💭 In a key speech on his visit to Rwanda, French President Emmanuel Macron said he recognizes that France bears a heavy responsibility for the 1994 genocide in the central African country. Macron solemnly detailed how France had failed the 800,000 victims of the genocide but he stopped short of an apology.
Melinda and I took a trip to Africa in 1993 that affected us profoundly.
We went to Africa for a vacation to see the animals, but it was during this trip that we had our first encounter with deep poverty and it had a profound impact on us.
It was a phenomenal trip. Not long after we returned from this trip, Melinda and I read that millions of poor children in Africa were dying every year from diseases that nobody dies from in the U.S: measles, hepatitis B, yellow fever. Rotavirus, a disease I had never even heard of, was killing half a million kids each year. We thought if millions of children were dying, there would be a massive worldwide effort to save them. But we were wrong.Source
“In the biological destruction there are the organized tempests on the magnetic fields. What will follow is a contamination of the bloodstreams of mankind, creating intentional infections. This will be enforced via laws that will make vaccination mandatory. And these vaccines will make possible to control people. The vaccines will have liquid crystals that will become hosted in the brain cells, which will become micro-receivers of electromagnetic fields where waves of very low frequencies will be sent. And through these low frequency waves people will be unable to think, you’ll be turned into a zombie. Don’t think of this as a hypothesis. This has been done. Think of Rwanda”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 27, 2017
„And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six„ [ Revelation 13:16-18]
It might sound like something from a dystopian science fiction fantasy but you could soon be able to pay for goods and services with a microchip that is embedded in your hand, according to Etisalat officials. The UAE telecoms giant unveiled new injectable microchips, which store all your credit card, ID and business card data inside, for the first time in the Middle East at GITEX 2016 in Dubai.
The technique is called bio-hacking, where an alien device is embedded on the back of the hand between the thumb and forefinger using a special syringe, medical tattoo artist Hazim Naori told 7DAYS. “We clean the skin with sanitiser and after this we put the marks exactly where we want to pierce it,” he said.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 17, 2017
How serious has the war gotten between Donald Trump’s White House and the government he supposedly runs?
Gizmodo – a website that deals with science and technology as well as politics – has launched a new site to encourage government employees to leak damning information about the Trump administration. TellonTrump.com is the subject of a massive advertising campaign on Facebook and will give government turncoats a safe and secure means of passing along damaging documents.
“One thing we know about Donald Trump is that there are a lot of things Donald Trump doesn’t want people to know about. If you’ve reached this page, you might have information about the conduct of Donald Trump or his administration that you’d like people to know about. Here’s how you can tell us,” the site explains.
The Univision Communications Inc.-owned media group, which operates sites like Fusion and the former Gawker Media sites like Gizmodo, Deadspin and Jezebel, started running ads on the social media platform within the last week that specifically target people who list certain government agencies as their employers. The ads don’t specify which news outlet is running the campaign, but the site which the ads point to clearly identifies the Gizmodo special projects desk.
“We are targeting people who are employed by federal agencies because we want them to know that if they see or know about something they think is newsworthy, we are here for them,” said John Cook, Gizmodo’s head of investigations.
Mr. Cook said Gizmodo is also working to purchase bus shelter ads near certain government agencies in Washington, D.C., encouraging people to contact them with information about the Trump administration.
Amazing, incredible – frightening. The German word that describes what’s going on is Götterdämmerung – a “cataclysmic downfall or momentous, apocalyptic event, especially of a regime or an institution.” Trump’s enemies are willing to tear the entire country down in order to destroy the president. The fact that they will destroy the presidency and the country in the process is regrettable but worth it because Trump is…well, evil.
I am myself unnerved by the evidence of high-level lawlessness in the Flynn matter, but a “coup d’etat” refers specifically to a military ouster of a leader, not a leak-driven campaign using the press to nail someone. This is sure to persist, though, if the Flynn-Russia matter accelerates—and if the reluctant House and Senate do begin investigating the matter in earnest. If the language surrounding the investigation remains florid and purple, if Democrats try to please their Trump-hating constituents by screaming impeachment and liberal media tries to garner audience by jumping openly and vociferously on the bandwagon, the Trumpians will respond in kind by stirring the pot through their media and their argumentation.
The result might well be violence. Not rhetorical violence. Actual violence. Actual political violence. Actual conflicts between anti-Trumpers and Trumpers. At demonstrations. In the streets. Of our cities. Political violence of a sort we haven’t seen in 50 years, and maybe haven’t really seen in this country in the modern era. Those who believe Trump is a unique menace whose threat to our democratic way of life will be met with those who believe the elites are using illicit means to oust the legitimately elected president of the United States.
This is not a fantasy. This is one possible future. And every rational person who cares about the future of the country should be mindful of it, and should work to forestall it.
The media feeding frenzy is unprecedented – and that’s saying a lot. To read most of the media stories the last 48 hours, you would think Trump is a heartbeat away from impeachment, resignation, or an internal revolution. Hysterical hit pieces like this N.Y. Times anonymously sourced, non-specific story about Trump campaign aides talking with senior Russian intelligence officials “around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee” are fueling an innuendo-driven storyline that Trump aides – and possibly Trump himself – committed treason by colluding with Russians to elect Trump president.
Except the Times story also states flatly, “The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.” In other words, there is no story. In fact, the “evidence” in the story comes to the Times as hearsay – the reporter talked to someone who knows something about intercepts and communications between Trump’s people and the Russians.
Why weren’t the Times reporters given access to the actual intercepts? Why didn’t the Times report which campaign aides were in contact with the Russians? If no evidence exists of collusion, just what the hell was the Times doing publishing this blatant innuendo and smear?
This is what passes for “journalism” in the age of Trump. Evidence is not necessary. An active imagination is.
And now we learn that the intel agencies are withholding information from the president of the United States because they don’t trust him.
U.S. intelligence officials have withheld sensitive intelligence from President Donald Trump because they are concerned it could be leaked or compromised, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.
The officials’ decision to keep information from Mr. Trump underscores the deep mistrust that has developed between the intelligence community and the president over his team’s contacts with the Russian government, as well as the enmity he has shown toward U.S. spy agencies. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump accused the agencies of leaking information to undermine him.
In some of these cases of withheld information, officials have decided not to show Mr. Trump the sources and methods that the intelligence agencies use to collect information, the current and former officials said. Those sources and methods could include, for instance, the means that an agency uses to spy on a foreign government.
A White House official said: “There is nothing that leads us to believe that this is an accurate account of what is actually happening.”
A spokesman for the Office of Director of National Intelligence said: “Any suggestion that the U.S. intelligence community is withholding information and not providing the best possible intelligence to the president and his national security team is not true.”
Intelligence officials have in the past not told a president or members of Congress about the ins and outs of how they ply their trade. At times, they have decided that secrecy is essential for protecting a source, and that all a president needs to know is what that source revealed and what the intelligence community thinks is important about it.
Are you getting this? Intelligence officials are withholding information from the president – just as they have with other presidents. In short, once again, there is no story. This is what is known in the business as “stirring the pot” – generating what appears to be “news” that, in fact, is business as usual.
The catalyst for this feeding frenzy was Michael Flynn’s incredible lapse in judgment in speaking to the Russian government and then lying about it. But the Flynn resignation has taken on a larger symbolism – it is a metaphor for the “chaos” that exists in the White House.
How much of this is true and how much is invention?
The head of US Special Operations Command said Tuesday that the US government is in “unbelievable turmoil,” a situation that he suggested could undermine US efforts to fight adversaries such as ISIS.
“Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon because we’re a nation at war,” Army Gen. Raymond “Tony” Thomas told a symposium in Maryland.
While it wasn’t exactly clear what Thomas was referring to, his remarks come less than 24 hours after retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was forced to step down as national security adviser, becoming by far the shortest tenured adviser in history.
Thomas oversees America’s elite Special Operations troops, including Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets, which have played a large role in carrying out the nation’s conflicts since 9/11.
Asked later about his comments, Thomas, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, said: “As a commander, I’m concerned our government be as stable as possible.
This is extraordinary, considering that CNN admits “it wasn’t exactly clear what Thomas was referring to.” If it’s “not exactly clear” why report the damn story in the first place?!
Thomas should be at least disciplined and perhaps fired for commenting on politics while on active duty. What does he know about Washington politics sitting in his office at SOCOM headquarters in Florida? His indiscretion has given ammunition to the political enemies of his commander in chief. As a senior military commander, he should have known better.
These are just a sampling of the over-the-top, exaggerated, hysterical reporting done that is deliberately, consciously being created to undermine and eventually destroy a legitimately elected president. It’s never been done on this scale before. Fed by social media and the interconnectedness of the internet, Donald Trump is facing a challenge far greater than Richard Nixon faced when his presidency began to unravel. And the speed at which the attacks are rolling downhill is making it difficult – if not impossible – for Trump and his people to turn the situation around.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on December 11, 2016
The Bible’s book of Galatians, VI teaches, «As You Sow, So Shall You Reap».
And for Saudi Arabia, which has overtly and covertly supported rebellions in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ethiopia, Philippines, and Lebanon that have led to civil wars and inter-religious strife, the day of reckoning may soon be at hand. The present Saudi king, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, is the last of the sons of the first Saudi king, Abdul Aziz al Saud, who will ever sit on the Saudi throne. After Salman dies, Saudi leadership will pass to a new generation of Saudi royals. But not all the descendants of the first Saudi king are happy about how the future succession may turn out.
Salman named his nephew, Mohammed bin Nayef, as crown prince after firing his half-brother, Mugrin bin Abdul Aziz, as crown prince after the death of King Abdullah in 2015. For good measure, Salman also named his son, Mohammad bin Salman, who is little-known outside the kingdom, as deputy prime minister. The 30-year old Mohammad bin Salman is seen by some as the eventual crown prince after King Salman figures out some way to ease Mohammad bin Nayef, the Interior Minister and close friend of the United States, out of the position of heir apparent to the throne.
More and more power has been concentrated into Mohammad bin Salman’s hands, including control over the Defense Ministry, the Council of Economy and Development, and the Saudi government-owned Arabian-American oil company (ARAMCO). The deputy crown prince and defense minister is the architect of Saudi Arabia’s genocidal military campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen and continued Saudi support for jihadist guerrillas in Syria and Iraq, as well as military support for the Wahhabist royal regime in Bahrain in its bloody suppression of the Shi’a Muslim majority population. Mohammad bin Salman is also the major force in Saudi Arabia seeking a military confrontation with Iran.
There is a schism within the Saudi royal family that has created a real-life «Game of Thrones» within the kingdom. The first Saudi king had between 37 and 44 sons from a harem of 22 wives. One of these sons, 85-year old Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz, also known as the «Red Prince» for his support for a national constitution and Western-style rule of law separated from Muslim sharia law, is suspicious about the concentration of power in the hands of Salman’s family, which comes at the expense of the other princes with a political claim inside the monarchy. Prince Talal is not alone.
Power in Saudi Arabia has generally resided with the seven sons of King Abdulaziz and Hassa bin Ahmed, which include present King Salman. These sons are commonly known as the «Sudairi Seven». They included the late King Fahd; the late Crown Princes Sultan and Nayef; the former deputy defense ministers Abdul Rahman and Turki and Interior Minister Ahmed, all removed from succession; and King Salman. In addition to the families of the other sons of the Saudi founder, the families of the «Sudairi Six», minus Salman’s family, are intensely jealous of the power being conveyed to deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. When Salman dies, many observers of secretive Saudi royal politics expect to see a succession battle that might even result in a royal civil war.
And a civil war among competing Saudi royals can easily become one between various Saudi regions. Thus, the fracturing of Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen brought about by Saudi adventurism may come back to haunt the Saudis in a major way.
The first Saudi region that can be expected to take advantage of a Saudi royal family split is the Eastern Region, which is known formally as the Eastern Province and is ruled by Saud bin Nayef, a son of the late Crown Prince Nayef from the provincial capital of Dammam. When King Abdullah died in 2015, Saud bin Nayef was passed over for Crown Prince by his younger brother, Mohammad bin Nayef. Although both brothers are nephews of King Salman, Saud may still harbor a resentment against his uncle for stripping him of the chance to become king. A full-blown Saudi civil war may begin in the Eastern Region, which is not only the center of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry with thousands of expatriate workers, but also the home to what may be either a slim majority or very significant minority of Shi’a Muslims.
The Saudi government has never wanted to conduct a religious census of the country because it might not like the results, especially in the Eastern Province. In 2009, popular Shi’a leader Nimr Baqir al-Nimr was arrested by Saudi authorities for advancing the idea that the Eastern Region should secede from Saudi Arabia. In 2015, amid an international outcry of condemnation for its action, Saudi Arabia executed al-Nimr. Expect the Eastern Region to the first to openly revolt against the Saudi government in the event the current «Game of Thrones» turns into a «War of Thrones».
The next region to revolt against the monarchy would be Asir, the southwest area that borders northern Yemen, in addition to two neighboring Saudi regions. Asir is the home to a significant minority of Zaidi Muslims. The Saudi regime has been waging a genocidal campaign against the Asir Zaidis’ cousins on the Yemeni side of the border, the Houthi rebels, who are also Zaidis.
Houthi rebels have launched several military attacks, including missile barrages, on Saudi targets in Asir, as well as the Saudi border regions of Jizan and Najran, in the hope that they might ignite a Zaidi uprising in the southern Saudi regions. There have been reports during the Yemeni civil war that Houthi forces seized, at least temporarily, a few Saudi villages in Asir, Najran, and Jizan. Open rebellions by Zaidis in Asir, Najran, and Jizan, along with a Shi’a rebellion in the Eastern region, may be too much for the Saudi armed forces to handle, especially if it is split along competing allegiances to rival princes and throne claimants.
Intervention in a Saudi civil war by the United States and NATO would be guaranteed to result in a costly outcome for the West in terms of body bags, sabotage of oil installations, and a multi-billion-dollar financial drain. The probability that Yemen would see the restoral of an independent South Yemen and a battle for control of northern Yemen between Houthis and remnants of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government would entail Western troops also engaging in a protracted civil war in another huge chunk of the Arabian Peninsula. Even the most-warlike members of the Donald Trump administration would likely not want to become mired in a major Arabian imbroglio.
Widespread conflict in Saudi Arabia might also result in the regions of Mecca and Medina becoming an independent entity with the primary responsibility of protecting the Islamic holy places and ensuring safe access for Muslim pilgrims. The Organization of Islamic Conference and other non-Wahhabi influenced Islamic organizations may become vehicles by which the two holy cities are governed as a «neutral zone» unaffected by Saudi turmoil and Wahhabist religious radicalism.
Other regions of Saudi Arabia that would likely spin off include the Northern Borders region adjacent to Iraq and Tabuk, which lies along the southern Jordanian border and the Gulf of Aqaba. Tabuk might seek some form of security protection from both Jordan and Israel to remain aloof from armed confrontation between Saudi factions. The Northern Borders region might seek a similar accommodation with Iraq.
The real battle for control of Saudi Arabia would be mostly centered in Riyadh province, for the keys to the kingdom, or what remains of it, would be found in control of the Saudi capital city of Riyadh. In any event, a Saudi civil war would be best left to the regional actors to sort things out. Any outside intervention would certainly make matters much worse and could develop into a wider regional or world war.
