Al Qaeda fear mongering .....
http://www.france24.com/en/20130819-al-qaeda-targeting-european-rail-network-report
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4419192,00.html
http://www.france24.com/en/20130819-al-qaeda-targeting-european-rail-network-report
19 AUGUST 2013 - 05H15
Al-Qaeda 'targeting European rail network': report
This file photo shows the main railway station in Mainz, western Germany, pictured on August 12, 2013. Al-Qaeda is plotting attacks on Europe's high-speed rail network, German mass circulation daily Bild reported on Monday, citing intelligence sources.
AFP - Al-Qaeda is plotting attacks on Europe's high-speed rail network, German mass circulation daily Bild reported on Monday, citing intelligence sources.
The extremist group could plant explosives on trains and tunnels or sabotage tracks and electrical cabling, said Bild, Europe's most widely read daily.
Bild said the information came from the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States, which had listened in to a conference call involving top Al-Qaeda operatives.
The attacks on Europe's rail network was a "central topic" of this call, Bild said.
Authorities in Germany have responded to the threat with discrete measures such as deploying plain-clothed police officers at key stations and on main routes, according to the daily.
According to US media reports, intelligence services intercepted a conference call earlier this month between Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and more than 20 operatives from across the group's global network.
This prompted the US and several allies to shut embassies across the Muslim world, fearful of a major attack.
On August 1, the US issued a worldwide alert, warning of Al-Qaeda plans to launch an attack in the Middle East or North Africa.
An American al-Qaeda terrorist has called for more attacks on Western diplomats in the Arab world, praising the killers of the US ambassador to Libya on Sept. 11 last year, a US-based monitoring group said on Sunday.
Western nations shut embassies across the Middle East and North Africa early this month, after a warning of a possible terror attack. Many have reopened, and Britain said its Yemen embassy would open on Sunday after being closed for 12 days.
Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam with a $1 million US price on his head, appealed to wealthy Muslims to offer terrorists rewards to kill ambassadors in the region, citing bounty set for killing the US ambassador to Yemen, Washington-based SITE monitoring group said.
"These prizes have a great effect in instilling fear in the hearts of our cowardly enemies," Gadahn said in the 39-minute video recording in Arabic posted on websites used by Islamist terrorists, according to SITE.
"They also encourage hesitant individuals to carry out important and great deeds in the path of Allah," he said, in an English transcript on SITE.
The Yemen-based branch of al-Qaeda last year offered 3 kg (106 ounces) of gold for the killing of the US ambassador in Sanaa or 5 million rials ($23,350) for an American soldier in the impoverished Arab state.
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Fear mongering to justify supporting a Junta that toppled a legally elected government and continue aid in violation of US law ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/10251219/Commodities-Egyptian-bloodbath-threatens-crucial-routes-for-oil-and-gas-supplies.html
9:33PM BST 18 Aug 2013
271 Comments
After last week’s bloody crackdown by the Egyptian army, fears of a disruption of oil supplies to the West have boosted the oil price. Brent crude prices were propelled to a four-month high of $111.23 on Thursday. If the turmoil gets worse – or unrest spreads to other countries – the risk premium currently factored into the price of crude is likely to increase further.
Egypt is not a major energy exporter, producing a nominal amount of the world’s oil and gas. The North African country appears at number 54 on the list of the world’s largest oil exporters, producing about 0.9pc of the world’s oil and 1.8pc of global natural gas supply.
However, Egypt plays a vital role in international energy markets through the operation of the Suez Canal and the Suez-Mediterranean (Sumed) pipeline. These are vital pieces of infrastructure in the global oil market.
Last year, about 7pc of all seaborne traded oil and 13pc of liquefied natural gas (LNG) travelled through the Suez Canal, according to data collected by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
The Suez Canal, a 101-mile link between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and the 200-mile Sumed pipeline are strategic routes for Persian Gulf oil and gas shipments to Europe and North America.
Closure of these two routes would add an estimated 2,700 miles of transit from Saudi Arabia to the United States around the Cape of Good Hope, increasing costs and shipping time.
Hopes are high, however, that both the canal and pipeline will continue to operate as normal. Maritime insurers appear to be relaxed about the situation at the moment, but one, Skuld, has warned ships’ crews not to go ashore.
“Members are advised to ensure that ships and crew calling at Egyptian ports or transiting the Suez Canal remain on alert and take suitable precautions to ensure their safety,” Christian Ott, Skuld’s vice-president, head of claims, said. “Given the announcement of the state of emergency, and the continued situation on the ground, vessels and crew need to exercise particular caution if any crew step ashore – even for short periods of time.”
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| US Aid to Egypt About Keeping Suez Canal Open to Warships Intimidation and thug tactics to stifle those few reporters who actually report hard news .... http://www.businessinsider.com/guardian-editor-says-british-intelligence-agents-destroyed-their-hard-drives-2013-8 In an opinion piece posted this afternoon to the Guardian website, editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger defended the Guardian's acceptance of documents from Wikileaks in 2010 and his paper's practices on the Edward Snowden story, including using reporter Glenn Greenwald's domestic partner to ferry documents between Germany and Brazil. He also issued a scathing indictment of the tactics of the British cyber intelligence arm, the Government Communications Headquarters.
In a particularly revealing moment, Rusbridger said he was contacted by an agent of the GCHQ, who said "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back," referring to the classified material provided to the paper by Snowden.
Rusbridger said that he asked the official if the British government intended to shut down the paper. The official said that in the absence of the handover or destruction of classified material, that was indeed the intention.
The Guardian gave in and the destruction began, as Rusbridger describes:
And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred – with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.
Rusbridger's piece comes the day after Greenwald's domestic partner, David Miranda, was detained for nine hours when he transferred flights in London en route to Brazil from Berlin. Miranda was carrying documents pertaining to Guardian reporting and was stopped under a broad British anti-terrorism law called Section 7.
Rusbridger said he and the Guardian are undeterred by the tactics he alleges the British government employed.
"We will continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents, we just won't do it in London," Rusbridger wrote. "The seizure of Miranda's laptop, phones, hard drives and camera will similarly have no effect on Greenwald's work."
and....... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow
The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National SecurityAgency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.
David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.
The 28-year-old was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. Accordingto official figures, most examinations under schedule 7 – over 97% – last less than an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours.
Miranda was released, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.
Since 5 June, Greenwald has written a series of stories revealing theNSA's electronic surveillance programmes, detailed in thousands of files passed to him by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The Guardian has also published a number of stories about blanket electronic surveillance by Britain's GCHQ, also based on documents from Snowden.
While in Berlin, Miranda had visited Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on the Snowden files with Greenwald and the Guardian. The Guardian paid for Miranda's flights.
"This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process," Greenwald said. "To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.
"But the last thing it will do is intimidate or deter us in any way from doing our job as journalists. Quite the contrary: it will only embolden us more to continue to report aggressively."
A spokesperson for the Guardian said: "We were dismayed that the partner of a Guardian journalist who has been writing about the security services was detained for nearly nine hours while passing through Heathrow airport. We are urgently seeking clarification from the British authorities."
A spokesperson for Scotland Yard said: "At 08:05 on Sunday, 18 August a 28-year-old man was detained at Heathrow airport under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He was not arrested. He was subsequently released at 17:00."
Scotland Yard refused to be drawn on why Miranda was stopped using powers that enable police officers to stop and question travellers at UK ports and airports.
There was no comment from the Home Office in relation to the detention. However, there was surprise in political circles and elsewhere. Labour MP Tom Watson said he was shocked at the news and called for it to be made clear if any ministers were involved in authorising the detention.
He said: "It's almost impossible, even without full knowledge of the case, to conclude that Glenn Greenwald's partner was a terrorist suspect.
"I think that we need to know if any ministers knew about this decision, and exactly who authorised it."
"The clause in this act is not meant to be used as a catch-all that can be used in this way."
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act has been widely criticised for giving police broad powers under the guise of anti-terror legislation to stop and search individuals without prior authorisation or reasonable suspicion – setting it apart from other police powers.
Those stopped have no automatic right to legal advice and it is a criminal offence to refuse to co-operate with questioning under schedule 7, which critics say is a curtailment of the right to silence.
Last month the UK government said it would reduce the maximum period of detention to six hours and promised a review of the operation on schedule 7 amid concerns it unfairly targets minority groups and gives individuals fewer legal protections than they would have if detained at a police station.
The government of Brazil issued a statement in which it expressed its "grave concern" over the detention of one of its citizens and the use of anti-terror legislation. It said: "This measure is without justification since it involves an individual against whom there are no charges that can legitimate the use of that legislation. The Brazilian government expects that incidents such as the one that happened to the Brazilian citizen today are not repeated."
Widney Brown, Amnesty International's senior director of international law and policy, said: "It is utterly improbable that David Michael Miranda, a Brazilian national transiting through London, was detained at random, given the role his partner has played in revealing the truth about the unlawful nature of NSA surveillance.
"David's detention was unlawful and inexcusable. He was detained under a law that violates any principle of fairness and his detention shows how the law can be abused for petty, vindictive reasons.
"There is simply no basis for believing that David Michael Miranda presents any threat whatsoever to the UK government. The only possible intent behind this detention was to harass him and his partner, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, for his role in analysing the data released by Edward Snowden."
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| The New Paranoia: A Government Afraid of Itself by Jesse Walker |
