Majorityrights News > Category: World Affairs

Suspected gunman has been identified as an Australian man Brenton Tarrant, 28. Source:Supplied

Forty people have been killed after a gunman opened fire at two mosques in the New Zealand city.

The gunman who livestreamed himself opening fire on a Christchurch mosque has posted a manifesto online explaining why he committed the attack.

news.com.au MARCH 15, 20195:37PM

A gunman who livestreamed himself opening fire on a Christchurch mosque, turned the camera on himself before carrying out his deadly attack.

The gunman who livestreamed himself opening fire at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch also posted a manifesto online addressing his reasons for the attack.

Police have taken three people into custody after the gunman shot at worshippers as they gathered for Friday prayers. At least 40 people are dead with another 25 people listed as critical.

Armed police were deployed around the Al Noor mosque where shooting broke out at 1.40pm (NZ time) on Friday, with the city’s schools and hospital locked down. Reports later emerged of shots at another mosque in Linwood Avenue.

The man, who identified himself on Twitter as ‘Brenton Tarrant’ from Australia, livestreamed his deadly attack and turned the camera on himself before carrying out the attack.

             

The gunman who livestreamed himself opening fire on a Christchurch mosque, turned the camera on himself before carrying out his deadly attack. Source:Supplied

In a vile 73-page manifesto posted online, he described himself as “just a regular White man”.

The 28-year-old noted he was born “to a working class, low-income family … who decided to take a stand to ensure a future for my people”.

The gunman — whose background NSW counter-terrorism police are now investigating after reports he is from Grafton — said he carried out the attack to “directly reduce immigration rates to European lands”.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed an individual taken into custody is an Australian-born citizen. He called him “an extremist, right-wing, violent terrorist”.

The header photo on Tarrant’s Twitter account shows a victim of the 2016 Bastille Day terror attack in Nice.

The famous photo by Reuters photographer Eric Gaillard came to symbolise the Bastille Day massacre when 84 people were killed by a truck plowing into holidaying crowds, Reuters says.

He described his reasons for the disgusting attack as to “show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands, our homelands are our own and that, as long as a white man still lives, they will NEVER conquer our lands and they will never replace our people”.

Tarrant revealed he had been planning an attack for up to two years, noting he decided on Christchurch three months ago.

He said New Zealand was not the “original choice for attack”, but described it as “target rich of an environment as anywhere else in the West”.

“An attack in New Zealand would bring to attention the truth of the assault on our civilisation, that no where (sic) in the world was safe, the invaders were in all of our lands, even in the remotest areas of the world and that tehre was no where (sic) left to go that was safe and free from mass immigration.”

Ebba Akerlund

Claiming to represent “millions of European and other ethno-nationalist peoples”, he said “we must ensure the existence of our people, and a future for white children”.

The gunman described the attack as an act of “revenge on the invaders for the hundreds of thousands of death caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history … for the enslavement of millions of Europeans taken from their lands by the Islamic slavers … (and) for the thousands of European lives lost to terror attacks throughout European lands.”

He also said it was to take revenge for Ebba Akerlund, the 11-year-old child who was killed in a 2017 terror attack in Stockholm.

“Ex-Mercenary CEO Erik Prince Admits To Trump Tower Meet With Don Jr., Saudi Emissary”

9 Mar 2019: Erik Prince, former head of mercenary business Blackwater, revealed in a bombshell interview Friday that he attended a meeting in Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr. and a representative of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to discuss “Iran policy” during the presidential campaign.

The interview marked the first time Prince has publicly acknowledged such a meeting. Prince said in congressional testimony in 2017 that he had no “official” or “unofficial” role in the campaign — other than a “yard sign” and writing “papers” — according to the transcript of his testimony before the House intelligence committee. Nor did he mention the meeting in his testimony, according to transcripts.

The New York Times reported last year that Prince organized the 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump’s eldest son and Lebanese-American businessman George Nader. Nader revealed at the meeting that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia wanted to aid Trump in his bid for the presidency, according to the newspaper.

The meeting also reportedly included now-top White House aide Stephen Miller and Israeli social media expert Joel Zamel.

The August meeting is yet another secret huddle with a representative of foreign governments that may have provided illegal international aid to sway the American election. Just months earlier Donald Jr. and the president’s son-in-law and now senior White House aide Jared Kushner met at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer connected to the Kremlin.

Prince, brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, acknowledged the meeting in an on-camera interview on Al Jazeera’s “Head to Head” aired Friday (above).

Asked by host Mehdi Hasan why he didn’t reveal the meeting in his congressional testimony, Prince insisted he had. When his actual response was read back to him, he suggested the transcript was “wrong,” drawing titters from the interview audience.

He later also insisted that “not all of the discussion that day was transcribed.”

Head to Head@AJHeadtoHead
Erik Prince responds that the U.S. Congress “got the transcript wrong”  when asked why he didn’t tell the House Intel Committee about an Aug 2016 meeting he attended at Trump Tower.  @Mehdirhasan goes ‘head to head’ with Erik Prince NOW @AJEnglish.

9:25 PM - Mar 8, 2019

A lawyer for Trump’s son confirmed to the Times after its story that “prior to the 2016 election, Donald Trump Jr. recalls a meeting with Erik Prince, George Nader and another individual who may be Joel Zamel.”

The Trump administration later harshly cracked down on Iran, terminating American participation in the international nuclear pact with the nation over the strenuous objections of Europe and Iran — and pleasing the Saudis and gulf allies.

The existence of the Trump Tower meeting — and what may have been discussed or promised — raises questions about the president’s confounding lack of action against Saudi Arabia after the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which American intelligence officials determined was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Kushner met with the crown prince and other officials in Saudi Arabia earlier this week. Against all protocol, American embassy staffers told The Daily Beast that they were shut out of meetings and were not provided details of what had been discussed. The private huddles followed revelations that the president ordered Kushner to be given top-level security clearance over the objections of the FBI.

Hasan also challenged Prince’s description of Iraqis in his memoir as “barbarians.” Prince responded that he had no problem calling terrorists barbarians. But Hasan pointed out Prince’s team had not been sent to “liberate” terrorists but Iraqi civilians.

Mehdi Hasan@mehdirhasan

I asked Blackwater founder Erik Prince about calling Iraqis “barbarians” and about the murder & manslaughter that happened on his watch in Iraq.

You should really listen to his replies. (Watch the whole @AJHeadtoHead with him this Friday on @AJEnglish)

Blackwater employees opened fire in a crowded square in Baghdad in 2007, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and seriously wounding 20 others. Three guards were convicted in 2014 of 14 manslaughter charges, and another of murder in an American court.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

New Observer, “South Africa: ANC Will Seize White Property in Cities, Not Just Farms, Says President”, 28 Feb 2019:

White-owned property in South Africa’s cities and towns will be seized along with white farms in order to provide “high-density housing” for blacks, and whites are to blame for the country’s collapsing train services, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced.

Addressing a meeting of “traditional leaders” in the Cape Town City Hall on Wednesday this week, as part of the ANC’s election campaign, Ramaphosa also blamed Apartheid [read whites] for African backwardness and the fact that blacks are always poor.

“Land in cities and towns must be identified for seizure without compensation upon which high-density housing can be developed so that ordinary South Africans can live close to their places of work,”  Ramaphosa told the meeting. “Apartheid distributed people outside of the major cities. The poor lived outside the cities, and the rich inside them,” he continued. “Just like other world cities, South Africa had to develop high-density housing in the city and town centers, and the government was going to use the seizure of land without compensation program to identity suitable land within the urban areas.

“This is going to reduce the living costs of the poor who will then not have to travel so far to their places of work,” he said.

This is the first open confirmation that it is not just farms which are going to be seized under the “no compensation” rules scheduled to be introduced in March 2019, but also white properties in urban areas.

Ramaphosa went on to blame whites for the collapsing railway infrastructure in South Africa, even though the ANC has ruled the country for the last 25 years.

He acknowledged that the public transport infrastructure was very poor and that it cost the South African economy dearly. He undertook to “pull the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) right” after a new series of criminal corruption scandals recently shook the state-owned rail transportation system.

“Some train stations in the townships [the black suburbs] are closed. People do not use them anymore because of crime and the unreliability of the train system,” Ramaphosa told the meeting, adding that this too was due to the “heritage of apartheid [read whites] which left us with poor public transport systems.”

Occidental Dissent, “President Trump Reverses His Plan To Withdraw From Syria”, 22 Feb 2019:

As I said in December, the Israel Lobby, the Pentagon and the GOP establishment would find some way to pressure Trump into reversing his withdrawal of troops from Syria:

“WASHINGTON — First, President Trump was going to pull all 2,000 American troops out of Syria immediately. Then he was going to slow down the withdrawal. Then he was going to leave troops in neighboring Iraq.

Now, in the latest about-face, Mr. Trump has agreed to leave about 400 troops in Syria — 200 in a multinational force in the northeastern part of the country and another 200 at a small outpost in the southeast, where they will seek to counter Iran’s influence throughout the country.

His decision to commit what one senior administration official described on Friday as a “couple hundred troops” to the multinational force, operating south of the Turkish border, came after European allies refused to send troops if the United States would not.

Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, pressed the president to make the decision on Thursday, this official said, amid signs that the Pentagon’s negotiations to put together a stabilization and monitoring force were foundering on European resistance. …”

Such has been the story of the Trump administration:

– Big Ag and the Chamber of Commerce have gotten Trump to support increasing legal immigration
– Republican senators loudly condemned Trump for withdrawing from TPP and renegotiating NAFTA until he essentially replaced NAFTA with TPP
– The tax reform bill passed without closing the carried interest loophole
– The GOP Congress punted on funding the border wall half a dozen times
– Various immigration bills like Kate’s Law have died in the Senate
– Trump was persuaded to sign the 2018 Omnibus and to cave on the shutdown by Republican senators
– The GOP Congress passed heavy sanctions on Russia and Trump yielded to pressure from conservatives to arm Ukraine and expand NATO
– Trump was convinced by Ryan and McConnell to prioritize their agenda of health care, tax reform and welfare reform

At the end of the day, conservatives in Congress have prevailed on nearly every issue, and Trump has walked back his populist promises over and over again.

By Hunter Wallace. Share this.

TruthDig.Org., “The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy”, 7 Feb 2019:

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is getting significant media attention these days, after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview that it should “be a larger part of our conversation” when it comes to funding the “Green New Deal.” According to MMT, the government can spend what it needs without worrying about deficits. MMT expert and Bernie Sanders adviser professor Stephanie Kelton says the government actually creates money when it spends. The real limit on spending is not an artificially imposed debt ceiling but a lack of labor and materials to do the work, leading to generalized price inflation. Only when that real ceiling is hit does the money need to be taxed back, but even then it’s not to fund government spending. Instead, it’s needed to shrink the money supply in an economy that has run out of resources to put the extra money to work.

Predictably, critics have been quick to rebut, calling the trend to endorse MMT “disturbing” and “a joke that’s not funny.” In a Feb. 1 post on the Daily Reckoning, Brian Maher darkly envisioned Bernie Sanders getting elected in 2020 and implementing “Quantitative Easing for the People” based on MMT theories. To debunk the notion that governments can just “print the money” to solve their economic problems, he raised the specter of Venezuela, where “money” is everywhere but bare essentials are out of reach for many, the storefronts are empty, unemployment is at 33 percent and inflation is predicted to hit 1 million percent by the end of the year.

Blogger Arnold Kling also pointed to the Venezuelan hyperinflation. He described MMT as “the doctrine that because the government prints money, it can spend whatever it wants . . . until it can’t.” He said:

To me, the hyperinflation in Venezuela exemplifies what happens when a country reaches the “it can’t” point. The country is not at full employment. But the government can’t seem to spend its way out of difficulty. Somebody should ask these MMT rock stars about the Venezuela example.

I’m not an MMT rock star and won’t try to expound on its subtleties. (I would submit that under existing regulations, the government cannot actually create money when it spends, but that it should be able to. In fact, MMTers have acknowledged that problem; but it’s a subject for another article.) What I want to address here is the hyperinflation issue, and why Venezuelan hyperinflation and “QE for the People” are completely different animals.

What Is Different About Venezuela

Venezuela’s problems are not the result of the government issuing money and using it to hire people to build infrastructure, provide essential services and expand economic development. If it were, unemployment would not be at 33 percent and climbing. Venezuela has a problem the U.S. does not, and will never have: It owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely, U.S. dollars. When oil (its principal resource) was booming, Venezuela was able to meet its repayment schedule. But when the price of oil plummeted, the government was reduced to printing Venezuelan bolivars and selling them for U.S. dollars on international currency exchanges. As speculators drove up the price of dollars, more and more printing was required by the government, massively deflating the national currency.

It was the same problem suffered by Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe, the two classic examples of hyperinflation typically raised to silence proponents of government expansion of the money supply before Venezuela suffered the same fate. Professor Michael Hudson, an actual economic rock star who supports MMT principles, has studied the hyperinflation question extensively. He confirms that those disasters were not due to governments issuing money to stimulate the economy. Rather, he writes, “Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”

Venezuela and other countries that are carrying massive debts in currencies that are not their own are not sovereign. Governments that are sovereign can and have engaged in issuing their own currencies for infrastructure and development quite successfully. I have discussed a number of contemporary and historical examples in my earlier articles, including in Japan, China, Australia and Canada.

Although Venezuela is not technically at war, it is suffering from foreign currency strains triggered by aggressive attacks by a foreign power. U.S. economic sanctions have been going on for years, causing the country at least $20 billion in losses. About $7 billion of its assets are now being held hostage by the U.S., which has waged an undeclared war against Venezuela ever since George W. Bush’s failed military coup against President Hugo Chávez in 2002. Chávez boldly announced the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically reduced poverty and illiteracy as well as improved health and living conditions for millions of Venezuelans. The reforms, which included nationalizing key components of the nation’s economy, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela’s oligarchs.

Nicolás Maduro was elected president following Chávez’s death in 2013 and vowed to continue the Bolivarian Revolution. Recently, as Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi had done before him, he defiantly announced that Venezuela would not be trading oil in U.S. dollars following sanctions imposed by President Trump.

The notorious Elliott Abrams has now been appointed as special envoy to Venezuela. Considered a war criminal by many for covering up massacres committed by U.S.-backed death squads in Central America, Abrams was among the prominent neocons closely linked to Bush’s failed Venezuelan coup in 2002. National security adviser John Bolton is another key neocon architect advocating regime change in Venezuela. At press conference on Jan. 28, he held a yellow legal pad prominently displaying the words “5,000 troops to Colombia,” a country that shares a border with Venezuela. Clearly, the neocon contingent feels it has unfinished business there.

Bolton does not even pretend that it’s all about restoring “democracy.” He blatantly said on Fox News, “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” As President Nixon said of U.S. tactics against Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, the point of sanctions and military threats is to squeeze the country economically.

Killing the Public Banking Revolution in Venezuela

It may be about more than oil, which recently hit record lows in the market. The U.S. hardly needs to invade a country to replenish its supplies. As with Libya and Iraq, another motive may be to suppress the banking revolution initiated by Venezuela’s upstart leaders.

The banking crisis of 2009–10 exposed the corruption and systemic weakness of Venezuelan banks. Some banks were engaged in questionable business practices. Others were seriously undercapitalized. Others still were apparently lending top executives large sums of money. At least one financier could not prove where he got the money to buy the banks he owned.

Rather than bailing out the culprits, as was done in the U.S., in 2009 the government nationalized seven Venezuelan banks, accounting for around 12 percent of the nation’s bank deposits. In 2010, more were taken over. Chávez’s government arrested at least 16 bankers and issued more than 40 corruption-related arrest warrants for others who had fled the country. By the end of March 2011, only 37 banks were left, down from 59 at the end of November 2009. State-owned institutions took a larger role, holding 35 percent of assets as of March 2011, while foreign institutions held just 13.2 percent of assets.

READ MORE...

(((Schultz/Starbucks vulture capitalism - governmental collusion with NGO’s and tribal interests)))

I haven’t visited Morgoth’s for several months, and not for more than a moment in over a year… but having taken a peek today, a fine comment jumped out…

Augur Mayson rendered a fine comment in response to the question of why people hate journalists.

In regard to his example that the (((media))) conveniently promulgated Harold Schultz’ crypsis, referring to him as “a white man”, Augur might have added discussion of which (((Frame Games))) spilled the beans - it is still on line: [url=The Perplexing Case of Starbucks The Perplexing Case of Starbucks) about the scheme that Starbucks is involved in, making deals with black NGO leaders in order to buy-up inner city property on the cheap and then gentrifying it to turn huge profits in sales and rent. ...while these blacks were moved in as block busters to begin with by tribal elders who benefited by driving out Whites, taking advantage of driving down property values and welfare slum lording.

A Starbucks in your neighborhood means this racket is coming to your city.

One wonders, given Starbucks property vulturism, if Trump and his cronies don’t figure into the Schultz deal - as Kumiko surmised, they are mostly about a second tier of wealth, based on real estate investment, particularly U.S., and their concerns as such.

* I took the liberty to correct the malapopriative term, “left”, for him and replaced it with what it should be - “liberal”

Augur Mayson • 6 days ago

Because journalists enhance Jewish racial crypsis, is my current reason. They’re statists posing as rebels. The major media outlets either through commingling with the state or via self-interested owners of a certain ((( race ))) typically parrot whatever ridiculous claims are coming out of the government, either about domestic social issues or correctness of foreign policy. They are not some unelected but real check against government abuses. They are attack dogs. They are megaphones for the rich and the state. They are overwhelmingly leftists liberals* and disproportionately Jewish.

For example, in America now the presidential election in 2020 is shaping up as follows: Trump for the Republicans, because it’s unprecedented for a party to not run an incumbent, unknown candidate for the Democrats, maybe Mrs. Clinton, maybe Joe Biden, maybe someone else, they have a young gay guy they’re trying to talk up now. And the only big independent as yet talked about in the media is former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who’s a Jew, who has used Starbucks to push progressive social policies. For example a few Blacks got thrown out of a Starbucks for presumed loitering; media uproar ensued, Schultz declared to do the exact opposite in future, now they have beggars out front, heroin needles in one bathroom and people giving birth in the other.

So this article in the Judenpresse in America talks up Schultz and says point blank he’s a White man.

“And at 65, he’d have to do that as an older white man who’s never run for office before and has zero national name recognition.” https://www.theatlantic.com...

False, as a CEO of a major corporation he had major exposure and name recognition only second to say Hollywood stars and politicians and media. So the journalist paints Schultz as an unknown (read: underdog, as in, a fetching backstory) and says he’s White when he’s really a Jew.

This is why I hate journalists. Plus if you have a Jewish war you’d like to wage in the desert for no good reason you can always count on the likes of CNN or the BBC to carry the load of b.s. you’re pushing.

NEW YORK: Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, credited with taking the company from small beginnings to an international behemoth, is stepping down as CEO to focus on new high-end coffee shops, handing the reins to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Johnson.

Schultz, 63, will continue to serve as chairman of the Board and will be appointed executive chairman effective April next year. He handpicked 56-year-old Johnson, the company’s president, chief operating officer and a 7-year member of the Starbucks Board of Directors, to serve as the new CEO.

The Seattle-based company said in his new role, Schultz will focus on the “next wave of retail innovation”, design and development of Starbucks Reserve Roasteries around the world, expansion of the Starbucks Reserve retail store format and the company’s social impact initiatives.

“I will remain Starbucks executive chairman, focusing full-time on the incredible growth opportunities we have in expanding Roasteries and building out our portfolio of Reserve stores and on Starbucks social impact agenda which will be a significant part of the focus going forward,” Schultz said in an investor and media conference call yesterday.

Schultz, who was named by Fortune magazine this month in its list of Businessperson of Year is credited with doubling the company’s revenues since he returned for his second stint in 2008, surpassing USD 20 billion for the first time over the past 12 months

Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/55746311.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Related at Majorityrights:

(((Frame Games))) Hardens-Up and Greg Johnson Presents His Right-Wing Rear For Entryism (as does JF)

(((Frame Games))) on ethnic component of 2008 crisis & why you need to care about identity politics

Test Your Capacity To See Through Jewish Crypsis: Which ones are Jewish?

Related:

The Perplexing Case of Starbucks: Frame Games discusses Starbucks with Gariepy

Donald Trump is President of The United States because he vowed to overturn the Iran Deal for Israel. Overturning the deal was not in the interest of most of the world, except for Israel, Saudi Arabia and The Russian Federation. By contrast, the rest of the world was served by the deal in its business resource interests and more - while the focus on commerce and modernization served not only practical and humanitarian ends but also contributed to a gradual process of liberalizing Iran away from Islam.

Britain, France and Germany are taking steps in their rational interests to skirt the sanctions:

Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters), 31 Jan 2019: France, Germany and Britain have set up a mechanism for non-dollar trade with Iran to avert U.S. sanctions, although diplomats acknowledge it is unlikely to free up the big transactions that Tehran says it needs to keep a nuclear deal afloat.

Related at Majorityrights: Iran protest, organic grievances real, but tactless Trump endorsement abets reactionary entrenchment

In Brussels, students skip school for mass global warming protest

EURACTIV.com with Reuters Jan 25, 2019:

Belgian students gather to call for urgent measures to combat climate change during a demonstration in Brussels, Belgium, 24 January 2019. According the police more than 35,000 students are taking part in the demonstration.
   
Thousands of Belgian school children skipped classes on Thursday (24 January) to flood Brussels in an unprecedented protest against global warming and pollution, vowing to miss school once a week until the government takes action.

Students banging drums and carrying signs decrying man-made climate change gathered around the European Parliament.

Police said the 35,000-strong gathering was the biggest turnout of recent times for a student protest in the Belgian capital, which is also home to European Union institutions.

“If we skip every Thursday, if we don’t go to school, the big people in our country and in the world will see that this is a problem,” said high school student Joppe Mathys.

Another student held a sign saying: “Be part of the solution, not the pollution.”

A nine-year-old girl, who gave her name only as Lalla and was with her teacher, said it was time people stopped driving cars and walked and cycled instead.

“Dinosaurs thought they had time too,” read one banner.

The Brief – The future is theirs… unless we destroy it first

Belgian school students feel abandoned by their politicians so they have started a weekly strike for the climate. Their protests pose a major question about how young people are represented in politics ahead of the EU elections in May.

Brussels police spokeswoman Ilse Van de Keere said the student demonstration was the biggest in recent memory.

Broad protests started across Belgium on 2 December with a “Claim the Climate” march, when over 65,000 demonstrators called for Belgian and European leaders to adopt ambitious climate policies in line with goals set by the Paris agreement in 2015. That demonstration came before the COP24 UN climate summit in Poland, where a report was released ranking Belgium 31 out of 60 on the 2019 Climate Change Performance Index, or a “medium” performance in implementing the Paris agreements. Brussels has been regularly ranked as one of the most congested cities in western Europe in recent years due to Belgium’s high population density and large number of commuters.

That is also a mark of shame for a capital where the EU sets European climate policies.

Across the EU, road congestion costs the bloc one percent of its annual economic output, or €100 billion per year, according to the European Commission.

German anti-coal demonstrations: ‘We’re running out of time’

In the run-up to the UN climate conference, which began in Katowice in Poland on 2 December, many thousands of people demonstrated to support accelerating the phasing out of the coal industry. EURACTIV Germany reports.