mintpressnews--2020-01-13--During Yemen’s Annual Martyr Week, Anti-American Sentiment Prevails

SANA ’ A , SADAA , YEMEN — As the ongoing war and blockade against their country enters its sixth year , Yemenis are commemorating the annual Martyr Week amid an increasing feeling of hatred and resentment towards the United States , a feeling never seen at this level in the war-torn country .
In Yemen , a country far from the prosperous and bustling United States , the size of cemeteries has increased dramatically in the past five years , with new burial sites springing up to house victims of the weapons supplied by western countries , particularly by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the blockade , hunger , and disease that have accompanied them .
Ebtisam al-Harazi is just four-years-old , but as she stands atop her father ’ s grave amid a meadow of martyrs ’ shrines , she knows who sleeps in the soil beneath her and the type of weapon that killed her father .
“ This my dad , ” she says , as she kisses a colorful portrait of her father perched upon a coffin-shaped mound beyond a low stone wall .
Ebtisam ’ s father was killed by a Saudi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the al-Sultan zone in the Old City of Yemen ’ s capital Sana ’ a in July of 2015 .
The attack killed and injured dozens of residents and caused tremendous damage to the city , built long before the United States even existed as a nation .
Fatemah , Ebtisam ’ s widowed mother , packed flowers to place at her husband ’ s memorial site , “ It is the martyr ’ s anniversary .
We come here to share old times with our loved ones , ” she told MintPress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become a tradition since 2015 when the war against their home began .
This particular memorial sits in 50th district , in the middle of Sana ’ a , and is the resting place of more than 1,000 men , women , and children killed by the Saudi-led coalition along with countless bodies of fighters killed in clashes against coalition forces .
The shrines are ensconced with ornamental flowers and small trees planted by visitors who have come to honor the deceased .
The annual feast of the Martyr Week , an important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kicked off in Yemen last Wednesday .
It has become , for Fatimah and other Yemenis , a somber occasion amid a suffocating blockade , the threat of epidemics , rubble , tears , and the fear of the may lie ahead .
For eight consecutive days , residents in northern Yemen commemorate those that have been killed by the Saudi-led coalition .
Program include held exhibitions , public festivals , and meetings where victim ’ s families discuss how they cope with the war .
To keep the history of the martyrs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ victims to show sympathy .
Food and gifts are distributed in abundance to orphans and widows and groups of officials visit graveyards housing victims of the war .
There are more than 480 such graveyards spread over several regions in Yemen according to Martyr ’ s Foundation in Sana ’ a .
At least 450 exhibitions have been opened in the country .
Public streets , city walls , schools , and government buildings in all districts are flooded with millions of flyers and posters bearing the images of civilians and fighters alike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Faces stare down from billboards on every highway , and the radios play Zawamil — patriotic battle hymns — day and night .
While national TV broadcasts songs that glorify their sacrifices and threaten revenge .
“ The exhibition shows something terrible but inspiring .
Through the exhibition , people will understand how cruel the Saudi-led Coalition war supported by the U.S. is , and they will also know how brave and strong Yemenis are , ” 70-year-old Ali told MintPress as he sought out his son ’ s photo to show to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his son was in the midst of crowded collage of pictures hanging on the wall of the al-Janoub Martyrs exhibition in the 70th district south of Sana ’ a .
In Sadaa , which lies in Yemen ’ s north near the Saudi border , dozens of exhibitions and memorials symbolize society ’ s deep gratitude towards the country ’ s war heroes and martyrs .
The ancient city , among the world ’ s oldest human-carved landscapes , has been devastated since Saudi Arabia declared it a military zone .
Inside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flow in an organized way to see more than 11,0000 photos of the fighters , women and children who lost their lives in the war In the exhibition hall , videos show rescuers recovering children from rubble , massive scenes of destruction , martyrs reading their commandments and asking survivors to remain steadfast against Saudi Arabia , and a svelte , meek-looking man stepping up to a lectern in Washington .
“ The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia launched military operations in Yemen , ” he says .
The man in the video was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saudi ambassador to the United States .
The clip showed the first time Saudi Arabia ’ s war against Yemen was officially announced , just hours after the first bombs were dropped on the city .
For most Yemenis , the Saudis ’ choice of Washington as the place to announce the war had meaning .
They saw it as a deliberate signaling of complicity between the United States and Saudi Arabia .
Al-Jubeir emphasized in his speech that the Kingdom had consulted very closely and very intensely with the United States before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a city in the far northwestern stretches of Yemen , where a U.S. laser-guided bomb dropped by a Saudi Arabia struck a school bus on August 9 , 2018 , a large crater is still visible near a fruit-and-vegetable stand in the suq .
A brick wall a few yards from the scene features large hand-painted letters in both English and Arabic that proclaim , “ America Kills Yemeni Children.
” More than 100,000 people have been killed in Yemen just since January 2016 according to a new report by the Armed Conflict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , however , the number is likely to be closer to one million if deaths from epidemics , diseases , hunger and from fighters who have been killed from both the resistance and local mercenaries are taken into account .
Ebtisam ’ s father , who spoke English fluently with American accent , was a tour guide until 2014 , he had a shop near Bab al-Yaman ( The Gate of Yemen ) in the Old City of Sana ’ a which sold the famed Yemeni agates , a metamorphosed and hardened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a gemstone in southern Arabia since ancient times .
In 2015 , the shop was closed due to a series of attacks that hit the ancient city over with over 30 airstrikes .
According to his family , he was a jovial man with many friends from the United States and Britain .
In the sitting room of their small home , three charming photos once hung on the wall .
The photos showed Ebtisam ’ s father posing with his American friends .
After he was killed , the family replaced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they lost and banner adorned with the now-infamous slogan , “ Death to America.
” “ That was before the war .
Yes , we had liked the United States , but now , there is nothing we hate more than this country , ” said Fatimah .
Regrettably , this is the prevailing mood in the north of Yemen .
Most of the area ’ s residents are keen to express feelings of hatred towards the leaders of the United States .
Phrases deriding the U.S. adorn everything ; photos of victims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , car showrooms , and even shopping malls .
Before the war began , the Yemeni community , especially in northern Yemen , was friendly and most people had favorable attitudes towards Americans .
American tourists , businessmen and diplomats were a regular fixture in Yemen .
In Sana ’ a , local residents warmly welcomed American visitors to their salons by pouring a glass of single-malt scotch or sharing food and fun times .
But now , Sana ’ a is embracing “ Death to America ” as their slogan , scrawled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ walls .
Thanks , in large part , to U.S. policy in Yemen .
Everything has changed as the hate against foreigners , particularly the leaders in the United States , has rapidly increased throughout Yemen because of western involvement in Saudi Arabia ’ s war or from the death of innocents killed by drones under the pretext of targeting al-Qaeda .
Policies that predate the Trump administration .
Although Yemen has long suffered from instability , warring tribal factions and a long-standing al-Qaeda presence , foreigners including Americans , were welcomed in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Now , they are seen with suspicion and are treated with caution for fear that they may be spies .
Even aid workers are not immune .
“ The slogan Death to America , as we see it , is not against the people of the United States but against the U.S. ’ policies in our district , ” a Houthi leader said as he gave a speech in front of a large audience at a Martyr Week exhibition .
Most Yemenis differentiate between the Americans who support Saudi Arabia and those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ angry families who have lost loved ones in Saudi-coalition attacks , it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate .
The United States claims that it does not make targeting decisions for the Saudi Coalition .
But it does support Coalition operations through training , arms sales , the refueling of Saudi combat aircraft , and the sharing of intelligence .
Those arms sales include precision-guided missiles as well as precision guidance parts used on the warplanes blamed for civilians casualties in the Saudi-UAE ’ s military campaign in Yemen .
Furthermore , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the war and the economic blockade against their country , Yemenis have been forced to reinforce their relationship with Iran , one of the only countries that has been consistently outspoken in its opposition to the war .
Now , at the annual feasts of Martyr Week , photos of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis , who were assassinated in a U.S. airstrike at Baghdad International Airport on in a January 3 , are proudly displayed .
Ten of thousands of Yemenis staged a symbolic funeral ceremony in the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sana ’ a and Sadaa to commemorate Soleimani and Muhandis , chanting that their blood is neither is Iranian or Iraqi , but rather belongs to all freedom-loving nations targeted by the United States .
Feature photo | A Yemeni man offers prayers at the grave of his relatives who were killed during Yemen ’ s ongoing conflict , during “ martyr ’ s week ” at a cemetery in Sana ’ a , Yemen .
Hani Mohammed | AP Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist .
He covers the war in Yemen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yemeni media .

SANA’A, SADAA, YEMEN — As the ongoing war and blockade against their country enters its sixth year, Yemenis are commemorating the annual Martyr Week amid an increasing feeling of hatred and resentment towards the United States, a feeling never seen at this level in the war-torn country.
In Yemen, a country far from the prosperous and bustling United States, the size of cemeteries has increased dramatically in the past five years, with new burial sites springing up to house victims of the weapons supplied by western countries, particularly by the United States, as well as the blockade, hunger, and disease that have accompanied them.
Ebtisam al-Harazi is just four-years-old, but as she stands atop her father’s grave amid a meadow of martyrs’ shrines, she knows who sleeps in the soil beneath her and the type of weapon that killed her father. “This my dad,” she says, as she kisses a colorful portrait of her father perched upon a coffin-shaped mound beyond a low stone wall.
Ebtisam’s father was killed by a Saudi warplane that delivered a U.S.-made bomb to the al-Sultan zone in the Old City of Yemen’s capital Sana’a in July of 2015. The attack killed and injured dozens of residents and caused tremendous damage to the city, built long before the United States even existed as a nation.
Fatemah, Ebtisam’s widowed mother, packed flowers to place at her husband’s memorial site, “It is the martyr’s anniversary. We come here to share old times with our loved ones,” she told MintPress. Their visit to the memorial has become a tradition since 2015 when the war against their home began.
This particular memorial sits in 50th district, in the middle of Sana’a, and is the resting place of more than 1,000 men, women, and children killed by the Saudi-led coalition along with countless bodies of fighters killed in clashes against coalition forces. The shrines are ensconced with ornamental flowers and small trees planted by visitors who have come to honor the deceased.
The annual feast of the Martyr Week, an important occasion marking the beginning of December, kicked off in Yemen last Wednesday. It has become, for Fatimah and other Yemenis, a somber occasion amid a suffocating blockade, the threat of epidemics, rubble, tears, and the fear of the may lie ahead.
For eight consecutive days, residents in northern Yemen commemorate those that have been killed by the Saudi-led coalition. Program include held exhibitions, public festivals, and meetings where victim’s families discuss how they cope with the war.
To keep the history of the martyrs alive, officials visit the families of victims to show sympathy. Food and gifts are distributed in abundance to orphans and widows and groups of officials visit graveyards housing victims of the war. There are more than 480 such graveyards spread over several regions in Yemen according to Martyr’s Foundation in Sana’a.
At least 450 exhibitions have been opened in the country. Public streets, city walls, schools, and government buildings in all districts are flooded with millions of flyers and posters bearing the images of civilians and fighters alike that have fallen in the war. Faces stare down from billboards on every highway, and the radios play Zawamil — patriotic battle hymns — day and night. While national TV broadcasts songs that glorify their sacrifices and threaten revenge.
“The exhibition shows something terrible but inspiring. Through the exhibition, people will understand how cruel the Saudi-led Coalition war supported by the U.S. is, and they will also know how brave and strong Yemenis are,” 70-year-old Ali told MintPress as he sought out his son’s photo to show to a group of visitors. The photo of his son was in the midst of crowded collage of pictures hanging on the wall of the al-Janoub Martyrs exhibition in the 70th district south of Sana’a.
In Sadaa, which lies in Yemen’s north near the Saudi border, dozens of exhibitions and memorials symbolize society’s deep gratitude towards the country’s war heroes and martyrs. The ancient city, among the world’s oldest human-carved landscapes, has been devastated since Saudi Arabia declared it a military zone. Inside the city’s exhibition, visitors flow in an organized way to see more than 11,0000 photos of the fighters, women and children who lost their lives in the war
In the exhibition hall, videos show rescuers recovering children from rubble, massive scenes of destruction, martyrs reading their commandments and asking survivors to remain steadfast against Saudi Arabia, and a svelte, meek-looking man stepping up to a lectern in Washington. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia launched military operations in Yemen,” he says. The man in the video was none other than Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The clip showed the first time Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen was officially announced, just hours after the first bombs were dropped on the city.
For most Yemenis, the Saudis’ choice of Washington as the place to announce the war had meaning. They saw it as a deliberate signaling of complicity between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Al-Jubeir emphasized in his speech that the Kingdom had consulted very closely and very intensely with the United States before launching its war.
In Dahyan, a city in the far northwestern stretches of Yemen, where a U.S. laser-guided bomb dropped by a Saudi Arabia struck a school bus on August 9, 2018, a large crater is still visible near a fruit-and-vegetable stand in the suq. A brick wall a few yards from the scene features large hand-painted letters in both English and Arabic that proclaim, “America Kills Yemeni Children.”
More than 100,000 people have been killed in Yemen just since January 2016 according to a new report by the Armed Conflict and Location Event Data Project (ACLED), however, the number is likely to be closer to one million if deaths from epidemics, diseases, hunger and from fighters who have been killed from both the resistance and local mercenaries are taken into account.
“We hate nothing more”
Ebtisam’s father, who spoke English fluently with American accent, was a tour guide until 2014, he had a shop near Bab al-Yaman (The Gate of Yemen) in the Old City of Sana’a which sold the famed Yemeni agates, a metamorphosed and hardened version of quartz that has been renowned as a gemstone in southern Arabia since ancient times. In 2015, the shop was closed due to a series of attacks that hit the ancient city over with over 30 airstrikes.
According to his family, he was a jovial man with many friends from the United States and Britain. In the sitting room of their small home, three charming photos once hung on the wall. The photos showed Ebtisam’s father posing with his American friends. After he was killed, the family replaced the photos with portraits of the man they lost and banner adorned with the now-infamous slogan, “Death to America.”
“That was before the war. Yes, we had liked the United States, but now, there is nothing we hate more than this country,” said Fatimah. Regrettably, this is the prevailing mood in the north of Yemen. Most of the area’s residents are keen to express feelings of hatred towards the leaders of the United States. Phrases deriding the U.S. adorn everything; photos of victims, walls, clothes, coffee shops, car showrooms, and even shopping malls.
Before the war began, the Yemeni community, especially in northern Yemen, was friendly and most people had favorable attitudes towards Americans. American tourists, businessmen and diplomats were a regular fixture in Yemen. In Sana’a, local residents warmly welcomed American visitors to their salons by pouring a glass of single-malt scotch or sharing food and fun times. But now, Sana’a is embracing “Death to America” as their slogan, scrawled as graffiti on the capital’s walls. Thanks, in large part, to U.S. policy in Yemen.
Everything has changed as the hate against foreigners, particularly the leaders in the United States, has rapidly increased throughout Yemen because of western involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war or from the death of innocents killed by drones under the pretext of targeting al-Qaeda. Policies that predate the Trump administration.
Although Yemen has long suffered from instability, warring tribal factions and a long-standing al-Qaeda presence, foreigners including Americans, were welcomed in the country without restrictions on their movements. Now, they are seen with suspicion and are treated with caution for fear that they may be spies. Even aid workers are not immune.
“The slogan Death to America, as we see it, is not against the people of the United States but against the U.S.’ policies in our district,” a Houthi leader said as he gave a speech in front of a large audience at a Martyr Week exhibition. Most Yemenis differentiate between the Americans who support Saudi Arabia and those who reject the war. But to angry families who have lost loved ones in Saudi-coalition attacks, it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate.
The United States claims that it does not make targeting decisions for the Saudi Coalition. But it does support Coalition operations through training, arms sales, the refueling of Saudi combat aircraft, and the sharing of intelligence. Those arms sales include precision-guided missiles as well as precision guidance parts used on the warplanes blamed for civilians casualties in the Saudi-UAE’s military campaign in Yemen.
Furthermore, as a result of the U.S. involvement in the war and the economic blockade against their country, Yemenis have been forced to reinforce their relationship with Iran, one of the only countries that has been consistently outspoken in its opposition to the war. Now, at the annual feasts of Martyr Week, photos of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were assassinated in a U.S. airstrike at Baghdad International Airport on in a January 3, are proudly displayed.
Ten of thousands of Yemenis staged a symbolic funeral ceremony in the country’s cities including in Hodeida, Sana’a and Sadaa to commemorate Soleimani and Muhandis, chanting that their blood is neither is Iranian or Iraqi, but rather belongs to all freedom-loving nations targeted by the United States.
Feature photo | A Yemeni man offers prayers at the grave of his relatives who were killed during Yemen’s ongoing conflict, during “martyr’s week” at a cemetery in Sana’a, Yemen. Hani Mohammed | AP
Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.


mintpressnews--2020-01-13--Jeff Bezos Donates Three Minutes’ Income to Help Australia Fight Wildfires

Jeff Bezos , the founder of Amazon and the newly crowned richest person in the world , announced Sunday on his Instagram page that his company was donating one million Australian Dollars ( around 690,000 U.S .
Dollars ) to help the country deal with the continent-wide fires ravaging the nation .
“ Our hearts go out to all Australians as they cope with these devastating bushfires , ” he wrote .
Amazon also pledged to provide technical support to government agencies dealing with the emergency .
The gesture gained him a great deal of priceless positive press across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Amazon to solidarity with people in need .
“ World ’ s richest man ’ s generous bushfire act ” read the headline in one local Australian outlet .
To many people worldwide , one million dollars is an almost incomprehensibly large and life changing sum .
But to Bezos , who became the world ’ s first centi-billionaire in 2018 , the amount represents a very small contribution to an urgent catastrophe affecting an entire continent .
Bezos earns a reported $ 230,000 every minute .
Considering these figures , the 690,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ income for the business and media magnate .
As a comparison , would somebody who earned $ 500 per week make an announcement on social media that they had just donated five cents to help tackle the blazes ?
Because that is what they would earn , on average , every three minutes .
In this context , Bezos ’ donation appears to be far less a generous gift to the people of Australia but a cold , calculated public relations move , designed to ward off increasing organized resistance to his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sander has targeted Bezos specifically and declared that “ billionaires shouldn ’ t exist.
” As MintPress reported last month , despite the supposed generous philanthropy of billionaires like Bezos and Microsoft ’ s Bill Gates , they continue to accumulate wealth at an almost exponential rate .
Just as reports about Amazon workers ’ poor pay and shocking working conditions were surfacing , Bezos declared that the only way he could see to spend the financial resources he accrued was to explore the solar system and beyond .
Sharing the profit with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have occurred to him .
Linsey McGoey , Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex , UK , told MintPress that , “ philanthropy can and is being used deliberately to divert attention away from different forms of economic exploitation that underpin global inequality today.
” Bezos ’ donation appears somewhat Scrooge-like in comparison to other public figures who have also donated .
Media personality Kylie Jenner donated $ 1 million .
Meanwhile , singer Pink gave away around one percent of her estimated fortune ( $ 500,000 ) .
He was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sex worker Kaylen Ward , as the Californian raised over $ 700,000 promising to send naked pictures to anyone who proved they donated over $ 10 to a bush fire charity .
Ward ’ s Instagram account was later suspended .
Bezos is keenly aware of his public image and uses his media network to control public attitudes towards him and his business empire .
Media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have consistently found that the Bezos owned Washington Post gives their owner and his companies extremely positive press .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ profile causes like the Notre Dame Cathedral fire or the fires continuing to rage in Australia , other disasters in developing countries , far away from TV cameras , are not receiving the same attention .
Flooding in Indonesia has killed more than twice as many people as in Australia , with little outcry and insufficient international help .
The Australian bushfires have resulted in 27 reported deaths – mostly in the state of New South Wales – as an area the size of Tennessee has been burned .
Over one billion animals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well .
But while temperature and fire records are set , both Australian and American media fail to make the connection between the catastrophe and human-induced climate change .
Amazon itself is a serious contributor to climate change : the company has a massive carbon footprint , producing over 44 million metric tons of carbon per year .
Rain and cooler temperatures are scheduled for this week in New South Wales , but authorities say that it is unlikely to be a solution to the blazes .
Neither is Bezos ’ donation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ answers questions during his news conference at the National Press Club in Washington , Sept. 19 , 2019 .
Pablo Martinez Monsivais | AP Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News .
After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books : Bad News From Venezuela : Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age : Still Manufacturing Consent .
He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , The Guardian , Salon , The Grayzone , Jacobin Magazine , Common Dreams the @ @ @ @ @ @ @

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the newly crowned richest person in the world, announced Sunday on his Instagram page that his company was donating one million Australian Dollars (around 690,000 U.S. Dollars) to help the country deal with the continent-wide fires ravaging the nation. “Our hearts go out to all Australians as they cope with these devastating bushfires,” he wrote. Amazon also pledged to provide technical support to government agencies dealing with the emergency. The gesture gained him a great deal of priceless positive press across the world, with headlines linking him and Amazon to solidarity with people in need. “World’s richest man’s generous bushfire act” read the headline in one local Australian outlet.
To many people worldwide, one million dollars is an almost incomprehensibly large and life changing sum. But to Bezos, who became the world’s first centi-billionaire in 2018, the amount represents a very small contribution to an urgent catastrophe affecting an entire continent. Bezos earns a reported $230,000 every minute. Considering these figures, the 690,000 U.S. Dollar donation represents just three minutes’ income for the business and media magnate. As a comparison, would somebody who earned $500 per week make an announcement on social media that they had just donated five cents to help tackle the blazes? Because that is what they would earn, on average, every three minutes.
This is how much money #JeffBezos makes in 3 minutes. https://t.co/HL9dYadpVQ — Peter Daou (@peterdaou) January 12, 2020
In this context, Bezos’ donation appears to be far less a generous gift to the people of Australia but a cold, calculated public relations move, designed to ward off increasing organized resistance to his enormous wealth.
Democratic presidential frontrunner Bernie Sander has targeted Bezos specifically and declared that “billionaires shouldn’t exist.” As MintPress reported last month, despite the supposed generous philanthropy of billionaires like Bezos and Microsoft’s Bill Gates, they continue to accumulate wealth at an almost exponential rate. Just as reports about Amazon workers’ poor pay and shocking working conditions were surfacing, Bezos declared that the only way he could see to spend the financial resources he accrued was to explore the solar system and beyond. Sharing the profit with his beleaguered workforce appears to genuinely not have occurred to him.
Linsey McGoey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, UK, told MintPress that, “philanthropy can and is being used deliberately to divert attention away from different forms of economic exploitation that underpin global inequality today.”
Bezos’ donation appears somewhat Scrooge-like in comparison to other public figures who have also donated. Media personality Kylie Jenner donated $1 million. Meanwhile, singer Pink gave away around one percent of her estimated fortune ($500,000). He was also bested by the Instagram model and sex worker Kaylen Ward, as the Californian raised over $700,000 promising to send naked pictures to anyone who proved they donated over $10 to a bush fire charity. Ward’s Instagram account was later suspended.
Bill Gates just surpassed Jeff Bezos as the richest person on Earth, with a net worth of $110 billion. I struggled to imagine this huge number, so I animated some bar graphs that put it in proportion with other points of reference. The scale is quite stark. pic.twitter.com/uteU9h72fC — betty gesserit (@betty__cam) November 19, 2019
Bezos is keenly aware of his public image and uses his media network to control public attitudes towards him and his business empire. Media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have consistently found that the Bezos owned Washington Post gives their owner and his companies extremely positive press.
While celebrities line up to donate to high profile causes like the Notre Dame Cathedral fire or the fires continuing to rage in Australia, other disasters in developing countries, far away from TV cameras, are not receiving the same attention. Flooding in Indonesia has killed more than twice as many people as in Australia, with little outcry and insufficient international help.
The Australian bushfires have resulted in 27 reported deaths – mostly in the state of New South Wales – as an area the size of Tennessee has been burned. Over one billion animals are estimated to have been killed as well. But while temperature and fire records are set, both Australian and American media fail to make the connection between the catastrophe and human-induced climate change. Amazon itself is a serious contributor to climate change: the company has a massive carbon footprint, producing over 44 million metric tons of carbon per year.
Rain and cooler temperatures are scheduled for this week in New South Wales, but authorities say that it is unlikely to be a solution to the blazes. Neither is Bezos’ donation.
Feature photo | Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos answers questions during his news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, Sept. 19, 2019. Pablo Martinez Monsivais | AP
Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.


mintpressnews--2020-01-13--Big Tech Firms Are Joining Trump’s All Out War Against Iran

Silicon Valley giant Facebook announced Friday that it would be deleting all positive posts about recently assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani on its platform and its subsidiary Instagram .
The reason for this , it explained to CNN , was that the new U.S. sanctions made it illegal to promote any message supporting a person or group that the government describes as a terrorist organization .
“ We operate under U.S. sanctions laws , including those related to the U.S. government ’ s designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps ( IRGC ) and its leadership , ” a Facebook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Soleimani ’ s account in April last year , following Trump ’ s designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group .
Following the news Friday , Twitter suspended Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ’ s account for “ unusual activity.
” It was later reopened .
Last week Trump threatened to wreak havoc and destruction on Iran , promising to destroy dozens of major Iranian cultural sites , recognized immediately by the international community as a major war crime and a crime against humanity .
The president has backed away from open @ @ @ @ @ @ @ punishing ” sanctions on the Islamic Republic In the rush to comply with these new rules , big American companies have gone overboard .
Paypal , for example , began blocking donations to alternative media website The Grayzone that mentioned “ Iran ” in the title or text .
The Grayzone has been a rare source of pushback to the Trump administration ’ s plans for war in the region .
Last year Medea Benjamin traveled to Iran to catalog the effect of the already existing sanctions .
She described a population of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wiped out as the value of the Iranian Rial had plummeted .
“ Sanctions are suffocating people ’ s life choices , ” she explained , meeting women who could no longer attend foreign universities and men who could not afford to get married .
The sanctions have also greatly increased poverty and homelessness and made it much harder for people to get lifesaving medical treatment , as foreign drugs are nearly impossible to come by .
Nevertheless , Iranians were able to distinguish between citizens and government ; the overwhelming message Benjamin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bad.
” While support for , or even knowledge of Soleimani may be very low in America , a 2019 study conducted by the University of Maryland found that “ General Soleimani remains the most popular Iranian public figure , ” with 59 percent of Iranians viewing him “ very favorably ” and over four in five of his country folk having a positive opinion of him overall .
Instagram is extremely popular in Iran , with at least 24 million users as of early 2018– around a third of the entire population @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Soleimani is such a far-reaching and problematic issue .
While deleting messages of support for the government or suspending Khamenei ’ s account may seem a petty , childish retaliation for opposing the Trump administration , it actually has profound ramifications for freedom of access to information .
Foreign countries rely on Silicon Valley social media giants for news and opinions as much as Americans do .
Billions of people get their news from Facebook , but the decision means the world will not be exposed to one side of the argument @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the only places Americans could be exposed to an Iranian opinion , but the latest decision effectively blocks off this avenue of information and communication .
Instead , we are exposed only to the opinion that the world and Iranians themselves hate their government .
Last week the hashtag # IraniansDetestSoleimani trended on Twitter in the U.S. , but not in the Middle East .
Furthermore , the message was being boosted by Trump fans pretending to be Iranian .
Iran is not the only enemy of the U.S. government targeted by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Venezuelan government , including that of President Nicolas Maduro himself , have been suspended or deleted by Facebook and Twitter , the former also removing the pages of independent media outlet Venezuelanalysis and international network TeleSUR English when Trump ’ s eye was cast upon the country .
That Facebook ’ s actions appear to be coordinated with the U.S. government is not a coincidence .
Since 2018 it has partially outsourced its editorial control over news and content to the Atlantic Council , the think tank of NATO .
The Council @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s who of high government officials like Henry Kissinger , Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell , ex-Generals like Wesley Clark and David Petraeus , and CIA chiefs like Leon Panetta , Michael Hayden and Robert Gates .
Effectively then , the “ deep state ” is controlling what Americans– and the rest of the world– reads for news , creating something close to a global state-controlled media apparatus .
In response to Facebook ’ s decision , Iranian government spokesperson Ali Rabiei called the move an “ undemocratic and unashamed action ” claiming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an “ open voice.
” The Iranian government is considering its response , with some media speculating it may go so far as to block Instagram entirely .
But , as with the Soleimani assassination , because of the imbalance of power between Iran and the U.S. , its reaction will be limited in scope , as big tech giants like Facebook are too powerful to hurt .
Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News .
After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books : Bad News From Venezuela @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age : Still Manufacturing Consent .
He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , The Guardian , Salon , The Grayzone , Jacobin Magazine , Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary .

Silicon Valley giant Facebook announced Friday that it would be deleting all positive posts about recently assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani on its platform and its subsidiary Instagram. The reason for this, it explained to CNN, was that the new U.S. sanctions made it illegal to promote any message supporting a person or group that the government describes as a terrorist organization. “We operate under U.S. sanctions laws, including those related to the U.S. government’s designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its leadership,” a Facebook spokesperson said. Instagram had already closed Soleimani’s account in April last year, following Trump’s designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group. Following the news Friday, Twitter suspended Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s account for “unusual activity.” It was later reopened.
https://twitter.com/RussiaConnects/status/1216000656613486593
Last week Trump threatened to wreak havoc and destruction on Iran, promising to destroy dozens of major Iranian cultural sites, recognized immediately by the international community as a major war crime and a crime against humanity. The president has backed away from open war, but also announced new “punishing” sanctions on the Islamic Republic
In the rush to comply with these new rules, big American companies have gone overboard. Paypal, for example, began blocking donations to alternative media website The Grayzone that mentioned “Iran” in the title or text. The Grayzone has been a rare source of pushback to the Trump administration’s plans for war in the region.
Last year Medea Benjamin traveled to Iran to catalog the effect of the already existing sanctions. She described a population of 80 million who had seen their savings wiped out as the value of the Iranian Rial had plummeted. “Sanctions are suffocating people’s life choices,” she explained, meeting women who could no longer attend foreign universities and men who could not afford to get married. The sanctions have also greatly increased poverty and homelessness and made it much harder for people to get lifesaving medical treatment, as foreign drugs are nearly impossible to come by. Nevertheless, Iranians were able to distinguish between citizens and government; the overwhelming message Benjamin received was “Americans good, Trump bad.”
While support for, or even knowledge of Soleimani may be very low in America, a 2019 study conducted by the University of Maryland found that “General Soleimani remains the most popular Iranian public figure,” with 59 percent of Iranians viewing him “very favorably” and over four in five of his country folk having a positive opinion of him overall. Instagram is extremely popular in Iran, with at least 24 million users as of early 2018– around a third of the entire population. That is why banning positive descriptions of Soleimani is such a far-reaching and problematic issue. While deleting messages of support for the government or suspending Khamenei’s account may seem a petty, childish retaliation for opposing the Trump administration, it actually has profound ramifications for freedom of access to information.
Foreign countries rely on Silicon Valley social media giants for news and opinions as much as Americans do. Billions of people get their news from Facebook, but the decision means the world will not be exposed to one side of the argument. Furthermore, social media is one of the only places Americans could be exposed to an Iranian opinion, but the latest decision effectively blocks off this avenue of information and communication. Instead, we are exposed only to the opinion that the world and Iranians themselves hate their government. Last week the hashtag #IraniansDetestSoleimani trended on Twitter in the U.S., but not in the Middle East. Furthermore, the message was being boosted by Trump fans pretending to be Iranian.
Iran is not the only enemy of the U.S. government targeted by social media. Hundreds of accounts supporting the Venezuelan government, including that of President Nicolas Maduro himself, have been suspended or deleted by Facebook and Twitter, the former also removing the pages of independent media outlet Venezuelanalysis and international network TeleSUR English when Trump’s eye was cast upon the country.
That Facebook’s actions appear to be coordinated with the U.S. government is not a coincidence. Since 2018 it has partially outsourced its editorial control over news and content to the Atlantic Council, the think tank of NATO. The Council’s board is a who’s who of high government officials like Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, ex-Generals like Wesley Clark and David Petraeus, and CIA chiefs like Leon Panetta, Michael Hayden and Robert Gates. Effectively then, the “deep state” is controlling what Americans– and the rest of the world– reads for news, creating something close to a global state-controlled media apparatus.
In response to Facebook’s decision, Iranian government spokesperson Ali Rabiei called the move an “undemocratic and unashamed action” claiming it continues to give the real terrorists an “open voice.”
In an undemocratic and unashmed action,Instagram has blocked an innocence nations' voice protesting to the assesination ofGeneral #Soleimani,while the real terrorists have been given an open voice.The stick behind the democracy and media freedom is displayed in the nick of time — Alirabiei (@Alirabiei_ir) January 6, 2020
The Iranian government is considering its response, with some media speculating it may go so far as to block Instagram entirely. But, as with the Soleimani assassination, because of the imbalance of power between Iran and the U.S., its reaction will be limited in scope, as big tech giants like Facebook are too powerful to hurt.
Feature photo | Klevo | Shutterstock
Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.


mintpressnews--2020-01-14--How an Israeli Spy-Linked Tech Firm Gained Access to the US Gov’t’s Most Classified Networks

If the networks of the U.S. military , the U.S. intelligence community and a slew of other U.S. federal agencies were running the software of a company with deep ties , not only to foreign companies with a history of espionage against the U.S. but also foreign military intelligence , it would — at the very least — garner substantial media attention .
Yet , no media reports to date have noted that such a scenario exists on a massive scale and that the company making such software recently simulated the cancellation of the 2020 election and the declaration of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Earlier this month , MintPress News reported on the simulations for the U.S. 2020 election organized by the company Cybereason , a firm led by former members of Israel ’ s military intelligence Unit 8200 and advised by former top and current officials in both Israeli military intelligence and the CIA .
Those simulations , attended by federal officials from the FBI , DHS and the U.S. Secret Service , ended in disaster , with the elections ultimately canceled and martial law declared due to the chaos created by a group of hackers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ installment of this three part series delved deeply into Cybereason ’ s ties to the intelligence community of Israel and also other agencies , including the CIA , as well as the fact that Cybereason stood to gain little financially from the simulations given that their software could not have prevented the attacks waged against the U.S. ’ electoral infrastructure in the exercise .
Also noted was the fact that Cybereason software could be potentially used as a backdoor by unauthorized actors , a possibility strengthened by the fact that the company ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that have a history of placing backdoors into U.S. telecommunications and electronic infrastructure as well as aggressive espionage targeting U.S. federal agencies .
The latter issue is crucial in the context of this installment of this exclusive MintPress series , as Cybereason ’ s main investors turned partners have integrated Cybereason ’ s software into their product offerings .
This means that the clients of these Cybereason partner companies , the U.S. intelligence community and military among them , are now part of Cybereason ’ s network of more than 6 million endpoints @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a combination of staff comprised largely of former intelligence operatives and an AI algorithm first developed by Israeli military intelligence .
Cybereason , thus far , has disclosed the following groups as lead investors in the company : Charles River Ventures ( CRV ) , Spark Capital , Lockheed Martin and SoftBank .
Charles River Ventures ( CRV ) was among the first to invest in Cybereason and has been frequently investing in other Israeli tech start-ups that were founded by former members of the elite Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200 over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ based in California , appears to have followed CRV ’ s interest in Cybereason since the venture capitalist who co-founded Spark and led its investment in Cybereason is a former CRV partner who still has close ties to the firm .
While CRV and Spark Capital seem like just the type of investors a company like Cybereason would attract given their clear interest in similar tech start-ups coming out of Israel ’ s cyber sector , Cybereason ’ s other lead investors — Lockheed Martin and SoftBank — deserve much more attention and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Government , thanks to Lockheed “ A match made in heaven , ” trumpeted Forbes at the news of the Lockheed Martin-Cybereason partnership , first forged in 2015 .
The partnership involved not only Lockheed Martin becoming a major investor in the cybersecurity company but also in Lockheed Martin becoming the largest conduit providing Cybereason ’ s software to U.S. federal and military agencies .
Indeed , as Forbes noted at the time , not only did Lockheed invest in the company , it decided to integrate Cybereason ’ s software completely into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ model of both using Cybereason internally , and selling it to both public and private customers.
” Cybereason CEO and former offensive hacker for Israeli military intelligence — Lior Div — said the following of the partnership : Rich Mahler , then-director of Commercial Cyber Services at Lockheed Martin , told Defense Daily that the company ’ s decision to invest in Cybereason , internally use its software , and include the technology as part of Lockheed Martin ’ s cyber solutions portfolio were all “ independent business decisions but were all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ How independent each of those decisions actually was is unclear , especially given the timing of Lockheed Martin ’ s investment in Cybereason , whose close and troubling ties to Israeli intelligence as well as the CIA were noted in the previous installment of this investigative series .
Indeed , about a year prior to their investment in the Israeli military intelligence-linked Cybereason , Lockheed Martin opened an office in Beersheba , Israel , where the IDF has its “ cyberhub ” .
The office is focused not on the sales of armaments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hewson , Lockheed Martin ’ s CEO , said the following during her speech that inaugurated the company ’ s Beersheba office : Beersheba not only houses the IDF ’ s technology campus , but also the Israel National Cyber Directorate , which reports directly to Israel ’ s Prime Minister , as well as a high-tech corporate park that mostly houses tech companies with ties to Israel ’ s military intelligence apparatus .
The area has been cited in several media reports as a visible indicator of the public-private merger between Israeli @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Unit 8200 alumni , and the Israeli government and its intelligence services .
Lockheed Martin quickly became a key fixture in the Beersheba-based cyberhub .
Not long before Lockheed began exploring the possibility of opening an office in Beersheba , the company was hacked by individuals who used tokens tied to the company , RSA Security , whose founders have ties to Israel ’ s defense establishment and which is now owned by Dell , a company also deeply tied to the Israeli government and tech sector .
The hack , perpetrated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sparked Lockheed ’ s subsequent interest in Israel ’ s cybersecurity sector .
Soon after opening its Beersheba office , Lockheed Martin created its Israel subsidiary , Lockheed Martin Israel .
Unlike many of the company ’ s other subsidiaries , this one is focused exclusively on “ cybersecurity , enterprise information technology , data centers , mobile , analytics and cloud ” as opposed to the manufacture and design of armaments .
Haden Land , then-vice president of research and technology for Lockheed Martin , told the Wall Street Journal that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at securing contracts with the IDF and that the company ’ s Israel subsidiary would soon be seeking partnership and investments in pursuit of that end .
Land oversaw the local roll-out of the company ’ s Israel subsidiary while concurrently meeting with Israeli government officials .
According to the Journal , Land “ oversees all of Lockheed Martin ’ s information-systems businesses , including defense and civilian commercial units ” for the United States and elsewhere .
Just a few months later , Lockheed Martin partnered and invested in Cybereason , suggesting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so was aimed at securing closer ties with the IDF .
This further suggests that Cybereason still maintains close ties to Israeli military intelligence , a point expounded upon in great detail in the previous installment of this series .
Thus , it appears that not only does Lockheed Martin use Cybereason ’ s software on its own devices and on those it manages for its private and public sector clients , but it also decided to use the company ’ s software in this way out of a desire to more closely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ related to technology and cybersecurity .
The cozy ties between Lockheed Martin , one of the U.S. government ’ s largest private contractors , and the IDF set off alarm bells , then and now , for those concerned with U.S. national security .
Such concern makes it important to look at the extent of Cybereason ’ s use by federal and military agencies in the United States through their contracting of Lockheed Martin ’ s Information Technology ( IT ) division .
This is especially important considering Israeli military intelligence ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ private tech companies against the U.S. government , as detailed here .
While the exact number of U.S. federal and military agencies using Cybereason ’ s software is unknown , it is widespread , with Lockheed Martin ’ s IT division as the conduit .
Indeed , Lockheed Martin was the number one IT solutions provider to the U.S. federal government up until its IT division was spun off and merged with Leidos Holdings .
As a consequence , Leidos is now the largest IT provider to the U.S. government and is also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way Lockheed Martin was .
Even after its IT division was spun off , Lockheed Martin continues to use Cybereason ’ s software in its cybersecurity work for the Pentagon and still maintains a stake in the company .
The Leidos-Lockheed Martin IT hybrid provides a litany of services to the U.S. military and U.S. intelligence .
As investigative journalist Tim Shorrock noted for The Nation , the company does “ everything from analyzing signals for the NSA to tracking down suspected enemy fighters for US Special Forces in the Middle East and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Lockheed and consequential partnership with Cybereason , became “ the largest of five corporations that together employ nearly 80 percent of the private-sector employees contracted to work for US spy and surveillance agencies.
” Shorrock also notes that these private-sector contractors now dominate the mammoth U.S. surveillance apparatus , many of them working for Leidos and — by extension — using Cybereason ’ s software .
Leidos ’ exclusive use of Cybereason software for cybersecurity is also relevant for the U.S. military since Leidos runs a number of sensitive systems for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to manage the entire military telecommunications infrastructure for Defense Information Systems Agency ( DISA ) .
In addition to maintaining the military telecom network , Cybereason is also directly partnered with World Wide Technologies ( WWT ) as of this past October .
WWT manages cybersecurity for the U.S. Army , maintains DISA ’ s firewalls and data storage as well as the U.S. Air Force ’ s biometric identification system .
WWT also manages contracts for NASA , itself a frequent target of Israeli government espionage , and the U.S. Navy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Lockheed/Leidos partnership in that Cybereason ’ s software is now completely integrated into its portfolio , giving the company full access to the devices on all of these highly classified networks .
Many of these new partnerships with Cybereason , including its partnership with WWT , followed claims made by members of Israel ’ s Unit 8200 in 2017 that the popular antivirus software of Kaspersky Labs contained a backdoor for Russian intelligence , thereby compromising U.S. systems .
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the alleged backdoor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Unit 8200 in identifying it , a fact revealed by the New York Times a week later .
Notably , none of the evidence Unit 8200 used to blame Kaspersky has been made public and Kaspersky noted that it was actually Israeli hackers that had been discovered planting backdoors into its platform prior to the accusation levied against Kaspersky by Unit 8200 .
As the New York Times noted : Unit 8200 ’ s claims ultimately led the U.S. government to abandon Kaspersky ’ s products entirely in 2018 , allowing companies like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Unit 8200 ) to fill the void .
Indeed , the very agencies that banned Kaspersky now use cybersecurity software that employs Cybereason ’ s EDR system .
No flags have been raised about Cybereason ’ s own collaboration with the very foreign intelligence service that first pointed the finger at Kaspersky and that previously sold software with backdoors to sensitive U.S. facilities .
While its entry into the U.S. market and U.S. government networks is substantial , Cybereason ’ s software is also run throughout the world on a massive scale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into Latin American and European markets in major ways in just the last few months .
It has also seen its software become prominent in Asia following a partnership with the company Trustwave .
Much of this rapid expansion followed a major injection of cash courtesy of one of the company ’ s biggest clients and now its largest investor , Japan ’ s SoftBank .
SoftBank first invested in Cybereason in 2015 , the same year Lockheed Martin initially invested and partnered with the firm .
It was also the year that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israeli tech start-ups .
SoftBank first injected $ 50 million into Cybereason , followed by an additional $ 100 million in 2017 and $ 200 million last August .
SoftBank ’ s investments account for most of the money raised by the company since it was founded in 2012 ( $ 350 million out of $ 400 million total ) .
Prior to investing , Softbank was a client of Cybereason , which Ken Miyauchi , president of SoftBank , noted when making the following statement after Softbank ’ s initial investment in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s largest telecommunications companies — not only began to deploy Cybereason internally but directly partnered with it after investing , much like Lockheed Martin had done around the same time .
This partnership resulted in SoftBank and Cybereason creating a joint venture in Japan and Cybereason creating partnerships with other tech companies acquired by SoftBank , including the U.K. ’ s Arm , which specializes in making chips and management platforms for Internet of Things ( IoT ) devices .
SoftBank ’ s interest in Cybereason is significant , particularly in light @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 U.S. election , given that SoftBank has significant ties to key allies of President Trump and even the president himself .
Indeed , SoftBank ’ s Masayoshi Son was among the first wave of international business leaders who sought to woo then-president-elect Trump soon after the 2016 election .
Son first visited Trump Tower in December 2016 and announced , with Trump by his side in the building ’ s lobby , that SoftBank would invest $ 50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 jobs .
Trump subsequently claimed on Twitter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this investment because Trump had won the election .
Son told reporters at the time that the investment would come from a $ 100 billion fund that would be created in partnership with Saudi Arabia ’ s sovereign wealth fund as well as other investors .
“ I just came to celebrate his new job .
I said , ‘ This is great .
The US will become great again , ' ” Son said , according to reports .
Then , in March of 2017 , Son sent top SoftBank executives to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s economic team and , according to the New York Times , “ the SoftBank executives said that because of a lack of advanced digital investments , the competitiveness of the United States economy was at risk .
And the executives made the case , quite strongly , that Mr .
Son was committed to playing a major role in addressing this issue through a spate of job-creating investments.
” Many of SoftBank ’ s investments and acquisitions in the U.S. since then have focused mainly on artificial intelligence and technology with military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” firm Boston Dynamics , suggesting Son ’ s interest lies more in dominating futuristic military-industrial technologies than creating jobs for the average American .
After their initial meeting , Trump and Son met again a year later in June 2018 , with Trump stating that “ His [ Son ’ s ] $ 50 billion turned out to be $ 72 billion so far , he ’ s not finished yet.
” Several media reports have claimed that Son ’ s moves since Trump ’ s election have sought to “ curry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the creation of this fund alongside the Saudis , SoftBank has since become increasingly intertwined with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman ( MBS ) , a key ally of President Trump in the Middle East known for his authoritarian crackdowns on Saudi elites and dissidents alike .
The ties between Saudi Arabia and SoftBank became ever tighter when MBS took the reins in the oil kingdom and after SoftBank announced the launch of the Vision Fund in 2016 .
SoftBank ’ s Vision Fund is a vehicle for investing in hi-tech companies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia .
Notably , Son decided to launch the Vision Fund in Riyadh during President Trump ’ s first official visit to the Gulf Kingdom .
In addition , the Mubadala Investment Company , a government fund of the United Arab Emirates ( UAE ) , gave $ 15 billion to the Vision Fund .
UAE leadership also share close ties to the Trump administration and MBS in Saudi Arabia .
As a consequence , SoftBank ’ s Vision Fund is majority funded by two Middle Eastern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. government , specifically the Trump administration .
In addition , both countries have enjoyed the rapid growth and normalization of ties with the state of Israel in recent years , particularly following the rise of current Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and Jared Kushner ’ s rise to prominence in his father-in-law ’ s administration .
Other investments in the Vision Fund have come from Apple , Qualcomm and Oracle ’ s Larry Ellison , all tech companies with strong ties to Israel ’ s government .
The Saudi and Emirati @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are so obvious that even mainstream outlets like the New York Times have described them as a “ front for Saudi Arabia and perhaps other countries in the Middle East.
” SoftBank also enjoys close ties to Jared Kushner , with Fortress Investment Group lending $ 57 million to Kushner Companies in October 2017 while it was under contract to be acquired by SoftBank .
As Barron ’ s noted at the time : According to The Real Deal , Kushner Companies obtained the financing from Fortress only after its attempts to obtain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a specific real estate venture were abandoned after the U.S. Attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission began to investigate how Kushner Companies used the EB-5 investor visa program .
A key factor in the opening of that investigation was Kushner Companies ’ representatives touting Jared Kushner ’ s position at the White House when talking to prospective investors and lenders .
SoftBank also recently came to the aid of a friend of Jared Kushner , former CEO of WeWork Adam Neumann .
Neumann made shocking claims about his ties to both Kushner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even asserting that he had worked with both in creating Kushner ’ s long-awaited and controversial Middle East “ peace plan ” and claimed that he , Kushner and MBS would together “ save the world.
” Neumann previously called Kushner his “ mentor.
” MBS has also discussed on several occasions his close ties with Kushner and U.S. media reports have noted the frequent correspondence between the two “ princelings.
” Notably , SoftBank invested in Neumann ’ s WeWork using money from the Saudi-dominated Vision Fund and later went on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ IPO collapse and Neumann was pushed out .
SoftBank ’ s founder , Masayoshi Son , had an odd yet very close relationship with Neumann , perhaps explaining why Neumann was allowed to walk with $ 1.7 billion after bringing WeWork to the brink of collapse .
Notably , nearly half of SoftBank ’ s approximately $ 47 billion investments in the U.S. economy since Trump ’ s election , went to acquiring and then bailing out WeWork .
It is unlikely that such a disastrous investment resulted in the level of job @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2016 .
Given that it is Cybereason ’ s top investor and shareholder by a large margin , SoftBank ’ s ties to the Trump administration and key allies of that administration are significant in light of Cybereason ’ s odd interest in 2020 U.S. election scenarios that end with the cancellation of this year ’ s upcoming presidential election .
It goes without saying that the cancellation of the election would mean a continuation of the Trump administration until new elections would take place .
Furthermore , with Cybereason ’ s close @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now well-documented , it is worth asking if Israeli military intelligence would consider intervening in 2020 if the still-to-be-decided Democratic contender was strongly opposed to Israeli government policy , particularly Israel ’ s military occupation of Palestine .
This is especially worth considering given revelations that sexual blackmailer and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein , who targeted prominent U.S. politicians , mostly Democrats , was in the employ of Israeli military intelligence .
Notably , Cybereason ’ s doomsday election scenarios involved the weaponization of deep fakes , self-driving cars and the hacking Internet of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ technologies being pioneered and perfected — not by Russia , China or Iran — but by companies directly tied to Israeli intelligence , much like Cybereason itself .
These companies , their technology and Cybereason ’ s own work creating the narrative that U.S. rival states seek to undermine the U.S. election in this way , will all be discussed in the conclusion of MintPress ’ series on Cybereason and its outsized interest in the U.S. democratic process .
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile .
She has contributed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Research , EcoWatch , the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire , among others .
She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism .

If the networks of the U.S. military, the U.S. intelligence community and a slew of other U.S. federal agencies were running the software of a company with deep ties, not only to foreign companies with a history of espionage against the U.S. but also foreign military intelligence, it would — at the very least — garner substantial media attention. Yet, no media reports to date have noted that such a scenario exists on a massive scale and that the company making such software recently simulated the cancellation of the 2020 election and the declaration of martial law in the United States.
Earlier this month, MintPress News reported on the simulations for the U.S. 2020 election organized by the company Cybereason, a firm led by former members of Israel’s military intelligence Unit 8200 and advised by former top and current officials in both Israeli military intelligence and the CIA. Those simulations, attended by federal officials from the FBI, DHS and the U.S. Secret Service, ended in disaster, with the elections ultimately canceled and martial law declared due to the chaos created by a group of hackers led by Cybereason employees.
The first installment of this three part series delved deeply into Cybereason’s ties to the intelligence community of Israel and also other agencies, including the CIA, as well as the fact that Cybereason stood to gain little financially from the simulations given that their software could not have prevented the attacks waged against the U.S.’ electoral infrastructure in the exercise.
Also noted was the fact that Cybereason software could be potentially used as a backdoor by unauthorized actors, a possibility strengthened by the fact that the company’s co-founders all previously worked for firms that have a history of placing backdoors into U.S. telecommunications and electronic infrastructure as well as aggressive espionage targeting U.S. federal agencies.
The latter issue is crucial in the context of this installment of this exclusive MintPress series, as Cybereason’s main investors turned partners have integrated Cybereason’s software into their product offerings. This means that the clients of these Cybereason partner companies, the U.S. intelligence community and military among them, are now part of Cybereason’s network of more than 6 million endpoints that this private company constantly monitors using a combination of staff comprised largely of former intelligence operatives and an AI algorithm first developed by Israeli military intelligence.
Cybereason, thus far, has disclosed the following groups as lead investors in the company: Charles River Ventures (CRV), Spark Capital, Lockheed Martin and SoftBank. Charles River Ventures (CRV) was among the first to invest in Cybereason and has been frequently investing in other Israeli tech start-ups that were founded by former members of the elite Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200 over the last few years. Spark Capital, based in California, appears to have followed CRV’s interest in Cybereason since the venture capitalist who co-founded Spark and led its investment in Cybereason is a former CRV partner who still has close ties to the firm.
While CRV and Spark Capital seem like just the type of investors a company like Cybereason would attract given their clear interest in similar tech start-ups coming out of Israel’s cyber sector, Cybereason’s other lead investors — Lockheed Martin and SoftBank — deserve much more attention and scrutiny.
Cybereason widely used by US Government, thanks to Lockheed
“A match made in heaven,” trumpeted Forbes at the news of the Lockheed Martin-Cybereason partnership, first forged in 2015. The partnership involved not only Lockheed Martin becoming a major investor in the cybersecurity company but also in Lockheed Martin becoming the largest conduit providing Cybereason’s software to U.S. federal and military agencies.
Indeed, as Forbes noted at the time, not only did Lockheed invest in the company, it decided to integrate Cybereason’s software completely into its product portfolio, resulting in a “model of both using Cybereason internally, and selling it to both public and private customers.”
Cybereason CEO and former offensive hacker for Israeli military intelligence — Lior Div — said the following of the partnership:
Lockheed Martin invested in Cybereason’s protection system after they compared our solution against a dozen others from the top industry players. The US firm was so impressed with the results they got from Cybereason that they began offering it to their own customers – among them most of the top Fortune 100 companies, and the US federal government. Cybereason is now the security system recommended by LM to its customers for protection from a wide (sic) malware and hack attacks.”
Rich Mahler, then-director of Commercial Cyber Services at Lockheed Martin, told Defense Daily that the company’s decision to invest in Cybereason, internally use its software, and include the technology as part of Lockheed Martin’s cyber solutions portfolio were all “independent business decisions but were all coordinated and timed with the transaction.”
How independent each of those decisions actually was is unclear, especially given the timing of Lockheed Martin’s investment in Cybereason, whose close and troubling ties to Israeli intelligence as well as the CIA were noted in the previous installment of this investigative series. Indeed, about a year prior to their investment in the Israeli military intelligence-linked Cybereason, Lockheed Martin opened an office in Beersheba, Israel, where the IDF has its “cyberhub”. The office is focused not on the sales of armaments, but instead on technology.
Marilyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin’s CEO, said the following during her speech that inaugurated the company’s Beersheba office:
The consolidation of IDF Technical Units to new bases in the Negev Desert region is an important transformation of Israel’s information technology capability…We understand the challenges of this move. Which is why we are investing in the facilities and people that will ensure we are prepared to support for these critical projects. By locating our new office in the capital of the Negev we are well positioned to work closely with our Israeli partners and stand ready to: accelerate project execution, reduce program risk and share our technical expertise by training and developing in-country talent.”
Beersheba not only houses the IDF’s technology campus, but also the Israel National Cyber Directorate, which reports directly to Israel’s Prime Minister, as well as a high-tech corporate park that mostly houses tech companies with ties to Israel’s military intelligence apparatus. The area has been cited in several media reports as a visible indicator of the public-private merger between Israeli technology companies, many of them started by Unit 8200 alumni, and the Israeli government and its intelligence services. Lockheed Martin quickly became a key fixture in the Beersheba-based cyberhub.
Not long before Lockheed began exploring the possibility of opening an office in Beersheba, the company was hacked by individuals who used tokens tied to the company, RSA Security, whose founders have ties to Israel’s defense establishment and which is now owned by Dell, a company also deeply tied to the Israeli government and tech sector. The hack, perpetrated by still unknown actors, may have sparked Lockheed’s subsequent interest in Israel’s cybersecurity sector.
Soon after opening its Beersheba office, Lockheed Martin created its Israel subsidiary, Lockheed Martin Israel. Unlike many of the company’s other subsidiaries, this one is focused exclusively on “cybersecurity, enterprise information technology, data centers, mobile, analytics and cloud” as opposed to the manufacture and design of armaments.
Haden Land, then-vice president of research and technology for Lockheed Martin, told the Wall Street Journal that the creation of the subsidiary was largely aimed at securing contracts with the IDF and that the company’s Israel subsidiary would soon be seeking partnership and investments in pursuit of that end. Land oversaw the local roll-out of the company’s Israel subsidiary while concurrently meeting with Israeli government officials. According to the Journal, Land “oversees all of Lockheed Martin’s information-systems businesses, including defense and civilian commercial units” for the United States and elsewhere.
Just a few months later, Lockheed Martin partnered and invested in Cybereason, suggesting that Lockheed’s decision to do so was aimed at securing closer ties with the IDF. This further suggests that Cybereason still maintains close ties to Israeli military intelligence, a point expounded upon in great detail in the previous installment of this series.
Thus, it appears that not only does Lockheed Martin use Cybereason’s software on its own devices and on those it manages for its private and public sector clients, but it also decided to use the company’s software in this way out of a desire to more closely collaborate with the Israeli military in matters related to technology and cybersecurity.
The cozy ties between Lockheed Martin, one of the U.S. government’s largest private contractors, and the IDF set off alarm bells, then and now, for those concerned with U.S. national security. Such concern makes it important to look at the extent of Cybereason’s use by federal and military agencies in the United States through their contracting of Lockheed Martin’s Information Technology (IT) division. This is especially important considering Israeli military intelligence’s history of using espionage, blackmail and private tech companies against the U.S. government, as detailed here.
While the exact number of U.S. federal and military agencies using Cybereason’s software is unknown, it is widespread, with Lockheed Martin’s IT division as the conduit. Indeed, Lockheed Martin was the number one IT solutions provider to the U.S. federal government up until its IT division was spun off and merged with Leidos Holdings. As a consequence, Leidos is now the largest IT provider to the U.S. government and is also directly partnered with Cybereason in the same way Lockheed Martin was. Even after its IT division was spun off, Lockheed Martin continues to use Cybereason’s software in its cybersecurity work for the Pentagon and still maintains a stake in the company.
The Leidos-Lockheed Martin IT hybrid provides a litany of services to the U.S. military and U.S. intelligence. As investigative journalist Tim Shorrock noted for The Nation, the company does “everything from analyzing signals for the NSA to tracking down suspected enemy fighters for US Special Forces in the Middle East and Africa” and, following its merger with Lockheed and consequential partnership with Cybereason, became “the largest of five corporations that together employ nearly 80 percent of the private-sector employees contracted to work for US spy and surveillance agencies.” Shorrock also notes that these private-sector contractors now dominate the mammoth U.S. surveillance apparatus, many of them working for Leidos and — by extension — using Cybereason’s software.
Leidos’ exclusive use of Cybereason software for cybersecurity is also relevant for the U.S. military since Leidos runs a number of sensitive systems for the Pentagon, including its recently inked contract to manage the entire military telecommunications infrastructure for Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). In addition to maintaining the military telecom network, Cybereason is also directly partnered with World Wide Technologies (WWT) as of this past October. WWT manages cybersecurity for the U.S. Army, maintains DISA’s firewalls and data storage as well as the U.S. Air Force’s biometric identification system. WWT also manages contracts for NASA, itself a frequent target of Israeli government espionage, and the U.S. Navy. WWT’s partnership is similar to the Lockheed/Leidos partnership in that Cybereason’s software is now completely integrated into its portfolio, giving the company full access to the devices on all of these highly classified networks.
Many of these new partnerships with Cybereason, including its partnership with WWT, followed claims made by members of Israel’s Unit 8200 in 2017 that the popular antivirus software of Kaspersky Labs contained a backdoor for Russian intelligence, thereby compromising U.S. systems. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the alleged backdoor but did not mention the involvement of Unit 8200 in identifying it, a fact revealed by the New York Times a week later.
Notably, none of the evidence Unit 8200 used to blame Kaspersky has been made public and Kaspersky noted that it was actually Israeli hackers that had been discovered planting backdoors into its platform prior to the accusation levied against Kaspersky by Unit 8200. As the New York Times noted:
Investigators later discovered that the Israeli hackers had implanted multiple back doors into Kaspersky’s systems, employing sophisticated tools to steal passwords, take screenshots, and vacuum up emails and documents.”
Unit 8200’s claims ultimately led the U.S. government to abandon Kaspersky’s products entirely in 2018, allowing companies like Cybereason (with its own close ties to Unit 8200) to fill the void. Indeed, the very agencies that banned Kaspersky now use cybersecurity software that employs Cybereason’s EDR system. No flags have been raised about Cybereason’s own collaboration with the very foreign intelligence service that first pointed the finger at Kaspersky and that previously sold software with backdoors to sensitive U.S. facilities.
SoftBank, Cybereason and the Vision Fund
While its entry into the U.S. market and U.S. government networks is substantial, Cybereason’s software is also run throughout the world on a massive scale through partnerships that have seen it enter into Latin American and European markets in major ways in just the last few months. It has also seen its software become prominent in Asia following a partnership with the company Trustwave. Much of this rapid expansion followed a major injection of cash courtesy of one of the company’s biggest clients and now its largest investor, Japan’s SoftBank.
SoftBank first invested in Cybereason in 2015, the same year Lockheed Martin initially invested and partnered with the firm. It was also the year that SoftBank announced its intention to invest in Israeli tech start-ups. SoftBank first injected $50 million into Cybereason, followed by an additional $100 million in 2017 and $200 million last August. SoftBank’s investments account for most of the money raised by the company since it was founded in 2012 ($350 million out of $400 million total).
Prior to investing, Softbank was a client of Cybereason, which Ken Miyauchi, president of SoftBank, noted when making the following statement after Softbank’s initial investment in Cybereason:
SoftBank works to obtain cutting edge technology and outstanding business models to lead the Information Revolution. Our deployment of the Cybereason platform internally gave us firsthand knowledge of the value it provides, and led to our decision to invest. I’m confident Cybereason and SoftBank’s new product offering will bring a new level of security to Japanese organizations.”
SoftBank — one of Japan’s largest telecommunications companies — not only began to deploy Cybereason internally but directly partnered with it after investing, much like Lockheed Martin had done around the same time. This partnership resulted in SoftBank and Cybereason creating a joint venture in Japan and Cybereason creating partnerships with other tech companies acquired by SoftBank, including the U.K.’s Arm, which specializes in making chips and management platforms for Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
SoftBank’s interest in Cybereason is significant, particularly in light of Cybereason’s interest in the 2020 U.S. election, given that SoftBank has significant ties to key allies of President Trump and even the president himself.
Indeed, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son was among the first wave of international business leaders who sought to woo then-president-elect Trump soon after the 2016 election. Son first visited Trump Tower in December 2016 and announced, with Trump by his side in the building’s lobby, that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 jobs. Trump subsequently claimed on Twitter that Son had only decided to make this investment because Trump had won the election.
Son told reporters at the time that the investment would come from a $100 billion fund that would be created in partnership with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund as well as other investors. “I just came to celebrate his new job. I said, ‘This is great. The US will become great again,'” Son said, according to reports.
Then, in March of 2017, Son sent top SoftBank executives to meet with senior members of Trump’s economic team and, according to the New York Times, “the SoftBank executives said that because of a lack of advanced digital investments, the competitiveness of the United States economy was at risk. And the executives made the case, quite strongly, that Mr. Son was committed to playing a major role in addressing this issue through a spate of job-creating investments.” Many of SoftBank’s investments and acquisitions in the U.S. since then have focused mainly on artificial intelligence and technology with military applications, such as “killer robot” firm Boston Dynamics, suggesting Son’s interest lies more in dominating futuristic military-industrial technologies than creating jobs for the average American.
After their initial meeting, Trump and Son met again a year later in June 2018, with Trump stating that “His [Son’s] $50 billion turned out to be $72 billion so far, he’s not finished yet.” Several media reports have claimed that Son’s moves since Trump’s election have sought to “curry favor” with the President.
Through the creation of this fund alongside the Saudis, SoftBank has since become increasingly intertwined with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), a key ally of President Trump in the Middle East known for his authoritarian crackdowns on Saudi elites and dissidents alike. The ties between Saudi Arabia and SoftBank became ever tighter when MBS took the reins in the oil kingdom and after SoftBank announced the launch of the Vision Fund in 2016. SoftBank’s Vision Fund is a vehicle for investing in hi-tech companies and start-ups and its largest shareholder is the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Notably, Son decided to launch the Vision Fund in Riyadh during President Trump’s first official visit to the Gulf Kingdom.
In addition, the Mubadala Investment Company, a government fund of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), gave $15 billion to the Vision Fund. UAE leadership also share close ties to the Trump administration and MBS in Saudi Arabia.
As a consequence, SoftBank’s Vision Fund is majority funded by two Middle Eastern authoritarian governments with close ties to the U.S. government, specifically the Trump administration. In addition, both countries have enjoyed the rapid growth and normalization of ties with the state of Israel in recent years, particularly following the rise of current Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and Jared Kushner’s rise to prominence in his father-in-law’s administration. Other investments in the Vision Fund have come from Apple, Qualcomm and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, all tech companies with strong ties to Israel’s government.
The Saudi and Emirati governments’ links to the Vision Fund are so obvious that even mainstream outlets like the New York Times have described them as a “front for Saudi Arabia and perhaps other countries in the Middle East.”
SoftBank also enjoys close ties to Jared Kushner, with Fortress Investment Group lending $57 million to Kushner Companies in October 2017 while it was under contract to be acquired by SoftBank. As Barron’s noted at the time:
When SoftBank Group bought Fortress Investment Group last year, the Japanese company was buying access to a corps of seasoned investors. What SoftBank also got is a financial tie to the family of President Donald Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.”
According to The Real Deal, Kushner Companies obtained the financing from Fortress only after its attempts to obtain funding through the EB-5 visa program for a specific real estate venture were abandoned after the U.S. Attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission began to investigate how Kushner Companies used the EB-5 investor visa program. A key factor in the opening of that investigation was Kushner Companies’ representatives touting Jared Kushner’s position at the White House when talking to prospective investors and lenders.
SoftBank also recently came to the aid of a friend of Jared Kushner, former CEO of WeWork Adam Neumann. Neumann made shocking claims about his ties to both Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s MBS, even asserting that he had worked with both in creating Kushner’s long-awaited and controversial Middle East “peace plan” and claimed that he, Kushner and MBS would together “save the world.” Neumann previously called Kushner his “mentor.” MBS has also discussed on several occasions his close ties with Kushner and U.S. media reports have noted the frequent correspondence between the two “princelings.”
Notably, SoftBank invested in Neumann’s WeWork using money from the Saudi-dominated Vision Fund and later went on to essentially bail the company out after its IPO collapse and Neumann was pushed out. SoftBank’s founder, Masayoshi Son, had an odd yet very close relationship with Neumann, perhaps explaining why Neumann was allowed to walk with $1.7 billion after bringing WeWork to the brink of collapse. Notably, nearly half of SoftBank’s approximately $47 billion investments in the U.S. economy since Trump’s election, went to acquiring and then bailing out WeWork. It is unlikely that such a disastrous investment resulted in the level of job creation that Son had promised Trump in 2016.
Given that it is Cybereason’s top investor and shareholder by a large margin, SoftBank’s ties to the Trump administration and key allies of that administration are significant in light of Cybereason’s odd interest in 2020 U.S. election scenarios that end with the cancellation of this year’s upcoming presidential election. It goes without saying that the cancellation of the election would mean a continuation of the Trump administration until new elections would take place.
Furthermore, with Cybereason’s close and enduring ties to Israeli military intelligence now well-documented, it is worth asking if Israeli military intelligence would consider intervening in 2020 if the still-to-be-decided Democratic contender was strongly opposed to Israeli government policy, particularly Israel’s military occupation of Palestine. This is especially worth considering given revelations that sexual blackmailer and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who targeted prominent U.S. politicians, mostly Democrats, was in the employ of Israeli military intelligence.
Notably, Cybereason’s doomsday election scenarios involved the weaponization of deep fakes, self-driving cars and the hacking Internet of Things devices, with all of those technologies being pioneered and perfected — not by Russia, China or Iran — but by companies directly tied to Israeli intelligence, much like Cybereason itself. These companies, their technology and Cybereason’s own work creating the narrative that U.S. rival states seek to undermine the U.S. election in this way, will all be discussed in the conclusion of MintPress’ series on Cybereason and its outsized interest in the U.S. democratic process.
Feature photo | Graphic by Claudio Cabrera
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.