True North Humanist Perspective - October 2014
UK MPs pass motion to recognize Palestine as a state
13 October 2014 LONDON, England — The British parliament voted in favor of a symbolic move to recognize Palestine as an official state, answering impassioned pleas by pro-Palestinian ministers and activists. (More)
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Secret evidence reveals that right-wing Kiev responsible
for shooting down MH17 Boeing-777-200 airliner in July
Kiev secretly received data from MH17 crash investigators — Ukraine hacktivists
11 October 2014 (rt.com) — Ukrainian CyberBerkut hacktivists claim that they have penetrated the internal network of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and found proof that Kiev is getting secret data from MH17 crash investigators, including information which implies its involvement.
A document, posted on the website cyber-berkut.net, and allegedly downloaded from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry network, dates back to August 7 and appears to be signed by Colonel Igor Zorin, the chief of Ukraine’s air defense forces. It is a report which maintains that a fragment of a projectile found together with the debris of the crashed flight MH17 is in fact a damage agent of a 9M38 surface-to-air guided missile belonging to the mobile air defense complex Buk or Buk M1.
Photo scans allegedly depicting the fragment in question have been also posted.
The document acknowledged that a specific rectangular shape of the fragment pointed out that it could belong to a 9N314 warhead of the 9M38 anti-aircraft missile.
It was suggested that the final conclusion could be made after analyzing the original fragments depicted in the photographs.
CyberBerkut claimed that the documents are evidence that the MH17 crash investigation commission and the Ukraine Defense Ministry have “special relations.” (More)
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Chomsky on Gaza
'Crass and brutal approach keeps Gaza mired in misery'
'For those concerned with the rights of the brutalized Palestinians, there can be no higher priority than working to change U.S. policies'
On August 26, Israel and the Palestinian Authority both accepted a cease-fire agreement after a 50-day Israeli assault on Gaza that left 2,100 Palestinians dead and vast landscapes of destruction behind.
The agreement calls for an end to military action by Israel and Hamas as well as an easing of the Israeli siege that has strangled Gaza for many years.
This is, however, just the most recent of a series of cease-fire agreements reached after each of Israel's periodic escalations of its unremitting assault on Gaza.
Since November 2005 the terms of these agreements have remained essentially the same. The regular pattern is for Israel to disregard whatever agreement is in place, while Hamas observes it - as Israel has conceded - until a sharp increase in Israeli violence elicits a Hamas response, followed by even fiercer brutality. (More)
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US failure to see Saudi role in 9/11 contributed
to rise of ISIS – says ex-U.S. Senator Bob Graham
RT.com
14 September 2014 — Failure by the US to investigate Saudi Arabia’s connection to the 9/11 attacks is among the factors that led to the rise of ISIS, Bob Graham, a former senator and co-chairman of the official inquiry into 9/11, told The Independent in an interview.
Graham has expressed doubts about the US’s reliance on Saudi Arabia as an ally in fight against Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). Earlier this week President Obama announced a plan, according to which Saudi Arabia is supposed to provide training for moderate Syrian rebels, who are expected to fight both the ISIS and Assad's forces.
The former senator said it was not the best decision to rely on the country which has often been accused of sponsoring “the most extreme elements among the Sunni.” (More)
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Amnesty International betrays its claim to neutrality Amnesty’s new report on Ukraine is In the Now and it doesn’t look pretty. We meet the new US Ambassador to Russia and debate net neutrality. (More) _____ |
Crimea has been a part of Russia about
as long as ago as when the U.S. was founded
For his first film project American filmmaker Miguel Francis chose the highly controversial subject of Crimea and how it was reunited with Russia. He travels to the beautiful Peninsula to see the current situation first hand and to explore its history and cultural heritage. He takes in some of Crimea’s tourist attractions and historical sites while talking to local people about their attitudes to becoming Russian citizens. (More)
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‘No peace till Netanyahu no longer in power in Israel’
30 September 2014 — The Israelis and the Palestinians will see no peace while Benjamin Netanyahu remains in power, Charles Kogan from the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs told RT, commenting on the Israeli PM’s speech to the UNGA comparing Hamas to ISIS.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly Monday, 29 September, drawing attention to Iran and its nuclear program, which is considered by Israel a bigger threat than ISIS.
“Make no mistake – ISIS (Islamic State) must be defeated. But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war," Netanyahu said.
"First of all," said Charles Kogan, "I must say that this is my own personal opinion, I have nothing to do with the US government anymore, and I do have strong opinions. I looked at the speech that Netanyahu made and there is very little statesmanship in it. It is an extended polemic, or if I were to use a stronger word, it is philippic, it is rant. There is inaccuracy in it also because he said some of the ideological extremist groups are Shia – that’s not the case, they are all Sunni. There are Shia militias trained by Iran but they don’t have an ideological bent, they just have their mission to protect the Shia-led regime in Baghdad. (More)
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Armed Kurdish women are beating the ISIS
Killers flee in panic when attacked by women
08 October 2014 — On Monday 06 October the Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that the isolated Kurdish enclave of Kobani was "about to fall" to a massive, sustained assault from ISIS.
Also on Monday, Rooz Bahjat, a Kurdish intelligence officer stationed in Kobani said the city would fall within "the next 24 hours."
By now ISIS was expecting to be slaughtering civilians by the score.
Instead, something totally unexpected happened — ISIS has been forced to pull back.
A local Kobani official, Idris Nahsen, told AFP that fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) had managed to push ISIS fighters outside several key areas after "helpful" airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.
"The situation has changed since yesterday. YPG forces have pushed back ISIS forces," he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, confirmed that ISIS fighters had withdrawn overnight from several areas and were no longer inside the western part of Kobani.
They remained in eastern parts of the town and its southern edges, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman, whose group relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
The number of dead in the overnight fighting was not clear, but Mustafa Ebdi, a Kurdish journalist and activist from Kobani, wrote on his Facebook page that the streets of one southeastern neighborhood were "full of the bodies" of ISIS fighters. (More)
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Biden won’t be ‘allowed out alone again’
after ‘embarrassing’ the European Union
10 October 2014 (rt.com)— Not being as accomplished a liar as some others in the US administration, VP Joe Biden has actually spoken the truth when he revealed that Washington had to embarrass some European states into sanctioning Russia, British MP George Galloway told RT.
RT: A week has passed since US President Vice Joe Biden gave a surprising insight about how the EU reached its decision to sanction Russia.
That's quite an embarrassing revelation. Why there has been so little reaction to this from Europe?
George Galloway: Because they are embarrassed. Joe Biden is a simple sort of chap and therefore is not as accomplished a liar as some of the others in his administration. I am not sure he will be allowed out alone again. Because on this and on other matters, Turkey and its rule in Syria for example with the Islamic State so-called, he told a lot of truth over a couple of days and will probably be gagged for the rest of the presidential term. (More)
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Bolivia’s Evo Morales declares victory in presidential election
13 October 2014 — President Evo Morales has won a third term as Bolivian leader, securing 60.5 percent of the vote according to a count released by local TV channel ATB. His closest rival, Samuel Doria Medina, had 24 percent, Reuters reports. "This win is a triumph for anti-imperialists and anti-colonialists," Morales announced from the balcony of his palace to thousands of supporters. Bolivia's first indigenous leader took office in 2006 and after the latest victory will remain the state leader until January 2020.
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