Tag: curfews

David Villamar interviewed about Ecuador’s violent crime disaster

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Ecuador’s violent crime problem is such an incredible disaster that it manages to attract international attention. Criminals have recently taken over live newscasts. Supporters of the rightwing governments that created the disaster (for example, The Economist) have declared Ecuador to be the deadliest country in the Americas. It’s difficult for Ecuador to get international news coverage. In recent years, it generally has to be something very bad (or sports-related).

David Villamar interviewed about Ecuador’s violent crime disaster

Related:

How Did Ecuador Spiral into This Nightmare? It Was the Neoliberal Dismantling of the State

Ecuador: Quasi Civil War

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Ecuador: Quasi Civil War

Los Choneros is tied to the Mexican drug Sinaloa Cartel and Los Lobos to Jalisco. Ecuador itself, together with Bolivia and Colombia, is part of the so-called cocaine triangle, which is the world’s largest producer of the drug. From Ecuador, it travels overland to Brazil and Peru and by sea to Mexico, European countries, and the African market.

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Finally, and thirdly, another version of the reason for the current conflict outbreak is the activation of the CIA and their agents who want to destabilize the entire Andean region (after all, the situation in Peru and Chile is also complicated). Although it sounds like a conspiracy, given the skills of US intelligence agencies and their networks in Latin America, it should not be dismissed, but more attention should be paid to the activities of State Department agents who do not want to lose the region.

Interestingly, when I highlight and look up, ‘cocaine triangle’, Apple brings up the Wikipedia page for ‘CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking’. 🤔

Related (Money & Front Organizations):

RT—Ecuador: 2 Days of Armed Violence, 14 Deaths, Several Kidnapped and Injured, Dozens Arrested (+Correa & Maduro)

Read More »

Hasbara Industry: Deconstructing Israel’s Propaganda Machine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Tel Aviv is, however, finding it increasingly difficult to whitewash its entrenched apartheid system and ongoing genocide, especially in light of the openly racist policies and practices of the current right-wing regime cobbled together by its legally-plagued prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Luntz states that when Americans are told that Iran supports Hezbollah and Hamas, they will be inclined to be more supportive of Israel. Therefore, when talking about them to repeatedly say “Iran-backed” Hamas and Hezbollah.

Hasbara Industry: Deconstructing Israel’s Propaganda Machine (archived)

Related:

Hasbara Handbook: The Israel Project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary

The secret report that helps Israel hide facts (archived)

Facts About Israel That You May Not Know (archived)

The Lobby – USA

UPDATE: ‘Do not exaggerate importance of America’s equivalent to Wagner Group PMC’ says Russia

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

RUSSIA’S Press Secretary to the President, Dmitry Peskov, spoke on Thursday, February 2, about the news that the Mozart Group, America’s answer to Russia’s Wagner Group – Putin’s network of mercenaries and de facto private army – was apparently ‘leaving’ Ukraine and said not to exaggerate the PMC’s significance.

UPDATE: ‘Do not exaggerate importance of America’s equivalent to Wagner Group PMC’ says Russia

Related:

Hard Drinking and Murky Finances: How an American Veterans Group Imploded in Ukraine

U.S. Veterans in Ukraine Are Fighting Each Other in Court

CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders

The documents reveal the expansive plan the CDC had last year to use location data from a highly controversial data broker. SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence [Turki bin Faisal Al Saud] among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June.

The CDC used the data for monitoring curfews, with the documents saying that SafeGraph’s data “has been critical for ongoing response efforts, such as hourly monitoring of activity in curfew zones or detailed counts of visits to participating pharmacies for vaccine monitoring.” The documents date from 2021.

Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher who closely follows the data marketplace, told Motherboard in an online chat after reviewing the documents: “The CDC seems to have purposefully created an open-ended list of use cases, which included monitoring curfews, neighbor-to-neighbor visits, visits to churches, schools and pharmacies, and also a variety of analysis with this data specifically focused on ‘violence.’” (The document doesn’t stop at churches; it mentions “places of worship.”)

Related:

Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics

Location data broker SafeGraph stops selling information on visits to abortion providers

SafeGraph Provides CDC and 1000+ Organizations With Data to Fight the COVID-19 Crisis

Google Bans Location Data Firm Funded by Former Saudi Intelligence Head:

On its website SafeGraph says “We believe places data should be open for all.” In April 2017, Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, the former head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, invested in SafeGraph as part of a $16 million Series A funding round. SafeGraph said it had “assembled the deepest policy thinkers.” Beyond Faisal Al Saud, SafeGraph said it had enlisted the help of former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, author Sam Harris, Meghan O’Sullivan who ran Iraq and Afghanistan policy under President George Bush, former Deputy Chief of Staff to President Obama Mona Sutphen, and former German Minister of Defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, among others. Peter Thiel is also an investor in the company.

More investors: SafeGraph Raises $16 Million Series A

Israeli PM Naftali Bennett holes up in a nuclear blast-proof bunker in Covid ‘war game’ to simulate outbreak of lethal new strain

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Israeli PM Naftali Bennett holes up in a nuclear blast-proof bunker in Covid ‘war game’ to simulate outbreak of lethal new strain

The drill involves civilian and military leaders being subjected to mass testing, hospital admissions and curfews, Bennett’s office said in a statement. Findings from the exercise will be shared with foreign partners.