Why We Can't Save Her

Powerful video from the International Committee for the Red Cross...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm0TYebjyHQ

From Memory to Myth: The Adventures of Patrick Leigh Fermor

The daring exploits and beguiling charm of the 20th century’s greatest travel writer...

https://www.weeklystandard.com/dominic-green/from-memory-to-myth-the-adventures-of-patrick-leigh-fermor

The Problem of Hyper Liberalism

Excerpt:  "In institutions that proclaim their commitment to critical inquiry, censorship is most effective when it is self-imposed. A defining feature of tyranny, the policing of opinion is now established practice in societies that believe themselves to be freer than they have ever been."

Read full article here...
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/john-gray-hyper-liberalism-liberty/

Skyping with the enemy: I went undercover as a jihadi girlfriend

Excerpt:
He got out of his car and his smartphone showed images of a devastated Syria. Not a person in sight. It was about 9pm there, and it was absolutely silent. Suddenly, men’s thick voices broke the silence.
“Don’t say anything!” Bilel ordered. “I don’t want anyone to see or hear you! You’re my jewel; you’re pure. OK? Do you understand?”
Mélodie said she understood. I listened to the conversation. I was able to distinguish the voices of two other men. They greeted each other in Arabic, then French, which sounded like their mother tongue. They laughed, congratulating themselves for having “slaughtered them”.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE....

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/26/french-journalist-poses-muslim-convert-isis-anna-erelle

The Killing of Osama by Seymour Hersh

The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account. The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll: would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad would be the safest place to live and command al-Qaida’s operations? He was hiding in the open. So America said.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE....
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

China’s Offering a World Bank Alternative — and U.S. Allies Are Signing Up

Excerpt:

The United States and 15 developed countries control 52 percent of voting rights at the IMF, leaving 48 percent for the 168 other member countries. China, now the world’s biggest economy, has only 3.8 percent of voting power — that’s a smaller share than those of the UK, France, Germany, or Japan. Brazil, South Korea, and Mexico each enjoy less voting power than tiny Belgium.
Despite much protest from the BRICS and other developing economies, they’ve received just 6 percent more voting power over the last 20 years. The proportions and trends have been roughly the same at the World Bank.

The United States and the Europeans have also held tightly to what’s been characterized as their “feudal” prerogatives of filling the World Bank presidency with a U.S. citizen and the managing director post at the IMF with a European.

With some 17 percent of the vote in both institutions, the United States also exercises veto power over key policy decisions. To show that it didn’t want to replicate the Americans’ behavior at the World Bank, Beijing announced that despite its contribution of the largest share of capital to the AIIB, it would not demand veto power over policy decisions.

Read full article here:
http://fpif.org/chinas-offering-a-world-bank-alternative-and-u-s-allies-are-signing-up/

Life under drones — in victims’ own words

‘I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer grey skies.’

Read full article here...

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/war/150210/living-under-drones-victims-own-words

The Rise of ISIS

Excellent documentary about ISIS and the motivation to form the group...certainly key in understanding the quagmire we are stepping into...


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/rise-of-isis/

Reza Aslan Schools CNN and Fox News

Awesome! Way to go Reza!

CNN Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ibKWVTFSak

Fox News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt1cOnNrY5s

Piers Morgan Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYluVdT50Ro

Dear North America, You're Not as Great as You Think
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/angelina-chapin/reza-aslan-bill-maher_b_5941718.html

The Gift of American Power

Often I'm inundated with left-wing liberal media, so it's refreshing to get a different point a view even if I don't entirely agree with it....great article by Robert D. Kaplan

The United States is not a traditional empire because it has no colonies, but its military -- and the diplomatic power that accompanies it -- is deployed in an imperial-like fashion worldwide. The U.S. Navy calls itself a global force for good. That claim would pass the most stringent editorial fact-checking process. Without that very naked American ambition, which allows the Navy and the Air Force to patrol the global commons, the world is reduced to the sum of its parts: a Japan and China, and a China and India, dangerously at odds and on the brink of war; a Middle East in far wider war and chaos; a Europe neutralized and emasculated by Russian Revanchism; and an Africa in even greater disarray. It is not that regional powers cannot act rationally on their own; it is only that without a global hegemon of sorts, local balance-of-power interactions become more fraught with risk and are, therefore, more dangerous.

READ MORE HERE....
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2014/05/15/the_gift_of_american_power.html

Chinese experts 'in discussions' over building high-speed Beijing-US railway

Hey...they built the Great Wall.......nevertheless, this would be a major engineering feat...not to mention---life-changing...

'China-Russia-Canada-America line' would run for 13,000km across Siberia and pass under Bering Strait through 200km tunnel

Read more here...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/chinese-experts-discussions-high-speed-beijing-american-railway

Also...

China poised to overtake US as world's largest economy, research shows

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/apr/30/china-overtake-us-worlds-largest-economy

UK, US spies hacked into webcam feeds of millions of Yahoo users

• Optic Nerve program collected Yahoo webcam images in bulk
• 1.8m users targeted by UK agency in six-month period alone
• Yahoo: 'A whole new level of violation of our users' privacy'
• Material included large quantity of sexually explicit images

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo


This invasion of privacy is also happening in the US as well....the Washington Post writes last year...

 Powerful FBI surveillance software can covertly download files, photographs and stored e-mails, or even gather real-time images by activating cameras connected to computers, say court documents and people familiar with this technology.
Read More here....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2013/12/06/352ba174-5397-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html 

Time Magazine writes...

The NSA Is Spying on Your Webcam Sex

And some interesting comments...
Top comments...

"Who cares if GCHQ have been reading my emails. Meta data is no big deal. I have nothing to hide. It's not like they're peering into my home when I'm naked or anything."

"Oh."
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 If people don't even care about this, then that really is it. There is nothing we will not allow the security services to do. There is no limit we will give them. Abhorrent, and genuinely disgusting.
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So much for the advantages of liberal democracy and the open society. Forget the Stasi - this is a level of state intrusion that is beyond hyberbole.
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Are you reading this on your phone or tablet or laptop? See that little lens near the top of your screen? Say cheese!
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I 'm feeling more revolutionary by the day...
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"Speechless"

Ukraine's Bloodiest Day

Ukraine's bloodiest day: dozens dead as protesters regain territory from police

Corpses on Kiev's Independence Square as police deploy snipers and use live ammunition

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/ukraine-dead-protesters-police

Some incredible Photos... 

Bloody Battles in Kiev

 http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/02/bloody-battles-in-kiev/100684/

Kiev Truce Shattered, Dozens Killed

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/02/kiev-truce-shattered-dozens-killed/100685/

The Bewildered Kingdom

Can't stay on top forever... 

The issue for the Saudis is not merely Iran’s putative nuclear capability. A deal on Iran’s nuclear program would legitimize the regime’s regional influence in a way that has not occurred in decades, thereby serving its hegemonic objectives. The deeper threat or fear is that Iran’s ultimate target is leadership of Mecca, the cradle of Islam.

That is why the Saudi royals prefer to keep Iran chained with international sanctions. True, even under economic sanctions, Iran has intruded ever more deeply into Arab politics, but it was the US that opened the door by overthrowing Saddam’s Sunni-minority regime in Iraq, which ultimately brought an Iranian-backed Shia government to power.

READ MORE HERE...
 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mai-yamani-assesses-saudi-arabia-s-increasingly-assertive-regional-foreign-policy-since-the-start-of-the-arab-spring

Korea Execution Is Tied to Clash Over Businesses

Radio Free Asia, in a report last week that cited anonymous North Korean sources, reported that Mr. Kim saw North Korean soldiers malnourished during his recent visits to islands near the disputed western sea border...

Read more here...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/world/asia/north-korea-purge.html?hp&_r=0

also...

A Need Now to Prepare for North Korea's Collapse

The Rare Phenomenon of Revolution

I don't completely agree and I don't completely disagree with this article.  Friends of mine from Thailand and the Ukraine are currently experiencing these protests...and so they know better than I do.  Nonetheless, the article is quite compelling.

Stratfor Global Intelligence

Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the streets of Kiev on Sunday in what appeared to be a rebirth of the Orange Revolution, which brought regime change to Ukraine nearly a decade ago. But by Monday the demonstrations shrank to less than 10,000 people. The protests continue to apply pressure on the Ukrainian government, and though they could escalate or compel Kiev to offer some political concessions, an all-out revolution does not appear to be in the offing.

That is not to question the dedication of those protesting in the cold Ukrainian winter. Rather, it is a testament to the fact that true revolutions -- overturning the existing political order and the lasting policy changes that follow -- are extremely difficult to carry out.

The revolutions across Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 serve as a benchmark of contemporary revolution. These revolutions overturned the communist governments from East Germany to Poland to Bulgaria in a span of six months. But they were a product of pent-up political repression that had been building for decades. When the moment finally came, the revolutions were supported by the majority of the population of each state and brought out nearly all segments of society onto the streets. And except in Romania, the people's desire to overturn the system was met without resistance or violence -- an admission by each regime of the system's fundamental obsolescence.

These were revolutions in their purest sense. Societies rejected rigid political systems imposed on them by an illegitimate, external power. It is not often that the global system undergoes such a dramatic change. When it does, the effects are profound. 1989, for example, marked a historic turning point: the beginning of the end of the Cold War era.

But since then, the term "revolution" has been applied liberally in describing large demonstrations of general discontent. Certainly, many citizens have tried to revolt against their rulers, but successful revolutions were few and far between, even when proponents and the media have labeled them as such.

Iran's Green Revolution in 2009 exemplifies the "revolution" misnomer. More than 100,000 people flooded the streets of Tehran to dispute the re-election victory of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But these protests were dominated by younger, urban and generally more affluent citizens; they did not really appeal to the broader segments of Iranian society. They lasted for a few months and elicited public outcry when security forces dealt harshly with the demonstrators, but eventually they tapered off, having never fundamentally threatened the existence of the Iranian political system. This was no 1989 revolution, nor was it the 1979 Iranian revolution against the Shah that united and galvanized the overwhelming majority of Iranian citizens.

There are several other instances in which demonstrations did not foment a revolution. During the so-called Arab Spring, tens to hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in several countries, but few of them led to actual regime change. With the exception of Libya and to a lesser extent Syria, the broader structure of the regimes that ruled the Arab world remain in place -- only certain leaders and personalities have been replaced. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak may be gone, but Egypt continues to be ruled by the military. Syria is in the throes of a civil war, but Syrian President Bashar al Assad is still the strongest of many warlords in what is an extreme imbalance of the existing political order.

Other countries such as Thailand are currently seeing large protests that show no signs of abating and occasionally lead to disruptive violence. But in Thailand, protest culture, constitutional changes and military coups are particularly tumultuous manifestations of partisan politics. The society is mostly stable. The combination of regional, socio-economic and ideological divisions could lead to revolution eventually, but that is by no means a foregone conclusion, given the flexibility of the existing constitutional monarchy.

And even those countries that have had "successful" revolutions, such as Ukraine in 2004, have shown that the new regimes may be short lived. Five years after Yanukovich was ousted in the Orange Revolution, he was democratically elected into power in a rejection of the policies pursued by the previous government. Unlike the definitive shift away from the Soviet Union and communism of Central European countries in 1989, Ukraine has instead vacillated uncomfortably between the West and Russia, a strategic but vulnerable position that is extremely difficult to overcome through demonstrations by a polarized society.

As Ukraine and Thailand have shown, democracies are inherently unstable, presenting major opportunities for social unrest that on the surface looks chaotic. In reality, they are either tightly controlled within existing political factions or are absorbed by them. Revolutions are successful when fundamental shifts to the underlying political structure are already in place. In 1989, the Soviet Union stopped being able to control and support its peripheral states. It is in those circumstances that social movements are able to topple already wobbly governments.
Revolutions are not things of the past, and they will occur in the future. Countless demonstrations will be held around the world with varying levels of conviction, but revolutions are rare geopolitical phenomena.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE (requires an email but you get updates via email all the time and some free articles)....http://www.stratfor.com/sample/geopolitical-diary/rare-phenomenon-revolution

The Last Great Escape

The best documentary I've seen on North Korea in a long time.  ANyway, this doc tells the story of two North Koreans who escaped from Prison camps in North Korea and uses animation to enhance the story...check it out...

(PS:  This doc plays in Canada...hopefully works everywhere...)

The Last Great Escape

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2013-2014/the-last-great-escape

Also this is another doc with a great INSIDE Look into CAMP 14...

Camp 14: Total Control Zone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb1iwo4txE4

More on North Korea here.

http://ajarnmike.blogspot.ca/search/label/North%20Korea

US and UK spy agencies defeat privacy and security on the internet

Another example of governments and corporations working hand in hand to subdue the common man.  We shouldn't be scared of them, they should be scared of us...Indeed, the system needs to change!

Excerpt:

US and British intelligence agencies have successfully cracked much of the online encryption relied upon by hundreds of millions of people to protect the privacy of their personal data, online transactions and emails, according to top-secret documents revealed by former contractor Edward Snowden.

Those methods include covert measures to ensure NSA control over setting of international encryption standards, the use of supercomputers to break encryption with "brute force", and – the most closely guarded secret of all – collaboration with technology companies and internet service providers themselves.

Hotmail, Google, Yahoo and Facebook all hacked by US and UK spy agencies...
READ MORE HERE...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security 

This is What Winning Looks Like

With more than a 1000 people dead in Iraq in July, and a looming war in Syria it seems that "nation-building" is immensely more difficult than we were led to believe.  Anyway, this is a very interesting doc, please share, adios!

SEE FULL DOCUMENTARY HERE...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/this-is-what-winning-looks-like_n_3268079.html?utm_hp_ref=world&utm_hp_ref=world

Global Threats

 

Various countries are surveyed to find out what they believe is the biggest Global Threat..;.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/24/climate-change-and-financial-instability-seen-as-top-global-threats/