U.S. Soldier Kills Afghan Civilians in Kandahar

Source: BBC

A US soldier in Afghanistan has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded five after entering their homes in Kandahar province, senior local officials say.

He left his military base in the early hours of the morning and opened fire in at least two homes; women and children were among the dead.

The soldier has not been named, but is thought to be a staff sergeant.

He is reported to have walked off his base at around 03:00 local time (22:30 GMT Saturday) and headed to nearby villages, moving methodically from house to house.

"Eleven members of my family are dead. They are all dead," Haji Samad, an elder from Najeeban village, told the AFP news agency.

BBC Defends Decision to Censor the Word "Palestine"

Source: PressTV

What rapper Mic Righteous was actually trying to say was 'Free Palestine'. But Palestine, it seems, is now a dirty word on the BBC.

BBC: Lets Kill the Internet and Start Over

Source: The Daily Bell

Viewpoint: The internet is broken – we need to start over … Last year, the level and ferocity of cyber-attacks on the internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: to let the internet wither on the vine and start up a new more robust one instead. On being asked if we should start again, many – maybe most – immediately argue that the internet is such an integral part of our social and economic fabric that even considering a change in its fundamental structure is inconceivable and rather frivolous. I was one of those. However, recently the evidence suggests that our efforts to secure the internet are becoming less and less effective, and so the idea of a radical alternative suddenly starts to look less laughable. – BBC/ Prof Alan Woodward, Department of Computing, University of Surrey

Dominant Social Theme: Look, can we talk? The Internet is paedophiles’ best friend and a virus manufacturer besides. If we get rid of it, we’ll all be a lot safer. And especially the children. Good Lord, the children! The children!

Free-Market Analysis: It is clear to us by now that the Anglosphere power elite is increasingly desperate to shut down the Internet any way it can. This article posted at the BBC (whether or not the author understands he’s been enlisted on behalf of a larger Western elite agenda) is a good example of a sub dominant social theme within the context of this aim.

The power elite wants to run the world, and what we call the Internet Reformation has badly dented their plans. How does one run a secret, super-duper conspiracy to create a New World Order when one’s every move is plastered on the Internet the very next day?

It’s next to impossible. The elites have invested heavily in making their global operations “user friendly.” They’ve tried to pretend that increasingly authoritarian Western governments and global facilities such as the IMF and UN have agendas that are entirely supportive of human rights and individual prosperity.

Nothing could be further from the truth. What the Internet has shown us with increasing clarity over this past decade is that Western banking elites and their enablers and associates will stop at nothing in their quest for ultimate power.

They wish for one-world government (the UN), a one-world military (NATO), a one-world court (the recently formed Soros-sponsored International Criminal Court), a one-world central bank (the IMF), etc.

The exposure of the elite’s goals and its methodologies – its dependence on the corrupt counterfeiting practices of central banks for the trillion-dollar torrents of capital necessary to build world government – has led to an upswell of indignation and scrutiny around the world.

BBC Exposed as Corporate-Paid Propagandists

Source: Land Destroyer Report

The Independent exposes what we already knew. 

It has been recently reported by the Independent, that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) "will today apologise to an estimated 74 million people around the world for a news fixing scandal, exposed by The Independent, in which it broadcast documentaries made by a London TV company that was earning millions of pounds from PR clients which it featured in its programming."

While The Independent focuses on scandals revolving around the Malaysian government, members of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak's regime, and corporations like Microsoft, the reek of propaganda wafting off from all that BBC involves itself with has been a case study for years.

Three overtly suspect projects BBC recently backed immediately come to mind, including "Thailand: Justice Under Fire" together with "Secret Pakistan," and "The Lady," regarding US and British-funded Myanmar proxy, Aung San Suu Kyi. These three "works" have been exposed as overt propaganda, peddling an agenda rather than anything resembling objective documentaries. BBC's "Secret Pakistan," for example, literally attempted to rewrite 10 years of history where Pakistan, rather than Al Qaeda or "Bin Laden" was retrospectively made responsible for the ongoing violence in Afghanistan and the death of Western troops.

And while The Independent offers up their handful of negligible admissions regarding Malaysia, Egypt, and Microsoft, exposing how special interests compromised BBC's "integrity," the special interests behind other BBC "documentaries" are easily identified, granted you do not watch them in suspended disbelief, accepting everything as truthful, and fully trusting in BBC's obviously non-existent credibility.

BBC is not only guilty of making fraudulent, deceitful propaganda dressed up as "documentaries," but their general "reporting" is also a breathtaking daily assault on truth, objectivity, and journalistic integrity. No where can this be seen better than in BBC's coverage of the events in Egypt and Libya last year, and in particular illustrated in an excerpt from February 2011's "Libya Conquered in the Dark: BBC's Breathtaking Propagandizing:"

Iran's Press TV loses UK licence

Source: BBC

Iranian news network Press TV has had its licence revoked by the media regulator Ofcom and will no longer be allowed to broadcast in the UK. 

Ofcom said the state broadcaster's English language outlet had breached several broadcasting licence rules over editorial control of the channel. 

Press TV has also failed to pay a £100,000 fine imposed last year.

The channel called the decision "a clear example of censorship". It will be removed from Sky on 20 January. 

The £100,000 fine was imposed last year after the network broadcast an interview with imprisoned Newsweek and Channel 4 journalist Maziar Bahari, which the Ofcom said had been conducted under duress.

Ofcom said Press TV had "indicated it is unwilling and unable to pay".

It was during the investigation into the Bahari interview that the media regulator formed the impression that editorial decisions on the channel were being controlled by the offices in Tehran, instead of the UK. 

Press TV was given the opportunity to respond and make the relevant amendments needed to comply with the broadcasting code, but "failed to make the necessary application", Ofcom said. 

In a statement issued to the BBC, Press TV's newsroom director Mr Hamid Emadi said: "We asked Ofcom if Press TV Limited did not have control over the broadcast, why was it getting fined, if it did have control, why would the licence be revoked? 

"Ofcom contradictions are nothing new for Press TV. The British government's tool to control the media has, on several occasions, changed its decisions regarding Press TV in its two-year campaign against the alternative news channel."

The statement also claimed that Ofcom, which it called "the media arm of the Royal family", had failed to respond to a letter sent by its Chief Executive earlier this month.

Press TV channel launched in 2007 to break what Iran's state broadcaster called a Western "stranglehold" over the world's media.

X-37B Spaceplane 'Spying On China'

Source: BBC

X-37B – American military spaceplane

Mission: Described as a re-usable testbed for new sensors and other space technologies

• Length: 9m (29ft); Wingspan: 4.5m (14ft); Height: 3m (9.5ft); Mass: 5t (11,000lb)
• Origins: Started as a Nasa project in 1999 before being handed to the military in 2006
• Flight history: First vehicle launched in April, 2010, and landed eight months later
• Cost: The budget line for the X-37B programme continues to be classified information

America’s classified X-37B spaceplane is probably spying on China, according to a report in Spaceflight magazine.

The unpiloted vehicle was launched into orbit by the US Air Force in March last year and has yet to return to Earth.

The Pentagon has steadfastly refused to discuss its mission but amateur space trackers have noted how its path around the globe is nearly identical to China’s spacelab, Tiangong-1.

There is wide speculation that the X-37B is eavesdropping on the laboratory.

“Space-to-space surveillance is a whole new ball game made possible by a finessed group of sensors and sensor suites, which we think the X-37B may be using to maintain a close watch on China’s nascent space station,” said Spaceflight editor Dr David Baker.

The X-37B, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), looks like a mini space shuttle and can glide back down through the atmosphere to land on a runway, just like Nasa’s re-usable manned spaceplane used to do before its retirement last July.

Built by Boeing, the Air Force’s robotic craft is about 9m long and has a payload bay volume similar to that of a small van. But what goes in the payload bay, the USAF will not discuss.

The current mission was launched on an Atlas rocket and put into a low orbit, a little over 300km up, with an inclination of 42.79 degrees with respect to the equator – an unusual profile for a US military mission which would normally go into an orbit that circles the poles.

The X-37B’s flight has since been followed from the ground by a dedicated group of optical tracking specialists in the US and Europe, intrigued by what the vehicle may be doing.

These individuals have watched how closely its orbit matches that of Tiangong.

The spacelab, which China expects to man with astronauts in 2012, was launched in September with an inclination of 42.78 degrees, and to a very similar altitude as the OTV.

 ”The parallels with X-37B are clear,” Dr Baker says in Spaceflight, the long established magazine of the British Interplanetary Society.

Corporate-State Media Creating a Fool's Paradise

Source: Activist Post
William Bowles

Are we living in a fool’s paradise?

A question keeps nagging at me: Are all of us, including the left, reacting to an entirely engineered reality, fed to us via an all-embracing media? We get blown this way and that, all of it being determined by whatever ‘event’ the globalized media decides to feed us with. Then, just as ‘mysteriously’, the ‘event’ disappears to be replaced by yet another ‘event’.

The old Anarchist cry of ‘Do not adjust your mind, there’s a fault in reality’ takes on an entirely new kind of import given the power of the media to determine what’s ‘real’ for us.

What this means is that the media effectively acts as an agent provocateur for the state and big business as it decides for us what is actually going on in the world. In turn, progressives make decisions based not on what needs to be done, but as a reaction to the ‘news’ in a weird political version of the Heisenberg Effect.

Press coverage of the Summer Riots is a perfect example of this process in action whereby the media, by focusing solely on the violence and destruction, not only transformed it into a ‘riot without a cause’ but in doing so actually incited even more violence and destruction, just as ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) are worn as ‘badges of honour’ by alienated youth who actually go out of their way to get one (or two).

Aside from anything else it demonstrates just how out-of-touch the political elite is with the reality of life as it is really lived by a goodly chunk of the population; the so-called underclass.

Life as supplied to us is now an endless succession of ‘crises’ or public spectacles (the lines between the two often blur):

‘Ground-to-air missiles ‘may protect’ London 2012 games’ — BBC News, 14 November 2011.

In fact, the very nature of BBC’s headlines headlines betray the essence of how to report the ‘news’ as a succession of dramas to be played out, not in the real world that you and I live in but in the world created by a globalized, corporate media machine.

‘Crises’ are played out in the TV equivalent of ‘flaming’ (shooting off at the mouth without thinking). Dictators come and go… All but the dramatic essence is removed and along with it real meaning disappears. This is the triumph of television, the ability to be able to cut and paste reality in its entirety.

Syria Coverage Update: BBC Reporter Was Detained and Prevented from Covering US-NATO-Syrian Operations in Turkey!

Source: Boiling Frogs Post

US Media Remains Mute on ‘Already-Confirmed’ Operations 

 

It’s now been exactly 24 days since I reported on the ongoing joint US-NATO secret training camp in the USAir Force base in Incirlik, Turkey, which began operations in April- May 2011 to organize and expand the dissident base in Syria. I broke that story on November 21, here at Boiling Frogs Post, based on information provided to me by multiple sources including highly credible insiders in Turkey and government insiders here in the US. 18 days later Iranian Press TV ran the story with further confirmation based on intensive coverage and confirmation by the Turkish media. Impressively, despite far more serious pressure from the government, reporters in Turkey provided detailed coverage of the story I broke here in the US.

 

One extensively reported story had to do with BBC reporter John Simpson, who went to Turkey to follow up on the story we broke at Boiling Frogs Post, but was placed under surveillance, prevented from following up on the story of the US-NATO-Turkish-Syrian Rebel operation Center in Southern Turkey, stopped from interviewing Riad al Assad, and how BBC quickly excused the scandalous incident. Every major newspaper in Turkey covered this event. Sabah and Radikal were among dozens of TV and newspaper outlets in Turkey covering it.

Here is the spin placed on the story by BBC to make the incident look like ‘protecting Colonel Riad al Assad’ [All Emphasis Mine]:

The colonel’s name sounds close to but not quite the same as that of the President he wants to overthrow, Bashar al-Assad.He is based in a refugee camp at Apaydin, 9 miles (14km) from the town of Antakya and very close to the Syrian border. But he is not allowed to leave the camp, and cannot receive visitors.

To a considerable extent, this is for his own protection. The Turks seem to regard Colonel Asad as a potentially important figure for the future, and are determined that nothing untoward should happen to him.

As a result, getting to see Colonel Asad is remarkably difficult. No Turkish official wanted to help us, or indeed even speak about him on the record.

As we were filming his camp from a distance a group of Turkish soldiers briefly detained us. Yet the colonel is predictably keen to talk, and in the end we interviewed him via the internet.

The Coming War With Pakistan

Source: Land Destroyer Report
Tony Cartalucci

BBC are propagandists whose lies have killed people. Their documentaries are made upon request by special interest groups whose narratives are sewn verbatim into what would otherwise look like a "documentary." With BBC's name attached, it is hoped, these tissues of lies are then able to gain traction and begin rewriting reality. Their recent hit on Pakistan is not the first time they have been caught peddling wholesale lies dressed up as "documentaries." Earlier this year, they also cobbled together "This World: Thailand - Justice Under Fire," where evidence drawn from paid lobbyists of Western-backed opposition leaders and US State Department cables and used to promote Wall Street and London's corporate-financier interests in Thailand.

BBC's two-part "Secret Pakistan" documentary attempts to frame the 10 year foreign occupation of Afghanistan and the lack of progress as the result of "Pakistani duplicity." In reality, even upon watching BBC's "documentary," one can clearly see that the US, UK, and NATO have simply traded places with invading Soviets and now face the same fierce indigenous force fighting against occupation. Indeed, just as Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI supported Afghans during the Soviet invasion, they are very likely to be supporting Afghans now in their current bid for freedom.

Videos: Parts 1 and 2 of BBC's "Secret Pakistan." (Part 1 "Double Cross" here, Part 2, "Backlash" here.)

However, BBC is entirely unable to establish this and instead, crutches its argument along on false pretenses, such as the Taliban "are" Al Qaeda, that the US, UK, and NATO have a right to be in Afghanistan in the first place, and that Pakistan has some sort of obligation to unconditionally cooperate with these foreign occupiers. While it may be instructive for many to watch the lengthy, two-hour "documentary," there are two quotes from prominent interviewees that give BBC's game away while perfectly summing up the reality of the Afghanistan war.

Iran Arrests 12 'CIA Spies' for Targeting Nuclear Plans

Source: BBC

Iran has arrested 12 spies of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the official IRNA news agency reports.

Parviz Sorouri, an influential lawmaker, said the agents were targeting Iran's military and its nuclear programme.

He said they were operating in co-ordination with Israel's Mossad and other regional agencies.

The United States and its allies suspect Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon program, a charge Tehran denies.

Mr Sorouri, a member of the powerful National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, did not give the nationality of the alleged agents, nor when they were arrested. 

"The US and Zionist regime's espionage apparatuses were trying to use regional intelligence services, both inside and outside Iran, in order to deal a strong blow to our country," he was quoted as saying.

"Fortunately, these steps failed due to the quick measures taken by Intelligence Ministry officials," Mr Sorouri said.

Russia Issues Stark Warning Against Attack on Iran

Source: BBC

Military action against Iran would be a "very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences", Russia's foreign minister has warned.

Sergei Lavrov said diplomacy, not missile strikes, was the only way to solve the Iranian nuclear problem.

His comments come after Israeli President Shimon Peres said an attack on Iran was becoming more likely. The UN's atomic watchdog is expected to say this week that Iran is secretly developing a nuclear arms capability.

Diplomats say the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, due for release on Tuesday or Wednesday, will produce compelling evidence that Iran will find hard to dispute.

Iran has always insisted that its nuclear program is exclusively to generate power for civilian purposes.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has said the alleged evidence is a fabrication and part of a multi-pronged US smear campaign against his country.