This article appeared as a guest article on the Saker Blog and is reproduced here to help draw attention to this issue.

August has been a month for exposing how the “Empire” works at the social media level, inside the activist communities and, in this case, through the social media movements aimed at defending Syria. Western governments have outlaid millions for this purpose and countless allied agencies are involved across various languages and media, from actual military personnel managing multiple fake characters [1], to other programs targeting online socio-political activism, even to the extent of online publications being created and “discovered” that appear as belonging to ISIS [2]. ... read full story / add a comment

The unsayable in Britain’s general election campaign is this. The causes of the Manchester atrocity, in which 22 mostly young people were murdered by a jihadist, are being suppressed to protect the secrets of British foreign policy.
Critical questions – such as why the security service MI5 maintained terrorist “assets” in Manchester and why the government did not warn the public of the threat in their midst – remain unanswered, deflected by the promise of an internal “review”. ... read full story / add a comment

WSWS.org carries a report on the plans of the new French president - Emmanuel Macron -who was presented as an outsider but in fact was not and in cohorts with the corporate controlled media misled the French people, for now he is about to launch the greatest assault yet on workers conditions.

... read full story / add a comment

Many people still don't fully understand why events transpired the way they did during our financial crisis, but this analysis by Michael Hudson reproduced here serves to clearly outline how and why we ended up where we did. The interview is concerned with the greek situation with but the behaviours involved in "loaning to exploit" described in the interview are clearly recognisable from our own experiences. ... read full story / add a comment

Since April 4, 2017, violent anti-government protests have rocked Venezuela.

Characterised by deadly clashes between state security forces and opposition demonstrators, vandalism and destruction of public institutions, and the assassination of Chavista supporters, the unrest has left 31 people dead to date. Hundreds more have been injured.

Despite the heavy press coverage, there is significant confusion over how these deaths occurred and at the hands of whom. In a bid for clarity, Venezuelanalysis provides readers with an in-depth and a complete account of the deaths so far below. ... read full story / add a comment

In an article published in the Irish Times on April 8th, the paper's former foreign correspondent Patrick Smith claimed that the concept of neutrality was obsolete for Ireland. In a response published on April 14th John Maguire outlines why that is not the case. ShannonWatch has reprinted his excellent letter in full on their website and it is reprinted here too. ... read full story / add a comment

Donald Trump, a neo-fascist demogog brought to power on a wave of reactionary sentiment is also one of the cabal of white male billionaire oligarchs that have largely ruled that country since its inception as a slave-owning Anglo settler state. The only thing that will bring down this regime is for the rest of us to unite worldwide and economically STARVE this maniacal beast-Boycott Divest & Sanction the U.S. until this regime crumbles from lack of incoming profits to its Wall Street corporate mafia! ... read full story / add a comment

A kickstarter campaign plus a dedicated campaign of relentless annoyance by an activist has led to the CIA reluctantly releasing 13 million of their archived documents for public viewing on the internet. Releases from 1994 to 2016 are included. This translates as all documents from 1969 until 1989 They are released under Bill Clinton’s 1995 Executive Order 13526 instituted in 2006. One of the few good things he ever did.The Executive Order requires the declassification of non-exempt historically valuable records 25 years or older. These documents were previously only physically accessible from four computers at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland using the CIA Records Search Tool Get searching folks. It's a treasure trove!
... read full story / add a comment

We reproducing this article by Dr Rory Hearne, Researcher & Author of "Public Private Partnerships in Ireland: failed experiment or the way forward ?" to highlight some important background and context to this issue

Fears about the privatisation of public water provision was a central motivating factor behind the Right2Water protest movement but concerns about the privatisation of water are held by many other political and civil society groupings. The recently published Expert Commission on Water Services Report highlighted a widespread public “concern about the potential privatisation of Irish Water”. They stated that public responses to their consultation “expressed concerns that water charges, and metering of domestic households, could eventually lead to privatisation”. The Report notes that this “was sometimes set in the context of wider concerns about privatisation of public services, and the commodification of water”. However, it is widely known that various public and private interests have been preparing the ground for the potential privatisation of the Irish public water system. In this article I provide evidence that should concern all those worried about the potential privatisation of Irish public water. This centres on the on-going implementation of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the provision of public water infrastructure in Ireland. These PPPs are a form of ‘creeping privatisation’ that makes the full privatisation of our public water system a real possibility in the future. ... read full story / add a comment

GARDA CHIEFS and Scotland Yard commanders allowed British undercover policeman Mark Kennedy to spy on environmental groups in Ireland, including the Shell to Sea campaign in Mayo. Dublin Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan wants Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald to get some long-overdue and straight answers from her British counterpart when she meets Home Secretary Amber Rudd this month. ... read full story / add a comment

LASC have written an good article by Liam Bradshaw covering the massacre of teachers and students by the police in Mexico back in 2014 and the join up the dots on this terrible event. It is republished here because to bring some attention to it.

On September 26, 2014, two years ago this week, student teachers form the Escuela Rural Normal Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa were attacked in Iguala, Guerrero by local police. Six people were killed, dozens injured, and 43 remain missing two years later. One of the murdered students had been tortured and his face cut off. Elements of the municipal, state and federal police as well as the army participated in the crime, making it a state crime. ... read full story / add a comment

In the months leading up to the Olympics there was a clear political campaign to kick Russia out of the Olympics and this was all part of the broader strategy to make Russia the number one enemy of the West and to restart a new Cold War which the USA has managed to more or less achieve.

However it was surely obvious to anyone who follows sport that there are plenty of others taking drugs and nobody is squeaky clean. Therefore it comes as no surprise to discover the US athletes were taking drugs but what does come as a surprise is the influence of the global US machine on the likes of bodies such as World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) who seem to have one set of rules for some countries and allows them to take drugs with "doctor's note" and other rules for other countries where no such exemptions or rather turning of a blind eye are allowed.

All of this has come to light as a result of recent hacking of WADA. Naturally it is blamed on the Russians. Whether it is or isn't is in material. What matters is what was found and blaming the hackers whoever they are, is simply away to distract from the issue. ... read full story / add a comment

For those still naive about nature of the US state and it's foreign policy and the sinister and corrupting role of corporate power then this interview of U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson who served at the very top of the US war machine should leave them under no further illusions after listening to him.

Abby Martin interviews retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former national security advisor to the Reagan administration, who spent years as an assistant to Secretary of State Colin Powell during both Bush administrations. Today, he is honest about the unfixable corruption inside the establishment and the corporate interests driving foreign policy.

Hear a rare insider's view of what interests are behind U.S. wars, the manipulation of intelligence, the intertwining of the military and corporate world, and why the U.S. Empire is doomed.
http://multimedia.telesurtv.net/v/the-empire-files-482829/ ... read full story / add a comment

Even though this story broke in early Aug, it received almost zero coverage except on RT.com. Given the biggest thing in the 1990s was the breakup and wars in the former Yugoslavia and Slobodan Milosevic the former president of Yugoslavia and the endless accusations of war crimes and so forth against Milosevic who was eventually tried in the Hague, it now comes as very big news to discover he has been belatedly pardoned and completely exonerated and therefore it is important that what really happened and the role of NATO as the instrument of the Neo Cons needs to be re-examined.

From RT.com: The ICTY’s exoneration of the late Slobodan Milosevic, the former President of Yugoslavia, for war crimes committed in the Bosnia war, proves again we should take NATO claims regarding its ’official enemies’ not with a pinch of salt, but a huge lorry load.

For the past twenty odd years, neocon commentators and 'liberal interventionist' pundits have been telling us at every possible opportunity, that Milosevic (a democratically elected leader in a country where over 20 political parties freely operated) was an evil genocidal dictator who was to blame for ALL the deaths in the Balkans in the 1990s. Repeat after me in a robotic voice (while making robotic arm movements): 'Milosevic's genocidal aggression' 'Milosevic's genocidal aggression'. ... read full story / add a comment

This article appear on the Saker blog and is reproduced here as George Soros has a huge and sinister influence over many organisations particularly in Europe and was implicated in the installation of the neo Nazi thugs in power in Kiev, in the Ukraine and for help trigger numerous colour revolutions that ultimately help install puppet governments answerable to the neo cons in Washington and carry out the neo liberal agenda which ultimately only serves the agenda of the rich.

A leak of private documents of George Soros’ Open Society Foundations has been released, courtesy of http://soros.dcleaks.com/.

George Soros is known to be involved in pretty much any revolution or coup around the world as well as heavily influencing politics. But these leaks provide direct evidence and show how deep and serious his involvement is. Here’s a quick analysis of what one can find.

... read full story / add a comment

Original article By Graham Vanbergen – http://truepublica.org.uk/global/decade-evidence-demons...tion/

According to wikipedia, Globalisation is the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture. However, over the last ten years there has been a sea change decline in all the indicators that would measure the success of this model. Democracy, economic growth, freedom and an interchange of world views and culture has all but been abandoned to a vice like grip of globalisation driven more by the corporate principles of power and greed resulting in war, terrorism, a biblical refugee crisis, fear and a fully co-opted media. ... read full story / add a comment

The 2016 Census has again revealed there is no housing crisis. In fact about 1 in 8 houses were empty, a massive 259,562 dwellings in all.

So why are their hundreds of homeless on the streets and thousands in emergency accommodation. Why are rents soaring, particularly in Dublin, to level that mean most people can no longer afford to rent there? Why have house prices continued to increase far, far beyond the reach of the average worker? ... read full story / add a comment

As reported by MayoNews and ShellToSea two week ago...

SHELL E&P Ireland will appear before Dublin Metropolitan District Court on September 5 next over an intense flaring incident at the controversial Corrib refinery on December 31 last, The Mayo News can confirm. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has confirmed it issued a summons to Shell last week after a six-month investigation into what locals described as a ‘frightening’ event. They said it lasted 30 to 40 minutes, lit up the sky and was seen from as far away as Achill and Foxford. The fire from the giant chimney stack was accompanied by a ‘low, loud rumble like a supersonic boom’, according to local witnesses ... read full story / add a comment

WRECK THE « CLIMATE CHANCE » SUMMIT!*

*Climate Actors World Summit
« For a green capitalism, for a sustainable exploitation »

At Nantes, France, from 26 to 28 September 2016 ... read full story / add a comment

Eddie Hobbs has repeatedly in the last few years brought up the fact that we don't own our own natural resources and that they have been given away. Unfortunately he hasn't got much traction with the establishment simply because they don't want to listen. This hasn't stopped him and yesterday in the Irish Examiner he has again written about the great ripoff in the context of the recent release of the film-documentary, The Atlantic produced by the same producer of The Pipe. ... read full story / add a comment