FIRST HORSE: We can't compete with this Merc Van, can we?

SECOND HORSE: Hey! We went round the block four times in two days... It hasn't moved once in a week... 

FIRST HORSE: Do you think it could be an RT news gathering device spying on us?

SECOND HORSE: Industrial espionage on a couple of nags?... It's dead meat...

 

 

Picture at top by Gus Leonisky. 

Despite being ignored by Western media, leaks from Integrity Initiative have paralyzed the operations of this UK-funded covert influence network, and could lead to its dismantling, says a leading British academic.

“This has made a mess of [Integrity Initiative’s] operations, they are spending most of their time now trying to fire-fight on the coverage this is getting. And they are not doing essentially what they are being paid to do, which is to counter the Russians,” David Miller, Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol School for Policy Studies, told RT.

“The British government is getting bad value for money, if it was ever getting better value.”

As part of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, which studies Western attempts to control media coverage of key international events, Miller has played a crucial role in studying the four tranches of data anonymously uploaded and sourced from the previously little-known group, which has been backed by the UK Foreign Office, NATO and Facebook, to the tune of over £1 million per year.

The documents, whose authenticity has not been denied, contain details of psyops operations against public figures, of the manipulation of media coverage in leading Western outlets, and have also revealed worldwide networks of prominent journalists and academics, secretly engaged to discredit, at every turn, pro-Moscow points of view and political developments.

Despite the refusal by all of those named either to either admit their connection or to say that there was nothing untoward in their activities, Miller believes that getting rumbled has made it more difficult for them to push and publish anti-Russian content.

“Most of the people named are trying to pretend that this is not all of great significance, but the revelation of the involvement of the government in manipulating other countries, and the political process in the UK, is extremely damaging for them,” he said, via video link.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/448325-integrity-initiative-shut-down-leaks/

 

 

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This deception is ignored by the Western media...

 

End of the Boom

Germany Prepares for an Economic Downturn

Clouds are gathering on the horizon of the global economy and the risk of a recession is growing. Many experts believe that the international banking system is unprepared and Germany has begun getting ready for the worst.

 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is something like a global weather station for the economy, carefully registering even the tiniest of disruptions to the world economic stage. And in the past week, IMF analysts have concluded that a storm is brewing on the horizon.

Its experts carefully register every impulse, and in the past week they've concluded that the forecast is looking increasingly dark. "I see storm clouds building," David Lipton, the IMF's first deputy managing director, recently said in London, adding that the global banking system isn't ready for another downturn. "The work on crisis prevention is incomplete," he said.

The economic outlook is worsening almost by the week. A general consensus among economy experts has emerged that 2019 will be worse for all large national economies than last year. Stock exchanges already began dropping last year, with Germany's blue-chip index DAX losing almost 20 percent of its value in 2018 while the Dow Jones also showed losses. 

The risks for the global economy, the eurozone and Germany have increased significantly in recent months. The U.S.'s stricter monetary policy, with the Federal Reserve raising interest rates again shortly before Christmas, is creating a predicament for emerging economies given their considerable debts, especially those in dollars. As interest rates rise, so too does the amount they must earmark for servicing their debts. The trade conflicts incited by U.S. President Donald Trump aren't helping the economic climate either. 

In Europe, several crises could flare up simultaneously in 2019 and further burden economic development. It's still unclear if Brexit will take place in an orderly or chaotic fashion, but it will certainly be a burden for the British and European economies, destroying established production structures, requiring costly adaptation measures by companies and fostering consumer uncertainty. Then there's the Italian government's rather adventurous approach to economic policy, which could trigger a new euro crisis.

 

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/germany-prepares-for-an-eco...

 

Meanwhile the Donald, still after his Mexican wall, has added 1.5 trillion deficit to the US markets, for the US banks to play with ("responsibly" — ahah)... 

Teachers too are angry and want to let it know. After #pasdevagues [#no-waves], a movement born in October 2018 to denounce the lack of support of their superiors in the face of school violence following the assault of a female professor attacked during class, here are the "red pens". Launched mid-December by six teachers on Facebook, this group has grown rapidly during the Christmas holidays. Wednesday, January 9, the movement has now reached 60,000 members.

If the "red pens" claim a continuity with the phenomenon #pasdewaves, they remind us of other dissatisfied: the "yellow vests". A symbolic object, a color and the spontaneity of the playing field, that's what brings the two movements together. They have only the name as a close relationship, according to the founders of the "red pens", but these would probably not have emerged without the crisis of "yellow vests". On December 10, it is to these that Emmanuel Macron addressed his rhetoric in favor of boosting purchasing power of the "base". In this televised address, the president did not mention the conditions of teachers ... The "red pens" are born of this "forgetfulness". "We wanted to create a Facebook group to find out if others were as unhappy as we are," says Jennifer (all of whom requested anonymity), a 34-year-old schoolteacher who is one of six founders. In a few days, we have been joined by more than 10,000. "

change of the critical point

Who makes up this online community which now representing nearly 7% of the 880 000 teachers of the national education? Their profiles are as diverse as the teaching staff itself: first- and second-degree teachers, but also CPEs and psychologists, union members, non-union members, young and older teachers....

 

Translation by Jules Letambour

 

Read more:

https://www.lemonde.fr/education/article/2019/01/09/les-stylos-rouges-au...

Why is Britain spending billions of dollars on two new super aircraft carriers? That’s the question the state-owned BBC asks. However, don’t expect the British Bullsh**t Corporation to provide any insightful answers.

The two ships in question – now coming into service – are HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, lovingly named after the British monarchy. The total cost for building these “leviathans” is around £6 billion ($8bn), according to the BBC. But when fully fitted out with new warplanes, the cost will soar to multiples of that figure.

At a time when poverty is hitting record levels in Britain and the country is facing an economic meltdown over its Brexit divorce from the European Union, it is certainly pertinent to question the seemingly twisted priorities of British state planners in putting these mega warships into service.

You have to appreciate the scale of these vessels. HMS Queen Elizabeth is 280 meters in length, longer that the iconic Houses of Parliament building in London. It can host up to 60 aircraft on its deck. 

 

The BBC calls the two new super carriers “gunboat diplomacy on steroids”. They are bigger than any other previous British-made aircraft carrier, all which have been decommissioned through old age. 

The US navy currently has 10 such vessels. China, France and Russia have one each. With two aircraft carriers, Britain is thus showing “global ambitions”. But what are those ambitions?

Significantly, both of these British warships are reportedly designed to be compatible with US counterparts. Britain has ordered 48 American-made Lockheed Martin F-35B stealth fighter jets, specifically for deployment on its new carriers. It is planning to buy a total of 138 F-35s to complete the battle group. 

Each F-35 warplane has a price tag of around $100 million. So, for the total package of 138 planes for the two carriers, the final cost could be near $18 billion. That’s on top of the $8bn building budget. 

Again, this is a bewildering extravagance with British taxpayers’ money at a time when the country is suffering from massive poverty and its public health services – once the envy of the world – are in abject deterioration. 

READ MORE: No Longer 'Master of the Seven Seas': Has the Royal Navy Ever Been This Tiny?

The design of Britain’s new carriers – in particular the compatibility with US navy and air force – is perhaps the key to what British “global ambitions” are really about. 

Britain is positioning itself as a hired gun for American imperialism in the 21st century. Think about it. Why would Britain build these giant warships to be of such service to US warplanes, instead of British-European counterparts like the EuroTyphoon fighter? 

The function of Britain as a military accomplice of the US is nothing new of course. All during the Cold War decades, British forces were a reliable partner in American overseas interventions. The henchman role played by Britain was euphemistically called the “special relationship”.

After the Cold War, the “special relationship” continued with Britain joining in American wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. The British not only provided important firepower and boots on the ground to terrorize occupied populations on behalf of the Americans, the accomplice role also provided an important veneer of “multilateralism” and, therefore, legal cover for what was otherwise blatant criminal aggression. 

Looking ahead, Washington’s imperial planners are fixated on the return of “great power rivalry”. China and Russia are explicitly fingered as the targets. As American economic power diminishes, the role of its military is assigned more purpose to offset this weakness with regard to exerting US global power.

But American military power is also limited by historic economic demise. With a national debt of $22 trillion – and counting – the outlook for US militarism is one of inevitable constraints. 

 

This is where Washington’s partner in militarism – Britain – is finding a new assignment. Namely, to share the military burden of “securing” the globe in the 21st century for Anglo-American capitalism.

Britain’s two new super carriers fit this arrangement. Admittedly, construction of the vessels was initiated 10 years ago. But we are talking about strategic planning here, and how American and British planners anticipate trends of geopolitics. 

What is of concern is how British political and military leaders, as well as state propaganda outlets (like the BBC and think-tanks like the Integrity Initiative), have been zealously ramping up Russophobia in recent years. 

The alleged poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal in England last year is a case in point. The British political and media establishment have been banging war drums over that dubious incident with accusations that the Russian government ordered “an assassination on the streets of Britain” – an “act of war” no less, it is claimed. 

READ MORE: Captain of UK's Most Powerful Ship Wants 10,000 More Sailors in Royal Navy

Britain’s warmongering against Russia is also demonstrated by its increased “interception” of Russian warplanes and warships in international waters; its unprecedented deployment of troops to the Arctic and Baltic (including Prince Harry!) – “to send a signal to Moscow”; and recently the dispatch of a British warship to the Black Sea to support the Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev which, British defense minister Gavin Williamson claims, is “facing Russian aggression”.

British delusions of grandeur as a former imperial power are pathetic. But these delusions are also dangerous when Britain is being given a new role as America’s imperialist henchman for the 21st century. And in a bid to try to prove its “worth”, Britain is becoming more belligerent towards Russia. 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

Read more:

 

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201901081071310653-why-uk-aggresses/

 

 

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Dad’s Army’s cover blown

 

A formidable and secret UK government-funded anti-Russian StratCom (strategic communication) enterprise, its cover having recently been embarrassingly blown, now presents itself as a bumbling Dad’s Army outfit. But don’t be fooled: this pussycat is a tiger.

By Tony Kevin

 

This published-sources-based story has been around for a few weeks but has so far gone completely unreported in Australian media: which is odd, because it is in my opinion quite an important foreign affairs story for Australia.

A lengthy set of files, made up of downloaded (or hacked) Integrity Initiative and Institute for Statecraft papers, was published online in late November by British contrarian writer Tim Hayward, as a ‘working file in progress’, under the title ‘Briefing note on the Integrity Initiative’, with authors Paul McKeigue, David Miller, Jake Mason, and Piers Robinson (who call themselves the ‘Working Group on Syria Propaganda and Media’). The URL is here.

The authors introduce their set of papers as follows:

A close examination of past and present posts held by individuals associated with the Integrity Initiative indicates that [TK- British] specialists in military intelligence and other senior military personnel with responsibility for StratCom (strategic communication) operations are closely involved in the programme.

The activities of the Integrity Initiative include:

• setting up covert networks (“clusters”) of journalists, academics and military/foreign service StratCom practitioners in each country including the UK: “The programme has begun to create a critical mass of individuals from across society (think tanks, academia, politics, the media, government and the military) whose work is proving to be mutually reinforcing.”
• covert manipulation of the public sphere, including campaigns to smear and suppress dissenters and block their appointment to public office. The “silencing of pro-Kremlin voices on Serbian TV” is listed as an “achievement”.
• overt attacks on British politicians, academics and other critics of UK government policies, most notably on the Leader of the Opposition [TK – Jeremy Corbyn] and his staff.
• in the Baltic states and Ukraine, working closely with organizations and governments that foment hatred of ethnic Russian minorities and encourage Holocaust revisionism.
• promotion of a hate campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church in the Balkans.’

In response to these published leaked documents, Chris Donnelly, a senior staffer in the Institute for Statecraft, produced in December a fascinating seven-minute Youtube video, professionally filmed in a cosy kitchen in a house or flat (possibly his own) in London. Here is the URL

 

I have transcribed Mr Donnelly’s talk and will send this by following email. Here are the sections that were of most interest to me:

We have across Europe ‘networks’ – we call them ‘clusters’ – of people who understand the issue, and have agreed voluntarily to band themselves together in order to tackle the issue in their own country, and to share information between each country, on the problems, on how to tackle them, and on how to improve their own governmental capacity to deal with them. The Integrity Initiative program is really important right at this moment, because the threat from disinformation and malign influence is increasing, whether that comes from Russia, or from jihadist organisations, like Daesh, targeting specific elements of the population in different European countries.

…

To understand why disinformation is such a big issue nowadays, we have to understand that the whole nature of conflict in the 21st century is changing. Whereas if you think of the 20th century, the main form of combat, of conflict, that we are aware of, was world war. During the current situation, it’s a new kind of warfare, a new kind of conflict, a new kind of competition, in which everything becomes a weapon: information, energy supplies, cyber-attack which everyone is aware of, corruption itself, financial investment – all of these things are now weapons in modern conflict between states, and between states and sub-state actors like Daesh. And disinformation is the issue which unites all the other weapons of this conflict and which gives them a third dimension.

… 

Over the last month or so, we have had a serious problem. We have been hacked, attacked, by organisations which have exposed a lot of our emails and papers onto the Web. And we have been wondering of course why this is, and the answer seems to me to be clear. It is because we have been being so effective with our Integrity Initiative program, exposing disinformation, so we have become a threat to someone’s operation against democracy, and they are trying to take us down. And we have simply not got to let that happen. We have got to fight back. We have to win this one, because if we don’t, democracy will be undermined. And we can win this by upping our game, by strengthening our efforts, by getting more support, to tackle the problem in all those countries of Europe where disinformation is a growing threat to democracy. This is not a problem that’s going to go away. This is an issue which is going to become more and more important, more and more of a threat, as the 21st century moves on, and it’s for that reason that we have to develop what we are doing, we have to grow it, we have to educate people to understand it, to understand the significance of disinformation and of the attack on our democratic institutions, the efforts to undermine our very concept of democracy, to undermine the very understanding of truth, to undermine our values. Only if we can educate people in this, only if we can expose the attacks on us, can we enable our societies, our democracies, to fight back, to defend themselves, and to prevail.

As NATO Honorary Colonel Donnelly, a retired senior intelligence officer, bumbles around in his little kitchen, a modest wine rack on the wall behind him, he offers to viewers a mild, cuddly George Smiley sort of image. But the fierce glint in his eye and the passion of his words I have selected above shows he is anything but mild. He is a dedicated ideological crusader with a keen professional expertise in strategic communication tradecraft (Stratcom). The Institute’s and the Initiative’s cover having been blown, it is the best possible defence to try to de-fang them: to make them look as familiar and unthreatening as possible, a sort of quaint Dad’s Army operation. But it would be a mistake to underestimate their dedication, expertise or influence, as a reading of the contents of the ‘Briefing Note on the Integrity Initiative’ will show. This is a big story.

The authors of the ‘Briefing Note’ estimate an overt 2018/19 budget of about £2.6 million, of which £1.96 million comes from the UK Foreign Office and the rest from other NATO government agencies and commercial donors like Facebook. Most of the Foreign Office funding comes from the Conflict Security and Stability Fund’s ‘Russian Language Programme’, now merged with a secret ‘Counter Disinformation and Media Programme’. Office space in central London (undeclared) and most of the staff salaries appear to be provided as covert benefits in kind. I would estimate these separately budgeted items to be worth an additional £2 million, making a total 2018/19 annual budget in the vicinity of £4 to £5 million.

The key point which makes this newsworthy – or it should, if we still had serious investigative journalism in Australia – is that we now know that there is a concerted international effort by large numbers of experienced former British StratCom intelligence professionals, and their many and diverse contacts in the Foreign Office and in British media and abroad, that is putting out a steadily directed and prioritised flow of anti-Russian disinformation. All the time. And they do it well, as we have seen on the Skripals, on Ukraine, and on Syria. These men and women are professionals in the manipulation of disinformation online, using networks and clusters of key people strategically to drive desired discussion themes in major public fora, in mainstream media, and even in online comment sites. It is no accident that various Anglosphere disinformation offensives sometimes look disciplined and centrally guided. Because they are.

Chris Donnelly may think of these activities as countering Russian disinformation: to me, they are simply in themselves expert disinformation practice. We need to know this as we read Anglosphere foreign affairs published content or listen to talks. We need to ask ourselves critical questions like: Where is this originating? With what objectives?

I think this is all disturbing and newsworthy, but I have yet to persuade anybody in Australian media that it is.

Tony Kevin, a former Australian senior diplomat, is an independent non-fiction author. His most recent book is ‘Return to Moscow’, a literary travel memoir published by UWA Publishing in 2017.

 

 

Read more:

 

https://off-guardian.org/2019/01/08/dads-armys-cover-blown/

 

 

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From CJ Hopkins

Remember when the War on Terror ended and the War on Populism began? That’s OK, no one else does.

It happened in the Summer of 2016, also known as “the Summer of Fear.” The War on Terror was going splendidly. There had been a series of “terrorist attacks,” in Orlando, Nice, Würzberg, Munich, Reutlingen, Ansbach, and Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, each of them perpetrated by suddenly “self-radicalized” “lone wolf terrorists” (or “non-terrorist terrorists“) who had absolutely no connection to any type of organized terrorist groups prior to suddenly “self- radicalizing” themselves by consuming “terrorist content” on the Internet. It seemed we were entering a new and even more terrifying phase of the Global War on Terror, a phase in which anyone could be a “terrorist” and “terrorism” could mean almost anything.

This broadening of the already virtually meaningless definition of “terrorism” was transpiring just in time for Obama to hand off the reins to Hillary Clinton, who everyone knew was going to be the next president, and who was going to have to bomb the crap out of Syria in response to the non-terrorist terrorist threat. The War on Terror (or, rather, “the series of persistent targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America,” as Obama rebranded it) was going to continue, probably forever. The Brexit referendum had just taken place, but no one had really digested that yet … and then Trump won the nomination.

Like that scene in Orwell’s 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in the middle of the Hate Week rally, the War on Terror was officially canceled and replaced by the War on Populism. Or … all right, it wasn’t quite that abrupt. But seriously, go back and scan the news. Note how the “Islamic terrorist threat” we had been conditioned to live in fear of on a daily basis since 2001 seemed to just vanish into thin air. Suddenly, the “existential threat” we were facing was “neo-nationalism,” “illiberalism,” or the pejorative designator du jour, “populism.”

Here we are, two and a half years later, and “democracy” is under constant attack by a host of malevolent “populist” forces …. Russo-fascist Black vote suppressors, debaucherous eau de Novichok assassins, Bernie Sanders, the yellow-vested French, emboldened non-exploding mail bomb bombers, Jeremy Corbyn’s Nazi Death Cult, and brain-devouring Russian-Cubano crickets. The President of the United States is apparently both a Russian intelligence operative and literally the resurrection of Hitler. NBC and MSNBC have been officially merged with the CIA. The Guardian has dispensed with any pretense of journalism and is just making stories up out of whole cloth. Anyone who has ever visited Russia, or met with a Russian, or read a Russian novel, is on an “Enemies of Democracy” watch list (as is anyone refusing to vacation in Israel, which the Senate is now in the process of making mandatory for all U.S. citizens). Meanwhile, the “terrorists” are nowhere to be found, except for the terrorists we’ve been using to attempt to overthrow the government of Bashar al Assad, the sadistic nerve-gassing Monster of Syria, who illegally invaded and conquered his own country in defiance of the “international community.”

All this madness has something to do with “populism,” although it isn’t clear what. The leading theory is that the Russians are behind it. They’ve got some sort of hypno-technology (not to be confused with those brain-eating crickets) capable of manipulating the minds of … well, Black people, mostly, but not just Black people. Obviously, they are also controlling the French, who they have transformed into “racist, hate-filled liars” who are “attacking elected representatives, journalists, Jews, foreigners, and homosexuals,” according to French President Emmanuel Macron, the anointed “Golden Boy of Europe.” More terrifying still, Putin is now able to project words out of Trump’s mouth in real-time, literally using Trump’s head as a puppet, or like one of those Mission Impossible masks. (Rachel Maddow conclusively proved this by spending a couple of hours on Google comparing the words coming out of Trump’s mouth to words that had come out of Russian mouths, but had never come out of American mouths, which they turned out to be the exact same words, or pretty close to the exact same words!) Apparently, Putin’s master plan for Total Populist World Domination and Establishment of the Thousand Year Duginist Reich was to provoke the global capitalist ruling classes, the corporate media, and their credulous disciples into devolving into stark raving lunatics, or blithering idiots, or a combination of both.

But, seriously, all that actually happened back in the Summer of 2016 was the global capitalist ruling classes recognized that they had a problem. The problem that they recognized they had (and continue to have, and are now acutely aware of) is that no one is enjoying global capitalism … except the global capitalist ruling classes. The whole smiley-happy, supranational, neo-feudal corporate empire concept is not going over very well with the masses, or at least not with the unwashed masses. People started voting for right-wing parties, and Brexit, and other “populist” measures (not because they had suddenly transformed into Nazis, but because the Right was acknowledging and exploiting their anger with the advance of global neoliberalism, while liberals and the Identity Politics Left were slow jamming the TPP with Obama and babbling about transgender bathrooms, and such).

The global capitalist ruling classes needed to put a stop to that (i.e, the “populist” revolt, not the bathroom debate). So they suspended the Global War on Terror and launched the War on Populism. It was originally only meant to last until Hillary Clinton’s coronation, or the second Brexit referendum, then switch back to the War on Terror, but … well, weird things happen, and here we are.

We’ll get back to the War on Terror, eventually … as the War on Populism is essentially just a temporary rebranding of it. In the end, it’s all the same counter-insurgency. When a system is globally hegemonic, as our current model of capitalism is, every war is a counter-insurgency (i.e., a campaign waged against an internal enemy), as there are no external enemies to fight. The “character” of the internal enemies might change (e.g., “Islamic terrorism,” “extremism,” “fascism,” “populism,” “Trumpism,” “Corbynism,” et cetera) but they are all insurgencies against the hegemonic system … which, in our case, is global capitalism, not the United States of America.

The way I see it, the global capitalist ruling classes now have less than two years to put down this current “populist” insurgency. First and foremost, they need to get rid of Trump, who despite his bombastic nativist rhetoric is clearly no “hero of the common people,” nor any real threat to global capitalism, but who has become an anti-establishment symbol, like a walking, talking “fuck you” to both the American and global neoliberal elites. Then, they need to get a handle on Europe, which isn’t going to be particularly easy. What happens next in France will be telling, as will whatever becomes of Brexit … which I continue to believe will never actually happen, except perhaps in some purely nominal sense.

And then there’s the battle for hearts and minds, which they’ve been furiously waging for the last two years, and which is only going to intensify. If you think things are batshit crazy now (which, clearly, they are), strap yourself in. What is coming is going to make COINTELPRO look like the work of some amateur meme-freak. The neoliberal corporate media, psy-ops like Integrity Initiative, Internet-censoring apps like NewsGuard, ShareBlue and other David Brock outfits, and a legion of mass hysteria generators will be relentlessly barraging our brains with absurdity, disinformation, and just outright lies (as will their counterparts on the Right, of course, in case you thought that they were any alternative). It’s going to get extremely zany.

The good news is, by the time it’s all over and Trump has been dealt with, and normality restored, and the working classes put back in their places, we probably won’t remember that any of this happened. We’ll finally be able to sort out those bathrooms, and get back to paying the interest on our debts, and to living in more or less constant fear of an imminent devastating terrorist attack … and won’t that be an enormous relief?

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/01/14/the-war-on-populism/

 

 

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel enraged local activists after she appeared to suggest that the Kremlin was pulling the strings behind student climate protests. But her spokesman later said that she supported the demonstrations.

Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert was left to do some urgent damage control after the chancellor appeared to pin the blame for schoolchildren-led environmental protests across Europe on the long arm of Moscow.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Merkel highlighted the threat of Russian “hybrid warfare” – a mix of cyberwar and cunning disinformation campaigns – that, according to the German PM, “can be felt every day in every European country.”

Warning of the omnipotent threat to Europe’s security from Russia, Merkel noted that such warfare is “hard to detect, because you suddenly have movements that you wouldn’t have thought would appear.”

Seemingly citing an example of such an artificially concocted movement, Merkel mentioned the mass student demonstrations that see German schoolchildren skipping their lessons every Friday to protest against the government’s lukewarm response to climate change.

“In Germany now, children are protesting for climate protection,” she said. While conceding that it was “a really important issue,” Merkel appeared to cast doubt on its grassroot origins.

“But you can’t imagine that all German children, after years, and without any outside influence, suddenly hit on the idea that they have to take part in this process,” she said.

Merkel’s innuendo is not uncommon, as Moscow has been blamed for a range of international interferences by media and foreign governments, from Brexit in the UK, Yellow Vests in France, and – most recently – the global measles outbreak.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/451656-merkel-russia-climate-protest/

 

 

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The drastic measure may have been spurred by Sputnik's dogged investigations.

The Integrity Initiative — an international anti-Russian information warfare effort funded by NATO and British state organs the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defense — has "temporarily removed" all content from its website.

READ MORE: Anonymous Reveals Covert UK Special Ops on Hybrid Warfare in EU

Visitors to the site are now presented with a brief statement, which says "all content" has been removed "pending an investigation into the theft of data" from the Initiative and its parent organization, the Institute for Statecraft.

"Initial findings indicate the theft was part of a campaign to undermine the work of the Integrity Initiative in researching, publicising and countering the threat to European democracies from disinformation and other forms of hybrid warfare. The website will be relaunched shortly. In the meantime, we expect to be able to publish an analysis of the hack and its significance in the near future. We are keen to trace both the source of the hack and the use to which our data — some genuine, some falsified — has been put. If you have any information you think may be of relevance, please contact us," the statement reads.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201901221071717178-integrity-initiative-we...

 

 

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For those of you who don’t know, the Integrity Initiative is (was?) a UK-government funded operation to “counter disinformation”. It was run under the auspices of the (fake) charity the Institute for Statecraft, paid for by the foreign office and intelligence agencies, and co-opted journalists to spread propaganda.

This was all revealed months ago, when internal documents were leaked online. (Moon of Alabama did great work on this, as did Kit Klarenberg).

Journalists and other influencers were collected into cells, what the Integrity Initiative’s (II) internal memos called “clusters”, usually by region. These clusters were tasked with “combating Russian disinformation”, or other polite translations of “disseminating propaganda”.

The II’s target list is short but predictable – it attacked Russia, Russian media and “Russian bots”. It attacked Scottish nationalists and the independence movement, and it attacked Jeremy Corbyn. Essentially, they turn the fire of their “clusters” on those perceived to be enemies of the status quo.

Those contributing to these clusters are then little more than attack dogs. They never call themselves that, of course, they have all sorts of mechanisms for defending themselves from the truth of their actions. That’s how the shallow have lived with the unconscionable since the beginning of time.

A good example of how this works is Scottish journalist David Leask – written about here by Craig Murrary.

We know from internal memos that Leask had a meeting with II personnel in late March of 2018. We know, from these notes, that Leask was “briefed” about how Scottish nationalism and independence played into Russia’s hands. Or the prevalence of “McBots” spreading anti-union messages on Twitter. He is “appraised of the dangers”, and then toddles off back to his computer, safe in the knowledge that – though he is doubtless writing about the government told him to write about – he’s making the world a safer, freer and better place. Somehow.

The details of the leaks are not important right now. They have been analysed and dissected in great detail already. The actual mechanics, how the different clusters worked, can be reasoned and guessed at, but never known for certain…short of more leaks.

What we DO know is that the foreign office spent millions of pounds funding an organisation which worked with journalists to spin pro-government narratives and smear the head of the opposition. This is a big deal. It should be enough to bring down the government, or least spark an investigation.

Neither happened. In fact, the content of these leaks was never reported in detail in the mainstream media. Indeed, it was barely covered at all – short of vague, snide opinion pieces about the UK “stooping to Russia’s level” and other childish nonsense. (The Guardian closed the comment section on that piece after 2 hours, when it was clear nobody was buying what they were trying to sell).

The detailed write-ups available are only on alternate media sites, or rebel academic groups. The only MP to raise the issue in Parliament was Chris Williamson…since hounded out of Labour under spurious charges of antisemitism. For the most part, the establishment simply ignored all mention if the Integrity Initiative.

Until now.

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/07/the-msm-just-realised-the-integrity-...

 

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https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-urban-planners-hera...

 

 

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By Felix Livshitz

 

Last week, the University of Mainz published a study of German news coverage of events in Ukraine, and Berlin’s official response to the crisis. The conclusions confirm that since February 24, the media has played a major role in keeping the conflict going, and making a negotiated settlement less likely, due to almost universally biased, pro-war, anti-Russia content being published at all stages.

Researchers at the university analyzed German-language reporting on the Ukraine conflict between February 24 and May 31, assessing the content of around 4,300 separate articles published by the country’s eight leading newspapers and TV stations: FAZ, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Bild, Spiegel, Zeit, ARD Tagesschau, ZDF Today, and RTL Aktuell.

During this time, Ukraine was portrayed positively in 64% of all coverage, and President Vladimir Zelensky in 67%. By contrast, Russia was portrayed “almost exclusively negatively” 88% of the time, and President Vladimir Putin in 96% of cases. Almost all reports – 93% in total – attributed sole blame for the war to Putin and/or Russia. The West was named as “jointly responsible” in only 4% of instances, Ukraine even less so at 2%.

The perspectives of Russia on the conflict were only considered or mentioned in 10% of news reports, less than the viewpoint of any other country, including Moscow’s neighbors. Alternative for Germany and the Left Party, which both oppose arming Ukraine and prolonging the fighting, “had practically no media presence in reporting on the war.” Government messaging and statements from ministers were completely dominant, being the focus in 80% of news coverage, more than four times above the figure for opposition parties.

In media discussions of “measures most likely to end the war,” economic sanctions against Russia were “by far the most frequently reported,” and approved of in 66% of cases. Diplomatic measures were mentioned “much less frequently,” while “humanitarian measures” were even less regularly featured.

In all, 74% of the reports surveyed portrayed military support to Ukraine “extremely positively.” Delivery of heavy weapons was endorsed “a little less clearly, but still considered to be largely sensible,” with 66% “overwhelmingly in favor.” Less than half – 43% – gave the impression that diplomatic negotiations would be useful, and this was largely due to Der Spiegel’s reporting that clearly marked diplomacy as the most sensible option for Berlin “by far.” 

“Der Spiegel was the only media examined to rate diplomatic negotiations more positively than the delivery of heavy weapons,” the academics conclude.

The report did identify one area where media coverage was “certainly not pro-government.” On certain rare occasions, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his coalition were strongly criticized “for hesitating to flood Ukraine with heavy weapons” by all outlets apart from Der Spiegel.

The report adds that “not all members of the government were equally affected by the criticism.”While those who escaped censure aren’t listed, it’s a fair bet they are representatives of government coalition parties such as the Greens, who have been demanding that Berlin flood Kiev with arms from day one.

Overall, though, the study offers a disturbing view into how Germany’s entire media lined up behind the cause of war and a dangerous escalation against Russia. Meanwhile, consideration of alternative policies, such as supporting a diplomatic settlement or urging Ukraine to engage in productive negotiations to end the fighting as early as possible was almost completely absent – or indeed completely withheld – from any news reporting or analysis. 

It also shows how journalists are among the most aggressive and effective lobbyists for war. Germany is just one country, and a similar investigation of media coverage of the conflict in any Western state would inevitably reach similar conclusions. In many cases, the findings could possibly be even more drastic, in terms of the one-sided, pro-war picture presented to average citizens by the press, and the lack of opposing, pro-diplomacy viewpoints. 

This would surely be the case in the UK and US, the two countries most eagerly pushing proxy war with Russia. It has been confirmed that Kiev and Moscow reached a negotiated interim settlement in early April, whereby Russia would withdraw to its pre-February 24 position, and Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership in return for security guarantees from a number of countries. 

However, at the very last minute, then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly flew to Kiev and demanded that Zelensky step away from talks. This shocking fact has barely been mentioned in English-language news, but this should not surprise us. 

These organizations and the journalists who work for them seem to have a forever war to sell. For that to happen, the Western public apparently cannot be allowed to know it’s possible to achieve peace by alternative means to death and destruction. It is also necessary, it appears, to mislead Europeans about the consequences of the conflict for their own economies and personal lives, as the University of Mainz study proves.

Between February 24 and May 31, the proportion of reports that mentioned or were about the “influence of the war on Germany,” such as energy shortages and price inflation, never rose above 15% in total per week. It is only lately the country’s media has begun to recognize this damage, and explored what it means for the average citizen. A majority of the public may not see the huge recession coming, or have any idea that it is self-inflicted.

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/news/568595-how-to-sell-war/

 

 

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