Canada's Intimate Connection with Ukraine's Far Right

How Canada emerged as a haven for Ukrainian Nazi collaborators

by Roger Jordan - WSWS

29 July 2019

Earlier this month, Canada hosted the third Ukraine Reform Conference, a gathering of diplomats and officials from over 100 countries aimed at bringing Kiev even more directly under the geopolitical and economic domination of the western imperialist powers.

Photo: Kyiv Post

After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the conference sidelines, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed “to stand with Ukraine against Russian interference and aggression,” and to support it in the struggle to end Russia’s “illegal annexation” of Crimea.

Trudeau’s portrayal of Russia as the aggressor in Ukraine and Eastern Europe turns reality on its head. It conceals the fact that Canada played a major supporting role in the US-orchestrated, fascist-spearheaded February 2014 coup that chased Ukraine's elected president from power and brought a far-right, pro-western regime to power in Kiev; and that the 2014 coup was the continuation of a longstanding US-led, Canadian-backed drive to expand NATO to Russia's borders and harness Ukraine to the West.

Disrupting "Indian Act Governance" - A First Nations "Currency" in Canada

OneFeather and BlocPal to Provide First Nations with Digital Financial Services

by Richard Kastelein - BlockChain News

July 23, 2019
 

Canadian Blockchain company OneFeather – out of Victoria, Canada – and BlocPal International headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, have broadcast a new strategic partnership to jointly develop and release the OneFeather digital wallet app for First Nations members across North America.

The new wallet, to be launched later this year, will provide never before available digital financial services as well as important administrative and governance functions designed specifically for Indigenous peoples, communities and governments in both Canada and the United States.

Matkap, Bebek Matkap: Turkey's Dangerous Drilling Ambitions

Turkey's War in the West - Cyprus is Now Surrounded by Drill-Ships and Warships; Cannon Ready to Fire at Europe - 150,000 People per Month

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

 @bears_with

July 29, 2019

Moscow - Under cover of its Russian S-400 air defence batteries, and ignoring US and European sanctions, Turkey is going on the offensive at sea, surrounding Cyprus, and by land, launching a weapon against the European Union against which there is no defence: a Turkish cannon firing 150,000 people at Europe’s borders each month.

They are the refugees from the wars the US and NATO launched in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

A Russian analysis entitled “Turkey will open the door to Europe for millions of refugees”, written by Vladimir Dobrinin, was published in Vzglyad (“View”) on July 24.

(An English translation follows below.)

This should be read in conjunction with the strategic consequences of the Greek and Cypriot governments not to mount a military defence of themselves and their territorial waters and seabed resources, but to apply instead to the European Union (EU) for sanctions against Turkey, and to the US Congress and Trump Administration for an American protectorate.

Killing Palestinian Children: The Natural Violence Resulting a Racist Ideology

Killing Tariq: Why We Must Rethink the Roots of Jewish Settlers Violence

by Ramzy Baroud - The Palestine Chronicle

July 24, 2019

Seven-year-old Tariq Zabania from Al-Khalil (Hebron) was killed on the spot when an Israeli Jewish settler ran his car over him on July 15.

Little Tariq’s photograph, lying face down on the road, was circulated on social media. His untimely death is heartbreaking.

Tariq’s innocent blood must not go in vain. For this to happen, we are morally obliged to understand the nature of Jewish settler violence, which cannot be viewed in isolation from the inherent racism in Israeli society as a whole.

Saving the Djab Wurrung with Sussan, Honest!

Djab Wurrung Trees - Honest Government Ad

by Juice Media 

July 25, 2019

The Australien and Victorien Governments have made an ad about destroying ancient sacred trees to upgrade the Western Highway, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative!

Stand with the Djab Wurrung: dwembassy.com

British Columbia's Logging Policy and the Extirpation of Species: The Spotted Owl

Government logging future spotted owl habitat is grossly dishonest says enviro group

by Wilderness Committee

July 26, 2019

The B.C. government is allowing massive swaths of forest designated as spotted owl wildlife habitat to be logged away with the sorry excuse that the trees are being felled to provide “future habitat.”

VANCOUVER - These giant clearcuts leave a few spindly trees in the hopes that 100 to 200 years from now the habitat will be suitable for B.C.’s spotted owls — but there are only a handful left in the wild now due to logging of habitat.

Coming to America: 'Off the Charts' Heat

New Study Predicts Millions of Americans May Become Exposed to “Off the Charts” Heat

by TRNN

July 26, 2019

This summer, the climate news cycle has been dominated by two searing heat waves that have afflicted Western Europe. In one European city after another, the record for the all-time high temperature has been broken.

As Western Europe has been baking in the unprecedented heat, experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists issued an alarming new report about future levels of extreme heat back in the United States. According to that report, in less than 20 years, millions of people in the United States could be exposed to dangerous “off the charts” heat conditions of 127 degrees Fahrenheit or more.

Climate scientist Michael Mann discusses the increasing frequency and severity of heat waves, just as the US, Europe, and India are experiencing this Summer

Peering Under the American Power Elite's Rock

Government by Blackmail: Jeffrey Epstein, Trump’s Mentor and the Dark Secrets of the Reagan Era

by Whitney Webb - MintPress News

July 25, 2019

Appalling for both the villainous abuse of children itself and the chilling implications of government by blackmail, this tangled web of unsavory alliances casts a lurid light on the political history of the U.S. from the Prohibition Era right up through the Age of Trump. This report, Part II of this series titled “The Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big To Fail,” will delve into Cohn’s close ties to the Reagan administration, which was also closely tied to the same organized crime network led by the infamous mob figure Meyer Lansky, which was discussed in Part I.

NEW YORK – Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire who now sits in jail on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors, has continued to draw media scrutiny in the weeks after his arrest on July 6. Part of the reason for this continued media interest is related to Epstein’s alleged relationship to the intelligence services and new information about the true extent of the sexual blackmail operation Epstein is believed to have run for decades.

As MintPress reported last week, Epstein was able to run this sordid operation for so long precisely because his was only the latest incarnation of a much older, more extensive operation that began in the 1950s and perhaps even earlier.

Passing: Rutger Hauer - Shepherd of the Sea, Hero for the Planet and a Truly Wonderful Person

THANK YOU RUTGER HAUER 

by Captain Paul Watson - Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

July 24, 2019

In 1997 I was held in Dutch prison awaiting an extradition trial to Norway for sinking one of their illegal whaling ships the “Nybraena”. I was held for 120 days and received incredible support from the Dutch public and most notably from Rutger Hauer who twice visited me at Lelystad Prison. Rutger helped mobilize other celebrities and the Dutch court ruled to release me without extradition to Norway.

Rutger passed away today at the age of 75 and all of us with Sea Shepherd will miss him very much.

His support over the last 22 years gave us all strength and inspiration. When I returned from my 15 month exile at sea in 2013 Rutger along with James Costa hosted a dinner party in Hollywood to welcome me back.

In 2006 Rutger was on a movie set in Cape Town and took the time to take the entire crew of the Farley Mowat out for the evening for dinner and drinks.

When we needed him he was there for us and for the whales and other citizens of the sea. Always generous, always supportive and always with a smile.

He was a good friend. I sailed with him on a few weekends in Santa Monica Bay and shared stories and life experiences.

As an actor he was a legend. In Blade Runner he made the replicant he portrayed possess more humanity than the humans pursuing him. He played good guys, bad guys, a blind guy and of course will always be remembered as The Man of Orange, a legend in his native Netherlands and the world.

Rutger was a Shepherd for the Sea, a hero for the planet and a wonderful person.

An Endless Procession of Murdered Gazans

The Ongoing Dread in Gaza: So Many Names, So Many Lives

by Kathy Kelly  - VCNV.org

July 23, 2019

“I felt shaky and uneasy all day, preparing for this talk” – Jehad Abusalim, a Palestinian from the territory of Gaza

Jehad Abusalim, a Palestinian now living in the United States, grew up Gaza. In Chicago last week, addressing activists committed to breaking the siege of Gaza, he held up a stack of 31 papers.

On each page were names of 1,254 Palestinians living in Gaza who had been killed in just one month of Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” attacks five years ago.

“I felt shaky and uneasy all day preparing for this talk,” he told the group. He described his dismay when, looking through the list of names, he recognized one of a young man from his small town.

The day before going on the river, members
of the Freedom Flotilla for Gaza joined Voices
For Creative Nonviolence in a protest outside
of Boeing’s offices.

“He was always friendly to me,” Abusalim said. “I remember how he would greet me on the way to the mosque. His family and friends loved him, respected him.”

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Heather McSwan & Barbarah Nicoll, Max van der Werff, Janine Bandcroft July 25, 2019

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

July 25, 2019

When residents of the rural Kootenays community of Glade discovered surveying tape above the creek providing their water they got worried. Worried because they knew the tape belonged to Kalesnikoff Lumber Co, a local outfit planning to start logging in the watershed.

That was four years ago, and what followed for the small community is a legal struggle that has run all the way to British Columbia's Supreme Court.

Heather McSwan and Barbarah Nicoll are active members representing the Glade Watershed Protection Society.

Heather McSwan and Barbarah Nicoll in the first half.



Listen. Hear.

And; on July 17th, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed, shot from the sky over Ukraine. All 298 people aboard perished. Those on flight MH17 came mainly from four countries, and in the aftermath of the disaster, the Joint Investigation Team, an international body comprising representatives of those nations was formed to investigate; but, politics has hampered the search for truth from the beginning.

Max van der Werff is an independent Dutch investigator and filmmaker who along with journalist and director, Yana Yerlashova formed Bonanza Media, to produce the documentary film, 'MH17- Call for Justice', released last week.

Max van der Werff and demanding justice for the victims of MH17 five years after the fact in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Heather McSwan and Barbarah Nicoll, fighting for Glade's, and all of our, right to clean water.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

MH17: A Call for Justice Left Unanswered Five Years On

MH17- Call for Justice

by Bonanza Media

July 17, 2019

Bonanza media investigative team of independent journalists take exclusive interviews with one of the suspects of downing the MH17, Malaysian prime minister; colonel that collected black boxes and much more. Eye opening testimonies from witnesses and irrefutable evidence from experts.

Exclusive footage shot in Malaysia, The Netherlands and at the crash area in Ukraine.

Malaysian Prime Minister Charges Evidence Tampering, Cover-up in MH17 Air Disaster Investigation

MH17 EVIDENCE TAMPERING REVEALED BY MALAYSIA – FBI ATTEMPT TO SEIZE BLACK BOXES; DUTCH COVER-UP OF FORGED TELEPHONE TAPES; UKRAINIAN AIR FORCE HID RADAR RECORDS; CRASH SITE WITNESS TESTIMONY MISREPORTED

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

July 22, 2019

A new documentary from Max van der Werff, the leading independent investigator of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 disaster, has revealed breakthrough evidence of tampering and forging of prosecution materials; suppression of Ukrainian Air Force radar tapes; and lying by the Dutch, Ukrainian, US and Australian governments.

An attempt by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to take possession of the black boxes of the downed aircraft is also revealed by a Malaysian National Security Council official for the first time.

The sources of the breakthrough are Malaysian — Prime Minister of Malaysia Mohamad Mahathir; Colonel Mohamad Sakri, the officer in charge of the MH17 investigation for the Prime Minister’s Department and Malaysia’s National Security Council following the crash on July 17, 2014; and a forensic analysis by Malaysia’s OG IT Forensic Services of Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU) telephone tapes which Dutch prosecutors have announced as genuine.

The 298 casualties of MH17 included 192 Dutch; 44 Malaysians; 27 Australians; 15 Indonesians. The nationality counts vary because the airline manifest does not identify dual nationals of Australia, the UK, and the US.

God Spare Us Our Successes: US Wins Saudi Troop Deployment Approval

U.S. Troops Back in Saudi Arabia: What Could Go Wrong? 

by David Swanson

July 21, 2019

The First Gulf War back in 1990 was a big huge success. One of the things it accomplished was a major U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia. Muslims around the world were outraged. 

Bombs were repeatedly set off at Khobar Towers where troops were stationed. In 1998 Osama Bin Laden declared:

“For over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples. . . .

“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.”

"Free" To STF-Up: Canada's New Media Fund

Canada’s Liberal government steps up internet censorship with creation of new media fund

by Penny Smith and Roger Jordan  - WSWS

18 July 2019

In a further step aimed at strengthening state control over the internet and digital content, Canada’s Liberal government has announced a multi-million dollar media fund to be distributed to outlets deemed to be producing “authoritative content.” The $600 million fund, to be launched this fall, will be dispensed by an eight-member government-appointed committee.

The fund, made up of tax credits and incentives to be handed out over the next five years, was first announced last November, under the guise of protecting “the vital role that independent news media play in our democracy and in our communities.”

Behind all of the bogus talk about defending “independent media” outlets and “Canadian journalism,” the new funding structures are explicitly aimed at censoring the internet in the lead up to and following this fall’s federal election.

They are part of a global assault on democratic rights and freedom of speech by ruling elites in every country, which has found its most graphic illustration in the persecution of publisher and journalist Julian Assange and courageous whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Underlining the international character of the censorship efforts, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland co-hosted the Global Media Freedom Conference earlier this month with British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt, who has repeatedly vowed to hand Assange over to the Trump administration.

(See: UK government holds Media Freedom Conference while imprisoning Assange) 

The Manning Sanction: Waging Economic Warfare Abroad and At Home

The vindictive campaign against Chelsea Manning, America’s political prisoner

by Niles Niemuth - WSWS 

18 July 2019

Whistleblower and political prisoner Chelsea Manning has now been confined to a federal detention center in Alexandria, Virginia for more than four months and is being subjected to punitive fines which could ruin her financially. 

Manning is not being punished for any crime, nor has she been charged with a crime. Rather, she is being held in contempt of court for refusing—on principle and courageously—to testify before a star chamber grand jury impaneled to railroad journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange into a US prison, or worse.

Daily fines placed on Manning by Federal District Judge Anthony Trenga for refusing to testify doubled from $500 to $1,000 on Tuesday, with the total now standing at $18,000. The unprecedented financial penalties against Manning threaten her with personal bankruptcy and have already resulted in her losing her apartment in June.

                   Chelsea Manning

Penis Tales and Other Stalin Obsessions

STEPHEN KOTKIN’S HISTORY OF STALIN IS THE CLINICAL CASE BOOK OF AN AMERICAN OBSESSION

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

July 19, 2019

What can Foreign Affairs, bimonthly tribune of the Council of Foreign Affairs in New York, be referring to when it reported on the government for which,

“in worldview and practice, it was a conspiracy that perceived conspiracy everywhere and in everything, constantly gaslighting itself. In administration, it constituted a crusade for planning and control that ended up generating a proliferation of improvised illegalities, a perverse drive for order, and a system in which propaganda and myths about ‘the system’ were the most systematized part.”

Need a clue? On the head of government’s left foot, two of his toes were webbed. Still stumped?

Restaurant at the End of the World: Israel, Christian Zionism, American Politics, and Jesus' Second Helping

The Untold Story of Christian Zionism’s Rise to Power in the United States

by Whitney Webb - MintPress News

July 12, 2019

Well before Theodore Herzl founded political Zionism and published The Jewish State, Christian Zionists in the United States and England were already seeking to direct and influence the foreign policy of both nations in service to a religious obsession end times prophecy.

The largest pro-Israel organization in the United States is not composed of Jews, but of Christian evangelicals, with a total membership of 7 million, more than 2 million more members than the entirety of the American Jewish community.

Members of this organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), met in Washington on Monday, attracting thousands of attendees and featuring speeches from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, and National Security Advisor John Bolton. CUFI’s leader, controversial evangelical preacher John Hagee, has met with President Donald Trump several times and was recently part of an exclusive White House meeting in March on the administration’s upcoming “peace plan” for Israel and Palestine.

CUFI is but one of many organizations throughout American history that have promoted the state of Israel and Zionism on the grounds that a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine is a requirement for the fulfillment of end-times prophecy and necessary for Jesus Christ to return to Earth — an event Christians often refer to as “the Second Coming.”

Twits and Idiots Behind the Drive for World War

Idiots Driving the World to War

by Finian Cunningham - Sputnik

July 14, 2019

Like a person going up in an escalator while asserting they are going down, the British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has a bizarre way of trying to assure Iran that war is not on the cards.

Hunt, who is vying to become Britain’s new prime minister, stated on camera that “he wants to de-escalate” the danger of a military confrontation with Iran over mounting tensions in the Persian Gulf.

That was only days after he vowed to dramatically increase Britain’s military spending and in particular, boost the country’s naval firepower – citing Iran as the main threat to British commercial shipping interests. It also follows news that London has ordered a second warship to patrol the Persian Gulf.

Earlier this week a British Royal Navy frigate reportedly challenged Iranian military vessels (three small boats) after they allegedly tried to impede a British oil tanker entering the narrow Strait of Hormuz.

Iran vehemently denied any such interference by its boats and claimed that Britain and the US were engaging in a provocation.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Caitlin Manning, Christopher Black, Janine Bandcroft July 18, 2019

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

July 18, 2019

It was all going to be so good. The new man promised he had a plan: No more would they bow to outsiders; no more allow nature be subsumed by industry; and no more would they be left to watch as the best of everything was taken. It would be a shining new day. Thus Mexicans received Andrés Manuel López Obrador, (or "AMLO" as he's colloquially known) into the presidency. But that was last year.

Caitlin Manning is an American filmmaker and active participant in the movements against patriarchy, racism and capitalism. She's currently working on Resistant Mexico, a series of films documenting resistance to neoliberal economic expansion, and retention of cultural modes, methods, and memory in Mexico.

Listen. Hear.

Caitlin's articles, and links to her films appear at CaitlinManningfilms.com, and at ROAR Magazine, where I found her article, 'AMLO in office: from megaprojects to militarization'.

Caitlin Manning in the first half.

And; last week Britain dispatched its navy to take into custody, at its still contentious Gibraltar sinecure on the Iberian peninsula, the Panamanian-flagged Iranian oil tanker Grace I. The Grace was, allegedly, Syria-bound when intercepted, something the UK says violates European Union sanctions. Iran denies it, but the bigger question bearing begging is, "Does the EU, America, or Britannia have the right to rule the waves?"

Christopher Black is a Toronto-based criminal lawyer specializing in international war crimes cases. He's also an executive member of the Canadian Peace Congress. Black's articles on international law, politics and World events appear at New Eastern Outlook among other places, where his latest, 'A League of Perpetual Peace: An Impossible Dream?' reveals the West's relentless chicanery that would, in its audacity, risk another global war.

Christopher Black and pyrates again off Barbary's Coast in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time CFUV Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Caitlin Manning and the AMLO change Mexico did not hope for.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/