Goodbye Enterprise, Impeach Obama 2012, Goldman Sacked - New World Next Week

Source: Corbett Report and Media Monarchy

Welcome to http://NewWorldNextWeek.com – the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:

Uganda, AFRICOM and the Kony Boogeyman

Source: Corbett Report and GRTV

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

When oil executives announced the discovery of the largest onshore oil reserves in the Lake Albert region of Uganda in July 2009, the landlocked, oft-neglected East African nation of Uganda went from relative obscurity to a key partner for multi-national oil conglomerates.

Although buoyed by the news, the people of Uganda were naturally cautious, having seen how oil finds in Nigeria and Angola have brought more violence, bloodshed and instability than peace or prosperity.

Junk Journalism: The "Assad" E-mails

Source: Land Destroyer Report
Tony Cartalucci

Guardian skewers own credibility with hamfisted Wikileaks knock-off aimed at Syria.

"It is impossible to rule out the possibility of fakes in the email cache, but..." "The Assad E-Mails," London Guardian, March 14, 2012.

This sentence right here should have immediately halted the publication of anything revolving around an alleged cache of e-mails provided to the Guardian by the obviously compromised "Syrian opposition." The source is clearly biased, politically motivated, and their information unconfirmed. Yet the Guardian decided to run with the story anyway, casting doubt on their own objectivity, journalistic integrity, and their true motivation, which now is clearly not "journalism."

The Guardian, in their explanation as to why they decided to publish unconfirmed information included the following statement, "we believe the more detailed picture of the workings of Assad's inner circle that emerges from the mails, and the extent to which he and his wife have managed to sustain their luxurious lifestyle, are also of public interest." A "more detailed picture" that is in fact unverified and most likely a politically motivated fabrication is indeed of "public interest" if you are trying to sell a particular narrative regardless of the actual facts.

The job of a journalist is to report the facts impartially to help inform the public and enable them to make accurate decisions in regards to a vast array of issues that affect their daily lives as well as the collective well-being of their communities and nations. A journalist is not to irresponsibly publish anything that comes across their desk, applying sensational headlines while making incredible innuendos only to post disclaimers halfway down the page that the information they are attempting to foist upon the public as fact and "truth," "may not be verified or true."

Iran Strike Imminent: Russian Diplomat

Source: The Hindu
Vladimir Radyuhin

Israel will attack Iran this year if a new round of talks scheduled for April fail, a leading Russian newspaper reported quoting a senior Russian diplomat. 

Russian diplomats at the United Nations believe the strike against Iran is “a matter of when, not if,” the Kommersant daily said on Wednesday. 

“The attack will be mounted before the end of this year. Israel is blackmailing [U.S. President Barack] Obama by confronting him with a dilemma: either he supports the war option or will lose the support [of the U.S. Jews],” a high-ranking official of the Russian Foreign Ministry told the newspaper ahead of the U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria on Monday. 

After the meeting, the Russian diplomat said the attack could come earlier, any time after April when the six-nation group holds new talks with Iran. 

The Kommersant quoted the diplomat as saying that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to warn Iran that the talks were a “last chance for Tehran” to avoid the attack. 

The newspaper said that a precise date and location for the talks was still being discussed. Iran on Tuesday confirmed that the talks would take place soon and said Turkey had been suggested as the venue. 

The coming strike against Iran will save Syria from foreign military intervention, the unnamed Russian diplomat told the Kommersant. 

“Americans realize that Israel will attack Iran and it would be too much to have two wars in the region,” the diplomat said explaining Washington’s consent to let U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan pursue his peace efforts in Syria.

U.S. Threatens Asian Region with Penalties for Continuing Iran Oil Purchases

Source: Activist Post

According to the RT report above, Barack Obama is set to impose penalties on India for continuing to purchase oil from sanction-strapped Iran.  A vague new U.S. law seeks also to sanction any country that is not willing to reduce its purchase of Iranian oil. However, India has expressed reluctance to abide by unilateral sanctions that are not legally binding.  India's Oil Minister has stated that they will continue to purchase from Iran as needed for their growing energy demands, while perhaps turning to gold as a means of sidestepping any attempt at imposing sanctions.  This could be merely a face-saving measure, as other players in the region including China, Japan, and South Korea have taken quick measures to reduce imports following U.S. demands.  Once again, the U.S. proves that ally or not, every sovereign nation must cave to Washington's imperial objectives, or else.  This latest move seems designed to further stress the region and force a shift in the oil economy toward Western-controlled interests, as the U.S. is conveniently offering to broker deals with Saudi Arabia and Iraq as a solution to the problem. (Source: Bloomberg)  

Secret Organic Gardens for China's Elite

Source: LA Times

At a glance, it is clear this is no run-of-the-mill farm: A 6-foot spiked fence hems the meticulously planted vegetables and security guards control a cantilevered gate that glides open only to select cars.

"It is for officials only. They produce organic vegetables, peppers, onions, beans, cauliflowers, but they don't sell to the public," said Li Xiuqin, 68, a lifelong Shunyi village resident who lives directly across the street from the farm but has never been inside. "Ordinary people can't go in there."

Until May, a sign inside the gate identified the property as the Beijing Customs Administration Vegetable Base and Country Club. The placard was removed after a Chinese reporter sneaked inside and published a story about the farm producing organic food so clean the cucumbers could be eaten directly from the vine.

Elsewhere in the world, this might be something to boast about. Not in China. Organic gardening here is a hush-hush affair in which the cleanest, safest products are largely channeled to the rich and politically connected.

Many of the nation's best food companies don't promote or advertise. They don't want the public to know that their limited supply is sent to Communist Party officials, dining halls reserved for top athletes, foreign diplomats, and others in the elite classes. The general public, meanwhile, dines on foods that are increasingly tainted or less than healthful — meats laced with steroids, fish from ponds spiked with hormones to increase growth, milk containing dangerous additives such as melamine, which allows watered-down milk to pass protein-content tests.

"The officials don't really care what the common people eat because they and their family are getting a special supply of food," said Gao Zhiyong, who worked for a state-run food company and wrote a book on the subject.

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KONY 2012: State Propaganda for a New Generation - Must Read

Source: Vigilant Citizen

The overnight viral sensation KONY 2012 brought worldwide awareness to the African war criminal Joseph Kony. Beneath this commendable cause, lies however an elaborate agenda that is presented in the video in a very manipulative way. We’ll look at the agenda behind KONY 2012 and how it uses reverse psychology to not only justify a military operation in Africa, but to actually have people demand it.

...

KONY 2012 is less of a documentary than it is a highly efficient infomercial that is tailor-made for the Facebook generation, using state-of-the-art marketing techniques to make its point. Young people like “underground movements” and want to feel like they are changing the world. KONY 2012 taps into these needs to bring about something that is not “hip” or “underground” at all: A military operation in Uganda. Not only that, it urges the participants of the movement to order stuff, to wear bracelets that are associated with an online profile and to record their actions in social media. This makes KONY 2012 the first artificially created movement that is fully track-able, monitor-able and quantifiable by those who engendered it. In other words, what appears to be a movement “from the people” is actually a new way for the elite to advance its agenda.

A Propaganda Experiment

The video begins with an interesting statement: “The next 27 minutes are an experiment. But in order for it to work, you have to pay attention”. It is an experiment as it tests a new, groundbreaking way to get an agenda accepted by the Facebook generation. In the past, when the government needed to justify the invasion of a country, the President would sit in front of the camera and tell the public why war should be declared in this area of the world. In the case of KONY, the military agenda is disguised as grassroots activism, where the US army entering Uganda would be perceived as a “victory of the people”, effectively reversing the communications model.

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CNN, Al Jazeera Caught Red-Handed Staging War Propaganda

Source: RT

Syria's turmoil has been laid bare on our TV screens for more than a year, but some networks are being accused of affecting rather than reflecting the conflict. Maria Finoshina reports now, on how there's more to the coverage on the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera TV channel, than meets the eye.

U.S. E-Voting System Cracked in Less Than 48 Hours

Source: H-Security

Researchers at the University of Michigan have reported that it took them only a short time to break through the security functions of a pilot project for online voting in Washington, D.C. "Within 48 hours of the system going live, we had gained near complete control of the election server", the researchers wrote in a paper that has now been released. "We successfully changed every vote and revealed almost every secret ballot." The hack was only discovered after about two business days – and most likely only because the intruders left a visible trail on purpose.

In 2010, the developers of the municipal e-voting system that enables voters living abroad to vote via a web site, invited security experts to conduct tests. The university researchers say that the project was developed in cooperation with the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation (OSDV) and that other US states have also worked on services similar to Washington's "Digital Vote-by-Mail Service". They also praise the system's transparency as exemplary but point out that its architecture has fundamental security weaknesses and was not able to withstand a shell injection and other common hacker techniques.

Russia Calls U.S.-Led Military Exercises In Georgia Provocation

Source: Xinhau News Agency
Russia calls U.S.-Georgia drills “provocation”

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described joint U.S.-Georgia drills which started Wednesday as “provocation”.

“The drills are supposed to be for the suppression of riots. I told the (U.S.) Secretary of State that this looks like provocation,” Lavrov told a meeting in the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

Moscow hoped those holding the exercises would bear in mind the fragile stability in Trans-Caucasian region, Lavrov said.

Meanwhile, he denied Moscow had urged anyone to recognize the independence of Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, saying Russia had only actively supported the regions in expanding their international contacts.

“We do not hold these talks. This is a business of our allies, Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Lavrov said, adding Russia would support its friends politically.

Moscow recognized the two regions’ independence in August 2008 following a brief armed conflict with Georgia. In response, Georgia severed its diplomatic relations with Russia.

Source: Civil Georgia

Lavrov: U.S.-Georgian Military Drills ‘Provocative’

 

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that ongoing joint U.S.-Georgian military exercises “seems somewhat provocative” and that he had raised this “serious issue” when he met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week in New York.