Jeffrey Epstein’s High Society Contacts

A close study of the contacts in Jeffrey Epstein’s black book and the flight logs for his private jet reveals a damning portrait of elite New York.

Source: Jeffrey Epstein’s High Society Contacts

‘Our whole lives are here. Where can we go?’

Spending the night with Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, hoping to stop the bulldozers coming to demolish their homes.

By A. Daniel Roth

Armed Israeli soldiers storm into a Palestinian home in Sur Baher, East Jerusalem ahead of the building's demolition, early the morning of July 22, 2019. (A. Daniel Roth)

Armed Israeli soldiers storm into a Palestinian home in Sur Baher, East Jerusalem ahead of the building’s demolition, early the morning of July 22, 2019. (A. Daniel Roth)

I am awakened by the “thud thud thud” of someone pounding and then the sound stops. It feels like I am waking up after only five minutes of sleep. Each of my eyes feels like it weighs 10 pounds. I can’t remember where I am, but the sound is unmistakably a fist hitting a door. I hear rustling somewhere near me and realize I’m in a dark room, on a mattress on the floor surrounded by other people.

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I am in a room with 20 or 30 other activists. We have been sleeping for a few short hours in an office in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sur Baher, which straddles the Green Line between East Jerusalem and the West Bank. We are here because the local community is facing a number of home demolitions.

I jump to my feet. The knocks were from a Palestinian resident sent to wake us up when the army arrives. The activists sleeping over in Sur Baher had come from Palestine, Israel and around the world. Many of us are Jews from diaspora communities and members of All That’s Left: Anti-Occupation Collective.

We are all there because in prior years, activists, organizers, and community members have worked to build partnerships across national and ideological divides. We are there because when the Israeli High Court ruled in June that a number of homes could be destroyed in the Wadi Hummus area of Sur Baher, those relationships sprung to life. Invited and led by the residents of Sur Baher, folks began to organize.

One of several buildings slated for demolition in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher, July 22, 2019. (Emily Glick)

One of several buildings slated for demolition in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher, July 22, 2019. (Emily Glick)

It’s 3 a.m. and my heart sinks. All I can think about is what I am about to walk into. I follow others down the stairs, out the door, and into the cold summer morning, wondering how I would cope if my home was permanently under threat of demolition.

Israeli demolitions in East Jerusalem are fairly common, but these homes happen to be located in Area A of the occupied West Bank, under full Palestinian civil and security control according to the Oslo Accords. Israeli authorities say the demolitions are being carried out for “security reasons,” claiming the buildings were built too close to the separation barrier. It’s a well-worn excuse.

The beeping of trucks and the revving of engines moving heavy machinery are distinct in the distance. We move swiftly down toward those sounds that fill the darkness at the foot of an unfinished, multi-story building. This is just one among several buildings slated to be demolished. We weave past Israeli army jeeps and Civil Administration pick-up trucks and arrive at a line of police officers, some masked — all of them armed — telling us to stop and move back a few meters here or several steps there. It’s all seemingly arbitrary, but there is little we can do.

Some of us head off to another home after getting word that a family, at risk of losing their home today, wants others there to be there with them. Their hope? To stop or slow the impending demolition of their home.

A small group of us enter quietly with nods and greetings in Arabic. We sit in the living room while the couple who live there sit in their bedroom. I imagine they are feeling shattered.

A Palestinian family looks outside the window as soldiers and militarized police arrive to East Jerusalem's Sur Baher area to carry out slated demolitions, July 22, 2019. (Emily Glick)

A Palestinian family looks outside the window as soldiers and militarized police arrive to East Jerusalem’s Sur Baher area to carry out slated demolitions, July 22, 2019. (Emily Glick)

Thud. Thud. Thud.

This time the children and teenagers of the house have come to wait together. The next hour is filled with the sounds of activists planning, kids learning English words, coffee, and prayers. According to rumors, nine busloads of soldiers and militarized police are being brought to the area to secure the massive number of demolitions set to take place.

Still, there is more time for activist plans, children’s games, and contemplation of how these young uniformed people can allow themselves to take peoples’ homes away from them.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

It’s now around 5 a.m. and the light is creeping in. The banging on the door feels different this time. The patriarch of the house opens the door and uniformed, armed police officers flood the apartment. They take stock of the family, activists, and cameras staring at them and proceed to detail their plans to clear the house of all inhabitants.

The patriarch of the house sits down and when told to leave answers in Hebrew: “You can demolish the building over our heads. Our whole lives are here. Where can we go?”

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The sleepless night pads my emotions. I am in the main room of the apartment surrounded by armed Israeli officers and a moment later I am being pushed and pulled out to the street. There, families, neighbors, and activists – some with bloodied faces – gather behind the line of armed personnel to watch as the demolitions go on.

Some move back quietly. Others continue to yell and cry. I’m exhausted and thinking about what to do next, about the losses endured by those families and that community. I’m thinking about the fact that our movement is not winning yet, but we are most definitely growing.

Daniel Roth is an educator and journalist based in Jerusalem. His writing and photography is at allthesedays.org. Follow him on Twitter: @adanielroth.

The post ‘Our whole lives are here. Where can we go?’ appeared first on +972 Magazine.

America’s red scare is back. And it’s racially tinged | Kate Aronoff

Deja vu all over again – FBI tried to discredit Martin Luther King as commie! When you’re right old white supremacy folks claim red! Even while their leader has sold out to old commie spy master Putin!

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Condemnation of Democratic congresswomen is xenophobic, dangerous and flat-out false

The Republican party has come out swinging against socialism – a strategy sure to be a mainstay of its 2020 campaigns. “Our opposition to our socialist colleagues,” the Wyoming senator Liz Cheney claimed, referring to the congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley, “has absolutely nothing to do with their gender, with their religion, or with their race. It has to do with the content of their policies. They are wrong when they attempt to impose the fraud of socialism on the American people. They are wrong when they pursue policies that would steal power from the American people and give that power to the government.”

It’s a bold line coming from the daughter of a man, the former vice-president Dick Cheney, who did more to centralize power in the executive branch than perhaps any other public official in living memory. It’s also a bald-faced lie. Cheney’s diatribe against socialism – like Trump’s racist railing against the same group of progressive freshman congresswomen to “go back” to where they “originally came from” – has a long legacy in American history: it’s called red baiting.

Continue reading…

US ‘not ready’ to stop 2020 meddling, says House intelligence chair – live

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2.59pm BST

The Trump administration named Trump National Doral, the president’s Miami golf club, as a “finalist” location for next year’s G7 meeting. Trump’s properties have featured prominently during his presidency, despite concerns about conflicts of interest.

The meeting is a gathering of leaders of the world’s most powerful economies. Axios reported the administration is nearing a decision after conducting several site surveys for the upcoming meeting.

2.47pm BST

Here is more from House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff’s interview with Recode:

The tech companies aren’t ready,” Schiff said. “They don’t have, I think, their policies fully thought out yet. The government isn’t ready. We don’t have the technologies yet to be able to detect more sophisticated fakes.”

And the public, by and large, when you bring up ‘deepfake,’ they don’t know what you’re referring to,” he added. “And so we don’t have much time. It’s eight months until the primaries begin to try to prepare the public, prepare ourselves, determine what other steps need to be taken to protect ourselves from this kind of disinformation.”

Continue reading…

Senators say they regret calling for Al Franken’s resignation

Time is/was over – stay that way!

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  • Seven current and former members say case was mishandled
  • Franken, 68, ‘absolutely’ regrets resigning over groping claims

Seven current and former US senators who called for the resignation of Al Franken in 2017 have said their actions were wrong.

The disgraced former Minnesota senator and ex-Saturday Night Live star resigned amid huge pressure, including from his own party, after he was accused by eight women of groping or forcibly trying to kiss them at the height of the scandal.

Continue reading…

Unhatched birds can warn others of danger by vibrating shells

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Study finds developing chicks communicate with siblings when they hearalarm calls

Baby seabirds that have not yet hatched communicate with their siblings in neighbouring eggs by vibrating their shells, scientists have discovered.

A study of yellow-legged gulls revealed one of the most sophisticated known examples of embryonic communication. When exposed to the alarm calls of an adult bird responding to a predator, developing chicks apparently were able to convey the presence of danger to their nestmates by wriggling inside their eggs.

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DRC health minister resigns after government takes Ebola reins | CIDRAP – Politics and safety don’t mix!

Kalenga said that, as with any battle, lines of command must be clearly identified. “There can not be more than one decision-making center at the risk of creating confusions and cacophony that are detrimental to the response,” he said. Anticipating confusion that will result from putting the outbreak response in the hands of the committee, he added, “I hereby present you my resignation as Minister of Health.” Cases climb to 2,592 In a pair of daily updates over the weekend, the health ministry reported 32 more cases from a broad part of the outbreak region, though half of them were in Beni, a former epicenter where Ebola activity is resurging. Alongside 16 cases in Beni, other cities reporting cases include Oicha (4), Mandima (3), and Mabalako (3). Five areas each reported a single case: Vuhovi, Butembo, Mambasa, Lubero, and Masereka. Health officials are still investigating 361 suspected cases.

Source: DRC health minister resigns after government takes Ebola reins | CIDRAP

Forensic Architecture Says It Has Found Bullet Linking Whitney Vice Chair to Violence in Gaza, Withdraws from Biennial

The bullet found by a Forensic Architecture researcher near the Al-Bureji protest camp near the Israeli-Palestinian border in Gaza (image via Forensic Architecture)

Forensic Architecture has announced its decision to withdraw from the 2019 Whitney Biennial. The London-based research group has also requested to replace its 10-minute video about the global spread of tear gas and bullets produced by companies linked to Whitney Museum vice chairman Warren Kanders, with new evidence they’ve found that directly links the weapons manufacturer to violence on the Israeli-Palestinian border in Gaza.

The organization has previously claimed a connection between the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and Sierra Bullets — a weapons manufacturer partially owned by Kanders — through contracts with the army’s preferred supplier of ammunition, the Israeli Military Industry.

Now, one of Forensic Architecture’s researchers in Gaza believes they may have found direct evidence linking the museum board member to border violence that the United Nations classified in a recent report as a potential war crime. After a weekly Friday protest in mid-July, the researcher says that she found an unexploded open-tip bullet in the sand surrounding the Al-Bureji protest camp near the border. The bullet was intact and largely matches the open-source analysis that Forensic Architecture has already conducted on the types of ammunitions Sierra Bullets manufactures.

“What we’ve seen in Palestine is an escalation in acceptable violence,” the researcher told Hyperallergic during a joint interview with Forensic Architecture’s director, Eyal Weizman. “This escalation has resulted in over 90 amputations — the vast majority of which have been to lower limbs.”

A lawyer by trade and professor of political science, the Forensic Architecture researcher has worked in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for 15 years. More recently, she has been tasked with collecting evidence in Gaza — both in the form of ammunition rounds and eyewitness testimony. These two components were key for building the group’s biennial submission, “Triple-Chaser” (2019), a collaboration with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras and Praxis Films. Because the researcher investigates sensitive topics like the Israeli military’s weapons suppliers and its use of force on the Palestinian border, she has requested that her identity remain anonymous.

The Jerusalem Post estimates that over 60 Palestinians were injured during demonstrations on May 16, 2019. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) said around 10,000 Palestinians in several locations along the fence burned tires and threw stones and explosive devices toward troops. Palestinian media has reported that the IDF fired live bullets, tear gas, and skunk spray at protesters trying to damage the border fence.

Weizman says that until yesterday, his organization was planning to release the new research alongside an ultimatum for the removal of Kanders from the Whitney’s board of trustees. Recent news of other artists withdrawing from the show — one of the world’s most prestigious exhibitions of contemporary art — convinced the group to expedite its plans. Forensic Architecture says they have informed curators Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta of their decision.

“We believe there’s a problem in how everybody is focusing on the tear gas,” Weizman told Hyperallergic.

“After this discovery, what may have started as the Tear Gas Biennial is now the Sierra Bullet Biennial,” added the researcher. “For context, human rights groups have been looking for an identifiable specimen. It’s something the art world may appreciate less, but these groups have been trying to get these bullets outside of Gaza for some time. We believe that we have something that is going to make a difference.”

Forensic Architecture is the eighth exhibitor to withdraw from biennial.

The Whitney has responded to artist requests for withdrawal with the following statement from the museum’s director, Adam Weinberg: “The Whitney respects the opinions of all the artists it exhibits and stands by their right to express themselves freely. While the Whitney is saddened by this decision, we will of course comply with the artists’ request.”

Hyperallergic has reached out to a Kanders spokesperson for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

07/20/19, 5:56PM Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Forensic Architecture made their decision to withdraw in consultation with Decolonize This Place. This error was made due to a miscommunication between the two organizations; the decision was made solely by Forensic Architecture. We have removed the error from this article.

The post Forensic Architecture Says It Has Found Bullet Linking Whitney Vice Chair to Violence in Gaza, Withdraws from Biennial appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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Russia’s Secret Intelligence Agency Hacked: ‘Largest Data Breach In Its History’

Red faces in Moscow this weekend, with the news that hackers have successfully targeted FSB—Russia’s Federal Security Service. The hackers managed to steal 7.5 terabytes of data from a major contractor, exposing secret FSB projects to de-anonymize Tor browsing, scrape social media, and help the state split its internet off from the rest of the world. The data was passed to mainstream media outlets for publishing.

FSB is Russia’s primary security agency with parallels with the FBI and MI5, but its remit stretches beyond domestic intelligence to include electronic surveillance overseas and significant intelligence-gathering oversight. It is the primary successor agency to the infamous KGB, reporting directly to Russia’s president.

A week ago, on July 13, a hacking group under the name 0v1ru$ that had reportedly breached SyTech, a major FSB contractor working on a range of live and exploratory internet projects, left a smiling Yoba Face on SyTech’s homepage alongside pictures purporting to showcase the breach. 0v1ru$ had passed the data itself to the larger hacking group Digital Revolution, which shared the files with various media outlets and the headlines with Twitter—taunting FSB that the agency should maybe rename one of its breached activities “Project Collander.”

I received a link to the Digital Revolution site where an initial tranche of breached documents was “published two months ago… as part of that 7.5 terabytes.” I won’t publish the link here for obvious reasons. Digital Revolution has targeted FSB before. It is unknown how tightly the two hacking groups are linked.

BBC Russia broke the news that 0v1ru$ had breached SyTech’s servers and shared details of contentious cyber projects, projects that included social media scraping (including Facebook and LinkedIn), targeted collection and the “de-anonymization of users of the Tor browser.” The BBC described the breach as possibly “the largest data leak in the history of Russian intelligence services.”

As well as defacing SyTech’s homepage with the Yoba Face, 0v1ru$ also detailed the project names exposed: “Arion”, “Relation”, “Hryvnia,” alongside the names of the SyTech project managers. The BBC report claims that no actual state secrets were exposed.

The projects themselves appear to be a mix of social media scraping (Nautilus), targeted collection against internet users seeking to anonymize their activities (Nautilus-S), data collection targeting Russian enterprises (Mentor), and projects that seem to relate to Russia’s ongoing initiative to build an option to separate the internal internet from the world wide web (Hope and Tax-3). The BBC claims that SyTech’s projects were mostly contracted with Military Unit 71330, part of FSB’s 16th Directorate which handles signals intelligence, the same group accused of emailing spyware to Ukranian intelligence officers in 2015.

Nautilus-S, the Tor de-anonymization project, was actually launched in 2012 under the remit of Russia’s Kvant Research Institute, which comes under FSB’s remit. Russia has been looking for ways to compromise nodes within Tor’s structure to either prevent off-grid communications or intercept those communications. None of which is new news. It is believed that some progress has been made under this project. Digital Revolution claims to have hacked the Kvant Research Institute before

The preparatory activities for splitting off a “Russian internet,” follow Russian President Vladimir Putin signing into law provisions for “the stable operation of the Russian Internet (Runet) in case it is disconnected from the global infrastructure of the World Wide Web.” The law set in train plans for an alternative domain name system (DNS) for Russia in the event that it is disconnected from the World Wide Web, or, one assumes, in the event that its politicians deem disconnection to be beneficial. Internet service providers would be compelled to disconnect from any foreign servers, relying on Russia’s DNS instead.

There is nothing newsworthy in the projects exposed here, everything was known or expected. The fact of the breach itself, its scale and apparent ease is of more note. Contractors remain the weak link in the chain for intelligence agencies worldwide—to emphasize the point, just last week, a former NSA contractor was jailed in the U.S. for stealing secrets over two decades. And the fallout from Edward Snowden continues to this day.

Digital Revolution passed the information to journalists without anything being edited, removed or changed—they said. Little is known about 0v1ru$ and the group has not come forward with any comment.

Neither, unsurprisingly, has FSB.

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