0 Flame: Israel's New Contribution to the Middle East Cyberwar

The country that brought us Iranian nuclear assassinations, explosions at Iran missile bases, and Stuxnet, is at it again.  

Map of known infections from Flame

A computer virus called Flame, is spreading among computers in the Middle East. according to an article by an expert at Kapersky Labs:

…We’ve found what might be the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed. The ‘Flame’ cyber espionage worm came to the attention of our experts at Kaspersky Lab after the UN’s International Telecommunication Union came to us for help in finding an unknown piece of malware which was deleting sensitive information across the Middle East. While searching for that code – nicknamed Wiper – we discovered a new malware codenamed Worm.Win32.Flame.

Flame shares many characteristics with notorious cyber weapons Duqu and Stuxnet: while its features are different, the geography and careful targeting of attacks coupled with the usage of specific software vulnerabilities seems to put it alongside those familiar ‘super-weapons’ currently deployed in the Middle East by unknown perpetrators. Flame can easily be described as one of the most complex threats ever discovered. It’s big and incredibly sophisticated. It pretty much redefines the notion of cyberwar and cyberespionage.…Flame is one of the most complex threats ever discovered.

Classical Zionism decrees that Israel should be a “light unto the nations.”  But Israeli cyberwarriors have taken the saying a bit too literally making Israel a “flame” unto the nations.  Such a contribution Israel is making to the advancement of western civilization.  It would make Herzl and Ahad HaAm proud.

My major scoop is that my senior Israeli source confirms that it is a product of Israeli cyberwarfare experts.  Most such products are produced by the IDF’s Unit 8200, though the Mossad also may take some role in such projects.  So add to all the previous marginally successful efforts this new one.  The goal is apparently to infiltrate the computers of individuals in Iran, Israel, Palestine and elsewhere who are engaged in activities that interest Israel’s secret police including military intelligence.  My source also tells me that this is the first known instance in which Israeli intelligence has used malware to intrude on Israeli citizens.  Within Israel and the Palestinian territories Flame is implemented by the Shin Bet.  The “beauty” of it for the secret police is that unlike “legal” eavesdropping on phones or computers, you don’t need to ask for judicial approval to infect a computer.  No Israeli police officer would ever investigate a case of an Israeli computer infected with Flame since it would lead to exposing Israeli security services.

Flame appears to be the third generation of Israeli malware after Stuxnet and Duqu, which were more specifically targeted at Iranian industrial facilities, specifically its centrifuge network.  It shares some capabilities with them and exploits similar vulnerabilities to gain access to targeted computers and systems (though it is 20 times larger in size).  There is also some indication of similar exploits used by Stuxnet and Flame used to access host computers, which indicate they may share common authorship or have been developed by two separate groups sharing data:

Flame is a sophisticated attack toolkit, which is a lot more complex than Duqu. It is a backdoor, a Trojan, and it has worm-like features, allowing it to replicate in a local network and on removable media if it is commanded so by its master…

Once a system is infected, Flame begins a complex set of operations, including sniffing the network traffic, taking screenshots, recording audio conversations, intercepting the keyboard, and so on. All this data is available to the operators through the link to Flame’s command-and-control servers.

Later, the operators can choose to upload further modules, which expand Flame’s functionality. There are about 20 modules in total and the purpose of most of them is still being investigated.

The “innovation” of Flame is that it not only can record audio, which is a relatively rare feature of worms, it can intrude into the host in multiple ways to steal and monitor information (including recording keystrokes and taking screenshots).  In this fashion it can capture IM conversations that might be otherwise encrypted.  It’s what they call in baseball a “triple threat.”  It also has lots of wifi features especially using Bluetooth which enable it to use the host to scan nearby electronic devices (possibly for vulnerabilities and access to them as well).

Unlike with Stuxnet, the creators of Flame obscured any possibly information that would identify when the original source was created.  This would make it more difficult to track the code to its source in any specific way.  Kapersky though considers the worm a creation that does not predate and says that its authors continue to refine it.

Unlike Stuxnet which was designed to sabotage Iran’s centrifuge network, Flame is not a single-focus malware:

…The creators of Flame are simply looking for any kind of intelligence – e-mails, documents, messages, discussions inside sensitive locations, pretty much everything. We have not seen any specific signs indicating a particular target such as the energy industry – making us believe it’s a complete attack toolkit designed for general cyber-espionage purposes.

However, Flame can do some of the things that Stuxnet did, so it could also be adapted for such specific uses in the event it found a convenient target.  Also, unlike Stuxnet which was designed to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, the current worm targets individuals and organizations more than state entities:

There doesn’t seem to be any visible pattern re the kind of organizations targeted by Flame. Victims range from individuals to certain state-related organizations or educational institutions.

Flame uses at least 80 different servers and domain names to relay its data back home, so it is extremely difficult to track usage and where the information is transferred.

Kapersky notes that Flame may’ve been a companion project to Stuxnet and Duqu that was different enough from them that if the latter two were discovered, Flame could continue operating undetected:

…We believe Flame to be a parallel project, created as a fallback in case some other project is discovered.

Here is some further data on how Flame retrieves information and gleans what is useful to it from what is not:

Flame appears to be much, much more widespread than Duqu, with probably thousands of victims worldwide.  The targets are also of a much wider scope, including academia, private companies, specific individuals and so on.

According to our observations, the operators of Flame…infect several dozen, then conduct analysis of the data of the victim, uninstall Flame from the systems that aren’t interesting, leaving the most important ones in place. After which they start a new series of infections.

Like Stuxnet, Flame uses USB sticks as a method of infection and has two different ways it can accomplish this.  Once inside, it can take advantage of multiple vulnerabilities to gain access not just to individual computers but entire networks.

When asked why the package is so big, Kapersky responded:

Much of these [the size of Flame] are libraries designed to handle SSL traffic, SSH connections, sniffing, attack, interception of communications and so on.

The cybersecurity experts note it took them months to analyze Stuxnet.  Because of its greater size it will likely take a year to do the same for the current worm.

This is an Iranian report on Flame.

UPDATE: Senior Israeli minister, Bogie Yaalon, did everything but spill the beans to Galey Tzahal (Hebrew) in answering a question about the origin of Flame:

Anyone who believes that the Iranian threat is meaningful would find it desirable to take effective means, including these, to sabotage it.  Israel is blessed with being a country that has tremendous technological capabilities.  These tools open all sorts of possibilities for us.

Of course, this doesn’t answer the question why computers in Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Russia and the U.S. were infected as well.  Especially since Flame targets specific computers and does not attack in a generalized way as Stuxnet did.

Source:http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/05/28/flame-israels-new-contribution-to-middle-east-cyberwar/

0 FLASHBACK: The Shocking Truth about Dragon Skin

0 107.2 Bq/kg of cesium from Fukushima pork

107.2 Bq/Kg of cesium was measured from pork of pig farmer in Koriyama city Fukushima.

According to Ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, this is the first time cesium has been detected anywhere near these levels in pork.
It had not been distributed to the market, and Koriyama city has been ordered to dispose of the pork.
Source

Guide on current levels of intake of  radioactive cesium per household, as a comparison.

0 Silver a great business to be in for the next 50 years at least.

Source:http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page32?oid=151847&sn=Detail&pid=32


Hecla Mining CEO, Phil Baker, says it's hard to envision silver mines being able to keep up with demand while the use of silver in various forms of technology is growing significantly.

GRONINGEN (MINEWEB) - 

There has been a lot of talk in recent months about both the monetary role of precious metals and investment demand for silver.

For Hecla Mining President and CEO, Phil Baker, while the investment side of the market is important, it is the technological markets for the metal that are more exciting.

Speaking on Mineweb's Metals Weekly podcast, Baker said the silver market today can best be compared to where it was 100 years ago, when photographic demand was just beginning to grow.

"Hecla has been a silver mining company for 120 years - it was a great business to be in until the early 1980s and it was a terrible business to be in for the next 20 years. We're now back in a phase where it will be a great business to be in for the next 50 years at least."

According to Baker, the reasons for this prediction are two-fold. The first is that silver's unique properties mean that its uses in various forms of technology are growing significantly.

"Roughly half of all of the silver that's demanded today, goes into one of these technological uses. It goes back into the Second World War and then since the start of 2000 - the start of this century we had all sorts of new uses that have really outstripped that decline that we've seen since this photographic demand has exited," he said.

Silver is used in everything from band aids to iPads because of its conductivity, its malleability, its reflectivity and its ability as a biocide. And, as Baker points out, the existing uses aren't going away and "everyday there seem to be something new that comes out that uses silver."

The second reason why Baker is so bullish on the industrial side of the market is that, the markets for these technological products are set to grow significantly in the next few years.

For Baker, the trend towards ever-increasing urbanisation means growing markets for technological products.

"A good example of that is South Korea. About 20 years ago they were consuming about 0.05 ounces of silver per capita. Today they consume about 0.5 ounces - that increase we think will be the same increase that you'll see in China, and you'll see that on top of all of these new applications that we have for silver."

And, while demand is set to grow, Baker is less convinced that supply will be able to keep up, at least in the short term.

"We've had a depression for silver for the last 20 years, until about 2005 and as a result of that, there has not been the exploration for silver. It's really only been since 2005 that you've started to see that. So what new production that you see coming in for silver for the most part, comes in as a bi-product for some other metal. And if you look at the growth rate for gold and if you look at the growth rate for other metals, lead and zinc for example, there's not many new projects that are on the horizon that are going to make a material difference over the course of the next 10 years."

But, he says, "The problem that the silver market has is this underlying industrial demand or technological demand is growing at such a fast rate, that it's hard to envision the mines being able to keep up with the supply. So what's going to have to happen is that above-ground stocks are going to have to move from investment use, and be put into industrial use over time."

Having said that, Baker is also quick to point out that it is unlikely to be one way traffic.

"Investment demand will come and will go, and when it goes, you'll see silver prices being very, very volatile on the downside. I think over the long haul it's going to be very volatile on the upside but you'll have these periods of time with lower silver prices."

4 CNBC Propaganda overdrive: FULL ANNIHILATION OF ISRAEL

Even if that quote is real (and not taken out of context again as Ahmadinejad's was months ago), 


how do you get all that BS from that single quote?...

0 Scottish sniper who shot fellow soldier in Afghanistan had never trained at night, inquest told

A SNIPER who is believed to have shot a comrade he thought was a Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan has told an inquest he had not been trained to fire his rifle in the dark.

Lance Corporal Michael Pritchard, 22, from Eastbourne, East Sussex, was killed by a gunshot wound to the ribcage which is believed to have been fired from a remote observation post, known as a sangar, by Lance Corporal Malcolm Graham, of The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion, who thought he was shooting at insurgents digging in the road, the hearing at Eastbourne Town Hall was told.

L/Cpl Pritchard, who was on secondment with 4th Battalion The Rifles, was deployed to the observation post N30 on December 20, 2009 to watch a blind spot on an access road, Route 611, in the Sangin area of central Helmand Province to make sure Taliban insurgents did not plant improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the road, the hearing was told.

L/Cpl Graham said that all of his sniper training had taken place during daylight hours and he had never used a thermal imaging sight at night.

He told the court he was in bed on December 20 when he was told there were insurgents digging IEDs into the road and that he would receive a briefing when he got to the remote sangar.

On arrival he asked section commander Corporal Jonathan Dolton what was happening and he was told two men were digging IEDs into the road 700m away, the hearing heard.

He was also told escalation drills had been carried out and sentries had fired warning shots with a machine gun.

L/Cpl Graham said: "He (Cpl Dolton) told me there was an observation post in the area and that I had been brought in for accurate fire."

L/Cpl Graham said he was never given an exact location for N30 and asked Cpl Dolton for more information.

He was told it was on the right hand side of the road from where the suspected insurgents were digging but that they could not see the observation post from where they were.

Cpl Dolton told the inquest that if he had realised his men were shooting at British soldiers they would have ceased firing immediately.

He said poor radio communication meant he never received any messages to say shots were being fired close to an observation post where one of their colleagues was fatally wounded.

Cpl Dolton said that he was told by soldiers when he arrived at the remote sangar that they thought they had spotted insurgents in the road.

He looked through a viper thermal imaging sight and made out two human figures in the road, the inquest heard.

He said Lance Corporal Craig Knight told him they had permission to fire warning shots at the sources from the operations room.

Cpl Dolton said he reminded everyone that observation post N30 was being manned to the right side of the road.

But the inquest has heard that all the soldiers in the remote sangar said they were not aware there was an observation post in the area where shots were being fired.

Cpl Dolton told the court he did not believe the heat sources were coming from the post because white light was being used which goes against military tactics, he could see the outline of a body, and that the people appeared to be in the road rather than on the roof of a compound.

He said: "We were all in agreement that there were insurgents laying or arming an IED in the road."

Cpl Dolton said the Bowman (communications system) and their personal radios started working intermittently so getting information to the operations room was difficult.

He said he tried to contact N30 to let them know there were suspected insurgents in their area but he could not get through.

The inquest was told that the operations room told Cpl Dolton there were no soldiers in the road.

Cpl Dolton said: "Following all the suspicious activity I asked the ops room for permission to follow the escalation procedure, meaning moving from warning shots to lethal."

The corporal got out his map and ranged the sniper into the target which was 750m to 800m away, the inquest heard.

He said as far as he knew they had permission to fire across the restricted firing line.

Cpl Dolton said at no point was he told to cease firing at the targets.

He said: "One word, 'They have come a bit close to me'. That would have ended everything."

East Sussex Coroner Alan Craze said: "That was sent."

The corporal replied: "But it was not received, Sir."

Cpl Dolton said the first message he received over his personal radio during the whole incident was: "Check fire. Man down."

He said: "We all immediately began thinking the worst, that fire from our location had hit one of our men.

"L/Cpl Knight and Malc went quiet. They were in shock, as was I.

"I was happy that we had followed the correct procedure and escalation drills during the incident. I did not hear or receive a contact report from anyone saying they were being shot at."

He added that if he had received one message which put any doubt in his mind it would have overruled everything they were doing and they would have stopped firing.

Source:http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2012/05/17/scottish-sniper-who-shot-fellow-soldier-in-afghanistan-had-never-trained-at-night-inquest-told-86908-23863076/

0 Mystery Object Nearly Causes Mid-Air Collision Over Denver! - May 15, 2012

As far as I'm aware, "amateur" remote controlled planes do not fly at 8,000 ft

0 Jim Traficant "Israel gets $15-20 BILLION dollars every year from the US taxpayer"

Jim Traficant speaking in 2009 about Israel's "stranglehold" of US Media, foreign policy, and congress.

0 Why do I feel I'm being laughed at every time I watch this?

oh yeah...

0 The Myth of Gas Chambers at Auschwitz.

0 Radicals' deadly 'booby trap'

FEMALE suicide bombers are being fitted with exploding breast implants which are almost impossible to detect, British spies have reportedly discovered.

The shocking new al-Qaeda tactic involves radical doctors inserting the explosives in women’s breasts during plastic surgery — making them "virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines".

It is believed the doctors have been trained at some of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals before returning to their own countries to perform the surgical procedures.

MI5 has also discovered that extremists are inserting the explosives into the buttocks of some male suicide bombers.

Lethal

Terrorist expert Joseph Farah claims: "Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaeda are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery."

The lethal explosives called PETN are inserted inside plastic shapes during the operation, before the breast is then sewn up.

The discovery of these methods was made after London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came close to blowing up an airliner in the US on Christmas Day.

He had stuffed explosives inside his underpants.

Hours after he had failed, Britain’s intelligence services began to pick up "chatter" emanating from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted MI5 to the creation of the lethal implants.

A hand-picked team investigated the threat which was described as "one that can circumvent our defence".

Top surgeons have confirmed the feasibility of the explosive implants.

One claimed: "Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines.

"You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray.

"Given that the explosive would be inserted in a sealed plastic sachet, and would be a small amount, would make it all the more impossible to spot it with the usual body scanner."

Explosive experts allegedly told MI5 that a sachet containing as little as five ounces of PETN could blow "a considerable hole" in an airline’s skin, causing it to crash.

Source:http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2903793/Radicals-deadly-booby-trap.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News

0 Remote-controlled bomb hits police convoy in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan

Rescuers push a destroyed vehicle at the site of a blast in Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan, on May 12, 2012. At least two people including one policeman was killed and 16 others injured when a remote- controlled bomb hit a police convoy in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar on Saturday morning, said police and hospital sources. (Xinhua/Ahmad Sidique)

At least four people were killed and 12 others injured when a remote-controlled bomb hit a police vehicle in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar on Saturday morning, reported local Urdu TV channel Express.

According to local media reports, the blast took place at about 9:00 a.m. local time when a remote-controlled bomb hit a police vehicle passing by on the G.T. road in the Gulbahar area of Peshawar, the largest city in northwest Pakistan.

At least one policeman was killed and several women were injured in the blast, said local media, adding that the blast also destroyed five vehicles.

All the injured have been rushed to Lady Reading Hospital in the city, where at least four critically injured people died later.

Security forces have cordoned off the area following the blast and a search operation is underway.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

Source:http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-05/12/c_131583672.htm

0 The Gulf is Not OK: What the Media Doesn't Want You to Know

More than two years after the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, no one - absolutely NO ONE (in the mainstream media, that is) will report on the actual conditions in the areas where oil is still washing up. 

Reupload with updates -http://www.youtube.com/user/cv1122
 original video @
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGBXZyNBUyg

Photos courtesy of Renee Hulett

Videos by Denise Rednour:
April 19 2012 Heal the World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05ViUAn3oK4


Sad Saturday Indeed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU11WmT4e9k

Related articles:
Oil from Deepwater Horizon spill still causing damage in gulf 2 years later, scientists find
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/article1225134.ece

Mayor: Tarballs Still Hitting Ala., Cleanup Needed
http://www2.wkrg.com/special_section/2011/apr/13/mayor-tarballs-still-hitting...
A Year After Gulf Tragedy, Offshore Oil Companies Still Shielded by 
Liability Limits
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/a-year-after-gulf-tragedy-offshore-oil-co...

BP oil spill fund administrator defends his work
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/19/nation/la-na-gulf-spill-claims-20110419

Federal practices hamper study of Gulf dolphin deaths
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/16/us-dolphin-strandings-idUSTRE73F2XW...

0 The US Is Now Worried That Israel Could Attack Iran At Any Moment

A surprise deal by Israel's house of representatives Monday night has apparently left the U.S. far more concerned about an attack on Iran, by the new government, than it has let on.

Ron Friedman at The Times Of Israel reports that a local TV news station led the story that Washington officials are holding "marathon talks" over concern that Israel will strike Iran before America's November elections.

From The Times:

Undisclosed Washington sources told Channel 10 that they worry Kadima was offered a place in the coalition to shore up support for a preemptive attack aimed at halting the Islamic Republic’s nuclear drive, and that Kadima chairman Shaul Mofaz would approve of such an attack.

The report added that the US officials believe early Israeli elections would have kept the F-15s at bay, but are now genuinely concerned that with political backing, there is little to stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from ordering the attack.

Basically the U.S. thought that with Israeli elections not happening until September they were safe, but now, all bets are off.

Elad Berari at Arutz Sheva also points out that Israeli's Defense Minister recently warned "that as long as Iran poses a threat to Israel with its nuclear program, all options are on the table."

“I believe it is well understood in Washington, D.C., as well as in Jerusalem that as long as there is an existential threat to our people, all options to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons should remain on the table,” Barak said.

“I have enough experience to know that a military option is not a simple one,” Barak added. “It would be complicated with certain associated risks. But a radical Islamic Republic of Iran with nuclear weapons would be far more dangerous both for the region and, indeed, the world.”

Berari concludes his report by reminding readers that President Obama is already softening his position on Iran's uranium enrichment.

The paper says Obama willingness to allow Iran uranium enrichment concentration of five percent, directly opposes Netanyahu's policy.

In April the Israeli leader told CNN in April "They have to stop all enrichment," even just three percent uranium.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-thinks-israel-could-attack-iran-at-any-moment-2012-5#ixzz1uZennjwC

0 Navy Moving Ahead With Effort to Put Lasers on Ships

After decades and decades of research and experimenting, the time has finally come to add deadly lasers to U.S. Navy ships’ arsenals, the sea service has decided.

That’s right, the Office of Naval Research is moving forward with a plan to arm ships with solid state lasers capable of taking out small enemy vessels that could be used in swarming attacks or suicide bombing mission against American warships.

“We believe it’s time to move forward with solid-state lasers and shift the focus from limited demonstrations to weapon prototype development and related technology advancement,” said Peter Morrison, program officer of the Solid-State Laser Technology Maturation program in a May 8 press release announcing the effort.

ONR wants to capitalize on the work it’s done with BAE Systems to marry lasers to the Mk 38 chain guns that are already used to defend ships. The latest versions of that weapon system can be remotely controlled and tied to a number of video and infrared sensors. As we’ve said before, combining all that with lasers will make the naval versions of the Mk 38 all the more deadly to anyone who gets the wrong idea while piloting a small boat near an American warship.

Want to sell your laser to the Navy? You’re in luck, ONR is hosting an industry day on May 16 “to provide the research and development community with information about the program,” reads the service’s announcement.  Potential laser-dealers can expect a request for proposals soon after that, according the announcement.

Click through the jump for video of one of ONR’s experimental lasers frying the engines of a small boat.

Source:

http://defensetech.org/2012/05/10/navy-moving-ahead-with-effort-to-put-lasers-on-ships/

0 Over 15 nations to join US-led military drill near Syria border

12000 soldiers from 17 countries carry out a US-led joint military exercise in Jordan amid the ongoing the crisis in Syria. ‘It has nothing to do with Syria. [The timing] is just a coincidence,’ a top US official says

Wounded Syrian soldiers are taken to hospital after a bomb attack which targets their convoy as they escort UN peace observers, including the Norwegian general. AP photo

The United States military said yesterday that 12,000 soldiers from 17 countries would be taking part in this month’s military exercises in Jordan, designed to enhance their ability to meet “security challenges.”

Special action troops, naval and air force units from countries including Turkey, France and Saudi Arabia will carry out the joint training operations, according to the Voice of Russia. “The tactical execution of the Eager Lion 2012 exercises will officially start on May 15,” Major Robert Bockholt, public affairs officer at Special Operations Command Central, told Agence France-Presse. 

“Eager Lion is an annual, multi-national exercise designed to strengthen military-to-military relationships through a joint, entire-government, multinational approach, integrating all instruments of national power to meet current and future complex national security challenges. … We acknowledge the right of each participating country to announce their participation in the exercise on their own terms,” Bockholt said. In April, the U.S. Department of Defense said the exercise would be held from May 7 to May 28. Bockholt said participants had been gathering in Jordan from May 7, to prepare for the land, sea and air exercises, which will be held in “various training locations.” “In all, there are more than 12,000 service members participating in the exercise,” he said.

Iran, Syria links denied

Some local media reports have speculated that the war games are linked to the unrest in neighboring Syria, saying the troops were seeking to secure Jordan’s border. “The execution of Eager Lion 2012 is not connected to any real-world event. It has nothing to do with Syria. It is just a coincidence,” 

Bockholt said. The Saudi Defense Ministry also insists that the joint large-scale military maneuvers of the U.S.-Arab allies are in no way linked to the situation in Syria or Iran.

The war games come as Jordan’s Special Operations Forces Exhibition is under way, displaying new technologies by defense manufacturers around the world. 

Jordan is a major beneficiary of U.S. military and economic aid, with Washington granting Amman $2.4 billion in the past five years, according to official figures.


Source:http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/over-15-nations-to-join-us

0 Israeli Minister Agrees Ahmadinejad Never Said Israel ‘Must Be Wiped Off the Map’

Video of an Al Jazeera interview with Dan Meridor, a deputy prime minister of Israel.

In a reminder that Persian rhetoric is not always easy for English-speakers to interpret, a senior Israeli official has acknowledged that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, never actually said that Israel “must be wiped off the map.”

Those words were attributed to Mr. Ahmadinejad in 2005, in English translations of his speech to a “World Without Zionism” conference that October. As my colleague Ethan Bronner reported the next year, one problem was translating a metaphorical turn of phrase in Persian that has no exact English equivalent — there was, for instance, no mention of a map. More important, closer readings of the phrase suggested that the original statement was less of a threat than a prediction.

Last week, Teymoor Nabili of Al Jazeera suggested during an interview with Dan Meridor, Israel’s minister of intelligence and atomic energy, that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s rhetorical flourish had been misinterpreted. “This idea that Iran wants to wipe Israel out,” Mr. Nabili said, “now that’s a common trope that is put about by a lot of people in Israel, a lot of people in the United States, but as we know Ahmadinejad didn’t say that he plans to exterminate Israel, nor did he say that Iran’s policy is to exterminate Israel.”

In response, Mr. Meridor said that Mr. Ahmadinejad and Iran’s ruling cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had said repeatedly “that Israel is an unnatural creature, it will not survive. They didn’t say, ‘We’ll wipe it out,’ you’re right, but, ‘It will not survive.’ ”

Mr. Meridor also pointed out that after Ayatollah Khamenei compared Israel to a cancerous tumor in February — adding, it “should be cut off” — his remarks were echoed last month by the president. “Israel is unnatural, it will not exist, it’s on the verge of collapse,” Mr. Meridor said. “When you hear this from these people, you need to take it seriously.”

Although there is general agreement now among translators and scholars that Mr. Ahmadinejad did not commit his country to the project of destroying the state of Israel in that 2005 speech, the phrase that was wrongly attributed to him then remains so firmly rooted in the popular imagination that it is frequently used as evidence of Iran’s genocidal intentions.

During a visit to the White House last month, on the eve of the Jewish festival of Purim, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel presented President Obama with a copy of the Book of Esther, which recounts the tale of a Persian leader who wanted to annihilate the Jews. “Then, too, they wanted to wipe us out,” Mr. Netanyahu told the president.

In January, Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, told a New York Times Magazine writer: “The Iranians are, after all, a nation whose leaders have set themselves a strategic goal of wiping Israel off the map.”

As the Guardian columnist Jonathan Steele explained in 2006, a more direct translation of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks would be: “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,” echoing a statement once made by the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In an interview with The Lede on Tuesday, Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American writer whose father was an ambassador under the Shah, pointed out that Mr. Ahmadinejad had slightly misquoted Ayatollah Khomeini, using the Persian word for “page” instead of a similar-sounding word for “scene or stage.”

Mr. Majd, who once did a cameo as Mr. Ahmadinejad’s translator at the United Nations, also noted that in the original speech, the Iranian president had argued that while the end of Israeli rule over Jerusalem, the third holiest city in Islam, might seem impossible to imagine, the end of the Shah’s rule and the collapse of the Soviet Union both proved that change on that scale was possible.

Still, over the years, the original misinterpretation of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks has been so often repeated that it has become a kind of shorthand. “In my conversations with Americans,” Mr. Majd said, very often they respond to the name Ahmadinejad by saying, “He wants to eliminate Israel.”

Mr. Majd, who recently spent time in Tehran, added that Mr. Ahmadinejad has perhaps made so little effort to explain that he was misquoted because he relishes his image as a sworn enemy of Israel, and would not want to be seen as stepping back from even threatening remarks he did not make.

Mr. Majd also said that reformers inside Iran blamed Mr. Ahmadinejad’s posturing, and his repeated and accurately translated statements denying the Holocaust, “for inflaming this Iranophobia that exists in the West.”

Source:http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/israeli-minister-agrees-ahmadinejad-never-said-israel-must-be-wiped-off-the-map/

0 New verdict in 1974 massacre of Piazza Loggia brings historical False Flag Bombing back into the mainstream

The acquittal of four people for a bombing 38 years ago has left yet another atrocity from Italy's "Years of Lead" unsolved and underlined the failures of a chaotic justice system.

An appeal court in the northern city of Brescia at the weekend confirmed the acquittal of two neo-fascists, an informer for the secret services and a former police general for a bombing that killed eight people and wounded 103 at an anti-fascist demonstration in the centre of the city in 1974.

Although there have been no fewer than 10 trials and appeals since the bombing, nobody has been convicted of an act central to what is called a "strategy of tension" by right-wing extremists aimed at preventing Italy's then-powerful communist party coming to power at the height of the Cold War.

The PCI was the biggest communist party in the West until it collapsed after the end of the Soviet Union.

The verdict was received with bitterness in Brescia.

A handwritten sign was put up near where the bomb exploded reading "Fascist massacre of Piazza Loggia. Injustice is done!"

Brescia mayor Adriano Paroli told reporters: "The city and the whole country have been waiting for so many years for an answer - an answer that must consist of truth and justice, both of which are lacking today."

"How long will reasons of state or politics overcome the search for the truth?" asked Manlio Milani, who lost his wife in the bombing and leads an association of its victims.

A leading judge and a 1980 parliamentary commission had alleged that American CIA agents and Italian secret service officers were involved in a conspiracy to organize a string of bombings, including Brescia, and to then implicate left-wingers in order to block the rise of the communists and push voters towards the Christian Democrats.

Right-wing sympathizers in the secret services and other parts of the establishment are widely believed to have sabotaged investigations into the bombings, which coincided with the urban guerrilla warfare of the leftist Red Brigades.

EVIDENCE WASHED AWAY

Two hours after the explosion in Brescia, fire hoses were used to clean the piazza where it occurred, washing away potential evidence. Waste bins were hastily emptied.

According to some estimates, up to 2,000 people died in attacks during the Years of Lead, between the late 1960s and early 1980s, which shook the foundations of the Italian republic. The crimes included the Red Brigades' murder of former Christian Democrat prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978.

"The fact that we have still not succeeded in identifying and convicting the guilty 38 years later arouses bitterness and concern," said former interior minister Nicola Mancino.

The list of unsolved crimes includes the first of the series, the bombing of Milan's Piazza Fontana in 1969, where three trials have produced no justice for the 16 people who were killed, and a train bombing in 1974 that killed 12.

Source:http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-16/news/sns-rt-us-italy-bombingsbre83f14z-20120416_1_train-bombing-nicola-mancino-brescia

0 Second Irish Priest is "Thrown a fatwa" by the Vatican for child abuse investigation

Irish priests are at war with the Vatican again after attempts to silence a second rebel cleric.

Veteran Marist priest Fr Sean Fagan has been ordered to stop writing and commentating in public.

The 84-year-old has been reprimanded by the church after he had called for an inquiry into clerical sexual abuse in all Irish dioceses.

His order has also bought all remaining copies of a theological book written by Fr Fagan who was required to give an undertaking not to write again.

The latest move came after Fr Fagan publicly advocated allowing women and married men to be ordained as priests.

The Association of Catholic Priests has condemned the moves to silence Fr Fagan, just days after another rebel priest was ordered to return to his monastery after his newspaper column was pulled by the Church.

ACP spokesman Fr Sean McDonagh told the Irish Independent that the silencing of Fr Fagan is ‘just outrageous’.

Fr McDonagh added: “The church is throwing a fatwa at the priest. Some of the church’s recent actions are like a return to the Inquisition.

“This isn’t the time for heresy hunting. Fr Fagan’s writings were clear, well written and interesting. He wants to start a conversation about the church’s views on sexuality.

“I believe that the silencing of priests by the Vatican is out of a desire for control rather than because of sincerely held belief or intelligent argument.”

The Irish Bishops have refused to comment to the Irish Independent on the story.
 

Source:: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Second-Irish-priest-silenced-by-Church-as-anger-grows-over-gagging-attempts-147729715.html#ixzz1sJ6K018G

0 Israeli Brutality Against Innocent Protester

A heroic IDF soldier defends himself from a violent left wing anarchist.... This video has caused a lot of outrage, but this shows a good insight into how the IDF handles innocent unarmed protesters, if the IDF do this to western citizens who have actual rights, what do you think they do to Palestinians?