North Korea to publicly close nuclear test site on May 23-25, invites journalists

North Korea will openly dismantle its nuclear test site around May 23-25, state media said. Pyongyang has invited foreign journalists, including those from the US, to cover the event.

The dismantling will involve collapsing all tunnels with explosions and blocking their entrances. All observation facilities, research buildings, and security posts will be removed, KCNA reported.

Notably, journalists from other nations, including China, Russia, South Korea, the UK and the US, will be invited to cover the event.

The news follows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s historic meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in earlier this month, which saw the two agree on progress towards a denuclearized peninsula. It also comes one month before Kim is due to meet with US President Donald Trump in Singapore.

A recently released study said North Korea’s largest underground nuclear test under Mt. Mantap has actually moved the mountain. Based on the data, scientists have revealed that Mt. Mantap shrank by 0.5 meters (about 20 inches) and expanded by nearly 3.5 meters (11 feet). The study was conducted by analyzing regional and global seismic recordings, as well as before-and-after radar measurements of the mountain’s surface using imaging satellites.

https://www.rt.com/news/426554-northkorea-publicly-close-nuclear-site/

Who is supporting who????

UK Has Sold $1bn of Weapons to Turkey Since Coup Attempt

London (MEE) – Theresa May is set to roll out the red carpet for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this weekend, as new figures reveal that Britain has sold more than $1bn of weapons to Ankara since the failed 2016 coup and subsequent crackdown under emergency powers, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Turkey remains a “priority market” for British weapons, despite concerns from human rights groups and EU officials over the erosion of the country’s rule of law.

Turkey is a fellow member of NATO and has cooperated with the EU in tackling the refugee crisis, but critics say that Erdogan’s government has arrested or sacked more than 100,000 state workers and members of the military in the wake of the coup attempt.

Unlike many other Western allies, London spoke out quickly after the coup, in which fighter jets bombed the Turkish parliament and troops opened fire on civilians.

But the UK has remained largely silent as Turkey targeted not only the alleged plotters but also political dissidents, journalists and members of pro-Kurdish parties for “supporting terrorism”.

Brexit push

Erdogan will meet the Queen and the prime minister during his three-day visit to the UK, starting on Sunday. It comes as the UK is making a Brexit push to boost trade with Ankara, but also in the middle of a snap Turkish parliamentary and presidential campaigns conducted under a state of emergency.

UK weapons sales since the attempted coup include a $667m deal for military electronic data, armored vehicles, small arms, ammunition, missiles, drones, aircraft, and helicopters.

It also includes a $135m deal for BAE Systems to fulfil Erdogan’s plan to build a Turkish-made fighter jet.

The jet deal was signed by May in January 2017 under an “open licence” to ease the transfer of military technology, and UK officials now reportedly wish to expand the deal by pushing for Rolls-Royce to win the engine contract.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a Labour MP who recently travelled to northern Syria, where Turkey is involved in operations against the Kurdish YPG militia, told MEE: “The government has been increasing arms sales to Turkey as it has fallen into authoritarianism at home and warmongering abroad.

“The government should be finding ways to protect our allies from Erdogan’s aggression but it instead rewards Turkey with new arms contracts. The government is putting private profit over both human rights and global security.

He added: “10 Downing Street under Theresa May has become a revolving door for the world’s biggest tyrants, who are also our biggest arms customers.”

Turkey says the aim of its intervention in Afrin, a Kurdish canton in Syria’s northern Aleppo province, is to counter the YPG, which it considers a terrorist group and an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for more than 30 years.

Russell-Moyle claimed there was evidence that UK-made arms had been used by Turkey in northern Syria. The British government has said it cannot categorically state that UK weapons are not in use in Turkish military operations in Afrin.

Erdogan as a global statesman?

Andrew Smith, a director of Campaign Against Arms Trade, which compiled the figures on weapons sales, added that Erdogan is using the visit to London to “project an image of himself as a global statesman, rather than the tyrant he is”.

Smith told MEE: “By arming and supporting Turkish forces, the government is making itself complicit in the abuses that are being carried out.

“The last thing Theresa May and the Queen should be doing is giving him the legitimacy and endorsement of such a high-profile visit.”

By arming and supporting Turkish forces the government is making itself complicit in the abuses that are being carried out.

– Andrew Smith, CAAT

UK diplomats say they regularly raise human rights issues with Turkey, and that Ankara is a key partner in countering terrorism, as well as on refugee issues, given its strategic border with Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK’s director, called for a more forceful approach on Turkey’s policies.

“This visit is an opportunity for Theresa May to show the president that human rights and a thriving civil society in Turkey are a priority of the UK,” she said.

According to Amnesty’s latest report, a nationwide crackdown in Turkey has resulted in mass arrests and the “near-destruction” of Turkey’s legal system.

It also noted that the post-coup attempt state of emergency had been renewed on seven occasions, and that more than 100,000 public sector workers have been arbitrarily dismissed.

MORE:

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/65807/uk-has-sold-1bn-of-weapons-to-turkey-since-coup.html

US Military Has A Meme Warfare Branch

In both the sense of macro images and general memetics, the United States military is now openly exploiting these phenomena for propaganda purposes and meme warfare.

I have been warning for years about the destructive nature of dependence on macro images (memes) as a communication device on the internet. It is a compulsive behavior devoid of any merit. It is a swashbuckling smorgasbord of signaling that programs its participants towards ever greater depths of reductionism. And now that they have realized we have conditioned and dumbed ourselves down enough by it, the military wants to weaponize it against us.

“In 2011, a university professor with a background in robotics presented an idea that seemed radical at the time.

After conducting research backed by DARPA — the same defense agency that helped spawn the internet — Dr. Robert Finkelstein proposed the creation of a brand new arm of the US military, a “Meme Control Center.”

In internet-speak the word “meme” often refers to an amusing picture that goes viral on social media. More broadly, however, a meme is any idea that spreads, whether that idea is true or false.

It is this broader definition of meme that Finklestein had in mind when he proposed the Meme Control Center and his idea of “memetic warfare.”

Basically, Dr. Finklestein’s Meme Control Center would pump the internet full of “memes” that would benefit the national security of the United States.

Finkelstein saw a future in which guns and bombs are replaced by rumor, digital fakery, and social engineering.

Fast forward seven years, and Dr. Finklestein’s ideas don’t seem radical at all. Instead, they seem farsighted.

The 2016 US presidential election was shaped by a volatile mix of fake news, foreign meddling, doctored images, massive email leaks, and even a cartoon meme (Pepe the Frog). Not to mention a conservative news site called Infowars.

It no longer seems silly to say that the future of warfare isn’t on the battlefield, but on our screens and in our minds.

Military and intelligence agencies around the world are already waging secret information wars in cyberspace. Their memes are already profoundly influencing public perceptions of truth, power, and legitimacy.”

from – Memes That Kill: The Future of Information Warfare

So keep the memes flowing, edgy danksters. Keep drawing a giant target on your own mind for the unscrupulous to exploit. You’re so badass!

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/65806/us-military-has-a-meme-warfare.html

Is Israel a Psychopath?

Introduction

There is a lot of talk these days about the psychopaths ruling the world. A study among high executives of large companies, published under the title Snakes in Suits, shows that psychopathic traits are widespread among them.[1]This naturally reflects into collective forms of psychopathy: in The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Joel Bakan noted that “corporate behavior is very similar to that of a psychopath.”[2]

Some states also behave like psychopaths among nations. The USA is such a state, with a “pathology of power” (the title of Norman Cousins’s 1987 book) probably related to the degree of psychopathy of the men in charge. Behind the mask of sanity and morality displayed by the US on the world’s stage, there is a “deep state” moved by an insatiable thirst for power and uninhibited by any moral conscience or empathy; this pathological deep state is today in almost complete control of US foreign policy.

Israel is another psychopathic state. The relationship between the US and Israel is a peculiar one, and there are differing opinions regarding its nature. Who, of the two, is the driving force? Have US moles infiltrated and hijacked Israel’s foreign policy, or the opposite? I consider that the issue has been settled by Professors Mearsheimer and Walt in their 2008 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (and before that by Pat Buchanan in his 2003 article “Whose War?”[3]): it is Israel who has drawn the United States into wars which were not in their strategic interest, and which, in fact, jeopardize US national security. It was true about Iraq, and it is true about Syria. The Neocons, the overwhelmingly dominant force in the US deep state since 2001, are crypto-Zionists. America is not controlling Israel’s foreign and colonial policy; it has failed to do so whenever it tried, and it has now stopped trying. Instead, as Ariel Sharon famously said one month after 9/11: “We, the Jews, control America, and the Americans know it.”[4] The very fact that this outrageous statement was quickly buried makes its point self-evident: for, as Gilad Atzmon has also famously said, “Jewish power is the ability to get non-Jews to stop talking about Jewish power.”

https://russia-insider.com/en/israel-psychopath/ri23401

SARA CARTER: Identity of the Second FBI Agent Who Ambushed General Flynn Revealed ‘He Knows What McCabe’s Role Was in All of It’

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein Friday stating Comey testified the FBI didn’t think General Flynn lied.

Grassley also revealed Joe Pientka was the second FBI agent who joined Peter Strzok on January 24th, 2017 in an ambush style interview to take down General Flynn.

Grassley is demanding the FBI and DOJ produce the transcript of Flynn’s intercepted calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak and the 302’s by May 25th.

302’s are reports FBI agents take to summarize an interview with a subject.

The newly unredacted portion of the House Intel report revealed Comey testified to House Intel members the FBI agents who ambushed Flynn did not detect any deception.

The report also revealed the illegal leak of Flynn’s phone call with Kislyak is what allowed the FBI/DOJ to keep a counterintel operation open on General Flynn.

Chairman Grassley is now demanding answers from the FBI and DOJ.

In the last paragraph of Grassley’s letter, he requests Special Agent Joe Pientka be available for a transcribed interview with Committee staff:

Accordingly, no later than May 25, 2018, please provide:

1. The information requested in our February 15, 2017 letter, including the transcripts of the

reportedly intercepted calls and any FBI reports summarizing them; and

2. The FBI agents’ 302s memorializing their interview of Flynn and 1A supporting docs,

including the agents’ notes.

In addition, please make Special Agent Joe Pientka available for a transcribed interview

with Committee staff no later than one week following the production of the requested

documents. If you have any questions about this request please don’t hesitate to contact Patrick

Davis of my staff at (202) 224-5225. Thanks for your prompt attention to this important issue.

Investigative reporter, Sara Carter says according to numerous law enforcement sources, neither Strzok or Pientka believed Flynn was lying during their interview with him, as reported.

Special Agent Joe Pientka and another “non-partisan” law enforcement officer who was present in the Flynn interview can reveal McCabe’s role in all of it, says Sara Carter’s sources:

Grassley requested that FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka, who was with Strzok during his White House interview on Jan. 24, 2017, be made available “for a transcribed interview with Committee staff no later than one week following the production of the requested documents.”

“There’s a lot these agents can reveal about that day and what (former FBI Deputy Director Andrew) McCabe’s role was in all of it,” said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter. “McCabe was apparently trying to find a reason, any reason, to make it look like Flynn was lying. But the truth of the matter is – no one thought he lied, not even the agent that hated Trump.”

Crooked Comey continues to contradict his testimony as he travels around on his book tour.

James Comey has told Bret Baier, George Stephanopoulos and Chuck Todd conflicting statements about General Flynn’s interview with FBI agents.

Notice how carefully weasel Comey talks in media blitzes ‘not to my recollection’ or ‘I don’t remember intending to say that.’

Byron York reported:

Comey has been asked about the matter in some of the publicity interviews he has given for his new book, A Higher Loyalty. In those interviews, Comey has denied telling lawmakers that the agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe Flynn had lied.

“No,” Comey told Fox News’ Bret Baier. “I don’t know what — maybe someone misunderstood something I said. I didn’t believe that and didn’t say that.”

“Not true,” Comey told NBC’s Chuck Todd.

“I don’t know where that’s coming from,” Comey told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “That — unless I’m — I said something that people misunderstood, I don’t remember even intending to say that. So my recollection is I never said that to anybody.”

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/05/sara-carter-identity-of-the-second-fbi-agent-who-ambushed-general-flynn-revealed-he-knows-what-mccabes-role-was-in-all-of-it/

Israeli Intelligence Officers Singing Persian Song In Leaked Viral Video Exposes Identities

The bizarre story of a censored Israeli military academy video showing uniformed IDF soldiers singing a Persian language love song became public earlier this month, but takes on more significance in light of this week's missile exchange between Israel and allies Syria and Iran.

One week prior to last Thursday's military escalation which started in the Golan but ended with Israel launching a massive missile attack on Damascus, the video of a performance by about 50 new graduates of an Israeli military intelligence language course appeared on Israeli social media, a course wherein Israeli Defense Forces personnel learn Farsi (or alternately called Persian).

Notably, it was released the same week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of lying about its nuclear program in a live broadcast, which precipitated President Trump's pulling the US out of the Iran nuclear deal. Was the "leaked" video a provocative stunt meant to mock and taunt the Iranians?

The Persian song, "Sultan of Hearts" was sung by the trainees in a ceremony at an army base, and a parent in the audience subsequently uploaded video to social media. As the folk song is very well-known in Iran, the video quickly went viral through Iranian social media and across the Middle East before being picked up by Israel's Channel 10 news; however the original poster since removed it after Israeli authorities ordered it be taken down as it was filmed at a sensitive location.

A spokesperson for the IDF told The Times of Israel, “The video was filmed at a private ceremony. One of the soldiers’ parents who attended the ceremony innocently posted the video, contravening information security regulations. When asked, he immediately removed the video.”

The odd video showing intelligence soldiers singing in Farsi in front of a large audience evoked different reactions on Middle East social media — some interpreted it at the time as an extension of peace, while others saw it as a strange PR stunt meant to taunt Iran in the midst of ongoing Israeli threats. Or it could simply be a display of the new course graduates' language skills captured in an ill-timed video.

Regardless, the video's rapid spread on the internet has produced blow-back for the Israelis.

The lyrics include lines such as: “With beautiful love, the world is very small. I’m with the memory of you everywhere, everywhere, so I don’t abandon you,” and further, "You are the king of my heart, You've broken the gates of my heart, You've pledged your heart to mine, You joined me, One heart says, 'go, go,' My other heart says, 'don't go, don't go,' What will I do without you?" — according to a partial translation by Iranian scholar Reza Akbari.

As to the timing and context of the video's release, The Times of Israel explains:

Twitter users in Iran were conflicted over the video, with some seeing it as further evidence of how good Israeli intelligence may be, while others saw hopes for peace in the choice of the love song.

The video was shared only a few days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed a massive Israeli undercover operation carried out in Tehran, in which the Mossad managed to remove tons of paper and digital files on Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program out of the Islamic Republic.

Whether it was an "intentional leak" or just a casual and fluke incident, one aspect which hasn't been discussed is the fact that the video provides close-up facial footage of Israeli intelligence operatives. Likely this is why the Israeli military command quickly tried to remove the online video, though it was too little too late.

Middle East analyst and Iran specialist Holly Dagres explained that, "the soldiers are part of Israel's intelligence unit focusing on Iran." Halfway through the one minute video dozens of the singing soldiers' faces are zoomed in on.

Considering that these new graduates are potential elite intel officers related to Israel's Iranian intelligence collection team, it appears their cover is now blown for all possible future covert operations. Like the US military, there is often a revolving door of experienced personnel shared between the military and more elite Mossad and other intelligence branches (similar to the way many career CIA and NSA officers are former military).

Both the Mossad and IDF frequently conduct high-risk intelligence operations abroad related to Iranian assets and targets, and as we've reported this week, no less than the commander of the National Guard himself is now a target of Israeli covert assassination plans.

No doubt, the Iranians are likely studying the identities of those soldiers who appear in the video very carefully.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-12/israeli-intelligence-officers-singing-persian-song-leaked-viral-video-exposes