FBI Admits Infiltrating Trump Campaign

According to a recent court filing, the 2016 Trump campaign was infiltrated by the FBI through more than one “confidential human source,” a general classification that includes informants and spies. The FBI infiltration chiefly targeted former foreign policy advisor Carter Page as the point of entry to the campaign staff.

When the Department of Justice (DOJ) released heavily redacted copies of the four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Page, David Heath of USA Today sued using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

David M. Hardy, the head of the FBI’s Records/Information Dissemination Service (RIDS) responded to the lawsuit.

Hardy acknowledged that the redactions were used to protect the identities of their own confidential sources as well as the sources obtained by former MI6 operative Christopher Steele. It was the UK’s Steele who assembled what is known as the “Steele Dossier,” an intelligence report comprised of memos Steele had written between June and December 2016. The still unproven dossier alleged that the Trump campaign had colluded with the Kremlin to disrupt the campaign of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

https://americanfreepress.net/fbi-admits-infiltrating-trump-campaign/

Snowden Files Declaration in NSA Spying Case Confirming Authenticity of Draft Inspector General Report Discussing Unprecedented Surveillance of Americans, Which He Helped Expose

EFF filed papers with the court in its long-running Jewel v. NSA mass spying case today that included a surprising witness: Edward Snowden. Mr. Snowden’s short declaration confirms that a document relied upon in the case, a draft NSA Inspector General Report from 2009 discussing the mass surveillance program known as Stellar Wind, is actually the same document that he came upon during the course of his employment at NSA contractor. Mr. Snowden confirms that he remembers the document because it helped convince him that the NSA had been engaged in illegal surveillance.

Mr. Snowden’s declaration was presented to the court because the NSA has tried to use a legal technicality to convince the court to disregard the document. The NSA has refused to authenticate the document itself. This is important because documents gathered as evidence in court cases generally must be authenticated by whoever created them or has personal knowledge of their creation in order for a court to allow them to be used. The NSA is claiming that national security prevents it from saying to the court what everyone in the world now knows: that in 2009 the Inspector General of the NSA drafted a report discussing the Stellar Wind program. The document has been public now for many years, has never been claimed to be fraudulent, and was the subject of global headlines at the time it was first revealed. Instead of acknowledging these obvious facts, the NSA has asserted that the plaintiffs may not rely upon it unless it is confirmed to be authentic by someone with personal knowledge that it is.

Enter Mr. Snowden. The key part of his five paragraph declaration states:

During the course of my employment by Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, I worked at NSA facilities. I had access to NSA files and I became familiar with various NSA documents. One of the NSA documents I became familiar with is entitled ST-09-0002 Working Draft, Office of The Inspector General, National Security Agency, dated March 24, 2009. I read its contents carefully during my employment. I have a specific and strong recollection of this document because it indicated to me that the government had been conducting illegal surveillance.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/11/snowden-files-declaration-nsa-spying-case-confirming-authenticity-draft-inspector

Six Russian Mercenaries From ‘Wagner Group’ Killed In Syria

Six Russian mercenaries from the ‘Wagner Group’, a soldier-for-hire force operated by Yevgeney Prigozhyn, a.k.a. Putin’s Cook, were killed in Syria while reinforcing a Syrian base according to Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta. The infamous Wagner Group has been in the press often over the last several years. The force suffered massive casualties at the hands of American airpower last year in Syria where hundreds were killed. Wagner has been confirmed in East Ukraine, as well as the Central African Republic (CAR) where several Russian journalists were murdered.

A total of 11 people were reportedly killed in Sunday’s explosion at a former criminal police building on a highway connecting the Syrian capital of Damascus with the eastern city of Deir Ezzor. Novaya Gazeta did not indicate who may have been behind the explosion. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has not yet commented on the alleged casualties, reported The Moscow Times.

The Kremlin has used mercenaries in multiple conflict zones around the world to provide plausible deniability for Moscow in its offshore operations. Russian President Putin repeatedly declared there were no Russian forces in the Donbass region of East Ukraine as the conflict raged over the last several years.

A journalist covering Wagner in Africa died in Siberia after falling off a building. Some theorize he was murdered for getting too close to what Wagner was doing in the CAR.

Prigozhin has a flare for operating businesses that take advantage of Russian military operations, and obviously making a lot of money off of it. His nickname ‘Putin’s Cook’ came from his securing contracts to feed the Russian armed forces.

https://tsarizm.com/news/2018/11/06/six-russian-mercenaries-from-wagner-group-killed-in-syria/

A scandal in Mongolia: heads roll in government after US$1.3m SME fund embezzlement

Mongolia’s anti-corruption authority is investigating reports that senior government officials and parliamentarians channelled more than US$1 million in government money to their families and friends, with one minister resigning last week and another expected to step down soon.

The money was from a fund set up 18 years ago to offer loans at 3 per cent interest to owners of small and medium-sized enterprises, as banks and finance companies normally charge between 12 and 30 per cent.

Some 65 billion Mongolian tugrik (US$25.4 million) was allocated to the fund in the 2018 budget.

However, starting two weeks ago it was revealed in reports leaked to the Ikon news website that some of the resource-rich country’s most powerful people have been using the fund to grant loans to their family members’ companies, or putting the money in high-interest bearing accounts.

Among the accused are government ministers, members of parliament, the general prosecutor, general auditor, and the former head of the intelligence authority.

Amid mounting public anger, four civil servants involved in administering the fund were arrested last Friday.

Last week, Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Minister Batjargal Batzorig, who oversaw the SME fund, resigned under pressure from the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), which controls 85 per cent of the country’s 76-seat parliament. Parliament officially dismissed him on Tuesday.

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2171965/scandal-mongolia-heads-roll-government-after-us13m-sme-fund

Malaysia’s anti-corruption drive spreads to Borneo as Sabah’s former chief minister Musa Aman hit with 35 charges

The former chief minister of Sabah has become the latest high-ranking figure from Malaysia’s former ruling coalition, the Barisan Nasional, to face corruption charges, in a sign the new government is expanding its anti-graft drive beyond the peninsula.

Musa Aman was on Monday charged with 35 counts of corruption for allegedly accepting bribes worth US$63 million in connection with timber concessions.

These dealings allegedly took place in Hong Kong and Singapore between 2004 – a year after Musa came to power – and 2008.

The charges are part of an aggressive anti-corruption clampdown spearheaded by the newly-minted Pakatan Harapan government, which in the May general elections toppled the Barisan Nasional from power after a six-decade stint in office.

Since then, several high-ranking members of the Barisan Nasional coalition’s lead component party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), have been charged with graft, money-laundering, and tax evasion, among other offences.

The most high-profile of these cases is that of disgraced former prime minister, Najib Razak, and his wife Rosmah Mansor, who face multiple charges relating to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad global financial scandal.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2171787/malaysias-anti-corruption-drive-spreads-borneo-sabahs-former

Persecuted in Hanoi, locked up in Bangkok: the Montagnards, Vietnam’s forgotten Christians

Jostling for space behind bars inside Bangkok’s notorious Immigration Detention Centre (IDC), Siu H’kli, 30, a Montagnard refugee from Vietnam, tries to make herself heard above the hundreds of other inmates trying to communicate with loved ones and charity workers.

“I’m very scared, I’m in here by myself but my kids are outside,” H’kli shouts at the top of her voice in her orange prison uniform. “It doesn’t matter where we go, we just cannot go back to Vietnam.”

Standing next to her is Nay Y Khot, 25. Despite sharing a squalid cell with around 130 other detained immigrants, he is also far more concerned about the prospect of being forced back to Vietnam.

“If I get sent back I’ll go back to jail and be tortured,” he explains.

H’kli and Y Khot are two of 85 Montagnards jailed in August after being arrested during raids in Nonthaburi province. A list of the adult detainees shows they range in age, from 18-year-olds to some who are in their 70s. A further 47 Montagnard children are being held at the Thai Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, according to Fortify Rights.

It’s just the latest in a seemingly never-ending cycle of hardship for Vietnam’s forgotten Christians.

The Montagnards, or Dega, are the indigenous people of the Vietnamese Central Highlands.

They faced persecution for decades for supporting America in the Vietnam war and for practising forms of Christianity that Hanoi brands “evil way” religions.

There have been widespread accusations of human rights abuses and land grabs against them in their homeland, and thousands have escaped to Cambodia and Thailand in recent decades in hope of a better life.

Most of the hundreds who fled in the most recent wave that started in late 2014 have been deported back to Vietnam by the Cambodian government or returned “voluntarily”. The rest are mostly either living in what amounts to little more than house arrest in Phnom Penh, locked up in Bangkok’s IDC or in limbo on the outskirts of Bangkok.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2171490/persecuted-hanoi-locked-bangkok-montagnards-vietnams-forgotten

Lomborg: UN Ignores Economics Of Climate – Costs of proposed CO2 cuts aren’t worth it.

The global economy must be transformed immediately to avoid catastrophic climate damage, a new United Nations report declares. Climate economist William Nordhaus has been made a Nobel laureate. The events are being reported as two parts of the same story, but they reveal the contradictions inherent in climate policy—and why economics matters more than ever.

Limiting temperatures to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, as the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges, is economically and practically impossible—as Mr. Nordhaus’s work shows. The IPCC report significantly underestimates the costs of getting to zero emissions. Fossil fuels provide cheap, efficient power, whereas green energy remains mostly uncompetitive. Switching to more expensive, less efficient technology slows development. In poor nations that means fewer people lifted out of poverty. In rich ones it means the most vulnerable are hit by higher energy bills.

The IPCC says carbon emissions need to peak right now and fall rapidly to avert catastrophe. Models actually reveal that to achieve the 2.7-degree goal the world must stop all fossil fuel use in less than four years. Yet the International Energy Agency estimates that in 2040 fossil fuels will still meet three-quarters of world energy needs, even if the Paris agreement is fully implemented. The U.N. body responsible for the accord estimates that if every country fulfills every pledge by 2030, CO2 emissions will be cut by 60 billion tons by 2030. That’s less than 1% of what is needed to keep temperature rises below 2.7 degrees. And achieving even that fraction would be vastly expensive—reducing world-wide growth $1 trillion to $2 trillion each year by 2030.

The new report has no comparison of the costs and benefits of climate targets. Mr. Nordhaus’s most recent estimate, published in August, is that the “optimal” outcome with a moderate carbon tax is a rise of about 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Reducing temperature rises by more would result in higher costs than benefits, potentially causing the world a $50 trillion loss.

It’s past time to stop pushing so hard for carbon cuts before alternative energy sources are ready to take over. Instead the world must focus on resolving the technology deficit that makes switching away from fossil fuels so expensive. Genuine breakthroughs are required to drive down the future price of green energy

https://www.climatedepot.com/2018/11/06/lomborg-un-ignores-economics-of-climate-costs-of-proposed-co2-cuts-arent-worth-it/

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FARAGE WAS RIGHT: Emmanuel Macron Calls for ‘Real European Army’ to Protect EU from Russia, China and Even AMERICA

FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron today called for “a real European army” to protect itself from growing military threats and an increasingly isolationist America.

The avowed Europhile said China and Russia were becoming increasingly powerful, while the superpower USA under the erratic Donald Trump could not be relied upon for defence.

French president Emmanuel Macron, pictured here today, has spoken of his desire for a European army

Macron told Paris radio station Europe 1: “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America.

“When I see President Trump announcing that he's quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security.

“We will not protect the Europeans unless we decide to have a true European army.”

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7671120/emmanuel-macron-calls-european-army-against-russia-china-america/