Syrian Electronic Army a hacker group affiliated with Bashar Al Asad regime has claimed responsibility for taking down Linkedin Blog http://blog.linkedin.com/.

As of writing this post Linkedin in blog is down.
This is the zone-h info of the hack.

Wikileaks has published today email files of US intelligence company Stratfor that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example:

“[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control… This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase” – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

Here is the full wikileaks press release:

LONDON–Today WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example:

“[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control… This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase” – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.

The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients. For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of Bhopal activists, including the “Yes Men”, for the US chemical giant Dow Chemical. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.

Stratfor has realised that its routine use of secret cash bribes to get information from insiders is risky. In August 2011, Stratfor CEO George Friedman confidentially told his employees: “We are retaining a law firm to create a policy for Stratfor on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I don’t plan to do the perp walk and I don’t want anyone here doing it either.”

Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and  Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to “utilise the intelligence” it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS: “What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical  instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like”.  The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested “substantially” more than $4million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff: “Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral… It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor… we are already working on mock portfolios and trades”. StratCap is due to launch in 2012.

The Stratfor emails reveal a company that cultivates close ties with US government agencies and employs former US government staff. It is preparing the 3-year Forecast for the Commandant of the US Marine Corps, and it trains US marines and “other government intelligence agencies” in “becoming government Stratfors”. Stratfor’s Vice-President for Intelligence, Fred Burton, was formerly a special agent with the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and was their Deputy Chief of the counterterrorism division. Despite the governmental ties, Stratfor and similar companies operate in complete secrecy with no political oversight or accountability.  Stratfor claims that it operates “without ideology, agenda or national bias”, yet the emails reveal private intelligence staff who align themselves closely with US government policies and channel tips to the Mossad – including through an information mule in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Yossi Melman, who conspired with Guardian journalist David Leigh to secretly, and in violation of WikiLeaks’ contract with the Guardian, move WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables to Israel.

Ironically, considering the present circumstances, Stratfor was trying to get into what it called the leak-focused “gravy train” that sprung up after WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan disclosures:

        “[Is it] possible for us to get some of that ‘leak-focused’ gravy train? This is an obvious fear sale, so that’s a good thing. And we have something to offer that the IT security companies don’t, mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance that Fred and Stick know better than anyone on the planet… Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of ´leak-focused’ network security that focuses on preventing one’s own employees from leaking sensitive information…  In fact, I’m not so sure this is an IT problem that requires an IT solution.”

Like WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables, much of the significance of the emails will be revealed over the coming weeks, as our coalition and the public search through them and discover connections. Readers will find that whereas large numbers of Stratfor’s subscribers and clients work in the US military and intelligence agencies, Stratfor gave a complimentary membership to the controversial Pakistan general Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service, who, according to US diplomatic cables, planned an IED attack on international forces in Afghanistan in 2006. Readers will discover Stratfor’s internal email classification system that codes correspondence according to categories such as ‘alpha’, ‘tactical’ and ‘secure’. The correspondence also contains code names for people of particular interest such as ‘Izzies’ (members of Hezbollah), or ‘Adogg’ (Mahmoud Ahmedinejad).

Stratfor did secret deals with dozens of media organisations and journalists – from Reuters to the Kiev Post. The list of Stratfor’s “Confederation Partners”, whom Stratfor internally referred to as its “Confed Fuck House” are included in the release. While it is acceptable for journalists to swap information or be paid by other media  organisations, because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation that services governments and  private clients these relationships are corrupt or corrupting.

WikiLeaks has also obtained Stratfor’s list of informants and, in many cases, records of its payoffs, including $1,200 a month paid to the informant  “Geronimo” , handled by Stratfor’s Former State Department agent Fred  Burton.

WikiLeaks has built an investigative partnership with more than 25 media organisations and activists to inform the public about this huge body of documents. The organisations were provided access to a sophisticated investigative database developed by WikiLeaks and together with WikiLeaks are conducting journalistic evaluations of these emails. Important revelations discovered using this system will appear in the media in the coming weeks, together with the gradual release of the source documents.

Public partners in the investigation:

More than 25 media partners (others will be disclosed after their first publication):

Al Akhbar – Lebanon – http://english.al-akhbar.com
Al Masry Al Youm – Egypt – http://www.almasry-alyoum.com
Bivol – Bulgaria – http://bivol.bg
CIPER – Chile – http://ciperchile.cl
Dawn Media – Pakistan – http://www.dawn.com
L’Espresso – Italy – http://espresso.repubblica.it
La Repubblica – Italy – http://www.repubblica.it
La Jornada – Mexico – www.jornada.unam.mx/
La Nacion – Costa Rica – http://www.nacion.com
Malaysia Today – Malaysia – www.malaysia-today.net
McClatchy – United States – http://www.mcclatchy.com
Nawaat – Tunisia – http://nawaat.org
NDR/ARD – Germany – http://www.ard.de
Owni – France – http://owni.fr
Pagina 12 – Argentina – www.pagina12.com.ar
Plaza Publica – Guatemala – http://plazapublica.com.gt
Publico.es – Spain – www.publico.es
Rolling Stone – United States – http://www.rollingstone.com
Russia Reporter – Russia – http://rusrep.ru
Ta Nea – Greece –- http://www.tanea.gr
Taraf – Turkey – http://www.taraf.com.tr
The Hindu – India – www.thehindu.com
The Yes Men – Bhopal Activists – Global http://theyesmen.org
Nicky Hager for NZ Herald – New Zealand – http://www.nzherald.co.nz

CURRENT WIKILEAKS STATUS:
An extrajudicial blockade imposed by VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Bank of America, and Western Union that is designed to destroy WikiLeaks has been in place since December 2010. The EU Commission is considering  whether it will open a formal investigation, but two  lawsuits have been  filed (http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html).  There are also other ways to donate (https://shop.wikileaks.org/donate). It is legal to donate, including in the United States. The US Treasury has publicly stated that that there are no grounds to place WikiLeaks on a US government blacklist.

WikiLeaks Founder and Publisher Julian Assange has not been charged with any crime in any country. Four prosecutors are currently trying to charge him under the Espionage Act of 1917 before a closed Grand Jury in Virginia, in the United States. Julian Assange has been detained for 447 days (10,728 hours) since Dec 7, 2010, without charge, and he is currently awaiting a decision from the  UK Supreme Court on extradition to Sweden (http://www.justiceforassange.com/Supreme-Court-Appeal,65.html). The decision is expected in March. The decision on whether he will be onwardly extradited to the US lies in the hands of the Swedish Executive, but Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has refused to state whether he will protect Assange from a politically motivated extradition to the United States (http://justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html).

The Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has repeatedly attacked WikiLeaks this week in a bizarre manner (http://ferrada-noli.blogspot.com/2012/02/anatomy-of-untruthful-scoop-explaining.html).

An alleged WikiLeaks US military source, Bradley Manning, has been in pre-trial detention for 639 days (http://bradleymanning.org/). His arraignment took place on 24 February 2012. In December 2011, Manning’s attorney revealed in the preliminary hearing that the US government is attempting to enter a plea deal with Manning in order to “go after” Assange. Manning has 22 charges against him, including violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and aiding the enemy. Manning has deferred entering a plea. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are legally represented in the Manning hearings by the US Centre for Constitutional Rights (http://ccrjustice.org/). WikiLeaks was denied full access to Manning’s hearing after appeal (http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/ccr-appeals-denial-of-guaranteed-access-manning-hearing-wikileaks-attorneys). WikiLeaks put out a statement relating to Manning’s trial ahead of the Article 32 Hearing: (http://www.wikileaks.org/Statement-on-Bradley-Manning-Case.html).

The alleged WikiLeaks-supporting hacktivists known as the “PayPal 14″ were arrested in 2011 following co-ordinated online demonstrations against the financial services companies that are carrying out the unlawful financial blockade on WikiLeaks (VISA, MasterCard, Paypal, Western Union, Bank of America). They are represented by attorney Stanley Cohen and will go before court in May 2012 (http://www.cyberguerrilla.org/?p=4644).

WikiLeaks is about to launch a distributed, encrypted “Facebook for revolutionaries” (https://wlfriends.org/).

Julian Assange is currently directing interviews, from house arrest, for a programme on the future of the world that is syndicated to various broadcasters. The first show will be broadcast in March (http://www.wikileaks.org/New-Assange-TV-Series.html)

http://wikileaks.org/gifiles

ArabCrunch World’s only independent and most popular English tech news site focused on Arab tech, startups and social media has announced its selection of the person of the year 2011.

Starting 2010, each December, ArabCrunch selects Person of the Year featuring and profiling a person, group, idea, place, or machine that has done the most to influence the events of the year in technology, internet, entrepreneurship or in using technology.

Last year we selected Julian Assang founder of Wikileaks, to celebrate the distinguished efforts by the Wikileaks in pushing transparency worldwide and exposing wrong doings and crimes of governments and corporations alike. Redefining what media is.

“this year 2011, went through many historical events, which lead to the emergence of new type of persons with achievement and impact that changed the course of history. “Said ArabCrunch spoke person.

adding “For this year it was hard to select one person, Wael Ghonim, Anonymous hacking group and Bradley Manning where all persons of achievement at the global and local stage. So we decided to split the winning person into the three of them.”

Wael Ghonim:

” target=”_blank”>Wael Ghonim via his Facebook page “We are all Khalid Said” was the main person responsible in igniting the Egyptian revolution against tyranny and corruption. Though that revolution did not achieve all its objectives until now. The removal of fear factor and the effort that Wael played in exposing the tyrant and corrupt Husni Mubarak regime will be the guarantee that the times of tyranny is gone and that the Egyptian revolution will achieve by the well of God all its objectives, sooner or later.

Though, the real heroes of the Egyptian revolution are the millions who answered the call and the people who paid their souls and blood so others can live in dignity.

Here is a bio of Wael on Wikipedia.

Anonymous hacking group:

After Wikileaks started publishing the US government diplomatic cables, the true color of big corporations has been reveled, PayPal, Visa and others started blocking funding to Wikileaks with no legal justification. Among other corporations who blockhead Wikileaks, Amazon denied the ability for Wikileaks to host the website on its Amazon’s server. Wikileaks was also subject to massive DDoS attacks.

The result: a group of unknown hackers has emerged to retaliate against in injustice and corruption by the US government and corporate America. From cyber attacks against CIA to leaking defense contractors confidential documents ( that said does not nesacrlly means that ArabCrunch support such hacking activities) . With each attack Anonymous massage against tyranny and corruption of corporate America has grown. Anonymous did not just attack US based government and corporations who are accused of wrong doings. But also sites of governments that witnessed revolutions such as Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria.

Anonymous also targeted the Mossad and Israeli defense website also, showing solidarity with the Palestinian people struggle for freedom and justice.

Whether a person would agree or disagree with Anonymous attacks or not, their work has been important to spread the message of the unheard, the unknown and essentially its activities laid the ground for the occupy wall street movement to emerge against the corruption and greed of Wall Street, essentially those who run Wall Street: the Zionists. Here is a good list of some of the group operations.

There is another Anonymous group of people who also should be celebrated, they are the young Arab men and woman who are using social media, with tweets and retweets, Facebook updates, likes and share of content that expose the crimes of the current and past Arab regimes. Those users took the effort online then offline to mass protests that toppled criminal governments.

Bradley Manning:

Bradley Manning a US army intelligence officer. he is accused of leaking the video of US army helicopter murdering journalists and children, he is also accused of leaking the classified Iraq war log, Afghanistan War log and the US diplomatic cables.

Bradley Manning is going now through his trial now, instead of being in trial he should be thanked, if he was the person behind the leaks and should be celebrated as a hero. Ask the mothers of the journalists who were killed in the leaked video, asked the young children who were killed by the hands of American Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ask the mothers of the young kids who are auctioned by a US government contractor in Afghanistan to the Afghan Army personnel to be raped as the embassy logs reveals., yes rapped. Ask the populations of many countries who now they know with evidence how brutal is their government, how corrupt and how shameful liars are their leaders.

The world and specially Muslims ow a lot to Bradley Manning , Many human rights activists says that Bradley Manning should be an example for every inelegance agent in the US government or any government in the world. The message is simple: if you witnessed wrong doings and crimes of your government, take all the necessarily security measures and leak to wikileaks and let the world know about those criminals. Remember never to tell anyone that you leaked.

Here is the video that Bradley is accused of leaking:




and here is a song against Tunisian President Bin Ali when the revolution and Arab spring started in Tunis:




Many people have startup ideas but they never see the light. GoodorGreatIdea.com tries to change that. The site offers its users to submit startup ideas and rate and disuss it with others. The submitter of the idea earns points depending on his idea rating. As a result, both great ideas and people with great ideas bubble up over a period of time.

The site also helps people form teams around an idea.

GoodorGreatIdea.com is founded by Mohammed Guller , the startup is based in Danville, California, USA.

Preston & Walker Pte Ltd. singapore based investment firm is offering 1 Million USD for the most promising business plan with a global scope.

“Our aim really is to look for the next big thing – whether it is an idea to generate more jobs, to change the way the game is played in a specific industry, to create a more socially responsible world – or even just to inspire us to learn more about ourselves,” said Gareth Walker, who is the company’s founder in a press release.

Participants in the contest cab submit their business plan here, and it will be judged by a team of anonymous millionaire judges. A small registration fee will be charged. For those who are selected, the judges will consider investing a maximum of US $1,000,000 of seed funding, as well as offer help in development of the ideas, serving as mentors to jumpstart the business. Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2011, and winners will be announced on January 31, 2012.

Participants may belong to a start-up or early stage venture.

For more information, including rules and regulations and registration fees, see the competition Web site.

Around 2 years ago Yahoo acquired maktoob the largest Arab portal for around 200 million USD. And people started speculating when an Arabic version of Yahoo Mail will go live.

Few days ago Yahoo! Maktoob announced launching the Arabic version of the already popular Yahoo! Mail. this is a very important step for Yahoo in the Arab world. As some of its Yahoo function in English would not enable Arab user who do not know English to use fully. Now they can!
Google’s gmail is already in Arabic.

Yahoo’s acquisition of Maktoob seems have paid well for the Sunnyvale, CA, USA based company, in Jun, 2011 former CEO of Yahoo shared existing numbers of Yahoo’s operation in the Arab world: Maktoob homepage is the fifth most popular home page on Yahoo with around 50 million unique users compared 30 million unique users when Yahoo.

In terms of revenues in a press release Yahoo said that Yahoo captures 40% of online display advertising around 40 million USD.

Since its acqution of Maktoob, Yahoo launched Yahoo Maktoob homepage and introduced few new services such as OMG in Arabic.

If you follow international tech the news you probably heard that Yahoo Inc is running thorough not easy times and might be looking for a buyer. The company is advised to refocus and chose a newstrategy of what it wants to be and how it can stay relevant after at least 5 years of now.

Tech bloggers and the media in the recent weeks were busy pointing out the conflict of interest TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and his the blog standing as he has founded a Venture Capital fund “Crunch Fund”. As he would favor some startups and companies he funds over the others.

But that was not the only conflict of interest the site suffered from. As it stands in favor of Jews. Israel and it expressed in multiple times its hate to Islam. ArabCrunch is not affiliated to techcrunch.

Michael Arrington says he belongs to the Jewish faith, under his leadership his blog was spreading anti ّslam hate posts and pro Israeli propaganda. Often in contradicting stands in a proof to the world its own bias to Israel and Judaism.

Take a look at this post TechCrunch defends the anti Islam movie the “Fitna” and asks Google not to delete it from Youtube as TC writes “What Google does now will be an interesting test for a company that claims “do no evil” as its company mantra” ….”so ultimately it will be up to Google to decide between free speech and global jihad.”

I watched the movie the Fitna, its full of baseless lies against Islam calling it a terrorist religion. The maker of the movie takes scripts of the Quran out of context and takes some Sheikhes speeches out of context too, to prove that Islam is a religion of terror, that wants to kill all non Muslims. Which is totally untrue and even AlQaeda does not even carry such believe.

So according to TechCrunch publishing a video that is full of lies against Islam is “free speech,” but when it comes to Jews, free speech is not free speech anymore: In one post Arrington asks Facebook to delete groups that question the holocaust. Saying that Facebook is not subject to free speech. “The first amendment doesn’t apply to private companies.” ( an excuse often used by some Jews in tech forums to justify deleting other anti Israeli terrorism)  and goes on to say in this post and other posts, that Facebook should take a stand “firm against racial and religious hatred.”

Even worse, TechCrunch in this post questions whether “Islam the new Satanism?”

WOW, so to Arrington to questions the holocaust is racial and religious hatred but to spread lies about Islam and call it a terrorist and a satanic religion is not hatred against religion and an insult against 2 billion Muslims around the world!

In spreading Israeli propaganda, look at titled: “Hello World: Israel is Out-Classing You in Civil Disobedience” were TechCrunch claims that Israel is the most civilized of all countries and nations since the strikes in Israeli occupied cities are non violent and that the Israeli government did not meet them with violence. forgetting that Israeli forces uses violence against “Israeli citizens” of Palestinian origins (both Christens and Muslims) whenever they demonstrate against unjust policies and discrimination by the Israeli government and society. It forgets that “Israel” killed and kills Palestinian men, woman and children in west bank and Gaza in peaceful demonstrations. It forgets that Israel keeps seizing land from its native inhabitants and keeps building settlements, it forgets that Israel killed around 2,000 civilians in its war in gaza, it forgets that Israel does not recognize the right of millions of Palestinians to return to their homes that Israel has forced them while giving a citizenship to any jew, just because he is a jew even though he nor his grand grand parents never even visited Palestine before. and the list keep going ……..

Some pics of Israeli and American forces terrorism in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon:

image credit

Mohammaed Al dura.

Mohammed Al dura.

Sabra and shateal massacre.

American soldiers murdering Iraqis.

I am not questioning here the holocaust, nor saying all jews are evil, but proving here with evidence that TechCrunch under Arrington has been racist and anti Islam, not that every writer at TechCrunch is from this caliber but the above posts proves what TC coverage was over the years is biased when it comes to jews, Israeli and Muslims.

There are many startups founded by jewish entrepreneurs in US or “Israel” that has been covered by TechCrunch, but is TC biased favoring Jewish and Zionist founded or funded startups compared to others from other religious and political backgrounds? taking into account that most VC’s in Silicon Valley are jews? as TC hatred to Islam and its bias with jews in general is evident in in its posts under Arrington’s leadership. We are “suspicions” what do you think?

#Arrington pic,

US government keeps talking about its values of democracy, freedom in general and freedom of press. But when it comes to exposing their own crimes or publishing views of the “other side”, freedom of press is not anymore free and one sided view should be the only one “beamed.”

A confidential US cables from US embassy in Doha, Qatar where Aljazeera head quarter is located and was published recently on Wikileaks, reveals that Al Jazeera Managing Director Wadah Khanfar has agreed to US government request to delete and altar website content that “disturb” the US government.

The cable talks about the meeting between US government officials with Wadah Khanfar to discuss the latest US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report on Al Jazeera and what the US government considers “disturbing” Al Jazeera website content.

In the meeting US government officials raised the question of an Al Jazeera website piece published listed under the heading “”Special
Coverage”, and containing “Live Testimony Concerning Tal Afar”. “The site opens to an image of bloody sheets of paper
riddled with bullet holes. Viewers click on the bullet holes to access testimony from ten alleged “eye witnesses” who
described recent military operations in Tal Afar. “”

Khanfar said said that in accordance with an earlier promise to US government officials, he had taken a look at the piece and had two images removed (two injured children in hospital beds, and a woman with serious facial injury.)

US government officials also pointed out “that the testimony of a “doctor” in the piece also implied that poison gas had been used on residents of Tal Afar and that the appearance of the piece, in particular the bloody bullet hole icons, came across as “inflammatory and journalistically questionable.” Khanfer said he would have the piece removed. he said “Not immediately, because that would be talked about, but over two or three days,”

(Writer Note): that the US government has launched the war on Iraq under the pretext of dismantling weapons of mass-destruction, reports of US army using such weapons would undermine any legitimacy the US government has at home or aborad.

According to the cable Khanfar said he had told the website staff that in future, when they want to add an item to the “Special Coverage”
section of the website, they should send a draft of the idea
over to his office.

The cable notes that The AJ website is located in a separate building across town. Khanfar added “I don’t say that such things are not going to be repeated on the website, but it is a learning process,”

The cables reveals that Khanfar was preparing a written response to to DIA points about coverage from July,August and September of 2005. The cable says the meeting with Khanfar happened in 10/19/2005. He asked for fixing “the method of how we receive these reports” as he has had found one of them in the fax machine ( Writer note: maybe he feared that other coworkers would read them.)

In the cable US officials told Khanfar that despite an overall decrease in “negative coverage” since February, the month of September
showed a worrying increase in such programming over the
previous month. (Writer: Negative coverage most probably means content that criticize the US government.) These Problems according to the cables “still remain with double-sourcing in Iraq; identifying sources; use of inflammatory language; a failure to balance of extremist views; and the use of “terrorist” tapes. “

Khanfar objected to the to the use of the word “agreement” as used in the August report on the first page, under the heading “Violence in Iraq”, where a sentence reads: “In violation of the station’s agreement several months ago with US officials etc”. “The agreement was that it was a non-paper,” said Khanfar. “As a news organization, we cannot sign agreements of this nature, and to have it here like this in writing is of concern to us.”

Khanfar said there are some mistakes “which we accept and address” but he said that the points are taken out of context noting that during the “AJ broadcasting day, a comment made or position taken by one person may be balanced with a different comment or position later in the same show or later on during the same day.”

As for using “terrorists tapes” Khanfar said “We have always said that we are going to use these tapes and we will continue to use them. The
question is how. None of the tapes are used just like that,” the cable wrote: “meaning that they are reviewed for newsworthiness
and are edited.”

On Concerning the use of inflammatory language, Khanfar said the station’s concern is with the language used by its own reporters and anchors and that would addressed. However the reports’ focus on inflammatory language is on that used by non-Al Jazeera interviewees, he pointed out. saying that AJ can not control what these people say.

Commenting on the reports overall, Khanfar said they lacked balance in that they only focus on the negative. “A report like this should have both sides,” he said. “It does not report the voice we have given to American spokespeople over the recent past,” he said. “We do not always find a military spokesman, for example, but we are trying our best, and we have some success. This is not mentioned.”

Conclusion:

We do not know what made Khanfar resort to US pressure to delete website content that the US government considers as “disturbing”, as ethically, they should not resort to such pressure. What the public knows is that Aljazeera station in Afghanistan and Iraq has been bombed by US forces, and that its former reporter in Afghanistan who interviewed Osama Bin Ladin has been sentenced to prison time in Spain. While its Jordan’s office chief Yasser Abu Hilaala was recently beaten by a Jordanian policeman and civilian uniformed man during AJ coverage of a strike in Amman, and most recently AJ corresponded in Afghanistan has been detained by Israeli forces for suspicion of being a Hamas member, which has no bases as his lawyers say.

In recent years observers notes that AJ coverage of the war in Iraq has been one sided, meaning it is broadcasting US and Iraqi government officials points of views and failing to broadcast the other side, whether it is al Qaeda in Iraq or other Suni insurgent organizations. This confidential cable might have revealed the reason behind the AJ one sided coverage of Iraq in the recent years. What it also reveals is the US government intolerance to other views that would expose their wrong doing and the pressure that the US mounts on independent media.

(Full Cable: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2005/10/05DOHA1765.html )

This is a guest post, views mentioned by guest writers do not necessarily represent those of ArabCrunch. The guest writer here choose his identity to remain anonymous. If you want to write a guest post to ArabCrunch please email us your bio and the topic you want to write about.

#Image by AJC1.

US based National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC) has opened registration to its Fifth Annual High Tech Road Show Las Vegas and Silicon Valley January 11-18, 2012 to both business leaders and high-level government officials from throughout the Arab world.

The trip will include attending International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) NUSACC will also arrange meetings for delegates with senior executives representing some of the biggest names in the tech industry as well as SMEs and government officials. Also it will include visits to high-tech companies, research facilities, and educational institutions in Silicon Valley.

For more info you can visit the site, space in the delegation is limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. fees for participating in the High Tech Road Show is $2,500 per person and it does not include air ticket to the US.

#image credit

Update: facebook responded by saying that the new translation button is powered by Bing translation engin, meaning it supports all the languages the bing supports (about 50) For now, the button is visible only to people who have installed the translations app. If a human translation is also available, they show that, instead. The way it works is that the button shows below user generated content that is in a language that facebook thinks you don’t understand. For example, if you don’t know Chinese, facebook will show the button. In some cases, facebook does not necessarily know 100% if you actually do or don’t know the language. That depends on what language you’re viewing the site in, as well as a few other parameters. facebook is still working on additional things that it’ll implement as it assess the results. Also facebook is not launching this as a response to Google Translate for Google+ it has been on works for a while.

Facebook wants to make sure it does not become myspace and google+ the new facebook. Following Google move to launch a Chrome extention that translate users update and comments on Google+, The largest social network in the world has rolled out a new feature that enables users to translate updates in other languages. The following screen shot is of a user’s news feed who logged in using facebook english interface, facebook is offering to translate an Arabic update into English. (like Google translate the translation from Arabic to English is not so accurate.)

2 days ago Google launched an Chrome extension Google Translate for Google+, that using Google Translate, can automatically translate any post or comment into more than 50 languages. So Facebook is fast to respond.
We do not know what Facebook is using as a translation engine at the back end and to how many languages the feature is available, we will contact facebook and update you here.

Tomorrow is Eid Al Fitr in most Muslims countries. In this occasion I send my greetings (see my Video below) to All Muslims worldwide and specially AC’s Muslim reader: Happy Eid, Eid Mubarak and May Allah accept from me and you. If you are not Muslim then I also wish you a happy Tuesday  :).

What Is Eid Ul Fitr?

Muslims celebrate ‘Eid ul Fitr on the first day of Shawwal — the tenth month of the Islamic calendar, following the month of Ramadhan (in which the revelation started and ended 20+ years later, and which is also the month of fasting). Following a Lunar calendar, Muslims mark the beginning of the month with the sighting of the new crescent.

The month long fasting of Ramadan culminates into the festival of ‘Eid-ul-Fitr (the Festival of Fast-Breaking). It is a festival of joy, family reunion and thanksgiving to Almighty God. The giving of a special charity for this occasion is obligatory. This is known as Zakat. Muslims dress in holiday attire, attend a special community prayer in the morning, and visit friends and relatives. Greetings of “‘Eid mubarak,” or “a blessed ‘Eid” are exchanged.
Eid Ul Fitr Prayer

:

Allaho-Akber, Allaho-Akber. La ila-ha ill-lal-lah. Allaho-Akber, Allaho-Akber. Wa-lilahill hamd. 

(Allah is great, Allah is great. There is no god but Allah. Allah is great, Allah is great. And all praises are for Allah).

Here are some links to websites that helps you know more about Islam:

Islam Guide.

Islam Web

Islamic Tube

Just Quran

Best Islamic Sites

Sisters Magazine

#image by creativesam,

Hacktivists group Anonymous has organized a protest against USA San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART ) for shutting down cell phone service to four stations in downtown San Francisco in response to a planned protest. The protest was planned against killing an innocents man by BART police.

EFF called the action Pulling a Mubarak in San Francisco. Hunsi Mubarak shut down cell phone connection and the internet during the Egyptian revolution.

So here we go Arab Spring has reached USA with governments in US emulating Arab Tyrants tactics this time at home , for decades the backing for dictators was abroad .

here is the live stream: follow the protest live on Twitter hashtag #opBART



Here is another feed:



Live video for mobile from Ustream


Below is surveillance video from the Civic Center BART platform on July 3 when Charles Blair Hill was shot.



Twitter finally has enabled right to left writing, which is great news for languages such as Arabic Hebrew and Farsi.

Before this feature when writing in Arabic in Twitter, the tweeted message used to mixx words togather, in many times changing the meaning of the tweet. This case gets worse when adding an english word.

Now, this problem is solved and Arabic tweets can be read correctly.

It is worth mentioning that Google+ had right to left support since day one of its launch.

As in most countries in the world Ramadan is one day to start. a new startup has emerged to provide Islamic mobile apps for all devices. which would be handy to help Muslims during the holly month.

Islamic Appstore provide Muslims direct access to thousands of Islam-oriented contents in different sections such as The Holy Quran, Ahadith, Prayers, Supplications, Ringtones, Wallpapers, nasheed… All what users need is to connect to www.islamicapp.com using their mobile, tablet or Smartphone browsers and start downloading various contents.

Islamic appstore is also available for Developers as they can start publishing their contents and apps using the developer portal.

Hacktivist groups Lulz Security and Anonymous have issued a statement  asking the public to boycott PayPal for refusing to release Wikileaks funds.

The statement also slammed the FBI for arrest raids against sympathizers and in not differentiating between “those who are involved in ethical, modern cyber operations.”

Lulz Security and Anonymous are asking the public close their account and use other alternatives and tweet pictures of your account closure.

Here is the full statement:

Dear PayPal, its customers, and our friends around the globe

3. This is an official communiqué from Anonymous and Lulz Security in the name of AntiSec.
4.
5. In recent weeks, we’ve found ourselves outraged at the FBI’s willingness to arrest and threaten those who are involved in ethical, modern cyber operations. Law enforcement continues to push its ridiculous rules upon us – Anonymous “suspects” may face a fine of up to 500,000 USD with the addition of 15 years’ jailtime, all for taking part in a historical activist movement. Many of the already-apprehended Anons are being charged with taking part in DDoS attacks against corrupt and greedy organizations, such as PayPal.
6.
7. What the FBI needs to learn is that there is a vast difference between adding one’s voice to a chorus and digital sit-in with Low Orbit Ion Cannon, and controlling a large botnet of infected computers. And yet both of these are punishable with exactly the same fine and sentence.
8.
9. In addition to this horrific law enforcement incompetence, PayPal continues to withhold funds from WikiLeaks, a beacon of truth in these dark times. By simply standing up for ourselves and uniting the people, PayPal still sees it fit to wash its hands of any blame, and instead encourages and assists law enforcement to hunt down participants in the AntiSec movement.
10.
11. Quite simply, we, the people, are disgusted with these injustices. We will not sit down and let ourselves be trampled upon by any corporation or government. We are not scared of you, and that is something for you to be scared of. We are not the terrorists here: you are.
12.
13. We encourage anyone using PayPal to immediately close their accounts and consider an alternative. The first step to being truly free is not putting one’s trust into a company that freezes accounts when it feels like, or when it is pressured by the U.S. government. PayPal’s willingness to fold to legislation should be proof enough that they don’t deserve the customers they get. They do not deserve your business, and they do not deserve your respect.
14.
15. Join us in our latest operation against PayPal – tweet pictures of your account closure, tell us on IRC, spread the word. Anonymous has become a powerful channel of information, and unlike the governments of the world, we are here to fight for you. Always.
16.
17. Signed, your allies,
18.
19. Lulz Security (unvanned)
20. Anonymous (unknown)
21. AntiSec (untouchable)

Robert Murdoch’s Newscorp owns many influential media outlets in UK, USA, Australia and other countries in the world. Many believe that no prime minister in England can be elected without his newspapers and media outlets’s blessings, that might also be true for any U.S president. His Fox news station in is one of the most followed news stations in America and its is known to support Zionist agendas and in growing islamophobia sentiment across the U.S.

But that empire is collapsing after the phone hacking scandal of his U.K news of the world has made against thousands of people, now the tide is turing on News corp.

Public outrage against News corp illegal practice is growing, and the world is realizing the extend of media power that is controlled by one family. Many now call to boycott news corp and its publications.

MurdochAlert is a Firefox add-on warns you whenever you visit one of the 100+ Murdoch Family-controlled websites. The add on says If you’re not ready to block them all, MurdochAlert can warn you instead. “Also it’s handy for identifying news sources controlled by the Murdoch Family. MurdochAlert warns you whenever you visit one of the 100+ Murdoch Family-controlled websites. If you’re not ready to block them all, MurdochAlert can warn you instead. Also it’s handy for identifying news sources controlled by the Murdoch Family. “

The browser add-ons developer explains why it was developed by saying:

“NewsCorp agents in multiple countries have been arrested for hacking into the phones and computers of at least thousands of innocent people. Since the Murdoch family controls 100+ high-traffic domains, it is difficult for average users to know which sites could potentially place them at risk. 

MurdochAlert identifies the domains that may place users at risk for Murdoch-related hacking. MurdochAlert shows a bottom warning box whenever you visit a Murdoch-controlled sited. “

As for Chrome there “Murdoch Block”, a chrome browser add-one that Blocks websites owned and operated by Newscorp.

If you need a list of websites controlled by newscorp of the world you can see the list here.

Via ArabCrunch Arabic Edition.

Wonder why the U.S Government attacked Wikileaks? they claimed it is national security, but the truth is that they did not want the world to know about their crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, whether it is the number of civilians including children and women the US army and the CIA killed, or to know about illegal torture and rape happing inside CIA and US, Pro US Afghani and PRo US Iraqi detention center, Or how the CIA and US state department conspire with other Muslim and Non-Muslim dictators against people and other countries.

To hide their crimes and mislead the public about the truth the U.S Defense Department extreme technology arm “Darpa” is developing its Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program. “It’s an attempt to get better at both detecting and conducting propaganda campaigns on social media. SMISC has two goals. First, the program needs to help the military better understand what’s going on in social media in real time — particularly in areas where troops are deployed. Second, Darpa wants SMISC to help the military play the social media propaganda game itself.” According to wired, SMISC algorithms will be aimed at discovering and tracking the “formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes)” on social media.

The requested SMISC project also needs to be able to seek out “persuasion campaign structures and influence operations” developing across the social sphere.
SMISC will not be about flagging negative content about US and it s army but also to help it in counter-messaging.

SMISC would be used in the environment in which [the military] operates” and where it “conducts operations. Which means according to wired the system will be directed to non U.S social media communities.

Now according to The U.S Smith-Mundt Act pointing propaganda campaigns at US audiences is illegal.

However, this program will definitely cross that line, as with the power of Retweets, reshare on facebook and Google plus. U.S army propaganda will eventually reach US domestic audience and thus mislead them about the conduct of U.S foreign policy.

This is not the first time that a U.S government body has used social media for propaganda purposes. There many incidents that are reported in the media like this one and others that no body outside the spy circle would know about.
Another example, is In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, has invested cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. Then Visible “scores” each post, labeling it as positive or negative, mixed or neutral. It examines how influential a conversation or an author is. Finally, Visible gives users a chance to tag posts, forward them to colleagues and allow them to response through a web interface.

Also the CIA and Google (shame on Google!) has invested in Recorded Future that scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents — both present and still-to-come.
While it is morally incorrect to lie to anyone and mislead them whether they are Americans or non Americans, we humbly ask congressmen, law makers, activists, net freedom organizations, executive, entrepreneurs and geeks to take action and use Smith-Mundt Act to end US army and the CIA online and social media propaganda efforts because based on that act it is illegal, the public has right to know the truth and free flow of information should be granted. Not lies and deception. to coverup crimes.

The interest in learning Arabic in the world has increased in the last decade, specially in in USA. There many reasons behind “why” many are learning or interested in learning the language. Some are Muslim reverts who do not know Arabic and want to learn it in order to better understand Quran and Hadith. Some are CIA/FBI agents who want to learn it for their spying, interrogation job, or when coordinating with other tyrant Arab secret police agents. Some work with the US army and want to learn it to deal with Arabs in occupied areas such as Iraq. Others are Middle East university stream students and want to learn it as it is part of their studies. and there are others who are not Muslims and who just want to learn it because they are fascinated with Arabic and the Arab world.

Whatever was the reason, Arabic Coach provides the platform to connect anyone who wants to learn Arabic from around the world with native Arab teachers from the Arab world.

The site offers those who want to study Arabic the option to browse teachers see their profile, video intro and ratting, then they can schedule virtual teaching sessions with the desired teachers, conducted via Skype or Yahoo messenger.

Each teacher can determine his own hourly rate. in which the student has to pay, Arabic Coach takes 20% fee from each teacher. Teachers are provided with a suggested curriculum, lesson plans, and assessment tools, but they have the freedom to use their own methods. All teachers go through a screening session before their profile goes live.

Apple has resonated to Israeli demand to remove 3rd Palestinian Intifada iPhone app from the iPhone app store.

“Israel today” is reporting that “Israeli” Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein sent a letter to Apple requesting the app be removed, and a day later it was. he said “By its action, Apple has proven, as Facebook did, that it shares the values that oppose violence, incitement and terrorism.”

We did not look at the app, but like the 3rd palestinina intifada page we do not think it called for terrorism, with this move Apple proves that free speech and the right for palestinians to be free from Israeli occupation are not granted at Apple.

Syrian animation startup OX Animation has launched Anmish, a do-it-your-self video animation creation.

On Anmish users can choose from various ready-made collection of caricatures of famous figures in the world to create animations. After choosing the caricature you can record a voice over and play with the different emotions for the character such as close up shot, medium shot, full shot, Happy, sad and any, hit save and your done.

Here is an animation for Hillary Clinton I created and one for Gaddafi. It would be helpful if OX Animation add embed option to the videos.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, Chairman of Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) met with Eric Schmidt Executive Chairman of Google at the George V hotel, Paris.

According to a press release from KHC, AlWaleed and Schmidt discussed business and economic issues. The two also discussed Prince Alwaleed’s investments in the US in light of being the largest foreign investor there. Also, on the agenda of discussions was future potential business cooperation between KHC and Google in the technology field.

The meeting was attended by Jamal Khashoggi, General Manager of Prince Alwaleed’s new news channel, Heba Fatani, Senior Executive Manager, Corporate Communications Department and Dr. Khaled Almansour Advisor to prince.

Prince AlWaleed is the second largest shareholder in News Corp and also the beneficial owner of approximately 7 percent of News Corporation’s Class B Common Stock.

Via ArabianBusiness, Thanks to @lynnzov

The U.S government suffers from “Dissociative identity disorder,” or multi-persona disorder. Publicly they talk about democracy, human rights, liberty and the right of nations to rule themselves and decide their future . Yet in practice the consecutive US administrations “Democrats or Republican” have been the historical backers of brutal dictatorship and police states in the Muslim world and non-Muslim world, alike.

From Tunisia to Egypt, the U.S governments has backed both regimes, in a recent Wikileaks leaked U.S diplomatic cables that provide a glimpses of the relationship of both oppressive: the FBI has been providing training to Egypt’s state security ‘torturers’ the state security and investigative service (SSIS).

Historically U.S governments have been supporting the state of “Israel” for decades in monetary funding that are being used to build new settlements on land that has been confiscated from the indigenous inhabitants of the land, and in advanced weapons used to kill Palestinians.
Yet in another evidence that the U.S government “under Bush or Obama “call for democracy is baseless the U.S government did not acknowledge the outcome of the last free parliamentary elections in west bank and Gaza!

In Iraq the government of the United States of America killed 2 million Muslims and Christian Iraqis in the name of freeing them ( according to International human right organizations) . And yet after the Iraqi resistance taught them the real lesson of freedom, they started withdrawing ( not finished withdrawing there are still thousands of US troops in Iraq) their troops and yet another deception, they handed the occupation to 100,000 or so of international mercenary forces and to a poppet Iraqi government and army.

So to conceal all their crimes against Muslims and Arabs and to help them win the propaganda war or what they call the “battle of hearts and minds.” Officials of the U.S states dep. are joining Twitter to “engage” “ it is to deceive” the world specially Muslims.

The latest U.S state dep., engagement (deception) effort with Muslims and Arabs is via launching an official Arabic account @USAbilAraby which its first tweet says:

“U.S state dep. acknowledge the role social media plays in the Arab world and we would like to be part of your discussion”

and that discussion to them are now in the forms of Tweets to deceive the Arab public opinion about what the U.S government is doing, as the account was tweeting about the need of change in Egypt praising the Egyptian revolution and so forth….

Oh Ya we believe you!

Political propaganda has entered a new chapter today, it is now Propaganda 2.0. courtesy of Hillary Clinton – Secretary of hypocrisy and miss-leading the public .

As Egypt is going under massive demonstrations, Wikileaks the number one leaks sites has started posting US State dep. cables about Egypt.

The cables include:

• Torture and police brutality in Egypt are endemic and widespread
• Thousands of Egyptian military officers trained by US.
• “The Egyptian ‘people blame America’ now for their plight under Mubarak.”
• Military will ensure transfer of power…”
• Strong cooperation between the FBI and Egypt’s State Security Investigative
• Service (SSIS)

Here is a link to the full Cairo Cable Index

In a press release landed to AC, US department of state said its special envoy for International energy Affairs, David Glowyn signed with the Director General of the National Resources Authority for the Government of Jordan Dr. Maher Hijazin a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Shale Gas resources.

Under the MOU cooperation will include and not limited to, a series of workshops where U.S Geological Survey (UGSGS) would conduct as assessment of Jordan’s Shale Gas potential and visits from the Jordanian side to US counter part in the industry.

Jordan is poor in its energy resources, it exports all its oil consumption and big chunk of its Gas consumption.

Shale Gas is natural gas produced from shale. Developing Gas Shale industry in Jordan will help the Kingdom’s energy sector as well as its economy which spend around 2 billion USD a year on importing oil.

#image credits

F.B.I. director Robert Mueller III travled to Silicon Valley, Tuesday, to meet with top executives of several tech companies including Facebook and Google about a proposal that would make it easier to  spy on Internet users.

According to NY Times report, under Mueller’s proposal, ” firms would have to design systems to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages. Services based overseas would have to route communications through a server on United States soil where they could be wiretapped.”

ArabCrunch urges Silicon Valley companies to refuse cooperation with the F.B.I. in this matter, 100s of millions of Non-Americans rely on Google and Facebook for their daily internet life and these 100s of millions of people did not elect the government that wants to spy on their communications  and on what they say online.

The F.B.I. will not use wiretapping of criminals from U.S soil  only. But also opposition to its occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq,  and other countries in the world. Not to mention with the US government treatment of Wikileaks  and other free media would raise huge suspicion that  the FBI would wiretap journalists and bloggers like us in order to identify and suppress source of leaks of government criminal activities in USA and around the world.

NYTimes says that the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires phone and broadband network access providers  like Verizon and Comcast to make sure they can immediately comply when presented with a court wiretapping order.

As for the 100s of millions of non-americans would there be a court order to wirtetape anyone? we doubt.

It is really ironic that Hillary Clinton few months ago expressed concerns of wiretapping requests  to BlackBerry devices by governments in the Arab region, while its government is pursuing this on its soil. Preashing sometime overseas and do something else home!

#Robert S. Mueller III and Gorge Bush image from the White house archive.