Monthly Archives: July 2017

Peace activist banned

Under cover of darkness a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system was installed in Seongju City, ROK, earlier this year, in spite of daily and growing opposition from local villagers and their nation-wide supporters and without official deliberation by South Korea’s governing bodies.

This morning Ms Juyeon Rhee was stopped in New York from boarding her Delta flight to Incheon. The ban was imposed by South Korean officials. Juyeon Rhee is the coordinator for the Stop THAAD in Korea (STIK) peace delegation.

See STIK’s web site, background in The Diplomat and what Paul Craig Roberts writes about THAAD.

Spying tool deployed against journalist’s son

An Orwellian case of illegal surveillance on Mexico’s journalist Carmen Aristegui and her son Emilio is today reported by The Intercept. Business Insider wrote last year that the company NSO Group, which sells the hacking tool, was founded entrepreneurs with ties to the Israeli government and the tool was apparently discovered in a hacking attempt on a human rights activist in the United Arab Emirates. Earlier it has also been used e.g. by the government of Panama to spy on journalists (among others), according to La Prensa.

Swedish propaganda

Some Swedes are starting to understand that they are living in a world of propaganda dominated by the West. While the official story is that primarily Russia is behind fake news and disinformation (link to news in English about a heavily criticized report), others ask how long the hypocrisy will continue? For example, earlier this year Göte Marjavaara wrote about how he thinks Swedish Television (SVT) behaves when talking about NATO and West as friendly while Russia is a constant threat. He writes:

When will those in power ensure that SVT goes from spreading propaganda to working legally as a public-service company?

As far as we know, SVT has not responded to this in any way. Read more (in Swedish) on the following links: Göte Marjavaara’s summary of distorted news, Sven Ruin about democracy and Fokus about Sweden’s secret propaganda soldiers. The latter highlights how Swedish military is actually conducting offensive psychological operations in other countries.

Smear campaigns have also appeared against some of the Swedes who try to tell the truth, for example by Dagens Nyheter.

Treaty outlawing atomic bombs

As the Doomsday Clock is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons passed at the United Nations by a vote of 122 to 1 on the 7 July. Read more about:

Call on the UK Government

Working with Privacy International, Reprieve has discovered the existence of a secret policy, or “direction”, from Downing Street. It concerns covert activities being conducted right now by Britain’s intelligence agencies, but that’s all we know – for now.

It is called “The Third Direction”.

The first two directions concern torture and cyber surveillance – issues which clearly have huge implications for human rights. The Third Direction is entirely shrouded in secrecy.

See the important petition from Reprieve