UKRAINE Puppet State 'Ministry of Truth': Calling On Warrior-Trolls

Facebook frontline: Kiev calls up 'online army' amid information war Published time: February 25, 2015 04:40 A day after Ukraine announced it is joining the information war by creating an 'online army,' the Information Policy Ministry entered into its first controversy. It has reportedly called on bloggers to create accounts to spread information useful to Kiev. The ministry has begun accepting applications from people wanting to join the online army. Once users are registered, they reportedly receive instructions on how to proceed. One of the users published the first set of instructions he allegedly received from the “internet army headquarters.” The task outline is to create as many fake accounts on social media as possible without raising suspicion. The instructions explain that it is preferable to set up a new email account that uses a Western server. It also advises to set up new Twitter, Facebook, and VKontakte accounts (the Russian equivalent of Facebook). The instructions also detail that users must use real names, be careful not to add too many friends (in order to seem legitimate), and select their geographic location to be in eastern Ukraine or Crimea. In order for the account to seem more authentic, users are encouraged to write a few personal posts and comment on non-political issues. However, another instruction was distributed to bloggers on the same day. It gave the same blueprint for creating a fake account in Crimea or Donbass, but claimed that is the way “information agents of Kremlin work.” The fact that two versions of the text were being passed around received some negative comments on the Facebook page where in the information was published. Vesti, a Ukrainian media source, reported that blogger Aleksander Baraboshko – who is an aide to Ukrainian Information Policy Minister Yury Stets – said the version regarding “information agents of the Kremlin” is the correct one, while the other version may have been sent out to some users due to a computer glitch.  [Wow, in attacking Russians, they're constantly showing themselves up as obviously manipulative and rather vulgar.] Ukraine’s Information Policy Ministry was created in late 2014 to pursue information security in the country. Journalists dubbed the new institution the ‘Ministry of Truth’ after the propaganda ministry in George Orwell's novel '1984.' In early December, the ministry announced the creation of an information warfare department. “You don’t need trolls and bots to deliver truthful information to those communicating on the internet. It is obvious for social network veterans,” Tass news agency quoted Ukraine’s information policy minister, Yury Stets, as saying back in January. “To do so we need to unite people influential in social media and they will tell the truth to everyone who reads them.” [Ukraine's top trolls & bots are MFA:  Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, as well as NATO & US Embassy UKR (Pyatt)]. These tactics follow Stets’ official announcement on Sunday, which revealed plans to create a national TV channel called ‘Ukrainian Tomorrow,’ which would broadcast to an international audience. [How about 'Ukraine Pillaged'?] Ukraine is taking the information war very seriously. On Saturday, Kiev said it is stripping more than 100 Russian media outlets of their accreditation. The list includes TASS, Rossiya Segodnya, and all Russian TV channels except Dozhd, according to government spokesperson Yelena Gitlyanskaya. The outlets will reportedly be without accreditation until the end of the Ukraine conflict. Russia has criticized Kiev’s decision. “The openly discriminatory decision by Ukraine's parliament to strip Russian mass media of accreditation at the bodies of state power is an extension of the policy to clear the country's media space of alternative points of view,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a statement on Saturday.  [Lavrov's really cool.  Seems really savvy & laid back.] The decision comes as a “backdrop to the latest resolutions (the Minsk peace agreement) by the Normandy Quartet's leaders” and “calls into question Kiev's interest in a peace settlement,” Lavrov added. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Saturday that Moscow will not respond to Kiev’s actions by limiting the work of Ukrainian media. “Russia is a country where media activity is regulated by law, and where Russian and foreign journalists have equal rights to obtain information,” he said.  [The Russian govt is actually a real govt that knows how to conduct itself with dignity, unlike the clowns on a string in Ukraine.] SOURCE: http://on.rt.com/vjbnul COMMENT Saw an article about this elsewhere yesterday, but I dismissed the call for social media trolls as the effort of some desperate 'lone wolf' of the Ukraine troll world, as the site I checked out was registered on a hidden identity basis. Ukraine 'Ministry of Truth' can put lipstick on a pig all it likes, there's no hiding the truth from people: s  Source:  thicktoast.com Read about United Arab Emirates & US weapons to Ukraine: "Nothing says you want peace like shopping for weapons from the same country arming ISIS." http://www.thicktoast.com/uae-arms-kiev/

UAE-Funded Canada to train Egyptian police

Canada to train Egyptian police #EgyptTurmoil As part of new agreement, Canada will be directly supporting the same ministry detaining Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohammed Fahmy Tom Stevenson Monday 26 January 2015 18:58 GMT Last update: Friday 30 January 2015 1:00 GMT CAIRO - On 14 and 15 January, Canada's Foreign Minister John Baird visited Egypt with the intention of securing the release of imprisoned Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Fahmy, a dual Canadian-Egyptian national. The minister's team was unsure its effort would be successful, but remained cautiously optimistic, Baird's officials told Canadian journalists in the days leading up to the trip. In the end, they were unsuccessful: Baird sat down with Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry for talks he described as “fruitful”, but his planned meeting with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was cancelled and Fahmy remains in jail. While in Cairo, however, the minister announced a set of new co-operation agreements between Canada and the Egyptian government, which Baird's officials told journalists were designed to “support stability and prosperity in Egypt”. The plans ranged from training for Egyptian diplomats to funding for local small-to-medium sized businesses, but one of the agreements stood out. With funding from the United Arab Emirates, Canada has agreed to send a team of Canadian police officers to Egypt to train their Egyptian counterparts, and to receive Egyptian police officers for training at the Canadian Police College in the capital, Ottawa. This “trilateral initiative to support the professionalization and skills development of the Egyptian police”, as Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development described the project, means that Canada will be directly supporting staff from Egypt's Interior Ministry, the same ministry that is currently responsible for detaining Fahmy. Adam Hodge, Baird's press secretary, told Middle East Eye this week that initiatives like the Canada-UAE-Egypt police collaboration programmes "will help to encourage stability, security and economic growth in the country". [Ignore the cheer squad] "Minister Baird’s most recent visit to Egypt allowed him to advance Canadian foreign policy interests and support social and economic development, while providing the opportunity to again raise consular issues, particularly concerning the journalist Mohamed Fahmy," Hodge said. [Ignore the cheer squad] Fahmy has been held for over a year, alongside Al Jazeera colleagues Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed. He and Greste were sentenced to seven years' imprisonment while Mohamed was sentenced to 10 years. The three will face retrial later this year. In a statement released while Baird was in Cairo, Fahmy criticised the Canadian government's approach to securing his release. “I do believe that Prime Minister [Stephen] Harper could do more to obtain my release if he were to directly intervene in our case,” Fahmy said. Baird finally met with Sisi at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, where he “raised the topic [of Fahmy's detention] over dinner”, Canada's CTV reported.  [Placing considerable political pressure on Sisi?  LOL] Fahmy's family members had expressed hope that he might be included on the list of 584 prisoners expected to be pardoned on the four-year anniversary of Egypt's 25 January revolution. Those pardons have yet to be issued, however, and Fahmy remains behind bars. http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/canada-train-egyptian-police-1589938575 COMMENT Canadian politicians have to be the most brazenly disgusting of the whole bunch.  Completely shameless. Only dirtbags go to Davos, I've decided. Politicians don't care about journalists. Everything they do centres around the desires of corporate masters. UAE is certainly in the thick of things. The Sisi government must be a USA, Israeli, Saudi Arabian & UAE backed government. And Baird, he's selling his snake oil all over the Middle East.

CANADA / UAE NUKE DEAL

CANADA / UAE NUKE DEAL Ottawa ends UAE spat with nuclear deal CAMPBELL CLARK OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail Published Tuesday, Sep. 18 2012, 6:13 PM EDT Last updated Tuesday, Sep. 18 2012, 9:40 PM EDT The Harper government has sealed the end of its spat with the United Arab Emirates with an agreement to sell the Gulf country nuclear technology. Relations between Canada and the UAE blew up into a tense dispute two years ago when Ottawa refused to provide more landing rights for Emirati airlines, and the Persian Gulf nation responded by abruptly booting Canada out of the staging base used for troops and equipment in transit to Afghanistan. But it was all smiles on Parliament Hill Tuesday, when Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and his Emirati counterpart, Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, announced a new nuclear deal, spoke of each other as friends and declared relations healed. Or almost healed: The UAE cut the hefty fees for the visas Canadians have required to travel there since the spat, but didn’t drop the visa requirements completely. The deal that marks the end of the spat is a nuclear co-operation agreement, which opens the door for Canadian firms to sell nuclear technology and material, such as uranium, to the UAE. “It also represents the trust between our two countries,” Mr. Al Nahyan said. The Emirates, a major oil exporter, are installing four 1,400-megawatt, South Korean-designed nuclear reactors to supply electricity to the country, and are seeking to expand the list of potential suppliers to its nuclear industry. Mr. Al Nahyan pointed to his country as a “model” for the region in its use of nuclear power – contrasting his country’s plans to build civilian reactors with international suspicions that Iran is using its nuclear industry to develop weapons. “It’s unfortunate that other countries – and here, obviously I’m talking about Iran – do not look at the bigger picture when it comes to civil nuclear programs,” he said. Between Canada and the UAE, the deal marked a step in Mr. Baird’s lengthy efforts to repair ties – that he played a part in straining. It was Mr. Baird, as transport minister, who lobbied the cabinet to refuse the UAE’s demand for more flights to Canada for their Emirates and Etihad airlines; he argued it would undercut Air Canada and Canadian jobs. The UAE responded by booting Canada out of the staging base, Camp Mirage, used for Afghanistan operations – and even refusing to allow Defence Minister Peter MacKay to fly over its airspace. The dispute also created a rift at the cabinet table with Mr. MacKay, who argued Ottawa should make concessions to the UAE on landing rights because of defence co-operation with the UAE. On Tuesday, Mr. MacKay arrived to shake hands with Mr. Al Nahyan after the two foreign ministers held their news conference in the foyer of the House of Commons. Mr. Baird told reporters that the two countries “obviously had a difficult point in our relationship,” but that he and Mr. Al Nahyan have sought to repair ties. The two men have met several times, and this was Mr. Al Nahyan’s second trip to Ottawa in a year. He credited his “friend,” Mr. Baird, with improving the relationship. [LOL.  Baird sounds like such a suck job.] But some of the the effects of the spat still linger. When asked about landing rights for Emirati airlines, Mr. Al Nahyan said that is “still important” but that improvement in the overall relationship will help the two countries get through it. He said his country will reduce the visa fees Canadians now pay to go to the UAE – $1,000 for a six-month, multiple-entry visa, and $250 for a 30-day visa. An aide said those fees will be reduced by a third. But the UAE didn’t drop the visa requirement, and Mr. Al Nahyan appeared to suggest the UAE is waiting for Canada to make other concessions before the visa requirements are dropped. “I hope that’s only one step toward relaxing the visa regime between our two countries,” he said. SOURCE http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-ends-uae-spat-with-nuclear-deal/article4552179/ COMMENT Hilarious.  Fell out 2010. Iran gets a bashing, of course.  But that's standard. So Canada's passion for the Middle East isn't just about arms sales; it's about nukes as well.