(1) Islamic State guerillias attack Beirut, Paris & Russian jet, in retaliation for air attacks (2) Media focuses on Paris assaults but ignores Beirut attack on Hezbollah (3) Iraqi intelligence (run by Iranian, Syrian & Russian generals) warned of imminent assaults (4) Soft Drink bomb brought down Sinai plane (5) Jewish nationalists (Zionists) pushed US into Iraq War, which led to ISIS - Philip Weiss (6) Neoconservative redefined as “liberal interventionist” (7) One Million refugees return to Syria since Russian attacks on ISIS (8) G20 recognize Putin's leadership "from outcast to problem solver" defeating Islamic State (9) Putin: ISIS financed from 40 countries, including G20 members (10) G20 acknowledge their own role in supporting Islamic State; pledge to cut off financing (11) Stopping ISIS: Follow the Money (12) US planes attack ISIS oil trucks in Syria - but only AFTER the Paris assaults (13) Blaming Snowden for Paris attacks - Glenn Greenwald (14) Islamic State uses mobile messaging service Telegram for press releases (15) Telegram's founders supported anti-Putin protestors, fled to Germany after crackdown (1) Islamic State guerillias attack Beirut, Paris & Russian jet, in retaliation for air attacks http://newsdaily.com/2015/11/islamic-state-takes-war-to-its-foes-after-battlefield-setbacks/ Islamic State takes war to its foes after battlefield setbacks November 14, 2015. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri By Mariam Karouny BEIRUT (Reuters) – Facing military setbacks in its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq and intensified air strikes from a US-led coalition, Islamic State may have decided in September to take the fight to France and elsewhere. The ultra-hardline group has frequently threatened to strike inside Western countries since it established itself amid Syria’s civil war and then spread to northern Iraq last year, but one fighter reached inside Syria said its spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani had issued an instruction to act abroad. “He sent a written order to all sectors and security brigades to start moving, including in Lebanon and Turkey,” the Syrian IS fighter said via social media from northern Syria. “Lebanon and France and other places are all part of the operations ordered two months ago.” Islamic State has said it was behind Friday’s killings of at least 132 people in Paris in revenge for France’s air strikes against it as well as twin suicide bombings which killed 43 people on Thursday in a Beirut stronghold of Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah, which is fighting the group in Syria. The ultra-hardline militants have also claimed responsibility for bringing down a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula on Oct 31 which killed all 224 people on board after Russia began its own campaign of air strikes in Syria. Turkish authorities suspect a high-profile British jihadist detained in Turkey last week may have been planning attacks in Istanbul similar to those in Paris, two security sources told Reuters on Sunday. The group has also threatened to attack Saudi Arabia, United States and Russia. It was not immediately possible to verify the reported order, which Islamic State supporters and fighters said was given to dormant cells in several places. “Their messages to us are sent by blood and carnage so we send them their messages back in the same way, it is simple,” the northern-Syria-based fighter said. [...] (2) Media focuses on Paris assaults but ignores Beirut attack on Hezbollah http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/11/17/two-cities-why-silence-when-beirut-gets-bombed-but-tears-for-paris.html Tale of Two Cities: Why Silence When Beirut Gets Bombed but Tears for Paris? Mahdi Darius NAZEMROAYA November 17, 2015 Universally, governments have condemned the attacks that took place in the French capital’s northern suburb of Saint-Denis on November 13, 2015. [...] A tale of two cities and two standards The Saint-Denis attacks come a day after the attacks on Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh area on November 12, 2014. The murder and mayhem in Beirut virtually went unnoticed in North America and the European Union. This is important to note, because it means that two different standards are being applied. [...] In the US, a Pennsylvanian candidate running for the US Senate, Everett Stern, wrote multiple times how he supported the terrorist attacks on Beirut. On Twitter, he declared: «Good news!!! I hope Hezbollah terrorists were killed.» When confronted, Stern categorized the attack in Beirut as an attack on Hezbollah. Hezbollah fights ISIL death squads, but the French government supports ISIL [...] (3) Iraqi intelligence (run by Iranian, Syrian & Russian generals) warned of imminent assaults http://gulfnews.com/news/mena/iraq/iraq-s-powerful-intelligence-centre-knew-about-paris-attacks-1.1620817 Iraq’s powerful intelligence centre knew about Paris attacks Centre is run by Iranian, Syrian and Russian generals Published: 15:43 November 16, 2015 Baghdad: Senior Iraqi intelligence officials warned members of the US-led coalition fighting Daesh of imminent assaults by the militant organisation just one day before last week’s deadly attacks in Paris killed 129 people, The Associated Press has learned. Iraqi intelligence sent a dispatch saying the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, had ordered an attack on coalition countries fighting against them in Iraq and Syria, as well as on Iran and Russia, through bombings or other attacks in the days ahead. The dispatch said the Iraqis had no specific details on when or where the attack would take place, and a senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence gets this kind of communication “all the time” and “every day.” Without commenting specifically on the Iraqi warning, a senior US intelligence official said he was not aware of any threat information sent to Western governments that was specific enough to have thwarted the Paris attacks. Officials from the US, French and other Western governments have expressed worries for months about Daesh-inspired attacks by militants who fought in Syria, the official noted. In recent weeks, the sense of danger had spiked. Six senior Iraqi officials confirmed the information in the dispatch, a copy of which was obtained by the AP, and four of these intelligence officials said they also warned France specifically of a potential attack. Two officials told the AP that France was warned beforehand of details that French authorities have yet to make public. “We have recovered information from our direct sources in the Daesh terrorist organisation about the orders issued by terrorist ‘Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi’ directing all members of the organisation to implement an international attack that includes all coalition countries, in addition to Iran and the Russian Federation, through bombings or assassinations or hostage taking in the coming days. We do not have information on the date and place for implementing these terrorist operations at this time,” the Iraqi dispatch read in part. Among the other warnings cited by Iraqi officials: that the Paris attacks appear to have been planned in Raqqa, Syria - the Daesh’s de-facto capital - where the attackers were trained specifically for this operation and with the intention of sending them to France. The officials also said a sleeper cell in France then met with the attackers after their training and helped them execute the plan. The revelation sheds light on just how powerful Iraq’s new intelligence centre which was announced in October is. It has staff from Russia, Iran and Syria. Russia started bombing anti-government rebels last month in neighbouring Syria, including Daesh, to support its ally, President Bashar Al Assad. Two Russian one-star generals are stationed at the intelligence centre in Baghdad, according to an Iraqi official who asked not to be named. (4) Soft Drink bomb brought down Sinai plane http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/islamic-state-says-can-bomb-used-to-bring-down-russian-plane/6953322 Russian plane crash: Islamic State says 'soft drink bomb' used to bring down Sinai plane Islamic State's official magazine has published a photo of a drink it said was used to make an improvised bomb that brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula last month, killing all 224 people on board. The photo showed a can of Schweppes Gold soft drink and what appeared to be a detonator and switch on a blue background — three simple components that, if genuine, are likely to cause concern for airline safety officials worldwide. "The divided Crusaders of the East and West thought themselves safe in their jets as they cowardly bombarded the Muslims of the Caliphate," the English language Dabiq magazine said in reference to Russia and the West. "And so revenge was exacted upon those who felt safe in the cockpits." Western governments have said the plane was likely brought down by a bomb and Moscow confirmed it had reached the same conclusion, but the Egyptian government said it had still not found evidence of criminal action. Islamic State also published a photo of what it said were passports belonging to dead Russians "obtained by the mujahideen". It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the published photos. The group, which has seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq, said it had exploited a loophole at Sharm el-Sheikh airport, where the plane originated, in order to smuggle a bomb on board. [...] (5) Jewish nationalists (Zionists) pushed US into Iraq War, which led to ISIS - Philip Weiss http://mondoweiss.net/2015/11/americans-support-nationalism The way for Americans to take on the Islamic state is to end support for Jewish nationalism November 15, 2015 Philip Weiss At last night’s Democratic debate in Iowa, Bernie Sanders responded to the Paris horror saying that we have to rid the earth of ISIS, that there’s a war for the soul of Islam, and the Muslim nations have to get their hands dirty too. These belligerent and self-righteous statements are concerning because once again American leaders, and American Jews, are pure innocence when it comes to the religious dimension of the Middle East conflict. The hypocrisy would be appalling were it not so functional: the biggest impediment to both the reform of Islam and peace in the Middle East that Americans have the ability to remove is our support for a militant Jewish ideology that few Arabs and Muslims have ever accepted. This understanding dinned in on Americans after the last big shocker, 9/11. At that time some observers pointed out a simple truth: that Osama bin Laden and his radical little army were motivated by the occupation of Palestine as well as the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia. But that idea was suppressed. They hate us because of our freedom, became the watchword, and the Bush administration’s foreign policy turned into a neoconservative war policy guided by the same ideologues who had lately advised the Israeli Prime Minister to end the peace process and move the Arabs over, from Palestine to Jordan, from Jordan to Iraq. The 9/11 Commission concluded that US policy in Palestine was part of the motivation for the attacks, but that analysis was whittled down to a few sentences– even as the head of the commission said that the Iraq war was launched to protect Israel. (And Condi Rice said the war would provide “strategic relief” to Israel and Colin Powell said it was dreamed up by the Zionist thinktank the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs). Last night Sanders pointed out that that war, authored by Hillary Clinton and George Bush, among others, is what destroyed Iraq and led to the rise of ISIS. No doubt this is the case; but the analysis is insufficient till it includes the fact that the war was dreamed up and fomented by neoconservatives like Bill Kristol and Jeffrey Goldberg, whose chief concern is the stability of Israel. Americans have never had that discussion; but it is more urgent than ever now that Syria is no more and Europe is reaping the harvest. Yes, that political discussion took place in the shadows. But Walt and Mearsheimer were vilified as anti-semites for making the case that the Israel lobby was the crucial element in starting that war; and the left tiptoed away from the analysis. And this blog– for which the Iraq war was the core issue– began after my brother told me that he had demonstrated against the Vietnam War but his Jewish newspaper said this war might be good for Israel; and this blog got pushed out the door at the New York Observer, then the Nation Institute. Bernie Sanders and I both opposed the Iraq war. Most American Jews opposed it. But Sanders’s assertion that there is a war for the soul of Islam is hollow, cheap and condescending so long as he and the mainstream Jewish community continue to suppress the war for the soul of Judaism. That war is happening all around us in the margins; but the west will not be able to rid the earth of ISIS and the radical Islamism that we are told is not Islam (believe me, I can’t wait for their demise) till we conduct a similar scathing inventory of Jewish political beliefs. Sanders is of course not religious an atheist. But the biggest political event of his young life, maybe his entire life, his older brother says, was the news of the Holocaust when he was a boy. After college, Sanders went to Israel before he went to Vermont, and worked on a kibbutz; the same hegira undertaken by many other Jewish leftists, including Noam Chomsky and Tony Judt. Smart men, but there was surely a utopian belief on all their parts; many Jews believed in the establishment of the Jewish state as a redemptive act of history. “It is difficult to assess which of the two miracles was greater– the miracle of [Israeli] independence or the miracle of [international Jewish] unity,” the socialist atheist David Ben-Gurion wrote. Countless Jews refer to Israel as a miracle, from Jeffrey Goldberg to Ari Shavit, and Chaim Weizmann, Jeremy Ben-Ami, and Leonard Nimoy, too. Not to mention Barack Obama and Marco Rubio. The leading American political theorist Michael Walzer says that the long and continuous Jewish political tradition that produced Israel is derived from the bible, the story of Exodus. He writes: Its point of departure is always the Hebrew bible…. [Its] big issues [are] election or ‘chosenness’, the holiness of the Land of Israel, the experience of exile, and the hope for redemption….That tradition begins with God’s authority, with divine rule and divine revelations. Exactly how much room there is for human authority and decision making is always a question. And you’re worried about Christian evangelists? But Walzer is a leading authority on Israel in allegedly secular publications like the New York Review of Books! Golda Meir famously said that she was an atheist because she didn’t believe in God; but she did believe in the Jewish people. Ben-Gurion said that the “Sinai covenant” with God had produced the miracle of Israel’s birth. Thus Jewish nationalism (Zionism) was infused from the start with religious ideas. And the creation of Israel always had a religious character for many Jews: a faith so core that it gave life meaning, a faith so strong that it overruled reality. The former SDS leader Todd Gitlin says that Jews are a chosen people: they have “an unshakable attachment to the wild idea of divine election, which, however dampened, however sublimated, continues to ripple beneath the surface of everyday events.” Till it doesn’t just ripple and goes, Ka-Boom! That’s the sound of suicide bombers in Paris and Baghdad, and the sound of Jewish terrorists blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem to get rid of the British. All those terrorists are religious nationalists who have some Michael-Walzer-like belief in God’s guidance of their ethnocentric designs. But our world is too small to look on chosenness as anything but a dangerous philosophy. Count me out of this religious tradition. An anti-Zionist in the war for the soul of Judaism, I call on all American Jews to examine how much of their support or tolerance of a Jewish state has a religious character– in the vision of Jewish agency as a redemptive historical force and answer to the Holocaust and the Jewish question in Europe. Secular Jews who prize their freedom in the United States must come to grips with the ideas of Jewish superiority and uniqueness that have propelled Zionist landgrabs and Jim Crow across Palestine to this day. Secular Jews who celebrated the Egyptian peace treaty and Oslo accords must reckon with their celebration of deals in which 80 million Arabs were put on ice in Egypt by the west and another 6 million in Palestine just so the Jewish state could continue in peace. Neoconservatives must come to terms with their promotion of a war that would stabilize Israel by destroying the great Arab cities of Baghdad, Damascus and Aleppo so far, with hundreds of thousands of Muslim victims–whose national colors are not displayed in grief on the Empire State Building, the Freedom Tower, or the Sydney Opera House. Till we undertake that inventory, there won’t be peace in the Middle East, or the west either. Yesterday James North and I wrote here that we’re not monocausal; even if there was justice in Palestine it would not end Islamist violence. I stand by that point. But the ultimate question is the one Bernie Sanders raised last night, What can we do to end the religious element of the conflicts in the Middle East? And the answer is that Jews must end their support for Zionism, which has turned out to be religious, fascistic and militant, and is fueling rage across the Middle East and further. How long can Jews not have this conversation? Hannah Arendt wrote in 1944 that opposition to Zionism drew on great understandings: the “realization of the fatal, utopian hyperbole of the demand for a Jewish commonwealth and a rejection of the idea of making all Jewish politics in Palestine dependent on the protection of great powers.” The realization of the fatal, utopian part is still the Jewish struggle 70 years later: Arendt is pointedly excluded from Michael Walzer’s retinue of the “Jewish political tradition.” Because of the inward self-governing structure of the Jewish community, anyone who says that apartheid is apartheid is a heretic who must be excommunicated; but even if you conclude that it has all the elements of apartheid, as Peter Beinart told Rabbi Sharon Brous in a Los Angeles synagogue last week, well you must support it, you must not boycott it, you must describe it as a democracy. These are foolish claims that you can only maintain in a religious space, or one from which Palestinian Americans and anti-Zionist Jews are segregated, which is to say, every Jewish establishment space in the United States, from J Street to the 92d Street Y to AIPAC to Terry Gross’s radio show. And God bless Jewish Voice for Peace. The other illusion Arendt tried to blow up, and Walt and Mearsheimer too, was that Israel was finished if it depended on great powers, rather than the acceptance of its neighbors. That dependence was one that the State Department deprecated from the start. If the U.S. helps to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, that state will be dependent on the U.S. and it will lead to endless unrest, State’s realists said. Secretary of State George Marshall threatened to vote against his president if he went through with the decision to recognize Israel; but the nascent Israel lobby was already delivering in the ’48 election, and its vote counted more. While Harry Truman’s predecessor Franklin Roosevelt surely saw Paris coming when he said of two leading rabbis who came into the White House to urge a Jewish state in 1944: To think of it, two men, two holy men, coming here to ask me to let millions of people be killed in a jihad. It was an American problem then and it’s an American problem now. We have set aside our own secular values when it comes to the Middle East. We should stop lecturing Muslims about their backward ideas till we reckon with our own. Thanks to Scott Roth, Donald Johnson and James North. 224 Responses ivri November 15, 2015, 11:54 am Is it not more than just a bit of exaggeration – no matter how purportedly morally-intentioned – to suggest that attitudes to such a narrow agenda as “Jewish nationalism” can have a meaningful impact on what is essentially a historical-global agenda? One that mainly involves Europe and the Arab world (plus Islam) – now also the US and others – and has its roots in historical developments and narratives? And is just as much anchored in what modernity is about and its associated globalization process? Annie Robbins November 15, 2015, 12:25 pm this is crazy talk ivri. what’s next, are you going to make the argument “Jewish nationalism” has nothing to do w/israel’s lobby breathing down the neck of every elected legislator? and “Jewish nationalism” is divorced from the neocon agenda/american intervention in the ME, continually promoted by neocons? crazy talk. it’s everywhere (6) Neoconservative redefined as “liberal interventionist” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/us/politics/historians-critique-of-obama-foreign-policy-is-brought-alive-by-events-in-iraq.html> “Events in Iraq Open Door for Interventionist Revival, Historian Says — Robert Kagan Strikes a Nerve ….” A decade after their fierce advocacy for the war in Iraq largely discredited neoconservatives like Paul D. Wolfowitz and Richard N. Perle, who argued most loudly for democracy exportation through military power, Mr. Kagan is hardly apologetic about the current mess. Instead, he believes that the widespread frustration over Mr. Obama’s disengagement despite the resurgence of organized terrorist groups in the region has created the climate to again make the case for interventionism. And who better to lead a cast of assorted hawks back into intellectual — and they hope eventually political — influence than the congenial and well-respected scion of one of America’s first families of interventionism? His father, Donald Kagan, a historian of ancient Greece, is a patriarch of neoconservatism. His brother, Fred, is a military scholar who helped conceive the American troop increase in Iraq in 2007. His wife and unofficial editor, Victoria Nuland, is an assistant secretary of state and one of the country’s toughest and most experienced diplomats, whose fervor for building democracy in Ukraine recently leaked out in an embarrassing audio clip. And Mr. Kagan, who often works in a book-lined studio of his cedar home here in the Washington suburbs, exudes a Cocoa-Puffs-pouring, stay-at-home-dad charm. “A very nice family,” said William Kristol, a family friend and the founder of the conservative Weekly Standard, whose father, Irving, is another of neoconservatism’s father figures and one of Robert’s first bosses. Mr. Kristol said he, too, sensed “more willingness to rethink” neoconservatism, which he called “vindicated to some degree” by the fruits of Mr. Obama’s detached approach to Syria and Eastern Europe. Mr. Kagan, he said, gives historical heft to arguments “that are very consistent with the arguments I made, and he made, 20 years ago, 10 years ago.” Mr. Kagan, 55, prefers the term “liberal interventionist” to the neoconservative label, but believes the latter no longer has the stigma it did in the early days of the Obama presidency. “The sort of desire to say ‘Neocon! Neocon! Neocon!’ has moved out a little bit to the fringe,” he said. ……. “I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,” Mr. Kagan said, adding that the next step after Mr. Obama’s more realist approach “could theoretically be whatever Hillary brings to the table” if elected president. “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,” he added, “it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.” (7) One Million refugees return to Syria since Russian attacks on ISIS ttps://www.rt.com/news/322401-syria-refugees-return-isis/ http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_72209.shtml Million refugees return home since Russian involvement in Syria By Staff Writers, RT.com Wednesday, Nov 18, 2015 {photo} Syrians carry their belongings as they cross back into Syria at the Syrian-Turkish border crossing of Bab al-Hawa in Idlib province, Syria September 23, 2015. © Khalil Ashawi / Reuters {end} Around 1 million Syrians have returned to their home cities liberated by the Syrian military with Russian air support, Syria’s UN ambassador said Monday, adding that Damascus is determined to work with any state that takes combatting terrorism seriously. Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, said that “this is precisely what happens when it comes to Syrian-Russian collaborative military action against terrorists and exchange of intelligence between Syria, Iraq, Iran and Russia. This has practically resulted in terrorist groups’ retreat from [their positions in] many areas, which allowed 1 million internally displaced persons to return safely to their homes.” The Syrian ambassador, who took part in a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, confirmed that the Syrian government was ready to cooperate “with any state which has a serious approach to combatting terrorism,” TASS reported. [...] Over the past few years, Syria has suffered a mass exodus of millions of people forced to flee their homeland due to the ongoing civil war in the country. According to an estimate by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in July, the number of Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria to neighboring countries has exceeded 4 million. There are at least an additional 7.6 million people who are internally displaced, many of them living in extremely difficult conditions. Russia has been bombing ISIS infrastructure in Syria since September 30, after receiving a request for aid from Syrian authorities. The air support for the Syrian army has been provided by more than 50 aircraft and helicopters, including the Su-34 and Su-24M bombers, Su-25 close air support aircraft and Su-30SM fighters, accompanied by Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters from the Khmeimim air base in Latakia. Russian Navy corvettes also launched Kalibr NK ship-born cruise missiles on IS targets on October 7 from the Caspian Sea some 1,500 kilometers away. (8) G20 recognize Putin's leadership "from outcast to problem solver" defeating Islamic State From: Paul de Burgh-Day <pdeburgh@lorinna.net> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 12:56:22 +1100 Subject: Finian Cunningham: Putin – Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man Putin – Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man Almost everyone now recognises that Russia’s military intervention in Syria to defeat the so-called Islamic State terror group was the right call to make. Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t crowing about it. He doesn’t have to. By Finian Cunningham November 18, 2015 http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20151118/1030313543/putin-paris-attacks-g20.html http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43469.htm Sputnik News Putin’s vindication was made clear by the enthusiastic reception afforded to him at the summit of G20 leaders in Turkey last weekend. The Financial Times headlined: “Putin transformed from outcast to problem solver at G20”. The paper went on to note that: “An audience with the Russian president was one of the hottest tickets in town, as Western leaders were forced to recognise the road to peace in Syria inevitably runs through Moscow.” Even US President Barack Obama was seen to confer with Putin as the two leaders held an impromptu and earnest face-to-face discussion on the sidelines of the summit. It was a constructive encounter with none of the antagonism that Washington has all too often displayed towards Putin over the past year. The Paris terror assault – with 129 dead and hundreds wounded in simultaneous gun and bomb attacks – no doubt concentrated the minds of world leaders attending the G20 conference, held in Turkey’s Antalya only two days after the mass killings. The atrocity was claimed by the Islamic State terror network (also known as ISIS or ISIL), with seven of its operatives killed in the suicide attacks. Days later, the conclusion by Russian investigators this week that a terrorist bomb was the cause of the Russian civilian airliner crash on October 31 over Egypt’s Sinai desert – with the loss of all 224 people onboard – has only added to the grim public realisation about ISIL and its affiliates. French President Francois Hollande – who skipped the G20 summit due to the emergency situation unfolding at home – appealed this week for a “global coalition to defeat Islamic State”. This was made during a special address to both upper and lower houses of the French parliament at the Palace of Versailles. The French leader called on the US and Russia to join forces, along with France and other countries. Hollande is to fly to Washington on November 24 to discuss with Obama how to coordinate efforts at combating ISIL in Syria and Iraq. Two days after that, the French president is due in Moscow to hold the same discussion with Putin. Putin has already acknowledged the appeal from Hollande, saying that he welcomes closer cooperation, adding that Russia has been consistently calling for a greater joint effort in combating terrorism. Putin has even reportedly offered Russian naval coordination with the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in the eastern Mediterranean for future airstrikes against ISIL. Within days of the Paris massacre, French warplanes launched extensive strikes against Islamic State bases in eastern Syria. Russia and its Syrian ally have pointed out that previous military strikes by the US and France are in violation of international law since these operations do not have consent from the government in Damascus. It remains to be seen then how Russia would coordinate military operations with France in Syria owing to the legal implications. Since the Paris mayhem, several French political figures and former military intelligence personnel have urged Hollande to re-think policy on Syria. Opposition leader Nicolas Sarkozy, among others, said that “to not coordinate with Russia is absurd”. A think-tank, CF2R, with close links to French military intelligence, also advised the Hollande government to view the Syrian leader not as the enemy, and to dedicate efforts, in conjunction with Russia, on destroying the ISIL and related groups. In other words, Russia is being proven right about its intervention in Syria. The most effective way to defeat the terror networks of ISIL and other jihadist groups like the Nusra Front is to support the Syrian state, to coordinate with the Syrian Arab Army on the ground, and to target the militants with a full-on campaign. That is why Putin was received at the G20 summit with a newfound respect among other leaders. When Putin ordered the Russian military intervention in Syria, beginning on September 30, it was not done in half-measures. In a matter of weeks, the Russian air force has achieved more in terms of wiping out terror groups than the US-led coalition did in more than a year of airstrikes. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted in an interview this week that the US-led bombing supposedly against the Islamic State has been ineffective due to its conflicting priorities. Lavrov said that since August 2014, the Western so-called anti-ISIL coalition was focused on “weakening” the Damascus government and therefore it did not strike decisively at ISIL formations because they are seen as assets in the Western effort for regime change. Some analysts go further and argue that the Islamic State and associated jihadist mercenaries are the result of covert Western sponsorship of these groups. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf Arab states are also known to have been major funders and facilitators of the jihadist brigades. Putin highlighted these links at the G20 summit when he announced that the financing of the terror networks in Syria has come from “40 states, including members of the G20”. Thus, while Russia has been vindicated in its strategy and tactics on Syria, the appeal for a “global coalition” against terror has intrinsic limits. This is because key Western powers and their regional allies are committed in principle against such a Russian-defined front. The United States, Britain and France are among those states insisting that the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has to relinquish power, sooner or later. Russia rejects that demand as a violation of Syrian sovereignty. These Western states are also known to have supplied weapons, at least indirectly, to the jihadist terror groups. British leader David Cameron complained at the G20 summit that Russia has hit “non-ISIL opposition to Assad – people who could be part of the future of Syria.” But who or where are these “non-ISIL” groups that Cameron says “could be part of the future of Syria”? When Russia has asked the West for information and locations on “moderate rebels” to avoid in its airstrikes, the West has refused to provide any details. France is as guilty as any other of the foreign states for fuelling a covert war in Syria that has spawned the terror problem of Islamic State and its affiliates. A problem that has, in turn, rebounded with horrific results outside of Syria’s borders, killing hundreds of French and Russian citizens in only the past three weeks. Vladimir Putin has demonstrated true leadership on tackling terrorism in Syria and beyond. As the old English proverb goes: cometh the hour, cometh the man. However, the more troubling problem is this: how many other statesmen are ready and willing to do the decent thing and follow the Russian lead? Russia’s policy on Syria is the morally and legally correct one. The Paris and Russian airliner massacres, as well as other recent terrorist atrocities in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and other countries, cry out for a real anti-terror effort based on respecting sovereignty and abiding by international law. That challenge will expose those states that have built their policies on Syria out of deeply criminal objectives and methods. (9) Putin: ISIS financed from 40 countries, including G20 members https://www.rt.com/news/322305-isis-financed-40-countries/ Published time: 16 Nov, 2015 14:29 Edited time: 16 Nov, 2015 20:58 President Vladimir Putin says he’s shared Russian intelligence data on Islamic State financing with his G20 colleagues: the terrorists appear to be financed from 40 countries, including some G20 member states. During the summit, “I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them,” Putin told the journalists. Putin also spoke of the urgent need to curb the illegal oil trade by IS. "I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products," he said. “The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon," Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems. It’s not the right time to try and figure out which country is more and which is less effective in the battle with Islamic State, as now a united international effort is needed against the terrorist group, Putin said. [...] (10) G20 acknowledge their own role in supporting Islamic State; pledge to cut off financing http://www.dw.com/en/g20-leaders-pledge-to-cut-off-financing-to-curb-is-terrorism/a-18854451 G20 leaders pledge to cut off financing to curb IS terrorism The world's 20 most important countries intend to work together to curb "Islamic State" terrorism - not just by direct attacks, but also using financial means. Bernd Riegert reports from the G20 summit in Antalya. Propagandabild IS-Kämpfer [...] Experts in the field, as well as many Western secret services, believe that until a few weeks ago finances and supplies were reaching the terrorists of "Islamic State" relatively unimpeded. Its main sources of income are still presumed to be the sale of Syrian and Iraqi oil, as well as ransoms extorted for Western hostages and the proceeds from the sale of relics and antiquities. Many Western secret services have repeatedly indicated in their reports that for years Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were financing "Islamic State" (IS). These Sunni-dominated countries saw IS as a spearhead against Shiite rivals in the region, such as Iran. Daniel Wagner, the head of a private security analysis company in the US, said it was only after IS started using excessively cruel practices and the financiers themselves felt threatened that they cut back on official funding. "The monster they helped to create is coming to attack them in their homeland," he wrote in the Huffington Post. However, he said that "a few wealthy individuals in these countries picked up where the governments left off" and continue to fund IS." Following the pledge given in Antalya on Monday, Saudi Arabia could, as a member of the G20, stop them from doing so. Turkey also plays a significant role as far as supplying IS is concerned. DW reported as early as last year that goods and equipment were being delivered to the IS stronghold of Raqqa by Turkish suppliers. IS is also said to be delivering oil from Syria to Turkey. The hosts of the G20 could therefore also take action to stop the provisioning of the terrorist army. According to media reports, after Libya collapsed into chaos the United States transported large quantities of arms through Turkey to Syria to arm rebel groups there. Some of these weapons may also have fallen into the hands of IS militants. [...] (11) Stopping ISIS: Follow the Money From: Paul de Burgh-Day <pdeburgh@lorinna.net> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 15:03:36 +1100 Subject: Peter Van Buren:- Stopping ISIS: Follow the Money By Peter Van Buren November 18, 2015 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43461.htm Wars are expensive. The recruitment and sustainment of fighters in the field, the ongoing purchases of weapons and munitions, as well as the myriad other costs of struggle, add up. So why isn’t the United States going after Islamic State’s funding sources as a way of lessening or eliminating their strength at making war? Follow the money back, cut it off, and you strike a blow much more devastating than an airstrike. But that has not happened. Why? Donations Many have long held that Sunni terror groups, ISIS now and al Qaeda before them, are funded via Gulf States, such as Saudi Arabia, who are also long-time American allies. Direct links are difficult to prove, particularly if the United States chooses not to prove them. The issue is exacerbated by suggestions that the money comes from “donors,” not directly from national treasuries, and may be routed through legitimate charitable organizations or front companies. In fact, one person concerned about Saudi funding was then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who warned in a 2009 message on Wikileaks that donors in Saudi Arabia were the “most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” At the G20, Russian President Vladimir Putin said out loud what has otherwise not been publicly discussed much in public. He announced that he has shared intelligence with the other G20 member states which reveals 40 countries from which ISIS finances the majority of its terrorist activities. The list reportedly included a number of G20 countries. Putin’s list of funders has not been made public. The G20, however, include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the European Union. Oil One source of income for ISIS is and has robustly been oil sales. In the early days of the air campaign, American officials made a point to say that the Islamic State’s oil drilling assets were high on the target list. Yet few sites have actually been targeted. A Pentagon spokesperson explained that the coalition has actually been trying to spare some of ISIS’s largest oil producing facilities, “recognizing that they remain the property of the Syrian people,” and to limit collateral damage to civilians nearby. The U.S. only this week began a slightly more aggressive approach toward the oil, albeit bombing tanker trucks, not the infrastructure behind them. The trucks were destroyed at the Abu Kamal oil collection point, near the Iraqi border. Conservative estimates are that Islamic State takes in one to two million dollars a day from oil sales; some see the number as high as four million a day. As recently as February, however, the Pentagon claimed oil was no longer ISIS’ main way to raise money, having been bypassed by those “donations” from unspecified sources, and smuggling. Turkey One of the issues with selling oil, by anyone, including ISIS, is bringing the stuff to market. Oil must be taken from the ground using heavy equipment, possibly refined, stored, loaded into trucks or pipelines, moved somewhere and then sold into the worldwide market. Large amounts of money must be exchanged, and one to four million dollars a day is a lot of cash to deal with on a daily basis. It may be that some sort of electronic transactions that have somehow to date eluded the United States are involved. Interestingly, The Guardian reported a U.S.-led raid on the compound housing the Islamic State’s chief financial officer produced evidence that Turkish officials directly dealt with ranking ISIS members, including the ISIS officer responsible for directing the terror army’s oil and gas operations in Syria. Turkey’s “open door policy,” in which it allowed its southern border to serve as an unofficial transit point in and out of Syria, has been said to be one of ISIS’ main routes for getting their oil to market. A Turkish apologist claimed the oil is moved only via small-diameter plastic irrigation pipes, and is thus hard to monitor. A smuggled barrel of oil is sold for about $50 on the black market. This means “>several million dollars a day worth of oil would require a very large number of very small pipes. Others believe Turkish and Iraqi oil buyers travel into Syria with their own trucks, and purchase the ISIS oil right at the refineries, transporting themselves out of Syria. Convoys of trucks are easy to spot from the air, and easy to destroy from the air, though up until now the U.S. does not seem to have done so. So as is said, ISIS’ sources of funding grow curious and curiouser the more one knows. Those seeking to destroy ISIS might well wish to look into where the money comes from, and ask why, after a year and three months of war, no one has bothered to follow the money. And cut it off. Peter Van Buren, a 24-year veteran of the State Department, spent a year in Iraq. Following his book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, the Department of State began proceedings against him. Through the efforts of the Government Accountability Project and the ACLU, Van Buren instead retired from the State Department on his own terms. http://wemeantwell.com/ (12) US planes attack ISIS oil trucks in Syria - but only AFTER the Paris assaults http://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-airstrikes-target-isis-oil-trucks-2015-11?r=UK&IR=T The US is reportedly attacking ISIS oil trucks in Syria for the first time Will Martin Yesterday at 8:37 PM The United States has upped its intensity in the fight against ISIS, and has targeted airstrikes on trucks used by the extremist group to smuggle oil through Syria, according to a report in The New York Times. The attacks have not been officially confirmed by the US government, but have reportedly so far destroyed 116 trucks carrying oil in the Deir al-Zour area of Syria. This marks the first time oil trucks have been targeted by the US, The Times reports. The area is close to the country’s eastern border with Iraq, and is under ISIS control. The strikes were confirmed by US officials speaking anonymously to the paper. [...] (13) Blaming Snowden for Paris attacks - Glenn Greenwald https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris-to-blame-snowden-distract-from-actual-culprits-who-empowered-isis/ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43438.htm Exploiting Emotions About Paris to Blame Snowden, Distract from Actual Culprits Who Empowered ISIS By Glenn Greenwald November 16, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "The Intercept" Whistleblowers are always accused of helping America’s enemies (top Nixon aides accused Daniel Ellsberg of being a Soviet spy and causing the deaths of Americans with his leak); it’s just the tactical playbook that’s automatically used. So it’s of course unsurprising that ever since Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing enabled newspapers around the world to report on secretly implemented programs of mass surveillance, he has been accused by “officials” and their various media allies of Helping The Terrorists™. Still, I was a bit surprised just by how quickly and blatantly — how shamelessly — some of them jumped to exploit the emotions prompted by the carnage in France to blame Snowden: doing so literally as the bodies still lay on the streets of Paris. At first, the tawdry exploiters were the likes of crazed ex-intelligence officials (former CIA chief James Woolsey, who once said Snowden “should be hanged by his neck until he is dead” and now has deep ties to private NSA contractors, along with Iran–obsessed Robert Baer); former Bush/Cheney apparatchiks (ex-White House spokesperson and current Fox personality Dana Perino); right-wing polemicists fired from BuzzFeed for plagiarism; and obscure Fox News comedians (Perino’s co-host). So it was worth ignoring save for the occasional Twitter retort. But now we’ve entered the inevitable “U.S. Officials Say” stage of the “reporting” on the Paris attack — i.e., journalists mindlessly and uncritically repeat whatever U.S. officials whisper in their ear about what happened. So now credible news sites are regurgitating the claim that the Paris Terrorists were enabled by Snowden leaks — based on no evidence or specific proof of any kind, needless to say, but just the unverified, obviously self-serving assertions of government officials. But much of the U.S. media loves to repeat rather than scrutinize what government officials tell them to say. So now this accusation has become widespread and is thus worth examining with just some of the actual evidence. One key premise here seems to be that prior to the Snowden reporting, The Terrorists helpfully and stupidly used telephones and unencrypted emails to plot, so Western governments were able to track their plotting and disrupt at least large-scale attacks. That would come as a massive surprise to the victims of the attacks of 2002 in Bali, 2004 in Madrid, 2005 in London, 2008 in Mumbai, and April 2013 at the Boston Marathon. How did the multiple perpetrators of those well-coordinated attacks — all of which were carried out prior to Snowden’s June 2013 revelations — hide their communications from detection? This is a glaring case where propagandists can’t keep their stories straight. The implicit premise of this accusation is that The Terrorists didn’t know to avoid telephones or how to use effective encryption until Snowden came along and told them. Yet we’ve been warned for years and years before Snowden that The Terrorists are so diabolical and sophisticated that they engage in all sorts of complex techniques to evade electronic surveillance. By itself, the glorious mythology of How the U.S. Tracked Osama bin Laden should make anyone embarrassed to make these claims. After all, the central premise of that storyline is that bin Laden only used trusted couriers to communicate because al Qaeda knew for decades to avoid electronic means of communication because the U.S. and others could spy on those communications. Remember all that? Zero Dark Thirty and the “harsh but effective” interrogation of bin Laden’s “official messenger”? Any terrorist capable of tying his own shoe — let alone carrying out a significant attack — has known for decades that speaking on open telephone and internet lines was to be avoided due to U.S. surveillance. As one Twitter commentator put it yesterday when mocking this new It’s-Snowden’s-Fault game: “Dude, the drug dealers from the Wire knew not to use cell phones.” The Snowden revelations weren’t significant because they told The Terrorists their communications were being monitored; everyone — especially The Terrorists — has known that forever. The revelations were significant because they told the world that the NSA and its allies were collecting everyone else’s internet communications and activities. The evidence proving this — that The Terrorists have been successfully using sophisticated encryption and other surveillance-avoidance methods for many years prior to Snowden — is so overwhelming that nobody should be willing to claim otherwise with a straight face. As but one of countless examples, here’s a USA Today article from February 2001 — more than 12 years before anyone knew the name “Edward Snowden” — warning that al Qaeda was able to “outfox law enforcement” by hiding its communications behind sophisticated internet encryption: The Christian Science Monitor similarly reported on February 1, 2001, that “the head of the U.S. National Security Agency has publicly complained that al Qaeda’s sophisticated use of the internet and encryption techniques have defied Western eavesdropping attempts.” After 9/11, we were constantly told about how wily and advanced The Terrorists were when it came to hiding their communications from us. One scary graphic from the November 2001 issue of Network World laid it out this way: All the way back in the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration exploited the fears prompted by Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City attack to demand backdoor access to all internet communications. This is what then-FBI Director Louis Freeh told the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 1997 — almost 20 years ago: The looming spectre of the widespread use of robust, virtually uncrackable encryption is one of the most difficult problems confronting law enforcement as the next century approaches. At stake are some of our most valuable and reliable investigative techniques, and the public safety of our citizens. We believe that unless a balanced approach to encryption is adopted that includes a viable key management infrastructure, the ability of law enforcement to investigate and sometimes prevent the most serious crimes and terrorism will be severely impaired. Our national security will also be jeopardized. How dumb do they think people are to count on them forgetting all of this, and to believe now that The Terrorists only learned to avoid telephones and use encryption once Snowden came along? Ironically, the Snowden archive itself is full of documents from NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, expressing deep concern that they cannot penetrate the communications of Terrorists because of how sophisticated their surveillance-avoidance methods are (obviously, those documents pre-date Snowden’s public disclosures). As but one example, the GCHQ files contain what the agency calls a “Jihadist Handbook” of security measures, dated 2003, that instructs terror operatives in the use of sophisticated surveillance-avoidance techniques that — as we noted when we first reported it — are very similar to what GCHQ still tells its own operatives to use [...] The origins of ISIS are not even in dispute. The Washington Post put it simply: “almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes.” Even Tony Blair — Tony Blair — admits that there’d be no ISIS without the invasion of Iraq: “‘I think there are elements of truth in that,’ he said when asked whether the Iraq invasion had been the ‘principal cause’ of the rise of ISIS.” As The New Yorker’s John Cassidy put it in August: By destroying the Iraqi state and setting off reverberations across the region that, ultimately, led to a civil war in Syria, the 2003 invasion created the conditions in which a movement like ISIS could thrive. And, by turning public opinion in the United States and other Western countries against anything that even suggests a prolonged military involvement in the Middle East, the war effectively precluded the possibility of a large-scale multinational effort to smash the self-styled caliphate. Then there’s the related question of how ISIS has become so well-armed and powerful. There are many causes, but a leading one is the role played by the U.S. and its “allies in the region” (i.e., Gulf tyrannies) in arming them, unwittingly or (in the case of its “allies in the region”) otherwise, by dumping weapons and money into the region with little regard to where they go (even U.S. officials openly acknowledge that their own allies have funded ISIS). But the U.S.’s own once-secret documents strongly suggest U.S. complicity as well, albeit inadvertent, in the rise of ISIS, as powerfully demonstrated by this extraordinary four-minute clip of Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan with Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency: Given all this, is there any mystery why “U.S. officials” and the military-intelligence regime, let alone Iraq war-advocating hacks like Jim Woolsey and Dana Perino, are desperate to shift blame away from themselves for ISIS and terror attacks and onto Edward Snowden, journalism about surveillance, or encryption-providing tech companies? Wouldn’t you if you were them? Imagine simultaneously devoting all your efforts to depicting ISIS as the Greatest and Most Evil Threat Ever, while knowing the vital role you played in its genesis and growth. The clear, overwhelming evidence — compiled above — demonstrates how much deceit their blame-shifting accusations require. But the more important point of inquiry is to ask why they are so eager to ensure that everyone but themselves receives scrutiny for what is happening. The answer to that question is equally clear, and disturbing in the extreme. Research: Margot Williams. Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. [...] (14) Islamic State uses mobile messaging service Telegram for press releases http://newsdaily.com/2015/11/islamic-state-makes-telegram-messaging-app-a-major-marketing-tool/ Islamic State makes Telegram messaging app a major marketing tool Wednesday, November 18, 2015 Eric Auchard for Reuters (Reuters) – The mobile messaging service Telegram, created by the exiled founder of Russia’s most popular social network site, has emerged as an important new promotional and recruitment platform for Islamic State. The service, set up two years ago, has caught on in many corners of the globe as an ultra-secure way to quickly upload and share videos, texts and voice messages. It counts 60 million active users around the world. A new feature of Telegram that was introduced in September has become the preferred method for Islamic State to broadcast news and share videos of military victories or sermons, according to security researchers. The group used Telegram to claim responsibility for the Paris attacks, which left 129 people dead, and the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt last month, which killed 224. Islamic State has made Telegram its media mouthpiece in the face of increasingly aggressive efforts to block the group from Twitter and other mainstream social media platforms. Alex Kassirer, a counter-terrorism analyst with the New York-based private intelligence firm Flashpoint, said that IS uses Telegram broadcast channels to send releases aimed at recruitment, inspiration and motivation. IS now has three- or four-dozen channels on Telegram functioning as a kind of press release service, said Rita Katz, director of Bethesda, Maryland.-based extremist monitoring service SITE Intelligence Group. Some channels attract tens of thousands of followers, she said, adding that IS then counts on followers using Twitter to spread its messages. Unlike Twitter, which has shut down thousands of accounts tied to IS for violating company rules, so far Telegram has let the jihadists operate without fear of being turned off or traced, Katz said. “The channel feature completely changed the position of Telegram in the online jihadist movement,” Katz said. Kassirer also said that Jihadi groups seem to be able to operate uninterrupted on Telegram. Telegram, which did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Shortly after the first version of this story was published, Telegram said in a posting on its site that it had moved to block IS channels. After hackers acting under the banner of Anonymous, the loose-knit collective of activist hackers, said on Saturday they were preparing to disrupt Islamic State sites, an IS-affiliated account on Telegram responded by releasing instructions on how not to get hacked, according to a tweet by an activist group called Ghost Security. ANTI-SOCIALIST TIRADE Telegram was set up by the two brothers who founded VKontakte, a Russian social networking site inspired by Facebook that counts more than 100 million active users. Pavel Durov, 31, the frontman, and his brother Nicolay, 34, the technical talent, lost control of VKontakte to businessmen with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014, after battling the government over demands that it block Russian opposition leaders and turn over information about Ukrainian protesters. The brothers left Russia and moved to Berlin to continue running Telegram, which they fund themselves. Telegram says on its website that making profits will never be one of its goals, and if it runs out of money it will ask for donations and charge for nonessential add-ons. The main appeal of Telegram is that it allows users to send strongly encrypted messages, for free, to any number of a user’s phones, tablets or computers, which is useful to people who need to switch devices frequently. It has group messaging features that allow members to share large videos, voice messages or lots of links in one message, without detection by outsiders because this service does not run through the computing cloud. Security services would in principle need to have physical possession of a user’s device to break the keys to the encrypted chats. Security analysts say the Islamic State’s young, digitally sophisticated recruits likely use a variety of tools and platforms, as well as couriers and face-to-face meetings, to plan operations. “There are countless alternatives,” said Hassan Hassan, an expert on Islamic state with UK foreign policy think tank Chatham House and co-author of the book “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.” He said Telegram’s appeal to Islamic militants comes both from its technical features for media-sharing and also its perceived independence from government controls. [...] (15) Telegram's founders supported anti-Putin protestors, fled to Germany after crackdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov Pavel Valeryevich Durov (born 10 October 1984) is a Russian entrepreneur, best known for being the founder of social networking site VK, and later the Telegram Messenger.[2] He is the younger brother of Nikolai Durov. Pavel Durov was born in Leningrad (now known as St.Petersburg), but spent most of his childhood in Italy, in the city of Turin. His father Valery (who holds a PhD in philology) was employed there.[3] He attended an Italian elementary school, and after returning to Russia in 2001 attended the Academy Gymnasium in St. Petersburg.[4] In 2006, he graduated from the Philology Department of the Saint Petersburg State University, where he received a first class degree. Durov started VKontakte, later known as VK, in 2006, which was initially influenced by Facebook.[5] In 2011 he was involved in a standoff with a SWAT team outside his home in St. Petersburg after the government had demanded the removal of the pages of opposition politicians after controversial parliamentary elections.[5][6] They left after about an hour. On April 16, 2014 Durov publicly refused to hand over data of Ukrainian protesters to Russia's security agencies and block Alexey Navalny's page on VK.[7] Instead he posted the relevant orders on his own VK page [8][9] claiming that the requests were unlawful. On April 21, 2014 Durov was dismissed as VK CEO. The company claimed it was acting on a letter of resignation written by Durov a month earlier that he supposedly failed to recall.[7][10] Durov then claimed the company had been effectively taken over by Vladimir Putin's allies,[10][11] suggesting his ousting was the result both of his refusal to hand over personal details of users to the Russian Federal Security Service and his refusal to hand over the personal details of people who were members of a VKontakte group dedicated to the Euromaidan protest movement.[10][11] Durov then left Russia and stating that he had "no plans to go back"[11] and that "the country is incompatible with Internet business at the moment".[7] Durov holds libertarian economic and political views and says he is a vegetarian and identifies as a Taoist.[12] He published anarcho-capitalist manifestos describing his ideas on improving Russia.[13] On his 27th birthday, he donated a million dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation.[14] Pavel Durov's early life and career are described in detail in the Russian-language book The Durov Code. The True Story of VK and its Creator (2012). [6] This page was last modified on 27 September 2015, at 14:35. -------------- Peter Myers Australia website: http://mailstar.net/index.html |
Archives >