Enter in peace and exit in pieces!

Saturday, 3 November 2018 

Social media is abuzz with the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist who entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on 2 October to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage There were many missives but what gripped my attention was a couple of witty but incisive WhatsApp messages. The first one reads as follows:

A Saudi asked his wife to let him marry a second wife,

“But I have one condition” said his wife;

The man jumped with joy and said: “Tell me, tell me please, I agree with your every condition.”

The wife answered: “You will have to make the Nikah paper in Turkish Saudi consulate, and I will be waiting for you outside the embassy.”

The second one was brief but razor sharp.  With its traditional sword and date tree logo behind Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, it says: “Come in peace and leave in pieces.”

The above subtle messages convey and pre-warn that the Saudi regime will not tolerate and physically liquidate any dissidents and human rights advocates if they dare to go against its tyrannical ruler. Like Israel’s deadly Mossad, Saudi regime’s notorious “hit squad,” no matter what country its dissidents reside, will reach out to carry its ruthless mission with military precision without leaving any trace or evidence.

A case in point is how Jamal Khashoggi, a high-profile critic of de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, was trapped inside the Saudi Consulate in Turkey and dismembered by a 15-member Saudi hit squad which arrived from Riyadh and departed a few hours after his death. His brutal murder has generated international outrage.

What heinous crime did Jamal Khashoggi commit against the Saudi regime to warrant such a horrendous punishment? What kind of a sinister person is he who ordered to chop and dismember Jamal Khashoggi’s body into pieces? If it isn’t a premeditated murder of the highest degree, then what is it?

Jamal Khashoggi is not an ordinary journalist. An eminent journalist and editor for 30 years, he hails from a wealthy family and nephew of Adnan Khashoggi, the world’s richest arms dealer who was instrumental in procuring a fleet of F15 multirole fighter jets to Saudi and closely related to Harrods and Ritz Carlton famous Al Fayed family. Besides, Jamal Khashoggi was a Washington Post columnist.

Ever since Mohammad Bin Salman became Saudi Crown Prince in June 2017, a reign of terror was unleashed in Saudi Kingdom. Under the guise of Kingdom’s “prejudicial of public order and to stir up sedition in the kingdom,” more than 400 people, including 11 founders of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, journalists, clerics and even businessmen are languishing in Saudi jails. Thus, gagging, imprisoning, kidnapping and even killing become order of the day. “The greater the power,” wrote Edmund Burke, “the more dangerous the abuse”.

MBS is an ace manipulator and he has artfully sealed Donald Trump’s loquacious lips by giving more than $100 billion worth of arms deals to US military contractors. Moreover, MBS conducts all the wheeling and dealing through Jared Kushner – President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, a key adviser on the Middle East. In addition, Saudi regime liberally donates to American think-tanks and hires influential lobbyists like Marc Lampkin from public relations firms to prop up its image.

United Kingdom is another western power which has sold its soul to Saudi regime for petro-dollars. The British government which pontificates about human rights and dignity world-wide has licensed over five billion-pound sterling worth of arms exports to Saudi. Saudi investment over the next decade is estimated around 65 billion-pound sterling. The House of Saud spends hundreds of thousands on British MPS on foreign trips a as well as bankroll the Oxford University.

Salman’s foreign policy is a total disaster. The three-year bloody war between Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels has pushed already the impoverished country to the brink of widespread famine. It is estimated that over 10 million Yemenis are on the verge of starvation and nearly one million people are suffering from cholera. Over the past three years Saudi military has killed more than 13,500 lives – many of them in airstrikes. The Saudi-led coalition has admitted an air attack in August that killed dozens of children travelling on a bus.

Since the creation of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, till to date, the religion of Islam has been craftily and brazenly exploited by the House of Saud ruling the kingdom with iron-fist autocracy. Also, the House of Saud pompously brag that, the King of Saudi Arabia is the Custodian of The Holy Makkah and Medina and that it strictly adheres to the noble religion of Islam.

Fundamentally, killing is anathema in Islam and the religion has g given so much importance to human beings that it regards the killing of a single person is like killing the entire humanity. The Holy Quran, states: “Whoever kills a person, it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind” (Quran, 5:32). Moreover, Islam has taught its followers to treat all mankind with mercy, tolerance and justice.

Waging a genocidal war and starving the people in Yemen is totally contrary to the Islamic tenets. So, does the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi. It appears that, the House of Saud is endowed with hindsight without being blessed with foresight!

It is akin to case of woodpecker and the banana tree. Generally, the woodpecker always like to peck the tree trunks but when it happens to peck a banana tree, its pointed beak will get struck and will find hard to remove. Similarly, this time, the House of Saud cannot pull the wool over someone’s eyes, and easily get away and go scot free, as Turkish authorities have an audio recording purportedly documenting Khashoggi’s murder inside the consulate.

With due apology to Shakespeare, it is befitting to paraphrase the bard’s immortal lines (Macbeth): “Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfume of Arabia will not sweeten the blood-stained hand of Mohammed Bin Salman.”

Will Europe use Israeli drones against refugees?

Israel has repeatedly used drones to cause large-scale destruction in Gaza. Basel YazouriActiveStills
Europe’s coastal guards are examining whether Israel’s warplanes would be helpful tools in repressing refugees.

Mark Akkerman - 31 October 2018

In September, the EU’s border management agency Frontex announced the start of trial flights for drones in Italy, Greece and Portugal. There was a major omission in the Frontex statement: the type of drones being tested have been used previously to attack Gaza.

Some details of the companies involved in these trials were published earlier this year. A “contract award notice” revealed that Israel Aerospace Industries was one of two bidders selected.
Israel Aerospace Industries is being paid $5.5 million for up to 600 hours of trial flights.

The drone which Israel Aerospace Industries offers for maritime surveillance is called the Heron.
According to the company’s own website, the Heron is “combat-proven.” That is code for saying it has been employed during Israel’s three major attacks on Gaza over the past decade.

Following Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s assault on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009, a Human Rights Watch investigation concluded that dozens of civilians were killed with missiles launched from drones. The Heron was identified as one of the main drones deployed in that offensive.

Frontex – which frequently expels refugees from Europe – has been assessing drones for some time. Back in 2012, Israel Aerospace Industries showcased the Heron at an event organized by Frontex.

Through its flight trials, Frontex is enabling Israel’s war industry to adapt technology tested on Palestinians for surveillance purposes. While the EU’s representatives routinely profess concern for human rights, the involvement of weapons makers in monitoring borders bears more than a few similarities to the bellicose policies pursued by Donald Trump’s administration in the US.

Business opportunities

Israeli firms stand to benefit from decisions taken on both sides of the Atlantic.

Last year, Elta – a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries – was hired to design a prototype for the controversial wall that Trump has proposed along the US border with Mexico. Elbit, another Israeli manufacturer of drones, was awarded a contract in 2014 to build surveillance towers between Arizona and Mexico.

The same companies have been pursuing business opportunities in Europe.

Elta has been in contact with various governments about its “virtual border patrol” system – which is based on the interception of mobile phone communications and snooping on internet users. To provide a pretext for such intrusion, the company plays the politics of fear. Amnon Sofrin, an Elta representative who was previously a senior figure in Israel’s spying and assassination agency Mossad, has advocated that Europe should prioritize “security” over civil liberties.

The Israeli firm Magal Systems is similarly eyeing contracts in Europe. Magal installed what it calls a “smart” fence – complete with sensors and advanced camera equipment – along Israel’s boundary with Gaza.

Saar Koush, until recently Magal’s CEO, has argued that the company’s role in enforcing a siege on Gaza’s two million inhabitants gave it a unique – or at least rare – selling point. “Anybody can give you a very nice Powerpoint, but few can show you such a complex project as Gaza that is constantly battle-tested,” Koush has said.

Learning from Israel?

Frontex has liaised with other Israeli firms.

In June this year, the EU published a notice showing that the Israeli company Windward has been awarded a contract worth nearly $1 million for work on a “maritime analysis” project run by Frontex. Gabi Ashkenazi, a former chief of Israel’s military, is an adviser to Windward; David Petraeus, who commanded US troops occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, is one of its investors.
In its 2016 [annual report]

(https://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Key_Documents/Annual_report/2016/Annual…) Frontex stated that the “first steps” had been made towards developing “strategic” relations with Israel. Frontex has subsequently expressed its intention to increase that cooperation between now and 2020.

One focus is “mutual learning.” More than likely, that is a euphemism for swapping notes about which tactics should be used against people fleeing poverty or persecution.

Israel has an appalling record of treating refugees. Africans living in Israel have been subject to racist abuse from the very highest levels of government. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has labeled them “infiltrators.”

Another government minister has insisted Africans cannot be considered as human.

According to the polling agency Gallup, Israel is one of the world’s least accepting nations for refugees. Despite its geographical proximity to Syria, Israel has refused admittance to victims of its ongoing war.

Last year, Netanyahu was heard telling leaders from the group of countries known as Visegrad Four – Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – that they should close their borders to refugees. He argued, too, that Israel plays an important role in reducing migration to Europe and implied that Israel should be rewarded for doing so.

The identification of Israel as a partner for “strategic cooperation” by Frontex is worrying in itself. The preparations to use Israel’s tools of repression against refugees sailing towards Europe are even worse.

Mark Akkerman is a researcher with Stop Wapenhandel (the Dutch campaign against the arms trade) and the Transnational Institute. He is the author of the reports Border Wars and Expanding the Fortress.

GOP Solution for Deficits - Cut Social Safety Nets!

The GOP tax “overall” made no attempt to eliminate the deficit, much less the debt.

Ralph E. Stone-Nov-02-2018

(SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.) - The deficits have risen to $779 billion in 2018, up from $666 billion in 2017.

Of course, the Republicans claim that their $1.5 trillion tax overhaul last year had nothing to do with this, but experts estimate that the tax overhaul will result in about $1.45 trillion in net deficits over a decade.

Now Trump wants to pass before the midterms another tax cut promising a 10% cut in taxes for the middle class without providing details even though the earlier tax overhaul did not achieve any of the things that Republicans promised it would.

That is, it didn’t reduce deficits; it didn’t target the middle class; and it didn’t win goodwill with voters. Notice that on the campaign trail, Trump is not touting the GOP tax overhaul.

Traditionally, deficits have been anathema to Republicans. Remember when then House Speaker Paul Ryan warned of the dangers of deficits, “The facts are very, very clear: The United States is heading toward a debt crisis. We face a crushing burden of debt which will take down our economy — which will lower our living standards.”

And remember when congressional Republicans denounced President Barack Obama for the size of the national debt, which more than doubled during his tenure. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump said he would pay off the national debt in eight years.

Yet, the GOP tax “overall” made no attempt to eliminate the deficit, much less the debt. It provided for tax cuts, which means $1.5 trillion less revenue for the next decade.

The Tax Policy Center concluded that federal government “revenue would fall by between $2.4 trillion and $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years and by about $3.4 trillion over the second decade.”

And further concluded, "Those with the very highest incomes would receive the biggest tax cuts."

Now to close the deficit caused by the tax overhaul, the Republicans are talking about cuts to safety nets to those forgotten by Trump and his enablers in Congress.

House Republicans offered a 2019 budget proposal that would cut mandatory spending by $5.4 trillion over a decade, including $537 billion in cuts to Medicare and $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other health programs.

The budget also proposes $2.6 trillion in reductions to other mandatory spending programs, including welfare and other anti-poverty programs.

The U.S. has the weakest safety net among the Western industrialized nations, devoting far fewer resources as a percentage of gross domestic product to welfare programs than do other wealthy countries. Cutting social safety nets will only widen the gap.

Hopefully, those forgotten by Trump and the Republicans will remember on November 6, and vote for their economic self interests, rather than their prejudices.

How House Democrats Plan to Investigate Trump’s Russia Ties

Gains in the congressional election next week would give Democrats crucial subpoena power.

House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) speaks at a news conference about the Trump-Putin Helsinki summit in Washington on July 17. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

BY ELIAS GROLL-

 NOVEMBER 2, 2018, 11:53 AM

If Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in Tuesday’s midterm elections, they will take over a prize possession: the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, with full subpoena power to investigate President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.

During Trump’s first two years in office, House Republicans used the committee largely to protect him. In an interview with Foreign Policy, one of the committee’s ambitious young Democrats, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, explained exactly how that would change.

The Democrats’ investigation would focus on bank and travel records of Trump lieutenants and businesses. It would also attempt to resolve questions about the president’s knowledge of a Russian offer during the 2016 campaign to provide political dirt on his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

 And in the aftermath of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, the committee might also scrutinize Trump’s business ties to the Gulf.

While Senate committees typically require the assent of the chairman and ranking member to issue a subpoena, House committees grant that authority to the chairman alone. This makes the House Intelligence Committee, with its jurisdiction over the massive U.S. intelligence community, a uniquely powerful tool in the hands of a savvy investigator.


The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Foreign Policy: If Democrats take over Congress and control of the House Intelligence Committee, what are your investigative priorities?

Eric Swalwell: The first would be to fill in the gaps that exist between what we wanted to pursue in the Russia investigation and what the Republicans allowed us to pursue, which was almost zero when it came to using subpoena power to get documents, bank records, cell-phone records, travel logs, etc. There are a lot of gaps to fill in there.

More broadly, we’ll be looking at what we can do to protect and secure the 2020 presidential election.

 That will be a major target, we expect, based on what the Russians did in 2016 and what they are doing now. We want to make sure that Americans have the awareness they need when they go to the polls in 2020.

FP: Are there specific documents that you plan to use the committee’s subpoena power to seek?

ES: There are a lot of unanswered questions around the Trump Tower meeting [with a Russian lawyer close to the Kremlin]. What happened with Don Jr. [Trump’s son, who attended the meeting] and his father when the offer was made a couple days before the meeting of compromising information on Hillary Clinton?

There was a blocked number that was called in the phone records we have from Donald Trump Jr. We know from other testimony that candidate Trump had a number that would come up as blocked. If Donald Trump Jr. told his father of the offer, that would change everything, because they always denied that that was the case.

Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen was in negotiations during the early part of the primary to put a Trump Tower in Moscow. And there are still questions about whether he went over during the campaign to Eastern Europe to meet with Russians, as the Steele dossier alleges. Getting those travel logs would be important.

Deutsche Bank has come up a number of times as a lender to the Trump Organization. They have a history of being fined for essentially laundering money for the Russians. At a time when Donald Trump was not receiving loans from any U.S.-based bank, he was getting help from Deutsche Bank.

We’d like to understand the true financial relationship there and whether any Russian money was involved.

Those are just a few, but they should have been pushed through in the last two years. Every request to do so was denied by Republicans on the committee.

FP: Do you plan to examine Michael Cohen’s business activities following the inauguration?

ES: We want to see if he colluded or cooperated. It looks like he was offering to work with Russians or Russian-connected individuals to be a consultant and perhaps someone who could influence the administration.

Our primary interest is in lines of inquiry that tell us what the relationships are between the Trump family, the business, and the campaign with the Russians—whether it was during the campaign or even ongoing today.

FP: Do you plan to examine reports that Gulf states attempted to influence the Trump campaign through fundraisers and other wealthy individuals?

ES: The Trump family and organization, based on press accounts, have had puzzling relationships with the Qataris, the Emiratis, and the Saudis. Before the Jamal Khashoggi tragedy, there may have been an argument that that’s not as relevant as other priorities that we have.

However, now we are learning more about Mr. Khashoggi and how he was killed, the lack of a response from the Trump team, and the long-standing financial interests that Donald Trump had with the Saudis.

And then put into perspective that the first trip the president made internationally was to Saudi Arabia, and right after that trip is when this split with Qatar happened and the blockade occurred.

There’s a lot of questions about what happened with those three countries and the Trump campaign, and whether the administration, the campaign, and the business were viewed as essentially for sale. Did foreign adversaries beyond Russia see them as easy marks because they didn’t have any scruples or code of ethics? I think those are fair lines to pursue.

FP: The recent history of the House Intelligence Committee has been deeply politicized, and its Republican leaders have been accused of running political interference on behalf of the president.
How do you avoid the same charge if you plan an aggressive investigation of the president?

ES: You demonstrate with your deeds that you’re only interested in a serious investigation. You don’t do things just because you can. You don’t do things that have already been done. You aren’t out to seek a pound of flesh.

Ranking member [Adam] Schiff has a sincere interest in trying to heal some of the wounds that were inflicted by the way that Chairman [Devin] Nunes led the committee. We want to get back to the comity that we’ve had in the past.

But we have a job to do as well. We’re not going to have the shovels out and bury the evidence as was done in the last two years.

FP: The great weapon of the current Republican majority on the committee is the use of the unilateral subpoena power and the ability of the chairman to act unilaterally. Is there a part of you that’s a little bit excited to have unilateral subpoena power?

ES: There’s a lot of evidence that we want to pursue. The investigation was essentially a “take them at their word” investigation. We weren’t able to test the accounts that were given to us to see if they could be corroborated or contradicted. And subpoena power will allow us to do that.

U.S. militia groups head to border, stirred by Trump’s call to arms

Michael Vickers, a veterinarian and rancher in Falfurrias, Texas, says he won’t let outside militia onto his property and he doesn’t think such groups will be trusted by most area landowners. (Dominic Bracco II/Prime/FTWP)

 

By Mary Lee Grant and Nick Miroff-November 3 at 6:40 PM

 

FALFURRIAS, Tex. — Gun-carrying civilian groups and border vigilantes have heard a call to arms in President Trump’s warnings about threats to American security posed by caravans of Central American migrants moving through Mexico. They’re packing coolers and tents, oiling rifles and tuning up aerial drones, with plans to form caravans of their own and trail American troops to the border.

“We’ll observe and report, and offer aid in any way we can,” said Shannon McGauley, a bail bondsman in the Dallas suburbs who is president of the Texas Minutemen. McGauley said he was preparing to head for the Rio Grande in coming days.

“We’ve proved ourselves before, and we’ll prove ourselves again,” he said.

McGauley and others have been roused by the president’s call to restore order and defend the country against what Trump has called “an invasion,” as thousands of Central American migrants advance slowly through southern Mexico toward the U.S. border. Trump has insisted that “unknown Middle Easterners,” “very tough fighters,” and large numbers of violent criminals are traveling among the women, children and families heading north on foot.

[Migrant caravan: What Trump’s threats sound like to the Central Americans trudging north]

The Texas Minutemen, according to McGauley, have 100 volunteers en route to the Rio Grande who want to help stop the migrants, with more likely on the way.

“I can’t put a number on it,” McGauley said. “My phone’s been ringing nonstop for the last seven days. You got other militias, and husbands and wives, people coming from Oregon, Indiana. We’ve even got two from Canada.”

Asked whether his group planned to deploy with weapons, McGauley laughed. “This is Texas, man,” he said.

And yet, the prospect of armed vigilantes showing up beside thousands of U.S. troops — along with Border Patrol agents, police officers and migrants — is considered serious enough that miliary planners have issued warningsto Army commanders.

According to military planning documents obtained by Newsweek, the military is concerned about the arrival of “unregulated militia members self-deploying to the border in alleged support” of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

[Army assessment of migrant caravans undercuts Trump’s rhetoric]

The assessment estimates that 200 militia members could show up. “They operate under the guise of citizen patrols,” the report said, while warning of “incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments.”

The military report provided no further details about the alleged thefts.

Manuel Padilla Jr., the top Border Patrol official in the agency’s Rio Grande Valley sector, the nation’s busiest for illegal crossings, said he has not issued any instructions to agents in the field or to landowners whose properties are adjacent to the river. But he plans to meet with community members in the coming week, he said, to address their concerns.

“We don’t have any specific information about the militias,” said Padilla, reached by phone along the border. “We have seen them in the past, and when things start getting really busy, we have to make sure to let the community know they’re out there.”

“But they’re doing that on their own,” Padilla said.

[Trump vows to block asylum seekers in caravan but offers few details]

McGauley said that in addition to weapons and camping gear, his group will have night-vision goggles and aerial drones with thermal sensing equipment, capable of operating in darkness. He emphasized that the group would report any suspicious activity to authorities and would heed any instructions from Border Patrol agents or military personnel.

Several landowners in the area said they do not want the militias around.

Michael Vickers, a veterinarian and rancher who lives an hour north of the border in Falfurrias, said that he will not let militia members from outside the area onto his property and that he doubts most area landowners would trust outsiders.

“They are a bunch of guys with a big mouth and no substance to them,” said Vickers, a Republican who heads the 300-strong Texas Border Volunteers. The group doesn’t call itself a militia, although it patrols ranchland to intercept migrants who hike through the brush to attempt to avoid Border Patrol checkpoints. The group uses ATVs, night-vision goggles, spotlights and trained dogs.

“People on the [Rio Grande] have been calling us,” Vickers said. His group is in a “holding pattern,” he said, adding, “We can have 100 volunteers in a hot area in four to eight hours.

“We’ve already talked to a bunch of landowners who wanted to know if we’ll be operating if the Border Patrol can’t be there to keep their property from being vandalized and their crops from being messed up.”

“We’re ready to move,” he said.

[South Texas county faces wave of migrant deaths]

Others in South Texas are less enthusiastic.

Lucy Kruse, 96, said immigrants often stop on her property as they walk through the bush country, sometimes breaking into a small cabin to sleep. Her family’s ranch lies amid the thorny mesquite brush, cactus and tawny dry grass 80 miles north of the border.

As the migrant caravans head north, she and other landowners in the area worry that the number of trespassers walking through their ranches will increase dramatically. But many say the militias coming to the area also pose a threat.

“I will not let militia on my land,” Kruse said. “They’re civilians stepping into a situation where the Border Patrol is supposed to be in control and make decisions. They could damage property or harm workers. I would guess they would be trigger-happy. If they shot someone, they might just say the person they shot was reaching for a gun.”

Joe Metz, 80, lives in what looks like a pastoral tropical paradise near Mission, a town of 84,000 in the Rio Grande Valley. Tall, green sugar cane grows beside the wide river, and citrus trees dot the sandy small hillocks away from the banks.

The Rio Grande is less than a mile from Metz’s living room window, and a section of border wall crosses his property. He has watched for years as border-crossers ford the river and walk onto his land, their first step on American soil. The wall has slowed the flow significantly, he said, but between 50 and 100 people a day still cross through the farm next door.

He worries that the caravan, which includes many women and children, will surge through the area, but he doesn’t want armed vigilantes on his farm.

“The militia just needs to stay where they are,” said Metz, a Republican. “We don’t need fanatical people. We don’t need anybody here with guns. Why do they have guns? I have dealt with illegals for 30 years, and all of them have been scared, asking for help. The militias need to stay up north where they belong. We have no use for them here. They might shoot someone or hurt someone.”

[Trump on throwing rocks at the border: Military will consider that a threat]

But the heir to the state’s largest and most influential ranch disagrees. Stephen J. “Tio” Kleberg, who has lived most of his life on the 825,000-acre King Ranch outside of Kingsville, said that he will allow militia groups on his ranch, which is larger than the state of Rhode Island.

“I think if the [caravan members] get across the river, they need to be caught and sent back,” said Kleberg, who wears a bushy handlebar mustache and chews an unlit cigar.

“Once they get on U.S. soil, they need to be stopped and detained. We don’t have enough Border Patrol, ICE and Highway Patrol to handle them. If we get 2,000 or 3,000 people, we will need the militia,” Kleberg said.

Miroff reported from Washington.

Arron Banks faces new claims of misleading MPs over Brexit

Leaked messages ‘show undeclared links’; emails ‘contradict statements to MPs’
Arron Banks arriving at Gatwick from Bermuda on Saturday, en route to the Andrew Marr show. Photograph: Steve Finn/Steve Finn Photography

Carole Cadwalladr, Mark Townsend and Toby Helm-Sat 3 Nov 2018

The controversial businessman Arron Banks may have misled parliament over links between his pro-Brexit campaign and his insurance business during the EU referendum, according to explosive correspondence released by whistleblowers.

Hundreds of internal emails leaked by former employees from Eldon Insurance and Rock Services to the Observer reveal that – despite categorical denials by Banks – insurance staff worked on the Leave.EU campaign from their company offices.

Any work carried out in the months before the referendum should have been declared under electoral law.

They indicate that Eldon and Rock Services staff contacted companies for material for apparent use in the Brexit campaign, and discussed sharing data. In a separate investigation released today, the website Open Democracy also publishes evidence that suggests significant crossover between Banks’s insurance and political staff during the campaign.

The revelations come days after the National Crime Agency announced it was investigating allegations of criminal offences by Banks and Leave.EU.

Damian Collins, chair of parliament’s inquiry into fake news, said that the leaked emails appeared to “flatly contradict” what Banks had told his committee, and that he could have “deliberately misled the committee and parliament on an important point”. Collins requested the emails and said they would form key evidence as part of his inquiry into disinformation and its threat to democracy.

The latest allegations to hit Banks come before an appearance on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show . The businessman flew home from Bermuda on Saturday. Collins said: “If Eldon employees were being paid to work on the campaign during the regulated period, it should have been a declared expense. We asked him directly if he’d used his insurance employees to work on the campaigns and he said they didn’t.”

One ex-Eldon Insurance employee told the Observer: “I made it absolutely clear that I didn’t want to work on the political stuff. I wasn’t comfortable with it. I didn’t want to be complicit in it. There were quite a lot of spats about it. People were frozen out if they refused to work on it.”

Emails seen by the Observer indicate that Eldon employees worked on some of Leave.EU’s most controversial referendum messaging, including campaigns similar to Ukip’s notorious “Breaking Point” poster, which appeared in June 2016, days before the EU referendum on 23 June 2016.

One email chain that appears to have come originally from a Rock Services employee to staff at the stock photo agency Getty Images, dated 10 March 2016, shows the insurance company’s staff member requesting the right to use a series of photographs of refugees walking through eastern Europe. The Rock Services employee explains the image is to be used for an “advertisement talking about the issue of immigration and the refugee crisis”.

An online advert by Leave.EU appeared in March 2016 showing refugees walking through Slovenia below a headline attacking the EU summit on the migrant crisis, with the photograph used by the pro-Brexit group similar to the images requested by the Rock Services worker.

Another email, also dated 10 March 2016, from a Rock Services employee to the photo agency, offers a sense of the impact such anti-immigration images had in the Brexit campaign. “One of the adverts will have a reach of 10m over the 3 weeks we would like to use it, meaning a potential of 30m-40m impressions,” writes the insurance employee.

Another former Eldon worker alleged that they were frequently asked to help Leave.EU’s pro-Brexit campaign. “Some of these images were really horrible, the immigrants and refugee stuff. But there were always these urgent requests coming in. You were told to stop what you were doing and do something for Leave.EU,” they said.

The documents and eyewitness accounts obtained by the Observer and Open Democracy allege significant crossover took place between Banks’s insurance and political staff in the referendum.

Banks has vehemently denied the existence of such a relationship. When appearing before Collins’s parliamentary committee in June he told MPs that Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance were separate organisations with completely different staff.

Brittany Kaiser, who worked for Cambridge Analytica, the defunct data firm at the heart of the Facebook scandal, told the same committee that she saw “with my own eyes” employees of Eldon Insurance staffing a call centre working for Leave.EU.

When her claims were later put by MPs to Banks he dismissed them as a “flat lie” and also said that staff working on different projects were “clearly demarked”.

Banks declined to respond to any of the allegations put to him by the Observer, while Andy Wigmore, Leave.EU’s director of communications, issued a “no comment”.

Responding to the latest revelations, Collins said that the evidence raised profound new questions for Banks. “We specifically asked him about whether Eldon had undertaken work on behalf of Leave.EU and he said no. It raises very serious questions because that work needs to be counted as an election expense,” said the Conservative MP for Folkestone.

Yet at least one senior Eldon employee appeared to have promoted themselves in their – since deleted – online profile as working for both Eldon and Leave.EU at the same time.

Further apparent crossover is evident in other emails with one seeming to show Leave.EU sharing data with Rock Services. An email, dated 18 March 2016, seems to show a Leave.EU official informing a Rock Services employee that they have been asked to send some “additional data to you, 1 million phone numbers and the members data”.

Remain-supporting MPs from all the main parties said the latest revelations raised serious questions over how the referendum had been won – and strengthened the case for another public vote. The Tory MP Phillip Lee, said: “The more we hear about the risks of Brexit and the way it was sold to the public by people who had little or no interest in the truth, or following rules, the stronger the case becomes for suspending or revoking article 50 until all of these irregularities are cleared up.”

The former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna said: “These latest claims, if proven, call into doubt the entire validity of the referendum result.”

Anger and mourning in Minya, after another attack on Egypt's Christians

Minya's Christian community furious after second almost identical deadly attack on pilgrims

An Egyptian woman mourns the victims of an attack on Christian worshippers (AFP)

Saturday 3 November 2018 

MINYA, Egypt - When they started setting out the chairs at the local cafe on a side street in the Egyptian town of Minya, the plan was to host the fans of football giants Al-Ahly expected to gather on Friday night for a major game against Tunisian rivals.

But when those seats were filled earlier than expected, by 1pm, they instead bore the weight of mourners filing in to grieve five members of the Youssef family, killed when church buses were attacked on the road to the monastery of St Samuel the Confessor.

The buses were returning from the monastery, where they had carried families to pray, mingle and shop, when armed men opened fire, injuring passengers of the first two buses, which escaped, but stopping the third, Anba Makarios, a Minya bishop told Middle East Eye.

The attack, which killed seven and injured 18, was later claimed by the Islamic State group, which in May last year killed 28 Coptic Christians from the same community, on the same route.

The attack has thrown Minya once again into grief and anger, and Egypt has responded by deploying hundreds of riot police to shut down dissent that has reared its head outside hospitals and in churches over the past day.

"Either we avenge them or die like them," hundreds of the city's youth bellowed as they marched towards the railway, blocking it to cut off trips between Cairo and Upper Egypt.

Mourners in Minya carry the coffin of one of the seven victims (AFP)

"Where were the police and the intelligence apparatus?" Alfouns Saed, 26, a banker, told Middle East Eye. "The terrorists had their fun with the martyrs. They stopped the bus and took the passengers' mobile phones then went inside and shot them."

Saed was one of the first eyewitnesses to arrive at the scene in a car carrying Coptic clerics and bishops.

"The bodies stayed in the sun for an hour-and-a-half until the first ambulance arrived."

From the hospital those seven bodies were eventually delivered to, a heavily armed escort guided all but one to the Prince Tadros Church, where funerals for the victims were held. Inside, as the bodies were laid on the altar, female relatives collapsed in front of the coffins, and bishops tried to control the simmering anger of youth raising chants against the state.

Outside, plain-clothed policemen trying to enter the church were repelled by mourners. Informants and low-ranking policemen prevented photographers from taking pictures, asking journalists for identification cards.

"The police and the security forces obviously fell short in securing the same site of an attack in the same style against church buses," said Remon, one of the mourners at a mass in the church, angered by how their community had been attacked on the same route twice.

"Do we have to be diplomats or foreigners in order for police to secure the buildings?" he said.

The anger of Minya's youth was heard on the same day when the country was being bombarded with a state-sponsored message about the role of youth in Egypt's message, conveyed through sermons assigned to the country's preachers for Friday prayers and as President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attended the World Youth Forum hosted in resort city Sharm el-Sheikh.

That message was not diluted on Egyptian media by the tragedy that rocked Minya's community, a point not missed by one Coptic cleric, who asked not to be named.

A mourner weeps for the victims of the attack on Coptic Christians claimed by IS (AFP)

"I saw all TV channels airing the [al-Ahly] match and the youth conference, but nobody broadcast the tragedy that happened. When they did, all stations made excuses for the police, saying that the buses 'took a side road not the main only leading to the monastery'," the cleric told MEE.

"We have been arranging these trips since the beginning of the year, and have been constantly asking for the buses to be escorted, even by a small police car."  

The atmosphere was different at the Anglican church, where the funeral for the only of the victims who was not Coptic, Assad Farouk Labib, was held.

A more restrained mood and smaller congregation meant members of parliament and state and security officials could join the mass but frustration still loomed, especially about how Minya has become a focus for sectarian mobs targeting Egypt's Christian community.

Abanoub Hany, who works as a driver, said the state "comes and cry with us when the terrorists attack us". In contrast, he accused them of turning a blind eye "when Salafists and radicals burn Coptic houses, churches and buildings affiliated with churches."

Amid the anger - the chants, sit-ins and stand-offs with police - there was also more sombre grief, as some of the mourners tried to remember the dead.

Inside the Coptic Prince Tadros Church, Samir Makary was one of a line of men sitting in their jalabiyas, part of the traditional dress code for the men of Upper Egypt.

He came to remember Nady Youssef Shehata.

"May he rest in peace. He was always a helpful hand to all people and was a pure soul, who loved everyone."

The U.S. Backs the Mideast’s Most Reactionary Nation

The United States and Britain finally questioned their billions of arms sales to the Saudis who use these mammoth purchases to buy subservience from the western democracies. France and Germany recoiled from major arms sales.

by Eric S. Margolis-Nov 4, 2018

( November 4, 2018, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Saudi Arabia has been shaken to its core by the gruesome murder of journalist Adnan Khashoggi.

Turkish intelligence has leaked that the Saudi journalist, who wrote op-ed pieces for the Washington Post newspaper, was strangled in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, then cut up into pieces for disposal or dissolved in acid. His remains have not yet been found.

Khashoggi’s brazen murder has caused a crisis in US-Saudi relations, an angry confrontation with Turkey, and serious questions about the Saudi war in wretched Yemen, which so far had caused 600,000 deaths and left this remote land facing starvation.

Trump and his allies initially supported the Saudi-Emirati war against Yemen, having fallen for the false claim that great Satan Iran was backing the Yemeni Houthi forces. Britain and Israel strongly supported the Saudi war.

In reality, Saudi Arabia’s headstrong Crown Prince Mohammed, got his nation embroiled in a no-win war against tough Yemeni tribes who refused to accept a Saudi-imposed figurehead ruler. The United Arab Emirates, a Saudi ally, also got involved to expand its little country-big ambitions around the Red Sea littoral.

But the Saudis lacked a real army to wage war in Yemen. They feared an army might mount a coup against the royal family as happened in Egypt, Iraq and Libya. In the past, the Saudis had rented crack Pakistani troops to protect their palaces and oil. But Pakistan refused Saudi requests to send troops to subdue Yemen.

As Libya’s late leader, Col. Muammar Khadaffi told me, ‘the Saudis are a small bunch of rich people living behind high walls in terror of their poorer neighbors.’ The Saudis hated Khadaffi because he kept calling them ‘traitors to the Arab cause, prostitutes, whore-mongers and crooks.’

Instead, the Saudis relied on their US and British-supplied air force to prosecute the war in Yemen by indiscriminate terror bombing and trying to starve the Yemenis into submission. Villages and schools were flattened, wedding parties rocketed, school buses attacked. US and British technicians and military experts kept the Saudi warplanes flying and provided bombs and targeting data from satellites. Western mercenaries fly and service the Saudi and Emirati air force.

No one in the West cared about this massacre until the unfortunate Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul. This crime allowed disgust with Saudi Arabia over its Yemen war, beheadings and crucifixions to finally take precedence over arms sales and tawdry geopolitics.

The United States and Britain finally questioned their billions of arms sales to the Saudis who use these mammoth purchases to buy subservience from the western democracies. France and Germany recoiled from major arms sales. Self-righteous Canada prevaricated, trying to get the Saudi cash while ducking opprobrium for arming a cruel, murderous regime.

Washington’s most ardent Israel supporters – Security chief Bolton, and Secretary Pompeo – rushed to support the Saudis. They repeated the ludicrous claim that Khashoggi was a Muslim Brotherhood member and thus worthy of execution. In truth, the Muslim Brotherhood is a venerable, moderate organization composed of Arab professionals that calls for democracy.

But the most interesting development may have been the flight from London to Riyadh by exiled Saudi Prince Ahmad bin Abdulaziz. This 70-something younger brother of King Salman was reportedly given security guarantees by the US and Britain that he would not be arrested by Crown Prince Mohammed when he returned to Riyadh from a golden exile in London.

You could almost hear them yelling ‘bad puppets, bad puppets’ at the Saudi royals. Only two weeks earlier an unusually frank President Trump had even observed that the Saudi 7,000-member royal family would not last ‘more than a week’ without US support.

He was quite right. Since the 1930’s, the Saudi dynasty has been defended and supported by first Britain, then the United States. Few questioned the support of the world’s leading democracy for a cruel medieval monarchy. There was too much oil money involved. The British government even quashed criminal charges when huge kickbacks to Saudi royals on aircraft orders were revealed. Washington covered up the Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks and financing of anti-US groups.

Back to Prince Ahmad. Has he been chosen by Washington and London to replace the rash, violent Crown Prince Mohammed? How worried is the US that the Khashoggi murder could set off a rebellion in Saudi Arabia? Or civil war in the royal family? The aged current king, Salman, is reported to have cognitive problems.

The clumsy, ham-handed meddling of President Trump in Saudi dynastic affairs propelled the bull in a china shop Crown Prince into power. The machinations of Trump’s son-in- law, Jared Kushner, and his Israeli allies have ignited the current crisis. Trump & Co have very much to learn about the Mideast. So far, their attempt to play colonial viceroys has been a fiasco.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2018

Use of Islam to acquit Pakistani Christian woman accused of blasphemy

Saturday, 3 November 2018 

Pakistan is currently witnessing widespread violence following the Supreme Court’s acquittal of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was previously sentenced to death by lower courts for blasphemy.

For the third day in succession from 30 October, when the acquittal was announced, schools have remained closed across the country, and streets blocked by angry protesters belonging to the Islamic radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).

Anticipating such a ruling, TLP held countrywide protests on 14 October and warned that the judges would meet a “horrible end” if Bibi was released.

“Any judge who acquits Asia must be killed,” TLP patron Pir Afzal Qadri told a public gathering the day the Supreme Court was reading Bibi’s case.

“Even the State should kill him because he has become an apostate by releasing her. Earlier, based on my fatwah, Iqbal Bhatti (a High Court judge who had released two 14-year-old Christian boys Salamat Masih and Rehmat Masih, in 1997 in a frivolous blasphemy charge] was killed by a lion, Ahmed Sher Niazi. Now I give the same fatwah [for these Supreme Court judges],” Qadri said.

Imran’s tough stand

But prior to leaving for China, Prime Minister Imran Khan warned the rioters that all steps would be taken to put them down, as he considers the violence an “anti-national’ act in the context of the financial crisis Pakistan is undergoing. And more importantly, he considers it an “anti-Islamic act” as the violence is in contradiction with the Medina Charter propounded by Prophet Mohamman himself in AD 622.

Interestingly, the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister and the lawyer representing Asia Bibi had used Islamic principles to justify their respective stands as the case was Islamic and the opposition was coming from Islamic fundamentalists.

The apex court bench said in its ruling that the blasphemy charge had been leveled without following Islamic principles and was therefore null and void. Prime Minister Imran Khan said that unleashing violence to win a point; threatening to kill judges who delivered the verdict; questioning the religious affiliation of the Army Chief and asking soldiers to mutiny; are all repugnant to the Medina principles.

Clause 47 of the Medina Charter says that no quarter should be given to any injustice or wrong-doing. Clause 25 says that freedom is guaranteed to each community to practice its own religion. The Prophet had proclaimed Medina as a sacred sanctuary (haram) where violence of any kind was prohibited.

False accusation

The panel of three Supreme Court judges ruled that Bibi was “wrongly” accused by two sisters with the help of a local cleric, based on “material contradictions and inconsistent statements of the witnesses, which cast a shadow of doubt on the prosecution’s version of facts”.

“Furthermore, the alleged extra-judicial confession was not voluntary but rather resulted out of coercion and undue pressure as the appellant was forcibly brought before the complainant in the presence of a gathering, who were threatening to kill her. As such, it cannot be made the basis of a conviction. Therefore, the appellant being innocent deserves acquittal,” the judges said.

While acknowledging that blasphemy is a “serious offense,” Justice Asif Saeed Khosa wrote that “the insult of the appellant’s religion (Christianity) and religious sensibilities by the complainant party and then mixing truth with falsehood in the name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) were also not short of being blasphemous.”

Coming down strongly on fanatic vigilantism, the bench comprising Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and Justices Khosa and Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel said: “Blasphemy is abhorrent and immoral besides being a manifestation of intolerance, but at the same time a false allegation regarding commission of such an offence is equally detestable besides being culpable.”

“If our religion of Islam comes down heavily upon commission of blasphemy then Islam is also very tough against those who level false allegations of a crime.”

“It is, therefore, for the State of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to ensure that no innocent person is compelled or constrained to face an investigation or a trial on the basis of false or trumped up allegations regarding commission of such an offence,” the judges said.

The Chief Justice ended the ruling by citing the following hadith (saying) of Prophet Muhammad: “Beware! Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, or curtails their rights, or burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I (Prophet Muhammad) will complain against the person on the Day of Judgment.” (Abu Dawud)

Two conflict versions 

There were two conflicting versions of the case against Asia Bibi.

According to the accuser, cleric Muhammad Salaam, on the afternoon of 14 June 2009, Asia was picking berries in the fields of Sheikhupura along with about 20 other female workers. She started speaking against the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad. She had compared Jesus with Prophet Mohammad and asked if the latter did anything to save mankind.

Following this, an “assembly” of clerics and village elders thoroughly investigated the matter for five days. At the end, Asia Bibi “confessed” to making blasphemous statements before this “assembly” and sought “pardon”. But after the extrajudicial confession, she was handed over to the police.

The then Punjab Governor, Salmaan Taseer, went to meet her in prison and had her sign a clemency appeal after Pope Benedict XVI appealed for her pardon. But fundamentalists said that supporting a person suspected of blasphemy is also blasphemy.

This resulted in Taseer’s being gunned down by his own security guard Mumtaz Qadri in January 2011. Later, the Christian Minister in the Federal Cabinet, Shahbaz Bhatti, was also gunned down by Tehreek-e-Taliban for supporting Bibi and for advocating that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws be amended.

In October 2014, the Lahore High Court upheld the decision of the trial court to send Bibi to the gallows.

But as per another version of the so-called blasphemous act, while Bibi was working in the fields, she had brought water for her two female co-workers who were sisters. But the co-workers refused to accept water telling her that she was a “Christian,” an untouchable. Hot words were exchanged.

Accuser Salaam’s lawyer, Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry, said that Asia Bibi did exactly what the Christians of Spain did against the Muslims hundreds of years ago, namely utter blasphemous anti-Islamic words to insult the Muslims.

The lawyer accused Bibi of being a Christian preacher out to defame the Muslims. But Bibi said that she was illiterate and therefore could not be a “Christian preacher”.

Justice Khosa said that it was possible that the blasphemous words that Asia Bibi was accused of uttering were actually made by the lawyer who drafted the complaint against her. He also stated that the witnesses and the complainant adulterated the truth by removing that part of the incident from their testimony which was not going in their favour.

He then then said: “All concerned would have certainly done better if they had paid heed to what Almighty Allah has ordained in the Holy Qur’an: ‘O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm for Allah, witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just, that is nearer to righteousness. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is acquainted with what you do.’ (Surah Al-Ma’idah: verse 8). ‘So follow not [personal] inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort [your testimony] or refuse [to give it], then indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, acquainted.’” (Surah An-Nisa: verse 135).

Khosa also criticised Bibi’s accusers for violating a covenant made by Muhammad with Christian monks on Mount Sinai in 628.

“The promise made was eternal and universal and was not limited to St. Catherine alone,” he wrote. “The rights conferred by the charter are inalienable and the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had declared that Christians, all of them, were his allies and he equated ill treatment of Christians with violating God’s covenant.”

“It is noticeable that the charter imposed no conditions on Christians for enjoying its privileges and it was enough that they were Christians,” he wrote.

“They were not required to alter their beliefs, they did not have to make any payments and they did not have any obligations. The charter was of rights without any duties and it clearly protected the right to property, freedom of religion, freedom of work, and security of person.”

‘Open Doors’ ranks Pakistan No. 6 on its list of 50 countries where it’s hardest to be a Christian.