While the UK Government moves forward with its "War on Knives," it is also selling arms to an Israeli government that routinely perpetrates war crimes against innocent Palestinians.
The post UK Moves to Ban Knives—As They Simultaneously Sell Israel Sniper Rifles to Kill Palestinians appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
The system of state-run health care, which is championed by many in Hollywood, is responsible for the death of a baby and now its champions are silent.
The post After Using His Son to Beg for Socialized Medicine, Jimmy Kimmel Silent as It Kills Baby Alfie appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
An elderly man was sentenced to 8 months in a cage after he was photographed driving through a red light camera while flipping up his middle finger.
The post Man Sentenced to 8 Months in Prison After Flipping Off a Red Light Camera appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
In response to an attack on Syria, Russia has launched a cyberwar against the United Kingdom. This “dirty trick” campaign will be against the United States as well, and Boris Johnson, the UK’s Foreign Secretary says retaliation plans against Russia should be made now.
According to The Telegraph UK, Whitehall sources on Sunday night confirmed a Pentagon analysis that showed a 20-fold increase in Russian-sourced “disinformation” being spread online since the cruise missile attacks on Syria in the early hours of Saturday. This ramped up the fears that it could be a precursor to a campaign of cyber attacks by the Kremlin, and the Foreign Secretary said Britain must take “every possible precaution” to guard against it.
The attack on Syria by Western powers has put officials in the UK on edge. They now feel that Russia will retaliate with a cyber attack against UK hospitals and other services including air traffic control, and one expert believes such an attack is imminent. Counter-terrorism expert Michael Clarke, who specializes in defense studies, has urged the public to be ready for “cyber warfare” within the next two or three weeks.
“I suspect Russia will choose not to respond in military terms. But cyber warfare is highly likely,” said Clarke. “It will be an attack on national infrastructure, not just upsetting city firms, but getting inside the transport system, or the health system, or air traffic control. It could affect everyone.”
The UK, US, and France launched 105 missiles at suspected chemical weapons sites in three strikes in Damascus and near Homs on Saturday, and Russian President Putin warned that the US-led strike against Syria would result in “consequences” against the Allied forces, without stating what they would be.
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
As the blame game over the alleged chemical attack in Syria escalates ahead of what is expected to be an imminent, if contained, air strike campaign by the US, UK and/or France against Syria, on Friday morning, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow had “irrefutable evidence” that the attack – which allegedly killed more than 40 people in an April 7 chemical weapons strike on the former rebel outpost of Douma -was staged with the help of a foreign secret service.
“We have irrefutable evidence that this was another staged event, and that the secret services of a certain state that is now at the forefront of a Russophobic campaign was involved in this staged event,” he said during a press conference according to AFP.
Speculation that said “certain state” was the UK was confirmed shortly after, when Russia’s defense ministry alleged that Britain was involved in the suspected chemical attack. According to defense ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Kremlin has evidence that Britain was behind the attack.
Quoted by Reuters, he said: “We have… evidence that proves Britain was directly involved in organizing this provocation.”
As RT further adds, the Russian Defense Ministry presented what it says is “proof that the reported chemical weapons attack in Syria was staged.” It also accused the British government of pressuring the perpetrators to speed up the “provocation.” During a briefing on Friday, the ministry showed interviews with two people, who, it said, are medical professionals working in the only hospital operating in Douma, a town near the Syrian capital, Damascus.
In the interviews released to the media, the two men reported how footage was shot of people dousing each other with water and treating children, which was claimed to show the aftermath of the April 7 chemical weapons attack. The patients shown in the video suffered from smoke poisoning and the water was poured on them by their relatives after a false claim that chemical weapons were used, the ministry said.
“Please, notice. These people do not hide their names. These are not some faceless claims on the social media by anonymous activists. They took part in taking that footage,” said Konashenkov.
“The Russian Defense Ministry also has evidence that Britain had a direct involvement in arranging this provocation in Eastern Ghouta,” the general added, referring to the neighborhood of which Douma is part. “We know for certain that between April 3 and April 6 the so-called White Helmets were seriously pressured from London to speed up the provocation that they were preparing.”
According to Konashenkov, the group, which was a primary source of photos and footage of the purported chemical attack, was informed of a large-scale artillery attack on Damascus planned by the Islamist group Army of Islam, which controlled Douma at the time. The White Helmets were ordered to arrange the provocation after retaliatory strikes by the Syrian government forces, which the shelling was certain to lead to, he said.
One of the interviews published by the ministry showed a man who said his name was Halil Ajij, and who said he was a medical student working at Douma’s only operational hospital. This is how he described the origin of the footage:
“On April 8, a bomb hit a building. The upper floors were damaged and a fire broke at the lower floors. Victims of that bombing were brought to us. People from the upper floors had smoke poisoning. We treated them, based on their suffocation.”
Ajij said that a man unknown to him came and said there was a chemical attack and panic ensued. “Relatives of the victims started dousing each other with water. Other people, who didn’t seem to have medical training, started administering anti-asthma medicine to children. We didn’t see any patient with symptoms of a chemical weapons poisoning,” he said.
The first photos claiming to show the aftermath of the alleged chemical attack on April 7 were published online on the same day, and featured the bodies of many people, including children, some with foam around their mouths and noses. Footage from the hospital was released on Sunday, with the sources behind it claiming that it had been shot on Saturday.
Konashenkov said Russia hoped that international monitors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is due to investigate the circumstances of the incident, will help establish the truth. He added Eastern Ghouta is currently trying to return to peaceful life after being liberated from militant groups by Syrian government forces. He called on other nations and international organizations to provide humanitarian aid, which is badly needed in the area. Russia is already supplying food, medicine, building materials and other essential supplies to the neighborhood, he said.
Residents of the neighborhood, who previously fled violence, are returning to their homes now that the area is relatively safe, the Russian official said. The latest reports from the ground say about 63,000 people have returned, which is over half of the displaced residents, he added.
The reported chemical weapons attack escalated tensions over Syria, just as Damascus was about to seize full control of Eastern Ghouta. The US and allies such as the UK and France threatened military action in response to what they claim is an atrocity committed by the Syrian government. Russia insists the incident was staged and said it reserves the right to counter any attack on Syria.
* * *
On Wednesday, Russia made the first allegation that the chemical attack was staged by Western powers, in this case by the infamous “white helmets,” a US-funded NGO lauded by mainstream media for their humanitarian work, while long-suspected of performing less-than humanitarian deeds behind the curtain.
Speaking with EuroNews, Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizov, said “Russian military specialists have visited this region, walked on those streets, entered those houses, talked to local doctors and visited the only functioning hospital in Douma, including its basement where reportedly the mountains of corpses pile up. There was not a single corpse and even not a single person who came in for treatment after the attack.”
“But we’ve seen them on the video!” responds EuroNews correspondent Andrei Beketov. “There was no chemical attack in Douma, pure and simple,” responds Chizov. “We’ve seen another staged event. There are personnel, specifically trained – and you can guess by whom – amongst the so-called White Helmets, who were already caught in the act with staged videos.”
Russia said previously that it sent experts in radiological, chemical and biological warfare – along with medics, in order to inspect the Eastern Ghouta city of Douma where the attack is said to have taken place.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the experts “found no traces of the use of chemical agents,” following a search of the sites, adding “All these facts show… that no chemical weapons were used in the town of Douma, as it was claimed by the White Helmets.”
“All the accusations brought by the White Helmets, as well as their photos… allegedly showing the victims of the chemical attack, are nothing more than a yet another piece of fake news and an attempt to disrupt the ceasefire,” said the Russian Reconciliation Center.
* * *
In any case, if Russia indeed has “irrefutable evidence”, it is probably just a matter of time before it is made public in an attempt to sway public opinion, ideally before the Syrian airstrikes begin afresh. If confirmed, it would be a major slap in the face of neo-con forces across “western democracies”, if hardly a shock: after all the US using a fabricated pretext to wage war or simply to effect a much needed distraction from domestic affairs, in the middle east is a painfully familiar narrative.
Meanwhile, as we wait for Trump to announce what happens next, late on Thursday we reported that US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Defense Secretary James Mattis are reportedly feuding over the strategy in Syria, with Mattis favoring a more cautious approach, even as France and Britain are crafting broad strike plans and are willing to pursue any military strategy, even though as noted, a readout of a Thursday phone conversation President Trump and UK Prime Minister Theresa May suggests that military action may be days away, instead of hours.
(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) London, UK — As the United States continues to experience sensational mass shootings and many Americans call for gun control, the London is dealing with its own rash of violent crime, mostly in the form of knife attacks. Countless memes circulating on the internet have pointed out that despite the British government’s harsh gun laws, criminals […]
Thanks to their government disarming them, the citizens of the UK are helpless against the massive spike in violent crime that has plagued the city of London of the last two months, surpassing that of even New York.
The post The UK Disarmed Its Citizens, Murders Now Skyrocketing as Police Fail to Protect Defenseless Populace appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
“Gun-free” London in the United Kingdom just experienced two shooting incidents in less than 24 hours. One of those shot was a 17-year-old girl and she succumbed to her wounds.
According to the BBC, the teenage girl was found with a gunshot wound in Tottenham on Monday night and pronounced dead at the scene. A police cordon remains in place in Chalgrove Road, near Northumberland Park, in Tottenham where the girl was pronounced dead. A separate boy was also found gunshot wounds in Walthamstow earlier, and another boy who was 15-years-old was found with stab injuries. The boy who was stabbed was not expected to pass away due to his stab wounds.
The shootings come amid concerns over rising violent crime in the capital city. London’s murders have now outpaced those in New York City. Police are not treating the shootings as linked, but there are concerns since guns have been largely illegal in the United Kingdom for over 20 years. Citizens have been banned from defending themselves with any kind of effective tool by their own government and are now nothing more than soft targets for criminals.
Stella Creasy, Metropolitan Police for Walthamstow, said the 16-year-old boy, who was shot on Markhouse Road and taken to a hospital in east London, is still in “intensive care.”
Reports and witnesses claim the mother of the fatally shot teenager could be heard screaming in agony over the loss of her daughter. A local resident claimed to hear many gunshots which she described as a “bomb exploding,” reported the BBC. She also said: “It’s not nice. I’ve lived here for 40 years, and in the last two or three years, it’s become not a nice place. There are so many drugs, stabbings, and killings.”
David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, said he is “deeply worried” about London’s rise in violent crime; particularly in his area. “There is no single cause, but there has been a big spike in both gun crime and knife crime across London,” he said. “Certainly my constituency finds itself at the epicenter of that. There are real issues about a lack of resources.” Not to mention the issue of good citizens being defenseless and at the whims of psychopaths, thanks to laws the government promised would protect them.
There have been no arrests in either shooting. Residents in Tottenham say that violence is a regular occurrence, as stabbings and shootings are sharply and quickly rising.
Billionaire and Hungarian born investor George Soros is making waves again. He’s meddling in the Brexit issue by giving £100,000 to Best for Britain, a globalist anti-sovereign campaign.
Soros angered Brexiteers by donating even more money to a campaign desperate to keep Britain under the thumb of the European Union’s control. The move comes on the heels of Soros drawing fire from Brexiteers when it emerged he was donating £400,000 to the campaign group Best for Britain to try and halt withdrawal from the EU.
The group’s CEO Eloise Todd said Brexit could still be stopped and it wouldn’t take much. Best for Britain seeks to stop Brexit and British sovereignty by a simple parliament vote. So why do they need Soros’ money? Because globalism cannot succeed when nations seek sovereignty. “The UK’s future with the EU is not a done deal, there is still a vote to come and people across the country deserve to know the truth about the options on the table: one of which is staying and leading in the EU,” Todd said.
Hungarian-born Soros, one of the world’s richest men who made a billion dollars betting against Britain on Black Wednesday in 1992, accused critics of a maligning him. “I am happy to take the fight to those who have tried to use a smear campaign, not arguments, to prop up their failing case,” Soros told The Guardian.
In a bid to regain the initiative on Brexit after a rocky few weeks during which Cabinet tensions came to the surface, Prime Minister Theresa May is set to make two keynote addresses. The propaganda surrounding Brexit is fierce and attempting to manipulate the public into accepting the EU’s dictatorial control over the UK. Brexiteers are likened to Nazis, while control of the UK is celebrated by those who peddle globalism and tyranny.
Britain has a tough battle ahead to preserve their sovereignty; as taking back power has always been difficult, and even George Soros won’t go down without a fight.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will kick-off the Brexit blitz on Wednesday, Valentine’s Day, with a call for unity over Brexit. Theresa May will deliver a major speech on post-Brexit UK-EU security in Germany next Saturday and will round off the process in about three weeks’ time with a keynote address on the overall relationship, following a special “away day” summit of the Cabinet withdrawal committee at Chequers.
Has the US-Israeli-UK War with Iran officially started? Are the recent Iranian protests suspicious? Why were protestors critiquing Iranian foreign policy?
War with Iran is the best way to describe what is happening right now with the recent Iranian protests. Yes, the Iranian people have legitimate gripes (especially economic) with the theocratic government there, which is hardly a bastion of freedom. However, there can be no doubt that these protests are orchestrated by the same meddlesome US-Israeli axis (and you can add the UK in there too) which has been the driving force behind all Middle Eastern wars for at least 50 years. These protests are merely the latest manifestation of a continuous and incessant Anglo-Zionist policy of targeting Iran. They may ignite further conflict, or they may be quelled, but either way, you will make more sense of them by understanding the long and deep history of US, Israeli and UK interference in Iran. Right after Trump assumed office at the start of 2017, he made his intention clear that he wanted war with Iran. These protests are yet another way in which the US-Israeli-UK axis is showing it wants war with Iran – and will go to any lengths to get it.
When news of the 2018 Iranian protests first broke on January 1st, some were struck by the odd assortment of protest cries. The Iranian protestors were reported to be complaining about all sorts of things:
“Death to the dictator” (an apparent reference to Ayatollah Khamenei)
“Death to Rouhani” (the current Iranian president)
“I give my life for Iran, not Gaza, not Lebanon”
“We are of Aryaee [Aryan] race, we don’t worship Arabs”
The big clue among these protest cries is this next one, where the “protestors” were said to have shouted:
“No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, no to Palestine, no to Syria”
It is perfectly understandable for some Iranian people to be complaining about the price of eggs. It is also understandable for them to be expressing dissatisfaction with their leaders. But since when do average people on the street – especially those in dire financial straits – start taking an active interest in the foreign policy of their nation? Do you really think an average poor Iranian cares enough to critique his nation’s foreign policy of defending Syria against ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc. when he’s just trying to feed his family? That doesn’t even come close to passing the smell test. Besides, Iran is widely esteemed for having had the intelligence and strength to intervene in Syria (alongside Russia) and stave off the coalition of mercenaries, “moderate” terrorists, Wahhabis, takfiris and other fighters – all funded and trained by the US, Israel, UK, Saudi Arabia, the GCC, NATO and other nations – who would surely have set their sights on Iran had they been successful in toppling Bashar Al Assad. Why on Earth would an average Iranian protest his country’s skilled intervention in Syria? Or protest that Iran cares too much about the Palestinians (fellow Muslims) in Gaza?
Israel, on the other hand, has been loudly complaining for years about Iran’s involvement in propping up Hamas (Palestine), Hezbollah (Lebanon), Syria, Yemen and other places, so these “Iranian protests” constitute a perfect Zionist wishlist for the region. Just a coincidence, I’m sure …
Like many other countries in the world, Iran has been a victim of foreign meddling by the Anglo-American Empire. In a sad but watershed moment in its history, its democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953 due to a CIA coup, after he made moves to nationalize the Iranian oil industry. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later to become BP) had been making a killing taking Iranian oil for British use, and only paying 16% of their profits back to Iran. Once the Shah was installed, along with a new PM who was sympathetic to the British and Americans, the Iranians lived under authoritarian rule until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. As Eric Margolis writes:
“The 1953 coup went perfectly. Mossadegh was ousted with backing from the Army and Savak. Iran’s oil remained safe in western hands. The successful Iran uprising became the template for future ‘color revolutions’ in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Russia, Poland, and Romania.
…Iran’s new Islamic Republic was deemed a dire threat to Western and Israeli strategic and military interests (think Saudi Arabia). The very idea that the Islamic Republic would follow the tenets of Islam and share oil wealth with the needy was anathema to London and Washington. Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, ran Iran’s dreaded, brutal secret police, Savak. The crooked royal family looted the nation and stored their swag in California.”
During the 1980s, Iran was consistently the target of US ire. First there was the 1980 Iranian hostage crisis which affected the outcome of the US presidential election. Then, during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, started when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, the US decided to arm Iraq against Iran. Iraq ultimately lost that war and then the US turned against them too.
During this time, Iran has refused to kowtow or back down to the Zionist regime, rightly seeing it as the biggest threat to peace in the region. This has put it in the crosshairs of Israel, and since Israel controls America, the crosshairs of the US military too. There has been much Zionist discussion of how Iran can be contained and defeated. The 2009 Brookings Institute (a Zionist organization) paper Which Path to Persia? devotes itself to this issue. Some from the Brookings Institute have even publicly floated the idea of starting a war with Iran with a false flag op, e.g. sinking an Iranian boat. In his 2007 article Unsolicited Advice to the Government of Iran, Gary Hart warned Iran to be careful, since the aggressive US leadership and military need little provocation to attack their enemies. He even mentions 3 false flag incidents in US history: the USS Maine (which provided a pretext for the US to attack Spanish in what became the Spanish-American War in 1898), Pearl Harbor (which justified US entry into WWII in 1941) and Gulf of Tonkin (which provided a pretext for the US to attack Vietnam in what became the Vietnam War in 1964).
It would hardly be surprise if another false flag attack happened to lure Iran into war in the near future.
Stuxnet. Image credit: David Dees.
Iran has been consistently hassled by the US and Israel throughout the last few decades. It had to endure a cyberattack on its nuclear facilities that was named Nitro Zeus (from which we heard about the infamous Stuxnet which was subsequently shown to be an Israeli-based attack). The entire 2012 UNGA had to sit through Netanyahu’s kindergarten bomb cartoon which was patently absurd and hypocritical. Israel continues to sit atop 200-400 nukes while Iran doesn’t even have a single one. The US and Israel fought Iran tooth and nail over its (peaceful) nuclear program. On several occasions, US and international officials have confirmed that Iran is completely abiding by the terms of JCPOA, despite the fact that the US-Israeli axis is itching for any excuse to go to war with Iran. Then there has been the matter of the many dead Iranian scientists; just a few months ago, Reuters reported that Iran had sentenced a Mossad agentto death for his role in the assassinations.
Iran is a theocracy, with power tightly held by the ruling class of mullahs(religious clerics), and thus is a far cry from a open and free society. However, we know that war with Iran (and then eventually Russia-China) is a integral part of the Anglo-American-Zionist NWO agenda. General Wesley Clark spilled the beans long ago by admitting that the Pentagon had their plans for regime change in 7 countries, including Iraq (already invaded and conquered), Libya (already invaded and conquered), Syria (already invaded but couldn’t be conquered) … and now it’s Iran’s turn.
It is so laughable and utterly ridiculous to hear American leaders pretend that “We care about the Iranian people.” How gullible is the Western public going to be? How short is their memory? Will they recall how former US Secretary of State John Kerry made a Freudian slip and admitted that “we are working with China to implode Iran”?
People of Iran – Netanyahu, Trump and all the other warmongers don’t care about you.
It’s time to wake up and smell the agenda.
http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/war-with-iran-agenda-11-signs/
https://ericmargolis.com/2018/01/trumps-failed-coup-in-iran/
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/unsolicited-advice-to-the_b_65984.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitro_Zeus
http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/iran-is-fully-compliant-nuclear-israel-rogue/
The post Has the US-Israeli-UK War with Iran Officially Started? appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
(COMMONDREAMS) Labour members of parliament, London mayor Sadiq Khan, and other British political leaders are demanding that U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned state visit to the United Kingdom be canceled—with some calling for Trump to be banned from the country entirely—following his retweet on Wednesday of several videos posted by the “vile, hate-fueled,” and anti-Muslim organization Britain First.
In remarks delivered on the floor of the House of Commons on Thursday, Labour MP Naz Shah raised the question of whether Trump should “even be allowed to enter our country,” given his decision to boost “inflammatory content of this sort from an extremist organization.”
“Not only has the commander-in-tweet done this, he has defended it,” Shah noted, highlighting Trump’s tweet late Wednesday slamming Prime Minister Theresa May for denouncing his Twitter activity.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan—who has been a vocal critic of the U.S. president in the past—echoed Shah’s comments and urged May to, at the very least, cancel any scheduled state visit.
After this latest incident, it is increasingly clear that any official visit at all from President Trump to Britain would not be welcomed,” Khan said.
The London mayor continued:
“President Trump yesterday used twitter to promote a vile, extremist group that exists solely to sow division and hatred in our country.
“Many Brits who love America and Americans will see this as a betrayal of the special relationship between our two countries. It beggars belief that the president of our closest ally doesn’t see that his support of this extremist group actively undermines the values of tolerance and diversity that makes Britain so great.”
If Trump is permitted to enter the U.K., he will be faced with protests “unprecedented in this country,” concluded Labour MP Barry Sheerman.
Other British political figures took to social media to condemn Trump’s tweets, which were singled-out for praise by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
So POTUS has endorsed the views of a vile, hate-filled racist organisation that hates me and people like me. He is wrong and I refuse to let it go and say nothing
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) November 29, 2017
The Foreign Secretary should summon the US Ambassador today to explain that Trump"s standing by Britain First is unacceptable as it fosters hatred and unrest.
— Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) November 30, 2017
Trump sharing Britain First. Let that sink in. The President of the United States is promoting a fascist, racist, extremist hate group whose leaders have been arrested and convicted. He is no ally or friend of ours. @realDonaldTrump you are not welcome in my country and my city.
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) November 29, 2017
New @realDonaldTrump insult to @theresa_may. She must end humiliating dependence of #Brexit Britain on goodwill of evil racist. Cancel visit
— Vince Cable (@vincecable) November 30, 2017
By Jake Johnson / Creative Commons / Common Dreams / Report a typo
This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.
This report was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse
Talk about a nightmare. It is being reported that criminals were able to hack into Equifax and make off with the credit information of 143 million Americans. We are talking about names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and even driver’s license numbers. If this data breach was an earthquake, we would be talking about a magnitude-10.0 on the identity theft scale. We have never seen anything like this before, and to say that this will be “disastrous” for the credit industry would be a massive understatement.
What really disturbed me about this story is that this hack reportedly occurred between “mid-May and July of this year”…
Credit monitoring company Equifax has been hit by a high-tech heist that exposed the Social Security numbers and other sensitive information about 143 million Americans. Now the unwitting victims have to worry about the threat of having their identities stolen.
The Atlanta-based company, one of three major U.S. credit bureaus, said Thursday that “criminals” exploited a U.S. website application to access files between mid-May and July of this year.
So why didn’t we learn about this until September?
Somebody out there really needs to answer that question for us.
And even though the “143 million” number is being thrown around constantly, according to USA Today we may never know the true number of victims…
When asked if there’s a way to quantify how many people have been harmed, John Ulzheimer, a credit expert and former employee at Equifax and credit score firm FICO, said: “There’s no way to know, and there may never be a way to know.”
Personally, I don’t see how Equifax can possibly survive after this. Their stock price is already crashing, and now it has come out that they had put a “music major” in charge of data security…
When Congress hauls in Equifax CEO Richard Smith to grill him, it can start by asking why he put someone with degrees in music in charge of the company’s data security.
And then they might also ask him if anyone at the company has been involved in efforts to cover up Susan Mauldin’s lack of educational qualifications since the data breach became public.
It would be fascinating to hear Smith try to explain both of those extraordinary items.
Also, we are now finding out that Equifax has not just had security problems here in the United States.
According to the New York Post, data breaches have been taking place all over the globe…
Hackers had access to the names, dates of birth and e-mail addresses of nearly 400,000 people in the United Kingdom, said Equifax’s British subsidiary in a statement last week.
In Canada, sensitive data belonging to 10,000 consumers may have been hacked in the breach, said a statement from the Canadian Automobile Association.
In Argentina, one of the company’s portals was so easily accessible that it allowed quick exposure to the personal information of more than 14,000 people.
As noted above, the public didn’t learn about any of this until September.
But once top Equifax officials learned what had happened, some of them started dumping their shares of Equifax very rapidly…
Three Equifax executives — not the ones who are departing — sold shares worth a combined $1.8 million just a few days after the company discovered the breach, according to documents filed with securities regulators.
Equifax shares have lost a third of their value since it announced the breach.
Needless to say, the SEC is going to be looking into this very closely.
As we move forward, there is a tremendous amount of concern as to how much this data breach will affect the U.S. economy.
Only time will tell, but without a doubt it will have an impact. For example, according to Bloomberg this data breach could potentially have an absolutely disastrous impact on store-branded credit cards…
Equifax Inc.’s massive data breach could make an already tough market outlook even more daunting for the firms behind Gap Inc.’s and Ann Taylor’s store-branded credit cards.
Those retailers’ banking partners, including Synchrony Financial and Alliance Data Systems Corp., could see fewer account originations as more consumers freeze their credit to avoid hack-related fraud. Consumers have to take extra steps — including calling the credit bureau, going online or paying fees — to lift a block and get a new card.
“If people are defaulting to credit freezes, then if you’re a Macy’s retailer trying to sell credit cards, you can’t get that done at the point of sale,” said Vincent Caintic, an analyst at Stephens Inc. “It could become a regular thing, these freezes. It does slow down the origination process and it’s probably going to increase acquisition costs.”
If you believe that your data may have been compromised in this breach, there are some things that you can do right away to help protect against identity theft. You can sign up for 24 hour a day credit monitoring, you can request fraud alerts, you can enable “two factor authentication” and beyond all of that you could go as far as to freeze your credit.
But if everybody in America suddenly started freezing their credit, that would slow down economic activity dramatically. So needless to say authorities are hoping that does not happen.
In this case, Equifax needs to step up and do the right thing. They need to inform all of the victims (even if that means reaching out to 143 million different people), and they should automatically provide free credit monitoring for all of those that were affected.
I seriously doubt that Equifax will take these measures, and I also seriously doubt that Equifax will be able to survive much longer.
When you bungle something as badly as Equifax has done, it is nearly impossible to restore faith in an organization. The credit information of 143 million Americans is now in the hands of criminals, and the potential damage that could be done is absolutely off the charts.
Catholic churches all around the world have been accused of sex scandals, including the Vatican, which has allegedly paid an astonishing $4 billion since 1950 to settle sexual abuse claims. Far too often these stories involve priests taking advantage of their positions of authority in order to sexually abuse people, often children.
More recently, the UK government and the Catholic church have come under public scrutiny for claiming that victims of child sexual abuse “consented” to their rapes in order to avoid compensating the victims. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) establishes which victims get compensated, and they do so by determining whether or not the victim gave consent, even if the victim is a child well under the legal age limit.
The Telegraph reported last month that, according to CICA, “A victim can consent in fact even though in law they may be deemed not to have consented.” That’s right, this government loophole can be used to claim that even though a child may be under the legal age limit, they can still provide consent.
To give you a better picture of how this works, one case that was explained by the charity Victim Support involved a 12-year-old girl who was led into the woods and sexually assaulted by a 21-year-old man while she was intoxicated.
Interestingly enough, despite the fact that the man pled guilty to having sex with a minor, she still wasn’t compensated because she allegedly “gave consent” by “voluntarily” going into the woods with him.
“No child ever gives their ‘consent’ to being abused, and the increased use of this line of defence, although still quite rare, is worrying,” said Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England. “I have contacted the Ministry of Justice previously and again recently about this issue and the Government should look urgently at what can be done to tackle it.”
They also argued that she was able to give consent because she had recently had sex with someone her own age. That’s like saying, “If you consent to someone your own age, you consent to everyone. If you’ve consented in the past, you consent to everyone.” That is not an ethical argument, and we should not be teaching children that this irrational logic is okay.
A Freedom of Information Act request introduced by Victim Support indicated that since this loophole came into fruition in 2012, a total of 693 cases in which child sexual abuse victims came forward were denied compensation by the CICA. Though many of these cases involved children who were 16, some of the victims were much younger.
As it turns out, this loophole most often benefits private schools, religious groups, and the local authorities. For example, lawyers for the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark explained to one of the sexual abuse victims that his rape “actually occurred in the context of a consensual relationship (albeit one the Claimant in retrospect now appears to regret).”
Although this particular case was actually settled to the tune of £80,000, the victim stated that the defence was both insulting and highlighted the fact that he was below the legal age of consent. There’s a legal age limit for a reason, and it’s strange that this law is being bent through the use of another law.
Dino Nocivelli, a specialist child abuse solicitor at Bolt Burdon, explained on Kent Live: “It is time for the church to practise what they preach and to admit their failings, to take account of the damage this has caused to the lives of far too many children and lastly to apologise for the abuse.”
An important question we need to start asking ourselves and the government is: Why are people in authority positions let off the hook for violent crimes? Sexual abuse and rape are not crimes that should go ignored, yet time and time again, higher-ups and government officials are excused from the law.
To name a few examples, we have the Jeffrey Epstein case, in which he was accused of recruiting and forcing dozens of children into an underground network of sex slaves, who served many of the elite members of society, including former American President Bill Clinton.
Epstein owned a private jet, referred to as the “Lolita Express” by mainstream media (MSM), which was used to transport Epstein and his elitist friends to Little St. James, Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands — dubbed “Orgy Island” by the tabloids. Despite all of these allegations and proven facts, he only served approximately one year in jail time.
Former U.S. representative Cynthia McKinney also knew about the government’s relationship to human trafficking, and she actually addressed it in 2005. She grilled Donald Rumsfeld on military contractor DynCorp’s child trafficking business of selling women and children.
Ted Gunderson, former FBI special agent and head of their L.A. office, worked to uncover years’ worth of information on high-level pedophilia, sexual abuse, and satanic rituals performed by the government and the elite (or the cabal). In my opinion, Ted Gunderson is a wonderful place to start your research on this subject. You can read more about that in our CE article here.
Although these examples are outside of the UK, they still speak to how the government provides special treatment when it comes to crimes committed by those in higher social classes.
Time and time again, the government allows perpetrators of sexual violence to go unpunished. If we’re not willing to face these issues, regardless of who the perpetrator is, then how will we fix this clear issue within society? Sexual violence is never okay, and we should not be blaming the victims for crimes they were not responsible for.
We need to start treating everyone as equal and extend more compassion to others; only then will we be able to not only improve our judiciary system, but hopefully prevent these crimes from occurring in the first place.
[image: Reuters]Numerous accusations by Washington and its rogue allies about Syria using chemical weapons were fabricated.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia was caught red-handed supplying terrorists in Syria with CWs. So was Turkey, discovered shipping toxic sarin gas cross-border. Perhaps Jordan and Israel supplied CWs. Both countries support ISIS and other terrorist groups.
Syrian forces never used them at any time throughout years of war. No credible evidence suggests it. Claims made were phony.
On August 6, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said US and UK-made CWs were found in liberated Syrian areas, noting:
“The consequences of the war that has been raging in Syria for many years are now being analyzed and material evidence has started to emerge. It has been mentioned many times at various levels.”
“The fact is that the western states and regional countries have directly or indirectly supplied banned poisonous substances to militants, terrorists and extremists active in Syria” – along with Western weapons and other material support.
Clear evidence shows ISIS, al-Nusra and other terrorist groups were aided by nations “claim(ing) their commitment to democratic principles and international law, but in fact, they supply militants with things necessary to continue military activities on the territory of an independent state.”
Information was “handed over to the United Nations and even made public during bilateral talks, particularly between Russia and the United States,” Zakharova explained.
Separately on Facebook, she said “(h)ere you can see all their commitment to international law and the triumph of democracy. Supplying chemical agents to terrorists and using photos of killed children as a pretext is beyond one’s comprehension.”
On Wednesday, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad accused Washington and Britain of supplying terrorists in Syria with CWs, explaining evidence was found in liberated areas by government forces.
Munitions filled with toxic agents were discovered – produced by the US Federal Laboratories and NonLethal Technologies, as well as Britain’s Cherming Defence.
Russian lower house State Duma International Affairs Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky responded to the evidence, saying:
“Syria now has all the reasons and the right to address the United Nations over western-produced chemical weapons found on the territories liberated from terrorists.”
“The information released by the Syrian Foreign Ministry once more demonstrates in full the hypocrisy of the members of the western US-led coalition, and proves that the entire goal of the entire operation is to remove the regime of President Bashar Assad.”
They support the terrorist scourge they claim to oppose, what’s been well known all along, something I stress repeatedly in my articles on Syria.
Washington, NATO, Israel and their rogue allies want endless war and regime change, not peace and stability, notions anathema to their diabolical agenda.
(ANTIMEDIA) The Catholic Church and government agencies in the United Kingdom have developed a new argument to avoid paying out settlements to victims of pedophilia and sex abuse: they’re claiming the children consented.
As the Telegraph noted over the weekend:
“Lawyers who represent some of the victims have told the Sunday Telegraph that the defence is more frequently being used by private schools, religious groups and local authorities when trying to defend compensation claims.”
Though news of these recent attempts to avoid paying settlements emerged last month, the Telegraph recently viewed documents from two court cases in which defense attorneys used the “consent” argument.
“One claimant was told by lawyers for the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark that his abuse, which included rape and began when he was 15, ‘actually occurred in the context of a consensual relationship (albeit one the Claimant in retrospect now appears to regret),’” the Telegraph reported.
“I was below the legal age of consent anyway and there’s a grooming element to that kind of situation. It was totally disregarded and it made me feel really small,” he said.
According to Siobhán Crawford, a lawyer with London-based Bolt Burdon Kemp, the strategy is usually used when a child turns sixteen during the abuse. Sixteen is the age of consent, though the Telegraph notes that “[f]or adults in a position of authority, it is illegal to have sex with a child under their care, even if the child is 16 or 17 at the time.”
Even so, in one case, the Cambridgeshire County Council, a government entity, claimed a student whose abuse started when she was under 16 consented:
“On her own account the Claimant voluntarily sought out contact with [the teacher] and considered that she was in a relationship with him. If that is correct, after she had obtained the age of 16, the Claimant consented to sexual acts with [the teacher] and those acts ceased to be assaults.”
The victims in these two cases were eventually compensated.
Despite claims from the Church and government that consent was issued, Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, disagrees. “No child ever gives their ‘consent’ to being abused, and the increased use of this line of defence, although still quite rare, is worrying,” she said.
While the defense is rare, it is being employed more often. Crawford told the Telegraph that her firm had dealt with ten cases and that “there had been an increase in the past two years as authorities became aware that it was an option.”
Barnardo’s, one of the children’s charities objecting to this new line of defense, said in July that since the CICA was established in 2012, “nearly 700 child victims of sexual abuse have been refused payments ranging between £1,000 and £44,000, according to a freedom of information request by the charity coalition,” which also includes Victim Support, Liberty, Rape Crisis and the National Working Group (NWG).
One case in which the victim was not compensated, the Telegraph noted in July, “involved a 12-year-old girl who was plied with alcohol, led into the woods and sexually assaulted by a 21-year-old man.”
“This was because she had gone into the woods ‘voluntarily,’ had not been a victim of violence, she emerged ‘happily’ from the woods and that she had recently had sexual relations with another child around her own age,” the outlet summarized.
The coalition of charities has called for a change in rules. According to a press release Barnardo’s issued in July:
“The coalition is calling for the rules to be changed so no child groomed and manipulated into sexual abuse is denied compensation because they complied with their abuse through fear, lack of understanding, or being brainwashed into believing their abuser loved them and developing feelings for them.”
This is only the latest controversy surrounding the Catholic Church, which has been defending alleged pedophiles and child abusers within its ranks for years. The government agencies in question are also under fire now, too.
As Dawn Thomas, co-chair of Rape Crisis England & Wales, said last month:
“It’s not only bizarre but also inappropriate and harmful that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority applies a different definition of consent from the law and, as a result, routinely tell victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and exploitation that they consented to the sexual violence perpetrated against them.”
Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo
There is a complex set of factors for determining if a person is transgender. While science hasn’t nailed down the exact physiological and neurological markers to determine what makes a person have gender distress, there is no doubt that it exists. If individuals identify with a different gender than they were born, it is no one’s right to prevent them from remedying it. That being said, should young children who feel they may be in gender distress be given sex change drugs — by the government?
Regardless of how you feel in regard to the question above, the fact is that it is happening. More than 800 children in the United Kingdom — some as young as 10 — are now being given these controversial sex change drugs.
Britain’s National Health Service is prescribing children powerful hormone injections which halt the development of sex organs, breasts, and body hair. These drugs are meant to keep children in a prepubescent state so they can be easier to operate on when they become adults.
It is safe to assume that children can know that they identify with a different sex than they were born. However, it is also safe to assume that some children may be mistaking these feeling for something else and could change their minds several more times before becoming a physical adult.
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The Daily Mail reported on a transgender girl who says that had she not been given these hormone injections, she would have killed herself.
Teenager Llyr Jones has been taking puberty-blocking drugs for the past six months.
The 17-year-old told how she was desperate to be prescribed the injections to end the agony she was going through as her body began to change into that of an adult man.
Llyr, from Aberystwyth in Mid-Wales, said if the physical transformations that came with puberty had been allowed to continue, she would have been pushed to take her own life.
‘In all honesty, if I hadn’t been allowed to be on the blockers and start my transition, I’m sure I wouldn’t be here now,’ she said.
Jones was in gender distress and these drugs could’ve very well saved her life. However, she is almost twice as old as some of the other children being given these same drugs.
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As the Mail reports, more than 600 young people are undergoing treatment at the Gender Identity Development Service clinic at University College Hospital in London, and a further 200 at a clinic in Leeds. The MoS has been told that 230 of those 800 are under the age of 14.
For some reason, in 2014, the government removed the age limit for hormone therapy, which was 16. Now, doctors can give these drugs to third and fourth graders and have even considered its use in children as young as 9.
In Britain, the government thinks people aren’t smart enough to make their own decisions on many fronts. For example, they think people should have to wait until they are 18 before they can drink or smoke. However, that same government will give children life changing medication if they claim to identify with a different gender. As professor of psychiatry Paul McHugh writes:
We frequently hear from neuroscientists that the adolescent brain is too immature to make reliably rational decisions.
But we are supposed to expect emotionally troubled adolescents to make decisions about their gender identities and about serious medical treatments at the age of 12 or younger.
As the Mail notes, Mary Douglas, a spokeswoman for Grassroots Conservatives campaign group, said: “Adolescence is the age when you’re in a turmoil because you’re trying to work out who you are and gender is a big part of that.
“So to introduce such powerful medication into that is unwise.
“This drastic notion that we should change our gender should be a last resort. Caution needs to be the watchword for everyone engaged in this, including doctors.”
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“These kids are not old enough to make life-changing decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. It’s unethical to pursue this line of treatment with children who cannot possibly understand what they’re doing,” Stephanie Davies-Arai, of Transgender Trend, a parent group concerned about the rise of children identifying as the opposite sex said.
However, Professor Gary Butler, the lead clinician for the gender identity service in London and Leeds, disagrees. He says that these drugs can help transgender children who may have distress from puberty.
But puberty itself, even for nontransgenders, is distressing. Some of these children may be misguided and not be transgender at all, but they are given these powerful drugs anyway.
Also, as McHugh points out, “most children who identify as the opposite sex will eventually come to identify as their biological sex.”
Until much more is known about gender dysphoria, and until controlled clinical trials of puberty-suppression are carried out, this intervention should be considered experimental.
Regardless of the good intentions of the physicians and parents, to expose young people to such treatments is to endanger them.
A child trafficking crisis in unfolding in the UK with over 100 children recently gone missing and experts warning that number is likely far greater. Charity and government officials are now frantically working to put the breaks on the problem as children are being bought and sold into slavery and sexual exploitation.
As the refugee crisis began to spike, as a direct result of Western foreign policy in the Middle East, the UK came up with the Dubs Amendment to allow children whose parents had been killed, a fast track route into the country to ensure their safety. However, the government grossly underestimated the difficult nature of placing so many children and the Dubs scheme was halted.
This inadequate planning led to hundreds of children being routed all over with government losing track and many of them falling into the hands of child traffickers.
“Now that the Dubs scheme has closed down and family reunification referrals are extremely delayed, these kids’ only real option is to jump on lorries,” Michael McHugh, the RYS coordination and child protection officer said to the Independent. “There are people here now who are doing business facilitating this, and they speak the children’s language.
“Young people are becoming more and more emboldened in their pursuit to cross, with many considering ‘work’ as a way to do it. One child here recently told me he was told by an adult male that if he could do some work he would be taken to the UK.”
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This ‘work’, however, is little more than sex abuse and slavery. Authorities have found children working as slaves and some as young as 11-years-old, addicted to heroin.
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“This is the tip of the iceberg,” said McHugh, who says the number of trafficked children is likely far higher.
Christine Beddoe, an adviser on tackling child trafficking who co-authored a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Trafficking and Modern Slavery, said children and young people in Calais are turning to smugglers “in desperation” to help them get out of their current situation, which she said ”can very quickly turn into a trafficking situation,” reports the Independent.
“Both in Calais and once they reach the UK, children and young people are falling victim to sexual exploitation, labor exploitation, criminal exploitation – it can be all three,” she said.
“Very high prices are demanded and if they don’t have families who can pay, then those young people are expected to do something to pay back that money, and then that turns into an exploitation situation.
“You can either pay your way if you’ve got money, or if you haven’t got money, the very same opportunistic criminals will still try to get you there. But then these children are locked into having to repay that debt.”
“One of the biggest problems that is hidden in the UK with victims of trafficking is the sexual exploitation of young boys,” she said. “Because in a lot of the countries they come from there is so much stigma about sexual abuse of males, victims are very reluctant to talk.
“But rampant sexual abuse that goes on, not only on the journey, but also here in the UK. This level of abuse is so hidden here that when the British Government under the Dubs scheme talked about the vulnerability criteria, they didn’t even mention about sexual abuse of male children,” Beddoe explained of the government’s lack of effectiveness.
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“It’s hidden on a policy level. The whole political framework overlooks the vulnerability of boys from all sorts of different backgrounds being sexually abused, and that is one of the crises in this situation.”
Kevin Hyland, the UK’s Anti-Slavery Commissioner admits that the government is not doing enough to stop the rampant exploitation of children in the UK, according to the Independent. “We need to stop playing the blame game. It’s time to move from a culture of condemnation to one of responsibility. We have UN global goals – now is the time to put them into action,” he said.
The time for action is certainly now. As the Free Thought Project reported, according to a London top cop, Britain’s capital has become a hotspot for forced labor and sex slavery.
There are an estimated 13,000 victims of forced labor, sexual exploitation and domestic servitude in Britain, according to Government data and the police have no idea how to handle it.
The number of child trafficking victims has risen to a record high, according to data obtained by the UK’s National Referral Mechanism.
Sadly, the government has admitted it has no way of stopping it.
As the state scrambles to deal with the mass influx of refugees, they are missing the point entirely. Their foreign policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria has created this flow of people who had their homes destroyed, parents killed, and towns taken over by terrorists.
These innocent people are forced from their countries and into European nations where cultural conflicts and trafficking situations arise and war is the underlying cause. No one mentions it either, leading many to believe it is by design.
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Until these murderous and senseless wars and occupations are brought to a halt, the West’s refugee crisis will continue to worsen, as will the child trafficking, xenophobia, hatred, and violence.
In one of the most invasive moves by the state in recent history, the UK government will now require internet users to verify their identity before being able to access online porn.
In an Orwellian move — ostensibly made to ‘protect the children’ — the UK government is set to announce that by April 2018, people in the UK will have to prove they are 18 before being allowed access to porn websites. What could possibly go wrong?
As the BBC reported on Monday, websites will be legally required to install age verification controls by April 2018 as part of a move to make the internet safer for children.
If a porn site refuses to go along with this Orwellian move, they will be essentially banned from the internet by rules set out in the Digital Economy Act.
According to the BBC:
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Under the plans, firms supplying payment and other services to the pornography websites could be notified about any breach.
A regulatory body will be asked to oversee and enforce the new rules.
It is thought this could be the British Board of Film Classification which already sets age limits for films and computer games.
‘Most robust protection’
Digital minister Matt Hancock will formally begin the process, which was the subject of a 2016 consultation during David Cameron’s government, in a written statement to the Commons later.
Mr Hancock said: “All this means that while we can enjoy the freedom of the web, the UK will have the most robust internet child protection measures of any country in the world.”
“Steps like this to help restrict access, alongside the provision of free parental controls and education, are key,” Will Gardner, from internet safety charity Childnet said.
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Of course, on the surface, this may seem like it’s for the children. However, it is nothing short of total online surveillance.
It is estimated that 28,258 users — every single second — access porn on the internet. Those numbers are staggering and allowing government access to all those identities would be a death blow to online privacy.
Allowing the government to play the role of parent online is not only a massive concession to the nanny state but it opens the gate to total online surveillance.
There are already dozens of highly effective, third party programs — many of which are completely free — that block children from accessing adult content online. Parents should be the ones stopping their kids from seeking out porn online, not the state.
But what about child porn?
Child porn is a very real problem and it victimizes countless innocent children globally. However, this act does nothing to stop it.
Child porn is not accessed through legitimate porn websites. Pedophiles seek out their depraved fantasies on the dark web where users browse these horrific images and videos anonymously.
If the UK government was genuinely concerned about the well-being of British children, then they would stop ignoring the rampant child rape taking place across the country.
However, that is simply not the case.
As RT reported earlier this year, Children reporting violent sexual crimes are not being taken seriously by the police, Britain’s victims’ commissioner, Baroness Newlove, has warned.
Newlove said the authorities are failing young people that come forward with stories of abuse, making them feel like criminals themselves.
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In some cases, children said they were simply not believed or told that they were wasting the police’s time.
“They didn’t care because we were three teenage girls,” a young woman said in describing how the police reacted to her call about an assault.
“It’s like we were wasting their time. They couldn’t be bothered with us.”
Instead of stopping pedophilia, the government is going to track its citizens’ porn habits. Stellar idea.
Fret not child victims, now everyone will be kept safe as internet users are forced to identify themselves before fapping.
