Peace for the World

Peace for the World
First democratic leader of Justice the Godfather of the Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle: Honourable Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Did Saudi Arabia use Israeli technology to spy on Khashoggi?

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (POMED / Flickr) 

Tamara Nassar Power Suits 14 November 2018
Saudi Arabia may have used Israeli technology to spy on Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. After a number of attempts at muddying the waters, Saudi Arabia eventually admitted the Washington Post columnist had been killed in the building.
One day before Khashoggi’s disappearance, University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab published an investigationrevealing that one of Khashoggi’s close friends, Omar Abdulaziz, was likely to have been spied on by the Saudi government using Israeli technology, adding that Khashoggi was targeted as well.
“We have high confidence that the cellphone of Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi activist and Canadian permanent resident, was targeted and infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware,” the investigation revealed.
The malware, called Pegasus, is made by the Israeli cyber warfare company NSO Group and is only sold to governments.
Pegasus hacks smartphones by sending the targeted device a compelling message that contains a link. If the recipient clicks on the link, the system installs sophisticated malware on the device that can go undetected and send information back to those doing the spying.
Data that can be obtained through Pegasus includes locations, recordings, screenshots, email and text messages, passwords and photographs.

Khashoggi targeted

“It is 100 percent clear that [Jamal Khashoggi] received one of these text messages containing a link,” Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, told CNN in October.
It is unclear whether Khashoggi’s device was infected with the malware – he would have had to click the link – and when the Citizen Lab report was published on 1 October, Abdulaziz’s relationship to Khashoggi was seemingly irrelevant.
Khashoggi’s disappearance the next day, however – given the pair’s close relationship, which was described by the Committee to Protect Journalists as resembling “that of a source and a journalist” – may suggest the two are linked.
“We were talking every single day,” Abdulaziz told CPJ. “We had this kind of relationship, not just between colleagues, but between father and son.”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, a close ally of the United States and someone who has been keen to improve relations with Israel, is widely suspected of giving the order to a team of Saudi assassins to abduct, murder and dismember Khashoggi in his country’s consulate in Istanbul.

Evangelicals in Riyadh

Earlier this month, the crown prince hosted a delegation of Christian evangelicals and pro-Israel American figures in Saudi Arabia.
The delegation was headed by Joel Rosenberg, a Christian Zionist and a dual citizen of Israel and the US, according to Israeli daily Haaretz.
The crown prince reportedly discussed the Khashoggi killing with the delegation and told his evangelical interlocutors that his “enemies are exploiting this to the fullest.”
The Palestinian issue was also discussed at length during the meeting, Rosenberg reportedly told Barak Ravid, the diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s Channel 10.

Rosenberg claimed that the crown prince asked the delegation not to discuss that part of the conversation publically.
Rail link between Israel and Arab states
Israeli transport minister Yisrael Katz attended the International Road Transport Union in Oman last week, at the official invitation of the Omani government.





BDS Oman || (حركة مقاطعة الإحتلال (عُمان@OmanBDS

بعد تلقيه دعوة رسمية من نظيره وزير النقل والإتصالات العماني، وزير النقل و الإستخبارات الصهيوني يسرائيل كاتس، سيزور سلطنة عُمان يوم الثلاثاء المقبل، و ذلك للمشاركة في المؤتمر العالمي للنقل الطُرقي.

حركة مقاطعة الإحتلال في عُمان، تستنكر هذه الزيارة التطبيعية!

23
7:39 AM - Nov 1, 2018
Upon his return to Israel, Katz stated that “cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states can and should be expanded,” according to The Times of Israel.
Katz proposed a plan – complete with a promotional video – to build a regional transportation and trade rail that links Gulf states to the Mediterranean Sea via Israel.
The “Tracks for Regional Peace” rail link, which Katz said was supported by the Donald Trump administration, was “based on two central ideas – Israel as a land bridge and Jordan as a regional transportation hub.”
Katz’s trip came less than two weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Oman, in the most visible sign of Israel’s normalization of ties with Arab states with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.
But it was only the tip of the iceberg. Israeli sports delegations fanned out to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in October as well.
Qatar also welcomed an Israeli delegation at the end of the month for the Enriching the Middle East’s Economic Future Conference in Doha organized by the Qatari foreign ministry.
Among them was Israeli politician and former member of parliament Erel Margalit who told Israeli technology news site CTech that Saudi-Israeli relations are warming, if unofficially.
“Sometimes it is easier to forge forward through economic collaboration than through the diplomatic echelons,” he told the news site.
“Israel-based cybersecurity firms aided Saudi oil and gas company Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco, in dealing with the fallout of a 2012 cyber-attack that left the world’s biggest energy company nearly bereft of all IT resources,” he reportedly explained to the publication.
Activist group Qatar Youth Opposed to Normalization denounced Israel’s participation:


شباب قطر ضد التطبيع@QAYON
 · 

وصلنا خبر للتو بمشاركة ممثلين من الكيان الصهيوني في مؤتمر إثراء المستقبل الاقتصادي للشرق الأوسط، الذي تنظمه وزارة الخارجية القطرية. @MofaQatar_AR


View image on TwitterView image on Twitter


شباب قطر ضد التطبيع@QAYON
ندعو القطريات والقطريين التعبير عن استنكارهم ضد هذا التطبيع الفاضح الذي تقوده جهة رسمية @mofaqatar_ar

44
4:27 AM - Oct 31, 2018

Israel’s “knight” and Dershowitz

An Israeli athlete also participated in a showjumping championship in Qatar recently, hosted by an organization operated by the state-funded multi-billion dollar Qatar Foundation.
Israel’s verified Arabic-language Twitter account congratulated Danielle Goldstein for coming in second place at the Doha competition:





إسرائيل بالعربية
✔@IsraelArabic

الفارسة الإسرائيلية دانييل غولدشتاين حصلت على المركز الثاني في منافسات بطولة لقفز الحواجز في العاصمة القطرية الدوحة 🇶🇦
مبروك للفارسة البارزة غولدشتاين 🇮🇱 (تصوير LGCT / Steffano Grasso)

1,080
9:27 AM - Nov 10, 2018
The Qatar Foundation hosted prominent pro-Israel propagandist Alan Dershowitz in Doha earlier this year, as part of a wave of all-expenses-paid junkets of rightwing Americans and key leaders of Israel’s Washington lobby to Qatar, at the invitation of Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
Mother Jones magazine recently revealed that Dershowitz had a contract to provide advice to Joseph Allaham, a lobbyist working for the Qatari government.
Allaham transferred $250,000 to some of the most extreme pro-Israel organizations in the United States on behalf of the Qatari government in late 2017 and early 2018.
The sums included $100,000 to the Zionist Organization of America, $100,000 to Our Soldiers Speak and $50,000 for Blue Diamond Horizons, Inc.
Allaham stated he had a contract with Dershowitz for the latter to provide “advisory and consulting” services “in many matters that involved [the] Middle East, especially Israel,” at the same time he was counseling US President Donald Trump, according to Mother Jones. Allaham’s statements were revealed in the transcript of a deposition connected to a federal lawsuit filed by pro-Israel Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy, who claimed Qatar attempted to hack and leak his emails.
Allaham refused to say during the deposition whether Dershowitz was paid for his services, although Dershowitz insisted that he “never received a single penny pursuant to that contract” and that it was “never implemented,” according to Mother Jones.
Dershowitz added that “I have done nothing and will do nothing on behalf of any country” and threatened to sue Mother Jones for defamation if the magazine reported that he had a conflict of interest with Qatar while he was advising the White House.
Dershowitz made two trips to Doha, one in January, at the invitation of the emir of Qatar, who financed the trip, and another in March.
Allaham helped organize the January trip.

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A White House aide picked a fight with Melania Trump. The first lady won.

First lady Melania Trump, seen at the 2017 turkey pardoning ceremony at the White House, this week successfully pushed for the removal of a top White House national security official who had displeased her. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By Anne Gearan ,Josh Dawsey andEmily Heil-November 14 at 8:16 PM

A transoceanic personnel crisis that engulfed the National Security Council this week is partly rooted in a bureaucratic dispute over the seating arrangements aboard first lady Melania Trump’s plane to Africa last month during her maiden solo trip abroad.

As the East Wing prepared the flight manifest for the marquee trip, deputy national security adviser Mira Ricardel became angry that seats on the first lady’s government jet were assigned to a larger-than-usual security entourage and a small press corps with none for Ricardel or another NSC staffer, according to current U.S. officials and others familiar with the trip and its aftermath.

Policy experts from the NSC and State Department were advised to fly separately and to meet the first lady’s party on the ground, a practice the State Department had often used, but Ricardel objected strenuously, those people said. She threatened to revoke NSC resources associated with the trip, meaning no policy staff would advise the first lady during her visits to Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Egypt.

Bad blood between Ricardel and Melania Trump and her staff continued for weeks after the trip, with the first lady privately arguing that the NSC’s No. 2 official was a corrosive influence in the White House and should be dismissed. But national security adviser John Bolton rebuffed the first lady and protected his deputy, prompting the first lady’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, to issue an extraordinary statement to reporters Tuesday effectively calling for Ricardel’s firing.

“It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,” Grisham said of Ricardel in the statement.

After an uncomfortable day of limbo, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced Wednesday evening that Ricardel was leaving the White House.
First lady Melania Trump’s “Be Best” campaign is designed to curb bullying. The rhetoric stands in contrast with President Trump’s tone toward politics. (Adriana Usero, JM Rieger/The Washington Post)

“Mira Ricardel will continue to support the President as she departs the White House to transition to a new role within the Administration,” she said in a statement.

An NSC spokesman declined to elaborate.

The first lady’s decision to publicly advocate for the ouster of a senior member of her husband’s staff shows a new willingness on her part to weigh in on White House operations and marks a change from earlier in the Trump administration, when she repeatedly played down her role as an adviser to the president.

It also comes as the president is mulling personnel changes, including possibly ousting Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and firing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

Anita McBride, who was chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush, says Melania Trump’s move was a dramatic show of power.

“If anyone had questions about her willingness to exert her influence, they got their answer,” she said.
Ricardel’s dismissal also serves as a rebuke of Bolton, known for his sharp elbows and ability to navigate internal tensions, who refused for weeks to fire his handpicked deputy and worked in the past day to protect her.

Soon after the first lady’s office issued its statement Tuesday, surprised senior White House aides walked to Ricardel’s office to see whether she was still there. She was, albeit confused.

Bolton, who was awakened in Asia in the middle of the night and told of the dust-up, was soon on the phone, telling Ricardel to remain at her post, three administration officials said.

The White House was trying to find a soft landing place for Ricardel, but agencies including the Commerce Department, where she worked in the first year of the Trump administration, are hesitant to take her on because of her reputation, two senior administration officials said.

The first lady’s statement came after months of tension in the White House over Ricardel’s abrasive interactions with staffers in both the East Wing and the West Wing, according to several current and former staffers. 

Melania Trump and Ricardel have never met, according to people familiar with each of them. But the first lady viewed the conservative operative, who was among the most senior women in the West Wing, as a toxic influence in the White House, to the point that she spoke to Trump about Ricardel after the Africa trip and authorized others to spread the word that Ricardel had overstepped the mark, several people familiar with recent events said.

A senior White House official said the first lady believed Ricardel was spreading false rumors about her office, including a misleading story that aides had arranged a $10,000 hotel stay in Egypt. Other White House aides said Ricardel belittled underlings, shouted at professional staff and was the most disliked aide in the West Wing.

Last weekend, according to administration officials, the first lady’s office again asked Bolton to oust Ricardel. Others, including Kelly, have wanted her gone for months, administration officials said, with little success in overcoming Bolton’s objections.

Bolton declined again — and went to Asia.

While the first lady’s public statement came as a surprise to many, including in the White House, Paolo Zampolli, a longtime friend of the Trumps’, said the move isn’t out of character for the first lady. “Our first lady is very strong, and she has the right to choose who she’s working with,” he said.
In past administrations, first ladies exerted similar or greater influence, but always behind the scenes. The most famous modern example is Nancy Reagan’s engineering the ouster of chief of staff Donald T. Regan, who had made the dire mistake of hanging up on her. While Nancy Reagan’s fingerprints were all over the firing, there were no statements from her office to that effect.

“You never hang up on the first lady. She can be your strongest ally. She can help you more than anybody realizes,” said Kenneth Duberstein, who fared better as chief of staff to Reagan.

Martha Washington, historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony noted, once wrote that she felt like a “state prisoner” because of protocol rules and a schedule set in part by her husband’s chief adviser, Tobias Lear. And there was no love lost between Mary Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln’s chief counselors, John Hay and John Nicolay, who referred to her as “the hellcat” behind her back. 

Pat Nixon, Anthony says, chafed at top White House aides H.R. “Bob” Haldeman and John Erlichman for perceived offenses that included not giving her enough notice before travel and for not taking her ambitious agenda seriously, Anthony said. 

“It goes back so far that what we’re really talking about is human nature and the problem of the boss’s wife,” he said.

Melania Trump has taken on a more public role recently, launching her anti-bullying campaign earlier this year and traveling to Africa in October.

She has made symbolic gestures that suggest she feels free to make her views plain and to disagree with her husband.

In a rare sit-down interview with ABC News last month, the first lady was asked whether it was true that she had more control over her notoriously volatile husband than anyone else. “Oh, I wish,” she said. “I give him my honest advice and honest opinions. And then he does what he wants to do.”

The first lady has privately complained about other current and former White House officials to her husband — Stephen K. Bannon, chief among them — but has never before issued such a public statement.

The East Wing often does not clear its statements with the White House. Senior White House aides, including Kelly and Bolton, were not aware that the statement was coming before it was issued Tuesday. Press secretary Sarah Sanders had not seen the final statement, a senior administration official said. 

Even Kelly, who wanted Ricardel gone, told others he thought that the situation was handled poorly and that the White House looked bad.

The controversy has added to the turmoil surrounding the White House after last week’s midterm elections, in which Republicans lost control of the House and maintained a slim Senate majority. Last week, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions before heading to Paris over the weekend for the commemoration of the end of World War I, a period during which he struck out at French President Emmanuel Macron via Twitter and Macron indirectly criticized Trump’s embrace of “nationalism.”

“This shows it’s still a broken and dysfunctional White House. Maybe John Kelly has made a few trains run on time, but it’s clearly still broken,” said Chris Whipple, author of a 2017 book, “The Gatekeepers,” about White House chiefs of staff and West Wing operations.

Philip Rucker contributed to this report.
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All that is known about the Brexit Draft Deal


by our London Correspondent-
( November 15, 2018, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Britain had all but given up on a Special Brexit Summit at the end of November 2018 as there were too many “sticking points” when suddenly it was announced a 500 page Draft Agreement had been agreed between UK and EU negotiators.
Summary of events
1. UK and EU negotiators come up with a draft agreement
2. Special Cabinet meeting to be held at 2 p.m.14 November 2018
to discuss the full text.
3. One on one meetings with Britain’s Cabinet ministers were held by
Prime Minister Theresa May last evening and this morning. Ministers
are tight-lipped.
4. Last sticking point in talks has been the Northern Ireland border.
5. Any deal has to be agreed by the Cabinet, UK Parliament and
by the 27 EU Member States.
6. The mood is there but not for an open revolt.
7. Nothing is off the table.
The hours seem to be endless since this “Draft Agreement” was announced.
Updated later: 

British Cabinet approves Brexit deal

After a marathon sitting of the Cabinet today 14 November 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May announced on the steps of 10 Downing Street that her Cabinet has given its blessings to the terms of the Draft Agreement clearing the way for a Special Brexit Summit of all 28 EU members in Brussels expected on 25 November 2018.
The Deal – the UK and EU 585 page text Brexit Withdrawal Agreement – sets out the terms of Britain’s divorce from the EU after its 45 year membership.
Theresa May said: “I firmly believe that the draft withdrawal agreement was the best that could be negotiated. The choices before us were difficult. This is a decisive step which enables us to move on and finalise the deal in the days ahead. I know there will be difficult days ahead”.
Speaking against the backdrop of boos and shouts from anti-Brexit campaigners in Downing Street she further said:” this deal which delivers on the vote of the referendum, which brings back control of our money, laws and borders, ends free movement, protects jobs, security and our Union, or leave with no deal or no Brexit at all.”
Key developments 
  1. EU Ambassadors were briefed by EU officials earlier in the day in Brussels.
(We are told all 27 Members of the EU are not required or expected to agree, a simple majority of the Founder Members is sufficient).
  1. A Political Declaration is to be agreed between EU and UK.
(We understand that this Declaration has to be signed by the 29 March 2019).
  1. The terms of the Agreement of the Political Declaration have to be agreed by UK Parliament.
(A series of Commons votes will have to be needed to settle the fate of the deal).
  1. A Top Brussels official boasts: “Deal will leave us with the upper hand”.
(EU negotiator Sabine Weyand reportedly said the UK would “have to swallow a link between access to products and fisheries in future).
  1. The Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland,has warned the PM there would be “consequences” if her deal treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK.
(Arlene Foster, DUP Leader and her Party props up Mrs. May’s minority Government in the Commons).
  1. The Prime Minister was today warned not to break up the United Kingdom, as she faced a backlash from Scotland and Wales rebels over the deal.
(SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland and N.I. might have to compete Investment, Welsh are also dissatisfied if Northern Ireland is treated separately).
7. The UK Opposition Leader, Jeremy Corbyn aims to trigger a general election by voting  down the deal and forcing a confidence vote.
(Theresa May astutely has in her hands some Labour MP’s support).
8   The whole Brexit process is long drawn and can take many years.
(The EU wants a early settlement to move on to other matters.UK wants this deal done and dusted to achieve a Trade deal).
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Does the UK support May’s Brexit deal?

“80 per cent of the British public support this deal”
That’s what prisons minister Rory Stewart told BBC 5 Live this afternoon as he tried to defend Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

After an ambitious attempt to quantify support for the draft agreement, Mr Stewart quickly revised his statement to clarify that he wasn’t basing the eye-watering 80 per cent figure on an actual opinion poll.

“Sorry, let me get the language right on that. My sense is if we have the opportunity to explain this, the vast majority of the British public would support this […] I’m producing a number to try to illustrate what I believe” he added.

He later said: “I totally apologise and I take that back.”

The Labour Whips have said that this is a “clear breach of the ministerial code”. It’s true that the Ministerial Code instructs ministers to be “mindful of the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice”.

We’re not sure that this case is necessarily a “clear breach” of the code as Mr Stewart corrected himself and retracted the claim in the moment. But we’ll continue to keep our eyes and ears open for ministerial statistical acrobatics.

As it turns out, there was in fact a snap survey conducted overnight by YouGov – which is so far the only poll carried out since Theresa May announced her Brexit deal.

So what does the YouGov data tell us?

In news that has delighted advocates for a “People’s Vote”, more people said they would support a second referendum than oppose one (48 per cent in favour versus 34 per cent against).

When we remove people who answered “don’t know”, support for a People’s Vote is at 59 per cent.
But when it comes to the attitudes towards the latest deal, we’re in murkier waters.

If you were one of the 1,153 Brits to be polled last night by YouGov, it’s pretty likely that you – like the rest of the country – hadn’t quite finished reading all 585 pages of the draft withdrawal agreement. After all, it was only published at 8pm yesterday.

In an attempt to get round this, the pollsters simply asked respondents how they felt based on “what you have seen or heard about the government’s proposed Brexit deal, if it gets implemented”.

In other words, we have no way of knowing how many respondents were aware of the latest deal – or whether they understood its implications.

Let’s keep those caveats in mind and take a look at the stats.

They won’t make happy reading for Theresa May. The YouGov figures suggest that, based on what they’ve heard about Mrs May’s deal, Brits believe that if it goes ahead, the economy, the NHS, and future generations will be worse off.

On some of the headline issues, here’s what the public expect as a result of the deal…
  • The economy will be weaker: 47 per cent believe Britain’s economy will be weaker after Brexit, compared to 11 per cent who think it will be stronger. A significant minority (42 per cent) think it will be about the same or they don’t know.
  • We’ll take back control: 36 per cent think the deal will give Britain more control over its future, compared to 29 per cent who think we’ll have less control. Again, a combined 35 per cent either don’t know or think there’ll be no change on this front.
  • Promises have been broken: asked specifically what they’d heard of last night’s deal, 75 per cent of respondents said “what is now being proposed won’t be anything like what was promised two years ago”. Just 7 per cent said that they disagreed with that statement.
  • There’s no clear mandate for MPs: asked whether MPs should vote for the deal agreed by the government, 21 per cent of people said they should support Mrs May, compared to 35 per cent who said members should vote it down. But a further 44 per cent of people said they didn’t know either way.

  • FactCheck verdict

Rory Stewart said that 80 per cent of the public support Theresa May’s Brexit deal. He admitted he had plucked figure out of thin air – and he apologised for it within minutes.

The latest polling from YouGov suggests people are generally negative about government negotiations with the EU so far.

Although since the polling was carried out overnight, it’s unlikely that people who took part will have read it in detail: the document is 585 pages long and was only published at 8pm yesterday evening.
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