Aug 06

Today’s News 6th August 2018

  • 92% Of Turks Believe In Human Rights…

    A new Ipsos MORI poll of 23,249 adults in 28 countries has explored feelings about human rights across the world.

    As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, one of its core findings is that 43 percent of people globally agree that everyone in their country enjoys the same basic human rights. When asked if there is such thing as human rights, opinion varied hugely by country, with a selection of countries polled visualized on the following infographic.

    Infographic: Where People Do And Don't Believe In Human Rights | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In Turkey, 92 percent of those polled said there is such thing as human rights while only five percent said there is not.

    85 percent of Chinese respondents also agreed there is such thing as human rights, along with 80 percent of Americans.

    Interestingly, only 29 percent of people in Poland say there is no such thing as human rights.

  • Britain Welcomes Radicals – Again And Again

    Authored by Douglas Murray via The Gatestone Institute,

    It is more than a year since the UK suffered three Islamist terrorist attacks in quick succession. It is also more than a year since the Prime Minister, Theresa May, stood on the steps of Downing Street and announced that ‘enough is enough‘.

    Yet the striking aspect of the last year has been how little has changed.

    Consider, for instance, the lax controls on extremist preachers that the UK had in place in 2016. As reported here at the time, in the summer of that year, two Pakistani clerics performed a tour of the UK. Their seven-week roadshow took in numerous UK hotspots including Rochdale, Rotherham, Oldham and the Prime Minister’s own constituency of Maidenhead. The two clerics — Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman — began their tour by visiting the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, at Lambeth Palace for a meeting on ‘interfaith relations’.

    How expert are these two clerics at ‘interfaith relations’? Well, they are so good that their main credential is their enthusiastic support for the murderer of somebody accused of ‘blasphemy’. Yes — these two preachers are famed in Pakistan for having supported Mumtaz Qadri, the murderer of the progressive Punjab Governor Salman Taseer. Because Taseer believed in a relaxation of Pakistan’s barbaric blasphemy codes (specifically he opposed the execution of a Christian woman — Asia Bibi — who was falsely accused of blaspheming the Muslim god), Qadri — who was meant to be guarding the governor — instead murdered Taseer in 2011. Qadri himself was subsequently tried, sentenced to death and executed by the state. After Qadri’s funeral in Rawalpindi, Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman whipped up the crowds of the murderer’s mourners. Rehman acclaimed the murderer Qadri as a ‘shaeed’ (martyr). The crowd subsequently chanted slogans such as ‘Qadri, your blood will bring revolution’ and ‘the punishment for a blasphemer is beheading’.

    Pictured: Salman Taseer, the late Governor of Punjab, Pakistan, accompanied by his wife Aamna, prepares to meet the US Ambassador to Pakistan on November 6, 2010. (Image source: Salman Taseer/Flickr)

    Despite criticism from Shahbaz Taseer (the son of the man whom Qadri had murdered), the UK government had no problem allowing into the UK these two men who, as Shahbaz Taseer said, ‘teach murder and hate’. On their tour of the UK in 2016, these two preachers were reported to have spoken to mosques packed with worshipers.

    A forgiving person might point out that the Archbishop of Canterbury does not know what he is talking about when he claims that Rehman and Rehman are interfaith experts, and that until 2016 the UK border agencies and other authorities could not have known that the two men are preachers of incitement in their home country. A forgiving person might even have thought all these authorities were naïve but would not be so naïve again.

    In 2017, however, it did happen again. In July of last year the clerics were back, ostensibly speaking at a conference on ‘counter-terrorism’. The idea that either man would know how to counter terrorism when the only expertise that either man has is in encouraging terrorism makes their presence at such an event insulting to anyone involved in countering terrorism. Even more so given that their main facilitator in the UK would appear to be the head of the one-man organisation calling itself the ‘Ramadan Foundation’, run by Mohammed Shafiq, a man with his own dark history of extremism and incitement.

    A cynical person might assume that the UK authorities had let these radical preachers in the first time because they were ignorant, and the second time perhaps because they were slow. But how to account for events just last month? In July of this year, Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman was in the UK yet again — and againin Oldham. Also again, his visit appears to have been facilitated by the one-man-band, Mohammed Shafiq. The latest bogus ‘counter-terrorism conference’ at which he was speaking also involved not only local MP (and Shadow Home Office Minister) Afzal Khan, but also the father and grandmother of one of the victims of last year’s Islamist suicide bomb attack at the Manchester Arena.

    Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman, in his address at the conference, reportedly said:

    “I stand before you to say we as Muslims stand against terrorism, these vile people are enemies of Islam and the whole of humanity.

    “My mission in life is to promote tolerance and peace, you can see from the thousands who attend my events in Pakistan there is a yearning for the true message of Islam which is Peace and tolerance.

    “I am honoured to visit Manchester to remember the victims and their families of the Manchester Arena attack and say we stand with you always”.

    Of course the thousands who attended his events in Pakistan did not always hear this message of ‘peace and tolerance’. As the evidence of the aftermath of Qadri’s funeral showed, they heard a message of vengeance, blasphemy, medievalism and violence.

    But that is Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman.

    The bigger question is for the UK — and specifically for the Prime Minister, Theresa May.

    In the past year, the UK has banned a fair number of people from entering the country. It has, for example, barred the Canadian activist and blogger Lauren Southern. It has also banned the Austrian activist and ‘identitarian’ Martin Sellner. Whatever anyone’s thoughts on either of these individuals, it is not possible to claim that either has ever addressed a rally of thousands of people which they have used to extol a murderer. If either of them had done so, a ban from the UK might be explicable. Yet Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman has done these things — and yet has been allowed into the UK three years in a row. Even in the year after Theresa May pretended that ‘enough is enough.’

    Perhaps the British government thinks that people do not notice such things. Perhaps the organisers of the ‘counter-terrorism conference’ in Manchester think that people are taken in by such pretences. Perhaps they think that the people of Britain do not mind. But the people of Britain do notice and I rather suspect that they do mind. Very much, in fact.

  • Did DARPA Just Develop Autonomous Drones To Hunt Humans?

    The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) latest creation of the Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) program, a new class of algorithms for quick drone navigation in cluttered environments, reminds us of the 2013 American post-apocalyptic science fiction film, Oblivion.

    Here is a short clip of Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) in the movie, battling against killer drones that use artificial intelligence to navigate and hunt ‘alien scavengers’, and moments before this scene, it was revealed to Harper that alien scavengers were actually humans.

    While DARPA’s FLA program has yet to mount a directed energy weapon with enough kilowatts to blast a human into smithereens, it seems like the agency responsible for emerging technologies for use by the military has entered into Phase two flight tests — demonstrating advanced algorithms in drones could autonomously perform tasks dangerous for humans — such as pre-mission reconnaissance on the modern battlefield in a hostile urban setting.

    So, yes, this confirms DARPA is developing human-hunting drones, however, it is more on a reconnaissance basis, rather than human-killing drones in Oblivion.

    According to the DARPA press release, Phase one flight tests were completed in 2017, as engineers were able to refine their software and improve sensors on the drones to increase efficiency. Experiments were conducted in a controlled environment at the Guardian Centers training facility in Perry, Georgia, and aerial tests showed the quadcopters were able to navigate in urban settings as well as indoors autonomously. Some of the autonomous flight scenarios included:

    • Flying at increased speeds between multi-story buildings and through tight alleyways while identifying objects of interest;

    • Flying through a narrow window into a building and down a hallway searching rooms and creating a 3-D map of the interior; and

    • Identifying and flying down a flight of stairs and exiting the building through an open doorway.

    “The outstanding university and industry research teams working on FLA honed algorithms that in the not too distant future could transform lightweight, commercial-off-the-shelf air or ground unmanned vehicles into capable operational systems requiring no human input once you’ve provided a general heading, distance to travel, and specific items to search,” said J.C. Ledé, DARPA program manager.

    “Unmanned systems equipped with FLA algorithms need no remote pilot, no GPS guidance, no communications link, and no pre-programmed map of the area – the onboard software, lightweight processor, and low-cost sensors do all the work autonomously in real-time.”

    “FLA’s algorithms could lead to effective human-machine teams on the battlefield, where a small air or ground vehicle might serve as a scout autonomously searching unknown environments and bringing back useful reconnaissance information to a human team member. Without needing communications links to the launch vehicle, the chances of an adversary detecting troop presence based on radio transmissions is reduced, which adds further security and safety,” Ledé said.

    He pointed out the technology could be useful in a search-and-rescue scenario, where FLA-equipped drones could scan in radio silence behind enemy lines for a downed pilot, crew members, and even lost soldiers.

    During Phase two, a team of engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Draper Laboratory streamlined the number of onboard sensors to lighten the drone for higher speed.

    “This is the lightweight autonomy program, so we’re trying to make the sensor payload as light as possible,” said Nick Roy, co-leader of the MIT/Draper team. “In Phase 1 we had a variety of different sensors on the platform to tell us about the environment. In Phase 2 we really doubled down trying to do as much as possible with a single camera.”

    DARPA asked the team of engineers to include software that builds a geographically accurate map of the surrounding area as the drone flies. Using advanced software, the drone recognized roads, buildings, cars, and other objects and identified them as such on the map, providing clickable images as well. After the mission, the drone returned to home base and allowed the human team members to download the media content.

    “As the vehicle uses its sensors to quickly explore and navigate obstacles in unknown environments, it is continually creating a map as it explores and remembers any place it has already been so it can return to the starting point by itself,” said Jon How, the other MIT/Draper team co-leader.

    DARPA asked a separate team of engineers from the University of Pennsylvania to reduce the drone’s size and weight for autonomous flight indoors. UPenn’s quadcopter ” took off outside, identified and flew through a second-story window opening with just inches of width clearance, flew down a hallway looking for open rooms to search, found a stairwell, and descended to the ground floor before exiting back outside through an open doorway,” said the press release.

    The drone’s reduced weight and size brought new challenges for engineers since the sensors and computers used in Phase one were too large for the smaller vehicle.

    “We ended up developing a new integrated single-board computer that houses all of our sensors as well as our computational platform,” said Camillo J. Taylor, the UPenn team lead. “In Phase 2 we flew a vehicle that’s about half the size of the previous one, and we reduced the weight by more than half. We were able to use a commercially available processor that requires very little power for the entirety of our computational load.”

    An important feature of the UPenn drone is its ability to create a detailed 3-D map of unknown indoor areas, avoid obstacles and have the ability to enter and exit buildings, while hunting for humans.

    “That’s very important in indoor environments,” Taylor said. “Because you need to actually not just reason about a slice of the world, you need to reason about what’s above you, what’s below you. You might need to fly around a table or a chair, so we’re forced to build a complete three-dimensional representation.”

    The next step, according to Taylor, is for the FLA program to be transferred to the Army Research Laboratory at the Adelphi Laboratory Center in Adelphi, Maryland for further development for potential military applications.

    …And if these advancements are not mind-boggling enough, it is only a matter of time before the FLA program could be integrated into drones capable of autonomously hunting America’s enemies in the homeland or in some hybrid war overseas, sort of like in the movie Oblivion.

  • How Democracies Turn Tyrannical

    Authored by Richard Ebeling via The Foundation for Economic Education,

    For most of the last three centuries, the ideas of liberty and democracy have been intertwined in the minds of both friends and foes of a free society. The substitution of absolute monarchies with governments representative of the voting choices of a nation’s population has been considered part and parcel with the advancement of freedom of speech and the press, the right of voluntary and peaceful association for political and numerous social, economic and cultural reasons, and the guarding of the individual from arbitrary and unrestrained power. But what happens when an appeal to democracy becomes a smokescreen for majoritarian tyranny and coalition politicking by special interest groups pursuing privilege and plunder?

    Friends of freedom, including many of those who strongly believed in and fought for representative and democratically elected government in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, often expressed fearful concerns that “democracy” could itself become a threat to the liberty of many of the very people that democratic government was supposed to protect.

    In his famous essay “On Liberty” (1859), the British social philosopher John Stuart Mill warned that tyranny could take three forms: the tyranny of the minority, the tyranny of the majority, and the tyranny of custom and tradition. The tyranny of the minority was represented by absolute monarchy (a tyranny of the one) or an oligarchy (a tyranny of the few). The tyranny of custom and tradition could take the form of social and psychological pressures on individuals or small groups of individuals to conform to the prejudices and narrow-mindedness of wider communities who intimidate and stifle individual thought, creativity, or (peaceful) behavioral eccentricity.

    Mill also was insistent that while democracy historically was part of the great movement for human liberty, majorities potentially could be as dictatorial and dangerous as the most ruthless and oppressive kings and princes of the past. At moments of great collective passions and prejudices, individual freedoms of speech, the press, religion, of association, and of private property could be voted away, reducing the isolated person to the coerced pawn and prisoner of the political system due to sheer numbers in an electoral process. (See my articles, “John Stuart Mill and the Three Dangers to Liberty” and “John Stuart Mill and the Dangers of Unrestrained Government”.)

    Constitutions limit what majorities can do through their elected representatives.

    For this reason, many of the great social philosophers and reformers of the 1700s and 1800s were often strongly insistent that because of democracy’s double-edged sword of liberty or tyranny, it was necessary to restrain the powers and reach of governments through written and unwritten constitutions that limited what majorities could do through their elected representatives. Hence, the role and importance, in the American case, of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. 

    The First Amendment states clearly and categorically, “Congress shall make no law” that might abridge some of an individual’s freedoms, including speech, the press, religion, peaceful assembly, and submission of grievances against the actions of government. Indeed, every one of those first ten amendments was designed to place some restriction on the use of political power to infringe upon or deny different aspects of an individual’s rights to his life, liberty, and honestly acquired property.

    Ambiguities of language, nuances of interpretation, and changing attitudes have often resulted in debates and disagreements as to what and how such personal freedoms were to be understood and secured. But the underlying meaning and message should be considered beyond any doubt: there are aspects to the life and rights of the individual human being that government, even majoritarian government, should not and could not abridge, violate, or deny.

    Both monarchs of the past and dictators more in the present have denied such limits on their power to command and coerce those under their control, including prohibiting words and deeds by those over whom they have asserted their rule. They have rationalized their claim to unrestrained authority by appeal to a “divine right of kings” or a higher meaning of “freedom” that expresses the “will of the people” as a whole through the tyrant’s supreme power.

    One of the great linguistic tricks of the communists and many of the socialists of the twentieth century was to try to distinguish between false, or “bourgeois” freedoms in contrast to real, or “social,” freedoms. The former were those individual freedoms expressed in the Bill of Rights, which were labeled “negative” freedoms in that they “merely” protected a person against the aggression and coercion of others. “Positive,” or “social” freedoms required government planning, regulation, and redistributive control to assure that “need” rather than “profit” guided production and that the shares of income and wealth among the members of society were more equalized according to a prior notion of “distributive justice.”

    Individual freedom only requires that each person respect the life, liberty and honestly acquired property of others and that he follows the rule of peaceful and voluntary association in all human interactions.

    Individual freedom only requires that each person respect the life, liberty and honestly acquired property of others and that he follows the rule of peaceful and voluntary association in all human interactions. Beyond this “negative” restraint on each of us, we are all at liberty to live our individual lives as we choose, guided by our own personal conceptions of value, meaning, and purpose in ordering and following our private affairs and dealings with others.

    The notion of “positive” or “social” freedom requires the active and constant intervention of the political authority into the individual and voluntary interpersonal affairs of a country’s citizens precisely to command or prohibit how, when, where, and for what people may act and interact with others so as to direct and dictate certain results that those in government consider “good,” “just,” and “fair.” The individual and his actions are made subservient to and confined within the collective or community or national “interests” of the society as a whole as defined and enforced by the government.

    In our day and age, one of the political tricks played by the “social justice” proponents and the redistributive advocates is to insist that what they call for and demand in terms of government economic and social policy is really the “democratic” will of the majority, and any opposition or resistance to it is a demonstration of that person being an opponent of “democracy,” therefore, an enemy of freedom and the free society.

    An example of this is a recent article, “American Democracy on the Brink,” by noted economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia University in New York. According to Stiglitz, a series of recent Supreme Court decisions demonstrate that “democracy” is in peril in America.

    He repeats the now thread-worn charge that we do not live in a democracy today because the current occupant of the White House won three million fewer votes than his opponent in the 2016 presidential election. That Donald Trump won the election according to the presidential electoral rules specified in the U.S. Constitution in terms of winning an Electoral College majority is shoved aside and made into an implicit accusation that the Constitution itself is a rigged anti-democratic institution. One wonders, however, whether Joseph Stiglitz would be wearing sackcloth and ashes with his head bowed low if the 2016 outcome had put Hillary Clinton in the White House with an Electoral College majority but with Trump having won a majority of the popular vote. Somehow I doubt it.

    Stiglitz’s first charge against “undemocratic” capitalism is the recent Supreme Court decision in favor of American Express concerning the company’s requirement that retail and other stores where customers purchase goods with the use of credit cards not offer special discounts to buyers to use cards with lower transaction fees than their own. Stiglitz sees this court decision as corporate anti-competitiveness at the expense of the retailer and the consumer—the few exploiting the many.

    But as the high court reasoned, not all credit cards are equal, and therefore, it does not imply or require all companies issuing credit cards to charge the same transaction fees to stores. The bulk of American Express’ business involves “non-revolving” credit, that is, the large majority of American Express cardholders pay the full balance owed each month. Thus, American Express does not earn extended interest income from most of its customers through installment payments.

    American Express customers who hold different types of the company’s cards with differing levels of services, perks, and discounts, tend to be, on average, in higher income brackets and spend more on various goods and services on, say, an annual basis. Thus, those shoppers paying with their American Express cards are likely to spend more, and on more expensive goods, thus more than making up the higher transaction fees American Express charges retailers. Furthermore, the attractiveness of many of American Express’ cardholder perks has competitively worked to prod other credit card companies into introducing their own versions of “points” for dollars spent, “cash back” incentives, and various other consumer services.

    Implicitly, Stiglitz seems to have in the back of his mind the artificial economics textbook notion of “perfect competition,” one of the unrealistic and arbitrary assumptions of which is that each seller in a market sells a product interchangeably exactly like his rivals in that market—and that to differentiate your product from those of your competitors is, somehow, acting “anti-competitively.” Yet the very notion of “competition” understood as a rivalrous process is to constantly attempt to improve and distinguish your product from others. This includes offering what consumers may consider a better product that might sell for more than its competitors’ precisely because it’s not viewed as the same as theirs. (See my article, “Capitalism and the Misunderstanding of Monopoly.”)

    Finally, no retailer is compelled to accept the American Express card as a form of payment in their place of business. And, indeed, some stores only take Visa or MasterCard precisely to avoid the higher transaction fees from American Express.

    Stiglitz’s second criticism falls upon another recent Supreme Court decision that state and municipal employees will no longer be compelled to pay mandatory dues to public employee and teachers’ unions when they might not want union representation or oppose the political uses to which those funds are applied for political lobbying and campaigning. He raises a number of criticisms against the Court’s decision, including that “selfish” workers will choose to not pay dues and be “free riders” on the efforts of employee unions that improve the pay and work conditions of all in government jobs. He also charges that to deny unions the “right” to demand dues payments, whether individual public employees want union representation and political activism or not, is supposedly “undemocratic.”

    In the tradition of George Orwell’s “newspeak,” Stiglitz twists the meaning of words to assert that union compulsion is freedom and that individual freedom of choice is employer exploitation. For a good part of the last one hundred years, labor unions, especially beginning in the 1930s, were given a relatively free hand to force workers into union membership to have access to certain types of employment and to restrict the number of people who could look for and find gainful employment in various sectors of the economy.

    In their heyday in the middle decades of the twentieth century, labor unions could shut down entire industries through strikes, threaten or use violence to prevent non-union workers from taking jobs their members had walked away from, and use their financial clout to influence labor legislation.

    Their political and financial power is heavily dependent on their ability to compel mandatory dues from public employees.

    Compulsory unionism has been a tyranny of a minority of workers manipulating wages and work accessibility at the expense of the majority of the labor force as a whole. Changing market dynamics have reduced union membership in the private sector from more than 20 percent of the labor force in 1983 to less than 7 percent as of 2017. On the other hand, today union membership in the government sector is more than 35 percent. Their political and financial power is heavily dependent on their ability to compel mandatory dues from public employees, many of whom are denied the freedom to express whether they, in fact, want to pay dues and have union representation.

    What is more “democratic” than to allow individual workers to “vote” with the choice to freely belong to a union or not and to pay dues or not? The “free rider” problem is a bugaboo that some economists and public policy advocates have long used to justify various forms of compulsory payment of fees and dues.

    There is nothing preventing unions, including in the government sector, from excluding “free riders” by negotiating wage and benefits that apply only to their members and not to others who have chosen to opt out of that union. Indeed, by following this type of path, it would soon be seen if non-union workers decide that the benefits from joining such unions are worth the financial expense of the dues to be paid out of their salaries.

    Instead, Stiglitz, looking down on the labor affairs of ordinary workers from the Olympian perch of his academic heights, knows the “real” democratic choice that serves the “true” interests of workers better and more clearly than those public employees themselves. He may refer to a supposed “imbalance” between employers and individual workers that unions are to set right, but rather than allowing those individuals to decide whether they think they need and are willing to pay for union representation against “the bosses,” he wants to force it upon them. (See my article, “The Economic Case for Right-to-Work.”)

    Concerning one other legal case, Stiglitz rails against a court decision that decided in favor of licensed reproductive health centers not being forced to supply patients with information about abortion options from which they might choose. He is indignant that the court did not impose compulsory speech on people. That is, that individuals and the organizations for which they work should not be forced to articulate ideas and alternatives with which they may strongly disagree.

    The abortion issue has been and remains one of the most emotional and deeply contentious “hot buttons” in the public arena. Do you believe in “a woman’s right to choose” or do you believe in the “right to life”? It touches religious faith, the meaning of personhood and ownership of one’s own body, and the definition of the beginning of human life. Any wide social agreement about abortion lies far ahead on the horizon, if ever, given the scientific, faith-based, and personal divisions of opinion and beliefs.

    To force anyone to express and explain the “other side” of this debate in terms of what a woman might or should do can only be considered an infringement on the freedom of conscience of the individual.

    To force anyone to express and explain the “other side” of this debate in terms of what a woman might or should do can only be considered an infringement on the freedom of conscience of the individual. Would Stiglitz also demand–in the spirit of “democracy”—that clinics that offer abortion services be compelled to provide literature and lecturing to their patients on how abortion is “murder” and is a mortal sin that will send that woman to hell and into the arms of the devil for eternity? And to do it with serious conviction so as not to unfairly bias a woman’s decision? I doubt if Stiglitz considers applying the logic of his argument in a symmetrical fashion.

    This issue, like the others, has little or nothing to do with “democratic freedom” as conveyed by Stiglitz in his article. Indeed, the emotional appeal to the “democratic” idea and sentiment is all a linguistic sleight-of-hand to direct attention away from the real issue: shall the individual have his or her freedom of choice undermined or denied in the marketplace or the mind by the assertion of the “majority will”?

    Whether this “majority “ is real or merely a smokescreen for a minority to use the democratic appeal to impose their demands on many others, it stands as a denial and a threat to the peaceful choices and interactions of free individuals in society. It is a use of “democracy” as the latest weapon against human liberty.

  • Bin Laden's Son Marries Lead 9/11 Hijacker's Daughter, Says Family

    The son of the late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has married the daughter of the lead hijacker in the September 11th terror attacks, Mohammed Atta, according to a recent interview the family gave to The Guardian. 

    The union was confirmed by Osama bin Laden’s half-brothers during an interview with The Guardian. Ahmad and Hassan al-Attas said they believed Hamza had taken a senior position within al-Qaeda and was aiming to avenge the death of his father, shot dead during a US military raid in Pakistan seven years ago.

    Hamza bin Laden is the son of one of Osama bin Laden’s three surviving wives, Khairiah Sabar, who was living with her husband in a compound in Abbottabad, near a large Pakistani military base, when he was killed. He has since made public statements urging followers to wage war on Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv and is seen as a deputy to the terrorist group’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. –The Guardian

    Hamza bin Laden. Photograph: AP

    “We have heard he has married the daughter of Mohammed Atta,” said Ahmad al-Attas. “We’re not sure where he is, but it could be Afghanistan.”

    “When we thought everyone was over this, next thing I knew was Hamza saying I am going to avenge my father,” said his brother, Hassan al-Attas. “I don’t want to go through that again.

    Ahmad al-Attas, brother of Osama bin Laden. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

    Western intelligence agencies have been trying to track Hamza bin Laden’s whereabouts for the past two years, according to The Guardian, as he is suspected to have become a “central hub of al-Qaida” as the organization itself “continues to be organised around Osama bin Laden’s legacy,” and may become galvanized around Hamza. 

    Another son of Osama bin Laden, Khalid, was killed in a US raid in Abbottabad, while a third, Saad, was killed in a 2009 drone strike in Afghanistan. Letter seized from bin Laden’s compound suggest Hamza had been chosen as his father’s successor. 

    Bin Laden’s wives and surviving children have returned to Saudi Arabia, where they were given refuge by the former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef. The women and children remain in close contact with Bin Laden’s mother, Alia Ghanem, who told the Guardian in an interview that she remained in regular touch with surviving family members. –The Guardian

    Alia Ghanem at home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with a picture of her son Osama bin Laden. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

     

  • The Truth Is Always In The Middle, But America Has No Middle Left

    Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

    Incidents and Accidents, Hints and Allegations

    Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-semite. Julian Assange is a rapist, a Russian agent and a terrorist. Donald Trump is an anti-semite, a rapist AND a Russian agent. Vladimir Putin wants to invade and enslave the entire western world and to that end employs Assange, Trump, maybe also Corbyn(?), as well as thousands upon thousands of hackers and murderers who make people vote for whoever Putin chooses, and poison former Russian agents on western soil.

    These allegations, and there’s many more of them, have a number of things in common. Most importantly, they serve to change your mind. They serve to change your perception of reality. They seek to whip up your support for the very people and forces that launch them into the media.

    Something else they have in common is that none of them has ever been proven, even though some of them are getting on in years. But they were never meant to be proven, simply because they don’t have to be. If your mind is a fertile breeding ground for such allegations, all that needs to be done is plant a seed, and plant another, and then water them day after day by repeating the allegations and make them ‘yummier’, until they sprout a plant or a tree ‘spontaneously’.

    A third feature the allegations have in common is that as they change your perception of reality, you will be -more- inclined to support those who invented them for that exact purpose, so you will not oppose their -further- grab for power and wealth.

    That Jeremy Corbyn would hate Jews goes against the man’s entire life history. But he’s been exceedingly weak in defending himself, and his Labour Party, against the accusations of anti-semitism, so the label sticks and has been very successful. Instead of explaining his position in the face of the unfolding and increasingly disastrous Brexit proceedings, all Corbyn gets to do is utter some feeble defence about his history with Jewish people. On Brexit, he’s been all but silenced. Even his own party merrily goes along with the smear.

    The accusations concerning Assange in the Swedish rape ‘case’ are, if possible, even more preposterous, even if they have also ostensibly been even more successful. The Swedes, British and Americans involved in the narrative knew beforehand that all they needed was to plant a fragile seed. Julian had historically enjoyed a lot of support from women, and that was over in a heartbeat.

    Sweden’s female(!) prosecutor, Marianne Ny, refused for 4 years to talk to Assange one on one and when she finally did, dropped the case right after. But that’s 4 years of allegations hanging over him, easily enough to serve the purpose of those allegations: plant a seed of doubt. By then, another -hollow- tree had sprouted: Assange was accused of working directly with the Kremlin.

    He always denied this, but after negotiations with the US Justice Department in early 2017 were abruptly halted by then FBI-head James Comey and US Senator Mark Warner (D.-VA) as Assange offered to prove that it wasn’t Russians who provided him with files from the DNC server(s), Robert Mueller felt free to accuse him of working with Russia once again in his indictment of 12 Russians last month. Not only could Assange not defend himself by then, since he had been totally silenced, but Mueller didn’t even attempt to provide evidence.

    And I’ve said this numerous times before, but I still think it bears repeating: WikiLeaks is based on one underlying principle above and beyond anything else: trust; which means uncompromising honesty. WIthout that, no-one would ever again offer them any files. WikiLeaks doesn’t reveal sources, and it doesn’t redact things out of files other than to protect people’s lives.

    In that sense it’s interesting that even with the Vault7 CIA files, after Comey had betrayed Assange, the latter still held back from publishing certain pages, just so CIA operatives wouldn’t be exposed. If Assange is caught in just one lie, be it about rape or about Russia, WikiLeaks is done, and so is he and his life’s work. So what do you do about someone who doesn’t lie? You spread lies about him.

    But, again, that’s not what people see, because that’s not what their media report. Papers like the New York Times and the Guardian, who were more than happy to share, and profit from, WikiLeaks files before, have turned on Assange with a vengeance. Journalists are more than willing to throw a fellow journalist under the bus and then turn around and accuse Donald Trump of endangering journalists when he says they spread fake news. Well, they do, that’s what Assange’s case proves without a doubt.

    That brings us to Trump, a ‘case’ that has much in common with Assange -even if the men themselves don’t-, but is also very different. Trump doesn’t seem to shy away from the odd white lie or embellishment. And sure, that may be putting it mildly. But both journalists and their viewers and readers need to keep one thing in mind: their work does not consist of spouting allegations. They need to provide proof.

    And in the 18 -or 24- months since Trump prominently rose upon the Washington scene, precious little has been proven. Robert Mueller has alleged plenty, but proven next to nothing. It’s fair to say after all that time that he’s fishing. Sure, Paul Manafort will likely go to jail, but his case has nothing to do with Russia collusion, at least not in any way that Mueller has evidence for (we would have known if he did).

    And you know, if you spend so much time, and resources, trying to find something, trying to find proof, and you have failed to find it, you have to acknowledge just that. Maybe not halt the investigation entirely, but go public and state that you haven’t been able to find what you thought you would or could. The country deserves that, The American people deserve it, and yes, Donald Trump does, too.

    But the whole country now lives on a narrative. Media left and right profit from it, each to feed their audience the ‘latest’ 24/7. And there’s nothing really, so they have to make it up in order to continue profiting from the whipped-up attention. One side tells you how evil Trump is, the other how great he’s doing. The truth is always in the middle, but America has no middle left.

    I said before that Donald Trump is portrayed as an anti-semite, a rapist AND a Russian agent. As for the first bit, I covered that a few days ago in “Globalist”. Does Trump hate Jews? Even if he does, he hides it pretty well. He’s always done business with Jewish people (hey, this is New York!), there are plenty Jews in his government, and in his own family. Calling someone an anti-Semite is a very serious thing, not a detail to be thrown around at will. Prove it or hold your tongue.

    Is Trump a rapist, like what Assange is accused of? You can certainly find no shortage of people willing to state that in both cases. But again, no evidence. And with the fame and glory awaiting anyone who does prove it in either case, you would think by now someone would have found something. Again, prove it or hold your tongue.

    Thirdly: is Trump a Russian agent? Look, if Robert Mueller hasn’t been able to prove that he is after two years and tens of millions spent, at least get off your high horse and focus on something else for a bit, if you want to be taken serious as a journalist. Russia, and Putin, are America’s favorite bogeyman today, and about the only thing that still unites the country.

    So find something instead that unites you that is not your enemy. Find common cause. Find what makes you proud to be America. Are you all going to be proud if Assange is dragged into some place like Gitmo? Then you have completely lost what it is that should make you proud citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

    Because no matter how you may twist it, Julian Assange is braver than any of you, and braver than all of you put together too. But no, he’s not free. He gave up his freedom so you would know what it means to be free. Free from manipulation, free from people making up your minds for you, free from indoctrination, free from the forces that take more of your freedom away every day.

    You see, Julian Assange is not free. But neither are you. He’s a prisoner of the very people who are taking your freedom away, day by day, step by step. That’s why you should stand up for him. And of course, it’s not just your freedom that’s at stake, it’s your humanity, it’s the very essence of what makes you human, the difference between a life worth living and a life wasted by complacency and cowardice.

    Anything else is just narrative. It’s not life.

  • Iran Protest Deaths Reported Ahead Of Monday's Renewed Sanctions

    As we predicted last week, protests have continued across multiple Iranian cities through the weekend fueled by general dissatisfaction over a collapsing economy, runaway inflation, and a sharp hike in prices on imported products, all of which has made life miserable for many Iranian citizens.

    However, it is unclear the extent and frequency of the protests as multiple international reports have called the protests, now in their sixth day, “scattered” and sporadic.

    With pressures continuing to mount ahead of renewed US sanctions set to snap back into place on Monday — the first wave of which will primarily target automobiles, currency, and gold — there are new unconfirmed reports of deaths after protesters clashed with police. 

    A cleric speaks to a crowd of protesters demonstrating in Mashhad, in the Khorasan Razavi province, on August 3rd. Via Nasim News Agency

    Demonstrations involving hundreds in each location were reported over the weekend in the nation’s capital, Tehran, and in the cities of Karaj, Shiraz, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Qom — the latter city especially notable given it’s considered by Shia Islam to be the holiest city in Iran. 

    US state-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that a man was shot and killed on Saturday during a protest in Karaj, west of Tehran, citing Iran’s semi-official Fars. Details remain sparse, but the man was reportedly fired at by an unidentifiable assailant in a passing car. The same report included mention of about 20 protesters in Karaj detained by security forces. 

    And on Sunday unverified reports on social media, mostly from opposition activist accounts, say heavy clashes continuing in the cities of Karaj and Qom have resulted in multiple deaths. 

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    However, there are conflicting accounts regarding the actual intensity and momentum of the protests, with activist along with a number of MEK-linked accounts (the controversial Iranian opposition group in exile, “Mujahideen e Khalq”) claiming that deliberate power outages and state blockage of the internet have prevented more footage and images depicting oppression from riot police and security services from reaching the outside world. 

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    US funded and state-run broadcasters like VOA News and Radio Free Europe have also featured regular reporting of the protests over the past week, especially through Farsi language sources. 

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    On Monday, the following sanctions will be re-imposed according to a US Treasury Department official statement:

    “Sanctions on the purchase or acquisition of US dollar bank notes by the Government of Iran; sanctions on Iran’s trade in gold or precious metals; sanctions on the direct or indirect sale, supply, or transfer to or from Iran of graphite, raw, or semi-finished metals such as aluminum and steel, coal, and software for integrating industrial processes; sanctions on significant transactions related to the purchase or sale of Iranian rials, or the maintenance of significant funds or accounts outside the territory of Iran denominated in the Iranian rial; sanctions on the purchase, subscription to, or facilitation of the issuance of Iranian sovereign debt; sanctions on Iran’s automotive sector.” 

    Furthermore, according to the US Treasury, this includes a ban on Iranian-origin carpets and foodstuffs, and notably (and dangerous for civilian air safety) export or re-export commercial airplanes as well as services and parts.

    Likely, with the economic noose about to tighten even further on Monday, we could be witnessing just the beginning of more sustained unrest to come as external pressures make the Iranian economy implode. 

    And meanwhile at the White House…

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  • Pro-ISIS Media Outlet Signals Imminent Biological Attack On The West

    Authored by Pamela Geller via GellerReport.com,

    This too will be ignored by the complicit, sharia-compliant Western press. A biological attack is the intentional release of a pathogen (disease causing agent) or biotoxin (poisonous substance produced by a living organism) against humans, plants, or animals. An attack against people could be used to cause illness, death, fear, societal disruption, and economic damage.

    EXCLUSIVE: Pro-ISIS Media Outlet Publishes Posters Calling For Biological Attacks In The West, One Of Which Depicts San Francisco

    Over the past week, a pro-Islamic State (ISIS) media group has published a series of posters encouraging biological attacks on Western targets.

    Excerpt from the transcript (MEMRI):

    PRO-ISIS MEDIA OUTLET CIRCULATES VIDEO CALLING FOR BIOLOGICAL ATTACKS IN THE WEST

    This transcript was prepared from the original English subtitles of the video

    Narrator: “While the world is watching silently! The European governments are developing satanic chemical attack systems to be brutally tested on the cities and peoples, which refused humiliation and humiliation so the Muslim countries in Africa and Khorsan turned into testing fields of phosphorus bombs and toxic gas. The crusader alliance continues bombing Mosul, Raqqa, Al-Anbar and others… with various types of chemical bombs and incendiary gases. And similar to the enemies of God! We invite you, oh Muwahid [monotheist] who lives between the Mushrikeen [idolaters] that you clean the dust of humiliation and to renew the fatal nightmare in the land of the devil worshipers with a silent destructive weapon. It can not be detected or tracked it can not be escaped or avoided with simple equipment, extract the most harmful viruses and infection bacteria then release them safely by following these simple steps: First, try to find the most severe epidemics to treat.”

    On Screen: “Hantavirus, derived from the feces and droppings of rats that carry the plague of the most serious plague at the moment. The Cholera virus is extracted from the patient’s waste. Typhoid bacteria, found in human and animal wastes in general and frequent in the dirty areas.”

    Narrator: “Second, spread the bacteria extracted by type as follows.”

    On Screen: “Sprinkle the liquid substances or the basics of bacteria with drinking water to take effect automatically. Sprinkle the crushed material on exposed fruit and public foods or scatter them in the air in crowded places – with caution.”

    Narrator: “Third, try to be safe and avoid any danger that may affect you during the preparation of harmful substances.”

    On Screen: “Work in a room with natural and industrial ventilation. Wear gloves and blouses during work. Put the goggles and goggles – according to chemical process requirements. Do not touch or inhale the materials. Isolating the workplace from the rest of the house. Wash your hands with sterile soap and water after each test.”

    Off-Screen Voice: “To our brothers in Aqidah [creed] and Iman [faith] in Europe, America, Russia, Australia, and elsewhere, your brothers in your lands have absolved themselves of blame so leap onto their tracks and take an example from their actions and know that Jannah [paradise] is beneath the shadows of swords.”

  • Secret Service Slams "Irresponsible And Inaccurate" Guardian Report On Russian Spy In Moscow Embassy

    The US Secret Service has refuted what they claim is an “irresponsible and inaccurate” Thursday report by The Guardian, in which the UK paper claims that a suspected Russian spy had been working “undetected in the heart of the American embassy in Moscow for more than a decade.” 

    According to the Secret Service, they provided The Guaridain with “background information clearly refuting unfounded information.” 

    The Guardian report reads in part: 

    US counter-intelligence investigators discovered a suspected Russian spy had been working undetected in the heart of the American embassy in Moscow for more than a decade, the Guardian has learned.

    The Russian national had been hired by the US Secret Service and is understood to have had access to the agency’s intranet and email systems, which gave her a potential window into highly confidential material including the schedules of the president and vice-president.

    The woman had been working for the Secret Service for years before she came under suspicion in 2016 during a routine security sweep conducted by two investigators from the US Department of State’s Regional Security Office (RSO). –The Guardian

    The paper then claims that the woman was having “regular and unauthorized meetings” with members of Russia’s top security agency, the FSB, and that the RSO sounded the alarm in January, 2017 – which the Secret Service reportedly ignored until letting her go several months later, “possibly to contain any potential embarassment.” 

    According to the Guardian, her firing was purposefully concealed by US officials amid the mass removeal of 750 US personnel from its embassy staff of 1,200.  

    “The Secret Service is trying to hide the breach by firing [her],” the source said. “The damage was already done but the senior management of the Secret Service did not conduct any internal investigation to assess the damage and to see if [she] recruited any other employees to provide her with more information. –The Guardian

    The Secret Service hit back shortly after publication, writing in a statement: 

    On Thursday, August 2, 2018, The Guardian published an article by Nick Hopkins entitled, Exclusive: suspected Russian spy found working at US embassy in Moscow. The article is wrought with irresponsible and inaccurate reporting based on the claims of “anonymous” sources. Prior to the Guardian publishing their article, the U.S. Secret Service provided their editor with our official statement as well as background information clearly refuting unfounded information. 

    The agency goes on to note that it was the woman’s duty to interface with the Russian government, “including the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian Ministry of the Interior (MVD), and the Russian Federal Protective Service (FPS) in furtherance of Secret Service interests. 

    The Secret Service then cites a factual error based on US protocols: 

    In the article, Hopkins and The Guardian claim the “Russian is understood to have had full access to secret data during decade at embassy.” FSNs working under the direction of the U.S. Secret Service have never been provided or placed in a position to obtain, secret or classified information as erroneously reported. -US Secret Service

    The agency also asserts that the Guardian‘s claim that they “failed to act on information provided by the U.S. State Department is categorically false,” along with the timing of the woman’s termination aren’t true. 

    The U.S. Secret Service Moscow Resident Office closed in August of 2017 due to lack of cooperation from the Russian government – entirely unrelated to the termination of the FSN in question. Reports the Secret Service attempted to minimize or deliberately not disclose the U.S. State Department’s findings are categorically false. -US Secret Service

    Lastly, the Secret Service said that any questions of a potential security “breach” of U.S. Secret Service systems, information or reporting ” is unfounded as FSNs work on, and support, only projects with the intent of providing and/or sharing the information with the Russian government in furtherance of Secret Service and USG interests.”

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