi bien sinon bien plus par son sens profond que par la description qu’il nous donne. Neil Clark est un journaliste britannique indépendant qui a collaboré à nombre de journaux prestigieux britanniques et US (Guardian, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Spectator, The American Conservative), tout en marquant nettement des positions très critiques de l’establishment, antiguerre, etc. Clark est aussi un collaborateur de RT.com, d’où est extrait ce texte.

    L’appréciation de fond que l’on peut faire du commentaire de Clark est qu’il exprime les regrets de l’absence de cet homme politique que fut de Gaulle, jusqu’à en faire le grand homme (...)

    • 50 ans plus tard, de Gaulle nous manque

      Le président français Charles de Gaulle a démissionné il y a 50 ans cette semaine, après que ses propositions de réforme constitutionnelle aient été rejetées lors d’un référendum national. Dieu sait ce que nous pourrions faire avec un leader comme “le Général” aujourd’hui !

      « Je cesse d’exercer mes fonctions de président de la République. Cette décision prend effet aujourd’hui à midi. » Ainsi se terminait, le 28 avril 1969, la décennie la plus réussie de l’histoire moderne de la France.

      Charles de Gaulle était sorti de sa retraite en 1958 pour tenter de sauver son pays pour la troisième fois. Il avait combattu dans les tranchées pendant la Première Guerre mondiale. Il avait dirigé les Français libres anti-Nazis pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Puis, à 67 ans, il revenait au pouvoir pour résoudre la grave crise de confiance qui marquait le fin de la IVe République.

      Généralement considéré comme une figure conservatrice, économiquement de Gaulle était un homme de gauche. Il croyait en une économie dirigiste avec un haut niveau de propriété publique. Il ne s’était pas incliné devant les banquiers et le capital financier international. « C’était un homme qui ne se souciait pas de ceux qui possédaient de la richesse ; il méprisait la bourgeoisie et détestait le capitalisme », observa son biographe français Jean Lacouture.

      Les années de la présidence de Gaulle (1959-1969) sont aujourd’hui commémorées avec beaucoup d’affection en France et ce n’est guère surprenant. C’était une période d’optimisme considérable. Les projets d’ingénierie et d’infrastructure étaient ambitieux. De nouvelles autoroutes furent construites. Un programme spatial fut élaboré. En mars 1969, un mois avant le départ de De Gaulle, le Concorde, premier avion de ligne supersonique au monde, projet commun de la France et de la Grande-Bretagne, effectuait son premier vol d’essai.

      En 1962, l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE) avait salué "l’extraordinaire vitalité" de l’économie française. En 1964, la croissance du PIB français était de 6,4 %. Au troisième trimestre de 1968, il atteignit un sommet historique de huit pour cent. Comparez ce chiffre à celui de 0,3 pour cent de croissance au quatrième trimestre de 2018. De Gaulle a combiné des politiques économiques de gauche avec un conservatisme social modéré, un mélange de gauche et de droite gagnant avec les électeurs parce que c’est là que se trouve le véritable centre de l’opinion publique.

      Tout cela est aujourd’hui oublié par les politiciens de droite qui embrassent le néolibéralisme financier favorable au capital, même s’il corrode la société et crée d’énormes inégalités, et par ceux de gauche qui croient que la politique communautaire, le libéralisme social et un “politiquement-correct” excessif l’emportent sur toutes les autres préoccupations. C’est l’absence de “gaullisme” dans les options disponibles qui explique la montée de l’extrême droite. Quand de Gaulle était là, ces groupes étaient marginalisés. Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, par exemple, précurseur de Jean-Marie Le Pen (qui était en fait l’un de ses directeurs de campagne), n’avait obtenu que 5,2 % au premier tour des élections présidentielles de 1965, contre 44,65 % pour de Gaulle.

      Le général était un patriote, mais il était aussi un anti-impérialiste. Il avait mis fin à la guerre d’Algérie et décolonisé. Il avait retiré son pays du commandement militaire de l’OTAN. Il avait vivement critiqué l’implication des États-Unis dans la guerre du Vietnam, dénonçant « le bombardement d’un petit peuple par un très grand pays ». Il a été l’un des premiers, sinon le premier dirigeant occidental à critiquer le traitement réservé par Israël aux Palestiniens. Il soutenait la détente avec l’Union soviétique, parlant en 1966 d’une « nouvelle alliance de la France et de la Russie », et croyait en une Europe des États-nations qui s’étendait jusqu’à l’Oural. Il bloqua à deux reprises l’entrée de la Grande-Bretagne dans la CEE, non pas parce qu’il était anti-britannique, mais parce qu’il craignait que le fait d’autoriser l’entrée du Royaume-Uni reviendrait à y inviter les États-Unis. « Il a refusé la division du monde en deux blocs, il a dit que le monde était trop riche pour cela, et que Paris jouerait pleinement son rôle dans le développement de nouvelles relations », écrit le biographe Jonathan Fenby.

      Une fois de plus, comparez le soutien de Gaulle à la multipolarité et à la souveraineté nationale avec celui du mondialisme-atlantiste favorisé par la plupart des dirigeants européens depuis lors.

      Peut-on sérieusement imaginer de Gaulle accepter des instructions des faucons de Washington, qui sont si clairement préjudiciables aux intérêts économiques de son pays ? Si les Américains avaient menacé d’imposer des sanctions secondaires aux entreprises françaises pour avoir fait des affaires avec l’Iran au temps du général, il aurait pris le prochain vol pour Téhéran avec des chefs d’entreprise français pour conclure de nouveaux accords. Il aurait fait la même chose pour les sanctions contre la Russie. C’est ainsi qu’il répondait à ceux qui tentaient de le faire agir contre les intérêts nationaux de la France.

      Pour les anti-souverainistes, de Gaulle était une péniblke épine dans le pied. Il est révélateur de voir, comme je l’ai noté dans un précédent opus édité ici, combien la CIA était sympathique aux trotskystes et aux ultragauchistes qui ont protesté contre de Gaulle en Mai-1968.

      Depuis l’époque de Gaulle, qui fut aussi l’âge d’or de la musique et des arts, la France a connu de nombreuses régressions. Chaque président semble être pire que celui qu’il remplace. Le fond a été atteint avec la présidence de Macron, un ancien banquier d’affaires néolibéral dont les “réformes” en faveur du capital sont favorables aux capitaux.

      Avec une effronterie incroyable, Macron a dit en octobre dernier au peuple français d’arrêter de se plaindre et d’être plus à l’image de De Gaulle, après une rencontre avec un retraité qui s »était plaint qu’il n’avait qu’une petite pension. C’est le même Emmanuel Macron qui a accusé son propre peuple d’être comme des “Gaulois rétifs au changemen” lors d’une visite au Danemark. La vérité, c’est que les Français d’aujourd’hui ont de quoi se plaindre. La politique de Macron est en fait l’inverse de celle de de Gaulle. Le général « ne se souciait pas de ceux qui possèdent la richesse ». Macron ne semble s’intéresser à personne d’autre.

      Une autre grande différence entre de Gaulle et les politiciens d’aujourd’hui était son attitude envers l’argent. Y a-t-il jamais eu un dirigeant aussi incorruptible ? Comme je l’ai noté en 2008, « Bien qu’il ait occupé le poste le plus élevé du pays pendant une décennie, il est mort dans une pauvreté relative. Au lieu d’accepter la pension à laquelle il avait droit en tant que président et général à la retraite, il a seulement pris la pension d’un colonel. Le contraste entre de Gaulle et les politiciens de carrière obsédés par l’argent d’aujourd’hui ne pourrait être plus grand. » Jonathan Fenby raconte comment, en tant que président, de Gaulle a même insisté pour payer ses appels téléphoniques et la facture d’électricité de son appartement à l’Élysée.

      De Gaulle aurait pu facilement devenir un dictateur vu sa popularité, mais il était trop homme de légitimité pour ça. En tant que démocrate, il comprenait que les politiciens et les partis politiques entravaient la démocratie. Il préférait de loin consulter son peuple directement, par le biais de référendums. L’une de ses citations les plus célèbres, en réponse au mot de Clemenceau selon lequel la guerre était une question trop grave pour être laissée aux militaires, était que “La politique est une question trop grave pour être laissée aux politiciens”.

      Les 50 dernières années ne lui ont-elles pas donné raison sur ce point et sur tout le reste ?
      Neil Clark

  • U.S. War_Crimes in #Afghanistan Won’t Be Investigated — The Spark #1080
    https://the-spark.net/np1080601.html #CPI #crime_de_guerre #violence_sexuelle

    In 2017, the prosecutor for the #International_Criminal_Court (#ICC), Fatou Bensouda, asked to open an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan. She said these were carried out by all sides, including the U.S. and the U.S.-backed government.

    She said, “There is reasonable basis to believe that, since May 2003, members of the U.S. armed forces and the #CIA have committed #war_crimes of #torture and #cruel_treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and other forms of #sexual_violence pursuant to a policy approved by U.S. authorities.” And she submitted more than 20,000 pages of evidence to back up her charges.

    But no surprise – the U.S. blocked this investigation. First, they revoked Bensouda’s visa, effectively kicking her out of the country. Then, in April of this year, the judges at the court rejected her request to investigate. They noted that they have been unable to get the U.S. to cooperate, and said the ICC should “use its resources prioritizing activities that would have a better chance to succeed.”

    Yes, the ICC has a better chance of “success” – but only if its investigations fit the interests of U.S. #imperialism!

  • #Huawei serait financé par l’appareil sécuritaire de l’Etat chinois selon la CIA
    https://www.latribune.fr/technos-medias/telecoms/huawei-serait-finance-par-l-appareil-securitaire-de-l-etat-chinois-selon-l

    Selon The Times, l’agence centrale du renseignement aux Etats-Unis, affirme que le groupe chinois est financé par l’Armée populaire de libération, de la Commission de la sécurité nationale et d’une troisième branche de l’appareil chinois du renseignement.

    • lien propre:

      Glen Greenwald, Micah Lee - 20190412

      https://theintercept.com/2019/04/11/the-u-s-governments-indictment-of-julian-assange-poses-grave-threats-t

      In April, 2017, Pompeo, while still CIA chief, delivered a deranged speech proclaiming that “we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.” He punctuated his speech with this threat: “To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.”

      From the start, the Trump DOJ has made no secret of its desire to criminalize journalism generally. Early in the Trump administration, Sessions explicitly discussed the possibility of prosecuting journalists for publishing classified information. Trump and his key aides were open about how eager they were to build on, and escalate, the Obama administration’s progress in enabling journalism in the U.S. to be criminalized.

      Today’s arrest of Assange is clearly the culmination of a two-year effort by the U.S. government to coerce Ecuador — under its new and submissive president, Lenín Moreno — to withdraw the asylum protection it extended to Assange in 2012. Rescinding Assange’s asylum would enable the U.K. to arrest Assange on minor bail-jumping charges pending in London and, far more significantly, to rely on an extradition request from the U.S. government to send him to a country to which he has no connection (the U.S.) to stand trial relating to leaked documents.

      Indeed, the Trump administration’s motive here is clear. With Ecuador withdrawing its asylum protection and subserviently allowing the U.K. to enter its own embassy to arrest Assange, Assange faced no charges other than a minor bail-jumping charge in the U.K. (Sweden closed its sexual assault investigation not because they concluded Assange was innocent, but because they spent years unsuccessfully trying to extradite him). By indicting Assange and demanding his extradition, it ensures that Assange — once he serves his time in a London jail for bail-jumping — will be kept in a British prison for the full year or longer that it takes for the U.S. extradition request, which Assange will certainly contest, to wind its way through the British courts.

      The indictment tries to cast itself as charging Assange not with journalistic activities but with criminal hacking. But it is a thinly disguised pretext for prosecuting Assange for publishing the U.S. government’s secret documents while pretending to make it about something else.

      Whatever else is true about the indictment, substantial parts of the document explicitly characterize as criminal exactly the actions that journalists routinely engage in with their sources and thus, constitutes a dangerous attempt to criminalize investigative journalism.

      The indictment, for instance, places great emphasis on Assange’s alleged encouragement that Manning — after she already turned over hundreds of thousands of classified documents — try to get more documents for WikiLeaks to publish. The indictment claims that “discussions also reflect Assange actively encouraging Manning to provide more information. During an exchange, Manning told Assange that ‘after this upload, that’s all I really have got left.’ To which Assange replied, ‘curious eyes never run dry in my experience.’”

      But encouraging sources to obtain more information is something journalists do routinely. Indeed, it would be a breach of one’s journalistic duties not to ask vital sources with access to classified information if they could provide even more information so as to allow more complete reporting. If a source comes to a journalist with information, it is entirely common and expected that the journalist would reply: Can you also get me X, Y, and Z to complete the story or to make it better? As Edward Snowden said this morning, “Bob Woodward stated publicly he would have advised me to remain in place and act as a mole.”

      Investigative journalism in many, if not most, cases, entails a constant back and forth between journalist and source in which the journalist tries to induce the source to provide more classified information, even if doing so is illegal. To include such “encouragement” as part of a criminal indictment — as the Trump DOJ did today — is to criminalize the crux of investigative journalism itself, even if the indictment includes other activities you believe fall outside the scope of journalism.

      As Northwestern journalism professor Dan Kennedy explained in The Guardian in 2010 when denouncing as a press freedom threat the Obama DOJ’s attempts to indict Assange based on the theory that he did more than passively receive and publish documents — i.e., that he actively “colluded” with Manning:


      The problem is that there is no meaningful distinction to be made. How did the Guardian, equally, not “collude” with WikiLeaks in obtaining the cables? How did the New York Times not “collude” with the Guardian when the Guardian gave the Times a copy following Assange’s decision to cut the Times out of the latest document dump?

      For that matter, I don’t see how any news organisation can be said not to have colluded with a source when it receives leaked documents. Didn’t the Times collude with Daniel Ellsberg when it received the Pentagon Papers from him? Yes, there are differences. Ellsberg had finished making copies long before he began working with the Times, whereas Assange may have goaded Manning. But does that really matter?

      Most of the reports about the Assange indictment today have falsely suggested that the Trump DOJ discovered some sort of new evidence that proved Assange tried to help Manning hack through a password in order to use a different username to download documents. Aside from the fact that those attempts failed, none of this is new: As the last five paragraphs of this 2011 Politico story demonstrate, that Assange talked to Manning about ways to use a different username so as to avoid detection was part of Manning’s trial and was long known to the Obama DOJ when they decided not to prosecute.

      There are only two new events that explain today’s indictment of Assange: 1) The Trump administration from the start included authoritarian extremists such as Sessions and Pompeo who do not care in the slightest about press freedom and were determined to criminalize journalism against the U.S., and 2) With Ecuador about to withdraw its asylum protection, the U.S. government needed an excuse to prevent Assange from walking free.

      A technical analysis of the indictment’s claims similarly proves the charge against Assange to be a serious threat to First Amendment press liberties, primarily because it seeks to criminalize what is actually a journalist’s core duty: helping one’s source avoid detection. The indictment deceitfully seeks to cast Assange’s efforts to help Manning maintain her anonymity as some sort of sinister hacking attack.

      The Defense Department computer that Manning used to download the documents which she then furnished to WikiLeaks was likely running the Windows operating system. It had multiple user accounts on it, including an account to which Manning had legitimate access. Each account is protected by a password, and Windows computers store a file that contains a list of usernames and password “hashes,” or scrambled versions of the passwords. Only accounts designated as “administrator,” a designation Manning’s account lacked, have permission to access this file.

      The indictment suggests that Manning, in order to access this password file, powered off her computer and then powered it back on, this time booting to a CD running the Linux operating system. From within Linux, she allegedly accessed this file full of password hashes. The indictment alleges that Assange agreed to try to crack one of these password hashes, which, if successful, would recover the original password. With the original password, Manning would be able to log directly into that other user’s account, which — as the indictment puts it — “would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the source of disclosures of classified information.”

      Assange appears to have been unsuccessful in cracking the password. The indictment alleges that “Assange indicated that he had been trying to crack the password by stating that he had ‘no luck so far.’”

      Thus, even if one accepts all of the indictment’s claims as true, Assange was not trying to hack into new document files to which Manning had no access, but rather trying to help Manning avoid detection as a source. For that reason, the precedent that this case would set would be a devastating blow to investigative journalists and press freedom everywhere.

      Journalists have an ethical obligation to take steps to protect their sources from retaliation, which sometimes includes granting them anonymity and employing technical measures to help ensure that their identity is not discovered. When journalists take source protection seriously, they strip metadata and redact information from documents before publishing them if that information could have been used to identify their source; they host cloud-based systems such as SecureDrop, now employed by dozens of major newsrooms around the world, that make it easier and safer for whistleblowers, who may be under surveillance, to send messages and classified documents to journalists without their employers knowing; and they use secure communication tools like Signal and set them to automatically delete messages.

      But today’s indictment of Assange seeks to criminalize exactly these types of source-protection efforts, as it states that “it was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning used a special folder on a cloud drop box of WikiLeaks to transmit classified records containing information related to the national defense of the United States.”

      The indictment, in numerous other passages, plainly conflates standard newsroom best practices with a criminal conspiracy. It states, for instance, that “it was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning used the ‘Jabber’ online chat service to collaborate on the acquisition and dissemination of the classified records, and to enter into the agreement to crack the password […].” There is no question that using Jabber, or any other encrypted messaging system, to communicate with sources and acquire documents with the intent to publish them, is a completely lawful and standard part of modern investigative journalism. Newsrooms across the world now use similar technologies to communicate securely with their sources and to help their sources avoid detection by the government.

      The indictment similarly alleges that “it was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning took measures to conceal Manning as the source of the disclosure of classified records to WikiLeaks, including by removing usernames from the disclosed information and deleting chat logs between Assange and Manning.”

  • American values : Embassies are for chopping up journalists, not protecting them — RT Op-ed
    https://www.rt.com/op-ed/456344-assange-khashoggi-embassy-us-values

    Valeurs US : les ambassades, ça sert à découper en rondelles les journalistes, pas à les protéger. C’est... saignant comme titre !

    Fair-minded people across the world have rightly condemned the US-ordered arrest of Julian Assange. However, few have noted how it fits part of a pattern of American hypocrisy when it comes to the treatment of journalists.

    Only six months ago, Jamal Khashoggi was murdered and hacked to pieces by Saudi agents at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. He was a columnist at the Washington Post and editor-in-chief of the Al-Arab News Channel, known for his sharp criticism of the illegal US-backed Saudi war on Yemen.

    Despite a CIA conclusion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the gruesome assassination, President Donald Trump stood by his ally and no meaningful sanctions or penalties were directed towards Riyadh.

    #khashoggi #assange

    • C’est une façon très concrète de dire ce qui est.

      Chez nous, en France, je parle depuis la France, on continue de faire comme si les gens qui gouvernent avaient la moindre idée de ce qu’est l’état de droit. De ce qu’est la décence. Mais quand aujourd’hui, un porte-parole de parti t’explique que la collusion ça n’existe pas quand t’es une femme, parce que y-a un joker qui s’appelle féminisme, tu comprends que ces gens n’ont absolument aucune décence. Sans parler du « reste ». Les centaines de mutilés de ces derniers mois démontrent à leur façon que gouverner, c’est prévoir... d’acheter des armes pour mutiler sa population.

      Et donc, oui, les US et leurs alliés démontrent que la diplomatie n’existe plus. C’est un message relativement fort. Et si j’étais chef d’état, je tâcherai d’aller rendre visite aux autres pays du monde, pour vérifier s’ils sont dans le même état d’esprit, et j’essaierai d’entretenir de bonnes relations avec ceux-ci. Je doute que notre cowboy de pacotille ait ce genre de préoccupations, tellement il est occupé à brader les richesses collectives pour le compte des oligarques divers et variés.