buzzfeed--2019-10-25--Google Removed Employee Questions About Its Hiring Of A Former DHS Staffer Who Defended The Muslim T

Google Removed Employee Questions About Its Hiring Of A Former DHS Staffer Who Defended The Muslim Travel Ban

As a counselor to then–acting DHS secretary Elaine Duke in 2017, Taylor called the screening and vetting standards at the country’s borders “ no longer adequate to combat terrorism ” as the agency recommended a “ tough” and “tailored ” policy to replace expiring parts of a Trump administration travel ban that barred visitors from six Muslim-majority countries. Taylor went on to serve as the deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff to Nielsen, whom Trump appointed to the top DHS role in December 2017. Nielsen oversaw the administration’s family separation policy for immigrants at the southern border in 2018 before resigning in April.  A spokesperson for Google declined to comment when asked if Google execs would address Taylor’s hiring at Thursday’s all-hands meeting. Multiple sources told BuzzFeed News following the gathering that Google's Vice President of Public Affairs and Public Policy Karan Bhatia defended Taylor's employment by saying that he was not involved in drafting the original Muslim travel ban and wasn't involved in family separation.  Google still has certain policies for workplace and political discussions, though the company declined to comment on why questions about Taylor’s hiring were removed. Two sources close to the company confirmed that two questions had been deleted because Google management considered them personal attacks, and confirmed that other questions about Taylor still remained on Dory.  The backlash against Taylor’s employment and the subsequent attempts to squash discussion on the matter is just the latest struggle for the search and advertising behemoth to balance workers' free expression with corporate harmony. Last month, Google settled with the National Labor and Review Board over complaints that it had stifled workplace dissent, leading the company to confirm that it would not prevent employees from discussing workplace issues.  “Google has hired a former DHS Chief of Staff who defended policies including family separation and Muslim ban,” read one now-deleted post seen by BuzzFeed News, and confirmed by three employees. “Prior to hire, was the psychological safety of impacted communities at Google considered? How can we respect Google’s [diversity, equity, and inclusion] values and avoid hiring those who dehumanize marginalized groups?”  On Wednesday, a question addressing Taylor’s hire on Dory, an internal service that allows employees to ask and vote on inquiries to be put to management, had garnered about 2,000 upvotes before being removed. BuzzFeed News reported Monday on Taylor’s hiring .  Ahead of an all-hands meeting on Thursday at Google’s Mountain View, California, headquarters, management twice deleted inquiries about Miles Taylor, the chief of staff of former DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who joined the company last month as a government affairs and public policy manager. In response, some employees have expressed anger in emails and group messages, asking why the company hired and shielded a former Trump administration member who helped implement policies Google and its executives had previously protested.  Google has been removing questions from an internal company message board about its hiring of a former Department of Homeland Security staffer who once publicly defended the Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban.  "I personally thought the answers on stage were an insult to our communities here at Google."  Google and its leaders had voiced their strong opposition to the Muslim travel ban and family separations occurring at the Mexico border. In January 2017, following the announcement of the original travel ban, Google cofounder Sergey Brin joined protesters at San Francisco International Airport, while Google CEO Sundar Pichai pointedly voiced his displeasure on Twitter, in an email to staff, and in a much-publicized employee meeting.  “The stories and images of families being separated at the border are gut-wrenching,” Pichai tweeted as the Trump administration ramped up its anti-immigration policy in the summer of 2018. “Urging our government to work together to find a better, more humane way that is reflective of our values as a nation. #keepfamiliestogether.”  The discussions about Taylor have spread to multiple employee groups on Twitter including those for Muslims, Iranians, Latinx members, activists, and the Women’s Walkout, which formed last year in the wake of stories about Google’s $90 million payout to an executive accused of sexual misconduct.  One employee wrote about how they were directly affected by the travel ban, and how they were thankful for the outpouring of support from their colleagues. Another cited their previous time in the State Department and noted that some civil servants serve despite what political party is in power because of civic duty. “Your job is to carry out the policies of the U.S. Government,” they wrote.  Another employee called the deletion of questions “in the name of ‘respect’” a “deeply misguided thing for Google to be doing” because of the power imbalance between a former Trump administration official and employees hoping to critique the company’s hiring of him.  “I find it ironic that leadership is worried about the hurt feelings of a single powerful person, but not about the message that their hiring has _already sent_ to Googlers who are threatened or directly impacted by violence at our border and borders around the world,” the person wrote.  “Serving as chief of staff to the person who oversaw the implementation of this country’s most cruel contemporary abuses of its great power feels like a totally different ballgame to me, and I think we’re right to be publicly questioning it,” they added.  Two Google employees confirmed that a second question regarding Taylor’s hiring was deleted on Thursday.  The deletions, however, only led to more questions. At least five more questions about the topic have popped up on Dory on Thursday afternoon, with a few landing in the top 10 based on upvotes.  At the all-hands meeting, which was attended by Pichai and Senior Vice President of Global Affairs Kent Walker, Bhatia said there had been inaccuracies about how Taylor was being portrayed in press reports. He said that the new hire did not draft the original Muslim travel ban — despite going on record to defend a later version of the policy in September 2017 — and was not involved in family separation, which was implemented by his direct boss DHS Secretary Nielsen.  When BuzzFeed News asked Google and Taylor about the nature of Taylor's work at DHS on Monday, neither provided comment.  One employee said they felt "gaslit" by Bhatia, who went on to add at the meeting that Taylor was respected on both side of the aisle and would help with the company's government relations efforts.  "I personally thought the answers on stage were an insult to our communities here at Google," said one employee on an internal group. "And it's a missed opportunity to not have voiced an objection to them right there and then."  Another complained about how they spent the majority of the time discussing an extension on Google Chrome, the company's web browser; a minute on the hiring of Taylor; and no time on "the psychological safety issues" or the "censorship of questions."  "Honestly, we might get clearer answers about our foreign policy from the presidential debate in under 50 seconds," they joked.


cbsnews--2019-05-01--Labor Department says gig workers arent employees

Labor Department says gig workers aren't employees

The Trump administration is no fan of big tech companies. But a recent decision from its Department of Labor could give a long-term boost to tech giants like Uber, Lyft and the soon-to-go-public Postmates.  These companies -- and many like them -- rely on a wide pool of on-demand workers who sign up through the companies' platforms to drive cars, make deliveries, run errands, walk dogs or clean houses. Many people doing this work disagree with the companies' assertion that they're not employees, but rather solo small-business proprietors using the platform of choice to perform their cleaning (or driving, or delivery) business.  Now the Department of Labor has weighed in, with an opinion letter stating that an on-demand company that appears to provide a cleaning service is correct to classify its workers as independent contractors rather than employees. The decision adds more heft to behemoths like Uber and Lyft and house-cleaning company Handy, all of which face lawsuits accusing them of wrongly classifying workers as independent contractors.  "For that particular company, the letter is sort of a get-out-of-jail-free card," said Maya Pinto, a senior researcher at the National Employment Law Project. "It will be used by this one company and could prod other companies to get similar letters. We believe in most cases, if not all cases, the workers are under control of the company and are in fact employees," she said.  Handy, which wasn't named in the letter, is "a virtual marketplace company that "operates in the so-called 'on-demand' or 'sharing' economy,'" the DOL wrote. The marketplace requires workers' name, email and Social Security number to sign them up. It connects them with customers who pay on a per-job basis, and it provides training materials that workers can choose to review or not. The app does allow customers to rate workers and removes workers after they haven't been "active" for some time.  A key reason the DOL cited for its decision is that the workers on Handy's platform have a great deal of control. The platform itself doesn't require a minimum of cleaning jobs, allows the workers to sign up with competitor apps or to work directly with customers, and it allows workers to sometimes ask for higher pay than the platform sets.  That's substantially different from Uber and Lyft drivers, whose rates are determined by the companies' ever-shifting policies and who are liable to get thrown off the platform once their customer rating dips below about 4.3 stars. Lyft, which went public recently, faces six class actions and "thousands" of individual actions accusing it of misclassifying employees, it told the Securities and Exchange Commission. Uber faces two such lawsuits, according to securities filings. Handy has been sued five times by workers.  "If workers are misclassified as independent contractors, and [a] court were to find they're employees, the employer could be responsible for back pay, overtime and minimum-wage violations and record-keeping violations. There could be [family and medical leave] implications, tax implications, workers' compensation implications," said Susan Harthill, a partner at Morgan Lewis, representing employers. "Classification is a big concern for all businesses."  The nature of "platform" work can sometimes create a truly gray area on the employee-contractor spectrum. But the cost difference between paying a employee and an independent contractor is so large, companies often choose to err in their favor while the decisions are fought out in court, saving themselves potentially millions of dollars. (A study last year on ride-hail drivers in New York found that if Uber considered its drivers employees, it would be the largest employer in the city.)  In exchange for freedom and flexibility, independent contractors give up most benefits that employees get, such as paid sick time, family leave, overtime or minimum-wage laws, and the right to start or join a union. That tradeoff often hits lowest-paid workers the hardest, labor advocates say.  "Where we see misclassification of workers is a lot of low-wage jobs that have a service sector aspect, or in construction, where companies have a lot of workers and they're trying to cut costs," said NELP's general counsel, Catherine Ruckelshaus. "But the gig companies have made this a key part of their profitability."


cbsnews--2019-10-08--Supreme Court to hear LGBTQ employment rights cases

Warren stands by account of being pushed out of her first teaching job


charlotteobserver--2019-11-01--The Latest: US employers added solid 128,000 jobs in October

The Latest on the U.S. employment report for October (all times local):  U.S. employers added a solid 128,000 jobs in October, a figure that was held down by a now-settled strike against General Motors that caused several thousand workers to be temporarily counted as unemployed.  The Labor Department says the unemployment rate ticked up from 3.5% to 3.6%, still near a five-decade low. For the second straight month, average hourly wages rose 3% from a year ago.  The GM strike contributed to the loss of 41,600 auto factory jobs in October. But the settlement will likely lead to a rebound in the coming months. The report revised upward job gains in the prior two months by a combined 95,000, suggesting a healthier job market than initially believed.  Still, hiring has slowed this year. Gains averaged just 167,000 in the past 10 months, down from a monthly average of 223,000 in 2018, according to Labor Department figures.  The government's October jobs report being released Friday will help show whether hiring remains a key source of strength for a U.S. economy that's been weakened by trade wars and a global slowdown.  It will also provide a glimpse of whatever short-term damage the now-settled strike against General Motors inflicted on the economy.  Analysts have forecast that employers added 90,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate ticked up from 3.5% to 3.6%, still near a 50-year low, according to a survey of forecasts by data provider FactSet.  The predicted gain is an artificially low one because of the GM strike. The strike is thought to have caused roughly 60,000 idled workers to be temporarily counted as unemployed during October, meaning that the expected job gain would otherwise be far higher, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody Analytics.  Hiring has slowed this past year, though it remains high enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising in an otherwise mostly lackluster economy. On Wednesday, the government estimated that the economy grew in the July-October quarter at a modest 1.9% annual rate.  Surveys suggest that employers have turned cautious in large part because of heightened uncertainties caused by President Donald Trump's trade conflicts. The president has imposed tariffs on many goods imported to the U.S., and other nations have retaliated with import taxes on U.S. exports.  One result is that companies, especially in manufacturing, construction and retail but also in some other sectors, have slowed their hiring or have stopped hiring altogether.  "The fundamental outlook for payrolls is deteriorating, with all the surveys we follow pointing to weaker labor demand," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. "Layoffs are still very low and stable, but the downshift in hiring is substantial."  Still, consumers, who drive about 70% of U.S. economic activity, have remained generally resilient. In September, they modestly stepped up their spending, and their incomes grew fast enough to let them save more, too. A rising saving rate is encouraging because it suggests that households have leeway to keep spending and supporting an economic expansion that has entered a record-breaking 11th year.  At the same time, businesses have been a drag on the economy in recent months. Collectively, they have slashed their spending on industrial machinery and other equipment, mostly because the U.S.-China trade war has made them reluctant to commit to big purchases. The tariffs between the U.S. and China, the world's two largest economies, have also reduced U.S. exports.  So far this year, job growth has averaged roughly 161,000 a month, down from a monthly average of 223,000 jobs in 2018, according to Labor Department figures.  October is the usual start of hiring for the holiday shopping season. But the rise of e-commerce and increasing concentration of wealth in large U.S. metros have corresponded with the loss of more than 70,000 jobs at retailers this year. This trend could further diminish hiring by the retail sector, said Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial.  "Given the ongoing structural changes within retail and this year's late Thanksgiving, there was likely much less seasonal hiring this October than in past years," he said.  Sluggish pay growth is another source of concern. The low unemployment rate and a shortage of qualified workers in many industries have nevertheless failed to accelerate wages across the job market as traditional economy theory would suggest. Average annual hourly pay growth has slipped from 3.4% in February to 2.9% in September.  Still, data tracked by the jobs site Glassdoor indicates that wage gains should start to rebound as companies continue to compete for workers in the hottest job markets.  Noting an upward trend in wages in his company's data, Glassdoor economist Daniel Zhao said, "The labor market is showing no signs of stopping in October."


charlotteobserver--2019-11-11--Brazil launches job program amid mass unemployment

President Jair Bolsonaro launched a jobs program Monday largely based on tax reductions as Brazil struggles to put more than 12 million people back to work.  The pension and labor secretary said the administration aims to create 1.8 million jobs for people ages 18-29 and almost 1 million other jobs by the end of 2022.  The jobs package comes amid stubborn double-digit unemployment as well as violent protests elsewhere in South America, including Chile, stemming partly from economic difficulties. Brazil's economy is headed toward its third straight year of roughly 1% growth, following two years of deep recession, and patience is wearing thin.  "People between 18 and 29 have double the (average) unemployment rate. That is why we chose them to be beneficiaries," labor secretary Rogério Marinho said. "We will make payrolls less expensive over the next three years, responsibly, showing how we will make up for it while respecting the budget."  Marinho said labor costs for employers will fall as much as 34% with the program for young people. Other measures include stimulating microcredit for those currently unable to take out loans, and flexibility to work holidays and Sundays. Left-leaning politicians have opposed Sunday work in the past, arguing it would open the door to exploitation.  The rules are already in effect, but Brazil's Congress must ratify them.  The administration's tax cut aims to encourage employers to hire young people who haven't had a job before and who are often drawn into low-paying informal labor. The program runs through the end of 2022.  "The proposal attacks a market failure. Young people don't have experience, so they don't get jobs. Since they don't get jobs, they don't get experience," said Marcelo Neri, an economist who directs the social policy department at the Getulio Vargas Foundation university. "Moreover, it's the group of people who suffered most in the past five years."  Brazil's unemployment surged during the 2015-2016 recession and has been in the double digits since. Three years ago, Bolsonaro's predecessor, Michel Temer, pitched a labor reform as certain to stimulate jobs. However, most employment gains since have come from informal or part-time work.  Unemployment has come down since its 13.7% peak in 2017, but not fast enough to satisfy a beleaguered workforce. Joblessness was 11.8% in the third quarter, down from 11.9% in the same period a year earlier. Many of those who cast their vote for Bolsonaro last October hoped the shift in policy would reinvigorate the economy.  Brazilians in recent years have turned to self-employment, for example performing odd jobs, doing deliveries on bike or motorcycle and driving for ride-share apps like Uber. Postings for steady jobs, even those paying as little as $400 a month, draw long lines of applicants.  Official data from the third quarter show 4.7 million people are so disheartened that they have stopped looking for work.


charlotteobserver--2019-12-09--New program to allow state employees to take infants to work

Starting in January, New Hampshire state employees will be able to take part in a program that will allow them to take their infant children to work, Gov. Chris Sununu said Monday.  Sununu signed an executive order allowing parents and eligible guardians of infants between the ages of 6 weeks and 6 months to bring their child to work, so long as their state agency or department has elected to participate; the worker receives prior written authorization from the agency's human resource officer; the worker has completed an individualized plan for the infant; there's no safety hazard or concern to the parent of the infant; and there is limited disruption in the workplace.  Sununu said over 20 state departments and agencies have chosen to participate so far. The program will be based on programs in several other states, including Arizona, Vermont and Washington.  “This initiative can provide working families with options to give their kids the healthiest possible start to life while allowing them to remain in the workforce if they choose to do so," Sununu said at a news conference.  When asked how many state employees this could affect currently, Sununu said “it's not that many, to be honest, but part of doing this is we hope it's more. We're trying to encourage and attract young people into the workforce."  The policy says that “habitually disruptive or sick infants are not permitted in the workplace "and that parents participating in the program are required to comply with current state regulations governing child immunizations. The infants shall not be brought to meetings unless approved in advance by the agency's human resource officer and the meeting organizer.  Diaper changes and disposal must take place only in a restroom, the policy said. The employer will provide at least one diaper changing station in their facility. Supervisors must allow lactating mothers flexible schedules to breastfeed and/or express milk.  “This will alleviate a lot of that anxiety" that comes with the stress of being a new parent, said Sarah Stewart, commissioner of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources who approved the policy. “I look forward to supporting the new moms and dads that work in our department."  A spokeswoman for New Hampshire's largest state employee union, the State Employee Association, said the union wasn’t consulted and that there are agencies it doesn’t apply to.


21stcenturywire--2019-01-01--YEAR IN REVIEW 2018 Top Ten Conspiracies

YEAR IN REVIEW: 2018 Top Ten Conspiracies

Once again, we’ve arrived at our New Years Eve wrap-up, showcasing some of the most compelling and downright conspiratorial stories of the year. This past year was one of thee most polarizing ever, exposing some of the fundamental flaws in the current globalized command and control system. Unlike the establishment gatekeepers, when we use the word ‘conspiracy’ here, we are not talking about theories, but actual bona fide conspiracies and their cover-ups.    There were a number of honorable mentions this year which would have been good enough to break into the top ten in previous years, but not this one…  On the international scene, the world got a taste of what “Peace in the Pacific” might look like, as détente broke out on the Korean Peninsula, when North Korean leader Kim Jung-un sat down with South Korea’s Moon Jae-in to discuss a future without war, and with President Trump hoping to catch some of the kudos as he angles for the de-nuclearization of the Peninsula. Meanwhile, Trump proceeded to turn economic warfare into a national pastime, first by unilaterally pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal and immediately slapping harsh sanctions on Iran. Trump then waged economic warfare against America’s top trading partners, including China, sending the stock market on one roller coaster ride after another. Over in Europe, the BREXIT debacle continued to ferment between London and Brussels, while a number of right-wing and populist movements continued to sweep across the EU, confounding pundits and analysts along the way. In the US, endless #MeToo sex scandals plagued Hollywood and the media, while the #NPCMeme nearly broke Twitter. We also witnessed the surreal Beatification of John McCain by the US political and media establishment, with a strange week of ceremonies and eulogies in honor of one of the most belligerent warmongers American history, but not to be outdone by the state funeral for President George H.W. Bush a few months later, who was given a similar saint-like, posthumous treatment. Later in the year, we also witnessed NATO and its proxy Ukraine nearly came to blows with Russia over the Kerch Strait provocation in Crimea – as the West’s case for war with Russia continues to press forward.  The most important thing to bear in mind about 2018 is that nearly all of the marquee plots exist within either Trump or Russia framework, or both simultaneously. We can see that a sizeable portion of international politics is now being driven by domestic US politics – with the public left to believe that all roads lead back to Moscow, or to Trump Tower. By using these two skeleton keys, and you can skillfully surf almost all of the top conspiracies of 2018…     10. Parkland – Another day, another mass shooting, or so it seemed. They’ve almost become routine in America, complete with the usual scripted media template: breaking news of a lone gunman with mental issues who goes on an AR-15 rampage at a school, shopping mall or airport. That very character materialized again in the form of 19 year-old Nikolas Cruz, named as the suspect in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, apparently killing some 17 students and staff. However, never in the history has such an off-beat tragedy become such an overtly politicized event. Aside from the usual horror and outrage, what was unique about this incident was how rapidly it was transformed into a national political campaign, within hours in fact. No sooner were the bodies counted that a hand-picked group of good-looking, photogenic and camera-friendly students were being shuttled from one corporate media outlet to another, for around-the-clock interviews, coached by a team partisan TV producers and political operatives, and soon after speaking at public rallies around the country. What made this post-tragedy theatrical performance all the more contrived though, was how the over-arching imperative was not confined to elevating the issue of ‘gun control,’ or even the fact it was used as an anti-Trump media launching pad, but rather by using the emotive spectacle as a political platform for registering new Democratic Party voters in time before the 2018 US Midterm Elections. This drama took place in Florida’s Broward County, a hot bed of political corruption and organized crime, which for some unknown reason has also become a regular venue for a string of freak events – like the Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooting, and last October with another seemingly made-to-order political event right before midterm elections with faux a letter bomb extravaganza by alleged pro-Trump ‘MAGA Bomber’, Cesar Sayoc. Looking back, what’s perhaps even more bizarre is how fast all of these consumable “breaking” dramas fade from public view.     9. 2018 Midterm Circus – Normally, midterm elections pass without much fanfare, and rarely is it ever treated as a life and death national emergency. Never in US history has there been a more politicized midterm election than this one, with a series of dramatic plots and twists, all lined-up to try to sway or energize voters. Months before the election the media were already ginning up fear of “Russian Meddling!” – which of course never actually materialized. The Russian canard also prompted Facebook to instigate a mass political purge of alternative and conservative pages from its platform in the weeks before the midterm elections – a level of partisan corporate election interference never seen before in US history. Also set in motion just in time for the election was the Migrant Caravan of some 5,000 prospective immigrants from Central America hoping to rush the US southern border in November. This was coupled with a media campaign custom designed to shame President Trump and the Republican Party for not being compassionate enough in allowing for open borders to accommodate a seemingly unlimited number of migrants (future Democratic Party voters) into the country. Despite denials by various “fact checking” websites, it turned out that the Caravans have been mainly organized by a charity that’s bankrolled by NGOs funded by Democratic Party financier George Soros. While the Caravan was steaming along, a Congressional inquisition was also underway with Trump’s Supreme Court Justice pick, commonly known as the ‘Kavanaugh Hearings,’  which quickly descended into a #MeToo circus, with judge Brett Kavanaugh besieged by various and sundry women, including the opposition’s star witness, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford,who had accused Kavanaugh of a drunken high school sexual indiscretion some 35 years earlier, although she admitted she could not remember the details. As it turned out, most of the women accusers later admitted they had fabricated their stories and worked with partisan lawyers and media outlets in order to try to derail the confirmation of justice Kavanaugh. But the real piece de resistance came just days before voters were set to go to the polls. As if by magic, numerous fake letter bombs all appeared at the same time and same day at the homes and office addresses of Democratic Party luminaries George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Maxine Waters, Robert De Niro, and ex-CIA spook chieftain John Brennan. Bizarrely, Brennan’s fake package was addressed in care of CNN’s Manhattan headquarters – which allowed Democratic Party-oriented network CNN to sound the alarm dramatically announcing on-air they were evacuating its studios. These faux letter bombs were supposedly sent by one Cesar Sayoc, a Trump-supporting nutter dubbed (oddly, in advance of any evidence) by the media as the #MAGABomber (this made-to-order hashtag was deployed within minutes of news breaking). Naturally, the entire incident was blamed on Trump by CNN and others. Not to be out done, less than 48 hours later another ‘lone gunman’ appeared, identified as one Robert Bowers, a distraught middle aged social media user who stormed into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA, and shot 11 people. Aside from talk of ‘antisemitism’, the Pittsburgh event also helped to propel the issue of gun control back into the headlines ahead of the election, but more importantly, the shooting was used by mainstream media outlets who claimed that Trump was somehow responsible for the shooting – a clear case of the corporate media using what was an apparent tragedy in order to gain political leverage just days before an election. Needless to say, Americans were relieved when the 2018 midterms were finally over.     8. ‘Antisemitism in the Labour Party!’ – Undoubtedly, one of the biggest threats to the transnational war machine, and to Israel’s 70 year illegal occupation of Palestine – is the prospect of UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn assuming the office of Prime Minister. As a result, the mainstream corporate media establishment and the Israeli Lobby have been working overtime to try and cut-down or discredit Corbyn in any way possible. Led by Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London, the establishment press have accused him of being an IRA terrorist, or an ISIS sympathizer, and of course, a Kremlin spy.  This full-on assault was engineered by a conclave of pro-Israeli Zionist groups within the Labour Party, including LFI (Labour Friends of Israel), the JLM (the Zionist ‘Jewish Labour Movement’), backed up with endless fake stories about ‘Corbyn’s antisemitism’ planted in the mainstream media – all trying, but clearly failing to paint Corbyn as a raving anti-semite. As activist and Palestinian advocate, Miko Peled points out, the problem is not anti-Semitism but Corbyn’s stance on Palestine. “These Zionist groups want to get rid of Corbyn because of his principled stance on Palestine, Israeli colonialism and occupation of Palestine, and they use anti-Semitism labels because they think it will work,” said Peled. One should not underestimate just how deeply embedded the Israeli Lobby is in US and UK politics, and how The Lobby wages covert warfare in order to make sure American and British politicians are doing its bidding. The facts speak for themselves.     7. Gilet Jaunes aka Yellow Vests – This past autumn in Paris, Yellow Vests began to appear on the streets of Paris. At first, the world didn’t take much notice, but it wasn’t long until this protest developed into one of the most significant grassroots political movements in living memory – and nearly bringing the French government of globalist Emmanuel Macron to its knees. Naturally, the media tried the blame the movement on Russia, which was laughable. The Yellow Vests, or Gilets Jaunes, in French, sprouted up as an organic “leaderless movement”, but is described by a fearful mainstream press as ‘populist.’ They had initially gained steam in November, marshaling support against the government’s diesel fuel tax hikes, but quickly morphed into a general expression of anger against Macron, and even the EU. The movement is spreading beyond France too. Their complaint seems to be similar to so many people who’ve been scorned by the false promise of globalization and the all-singing and all-dancing technocracy espoused by social engineers and masters of high finance in Brussels. The sums simple don’t add up anymore for the working man and women, and now they are dedicated to disrupting a system which they believe no longer works for them. Watch this space in 2019.     6. Julian Assange – In 2018, it became clear that concerted moves were afoot between the US and Ecuadorian governments, conspiring in behind closed doors to bring WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange’s eight year standoff to an end. However, what our bought-and-paid-for corrupt corporate mainstream media won’t tell you is that Assange is actually holding the line for press freedom – and his fate may ultimately determine the future of the Fourth Estate. While US officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeatedly accuse WikiLeaks of being “a non-state hostile intelligence service,” the reality is that Julian Assange and Wikileaks are a publisher and therefore should be protected under freedom of the press. Moreover, the US has no legitimate legal jurisdiction over Wikileaks which resides overseas. In order to force WikiLeaks into Washington’s legal field of gravity, the Western establishment is trying to frame Assange and WikiLeaks as somehow part of the official Trump-Russian Collusion conspiracy theory, which led the Establishment to draft in help from what has recently become the premier deep state disinformation and propaganda outlet, the UK’s The Guardian newspaper, and one of its many serial fabricators, ‘journalist’ Luke Harding  who invented an elaborate front page story about how Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort (a central ‘person of interest’ in Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into alleged Trump-Russia Collusion) had visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, supposedly as part of some secret Russian plot to put Donald Trump in the White House in 2016. This was clearly a move to slander Assange ahead of a possible extradition to the US following the revelation a secret sealed Grand Jury indictment filed years earlier. The tea leaves say this situation may soon come to a head – and when it does, either way, the trans-Atlantic Establishment will have to show their true face.     5. Trump Brings the Troops Home – Just before Christmas, President Trump attempted to do what no other US President has ever done, which is come good on his campaign promises. Trump shocked the world and the US foreign policy and military establishment when he announced the withdrawal of US troops from northeastern Syria, along with a draw-down of 7,000 troops (out of 14,000) from Afghanistan. The announcement came as a surprise to even the most ardent anti-interventionists who had all but resigned themselves to an indefinite US military presence in both those overseas locations. Trump’s decision triggered the resignation of Defense Secretary James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, supposedly in protest. As 21WIRE pointed out, the Military Industrial Complex will not let go of Afghanistan easily, as “The Generals” immediately began to disregard Trump’s remarks claiming they were ‘a rumor’.  On Syria, it only took a week for Trump to back-pedal after a desperate intervention from the unhinged Neoconservative warmonger, Senator Lindsey Graham, who seems to have convinced the President not to fully withdraw from the illegal occupation in Syria. Bottom line: don’t trust the mainstream headlines, and certainly don’t trust the promises of politicians. – no matter how good they sound.     4. Khashoggi – If you believe everything you’ve heard from the mainstream press and the CIA, on 2nd October, Jamal Khashoggi, a well-known journalist and occasional critic (and hardly a dissident) of the Saudi government, walked into the country’s consulate in Istanbul, where he was supposedly murdered, and his body hacked to pieces by a bone saw, before the crime scene was ‘cleaned’ by a Saudi version of Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction. Apparently, the Saudi Arabian government half owned-up to the crime, with its public prosecutor saying that Khashoggi was killed by a ‘rogue’ intelligence operation. Here’s the real kicker though: his body has not yet been found. In any court of law in the world, no guilty verdict could ever be reached in murder case without habeas corpus. But when it’s trial by media with high geopolitical stakes – pretty much anything can make it over what would normally be a much higher bar of justice. Ditto with Skripal, and ‘Assad’s chemical weapons’, too. The CIA’s well-timed announcement fingering Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the man who ordered the gruesome killing was then used to corner Trump who was attempting to salvage a lucrative US arms deals with the Kingdom. “Why is Trump is doing business with a murderer?” crowed the headlines. Aside from slating Saudi Arabia in the global court of public condemnation, the other upside of this affair is that it placed a spotlight on the US-UK partnership with Saudi in prosecuting the brutal 4 year war on Yemen, and has provided the US with an unlikely, yet smooth exit from a highly illegal military operation started by Barack Obama in March 2015. Every week it seems that the Turkish media is drip-feeding possible evidence, like secret ‘unreleased’ photos, or a new grainy CCTV video depicting something which might be construed as evidence – all in an effort to shore-up the official conspiracy theory, but still not definitive. So the murder of Khashoggi may not be a game of Clue, but it certainly resembles one. Still waiting for that body to turn up…     3. Integrity and The ‘New Knowledge’ – For those who know that the entire Russiagate conspiracy is a complete dud, Christmas came early this year. A cache of allegedly hacked documents posted on an Anonymous website revealed an international network, ironically called the “Integrity Initiative,” which is spread across NATO member states comprised of bureaucrats, politicians, journalists, academics, and military intelligence officers – all running a clandestine anti-Russian propaganda operation funded by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and with help from NATO, and deep state-linked Silicon Valley corporation Facebook. Integrity’s mission seems to be instigating and sustaining a New Cold War with Russia, by constantly driving fake news stories into the western press designed to create a climate of fear around all things Russian. The leak proved what many had suspected for years, but couldn’t yet prove existed. The operation is the brainchild of a Scotland-based think tank, with the cryptic title of the Institute for Statecraft, complete with a fake address, but whose members read like a who’s who of deep state intelligence operatives. Just follow the money and you’ll soon see that this is no ordinary ‘think tank’ initiative. Over in the US, a similar revelation came to light which exposed something amazing – that supposed ‘Russian meddling’ was actually run by a group of “tech specialists who lean Democratic,” New Knowledge has ties to both the US military and intelligence agencies. In other words, Democratic Party operatives bankrolled and ran a “false flag” meddling operation designed to be blamed on Russia. Admitted by even the New York Times, the group’s CEO and co-founder Jonathon Morgan previously worked for DARPA, the US military’s advanced research agency, along with partner, Ryan Fox, from the National Security Agency (NSA) and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Together they perpetrated election interference by constructing their own “Russian Bot Farm” to give the false impression that the Russians were backing Republican candidate Roy Moore in Alabama’s special Senate election in 2017. Moore would go on to lose by a small margin. What Integrity and New Knowledge demonstrate is that everything the Western political establishment and media have accused the Russian government of doing – but never presented any evidence to prove it – is actually being done by agencies in the US and UK, against their own people. If that’s not a true black pill moment, then nothing is.     2. Skripal – If ever there was dazzling operation of international intrigue, obtuse statecraft, and pure Orwellian propaganda, it has to be the Skripal Affair. The plot goes like this: evil Russian assassins come to a sleepy Wiltshire town to launch a deadly chemical weapons attack against retired former Russian spy (technically a Russia-UK double agent), Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. The murder weapon: an esoteric chemical weapon known as Novichok, which UK authorities assured us was the deadliest nerve agent known to man. Only it wasn’t, as both the Skripals survived somehow, although never to be seen in public ever again. The motive: no apparent reason, just Putin being mean. “There’s no logic in it; it doesn’t make sense, and I don’t think it needs to make sense, because essentially what the media is doing is propagandizing the population in favor of the madman theory. That’s critical to do when you’re trying to start aggression against a country,” says Moon of Alabama. The story has since been advanced to ratchet-up western sanctions against Russia, and lay claim to the narrative that “Russia launched the first chemical weapons attack on European soil since WWII.” So the story goes, and it keeps going, with new innovative, just-in-time plot lines conjured to bridge the reality gap by NATO’s convenient, but as yet unofficial ‘open source’ investigative agency, Bellingcat. Yes, a truly unbelievable story. We’ll just leave it at that.     1. R.I.P. Liberal World Order – Of course, the big ticket item has to be the one which challenges the enduring post-World War II world order. Ever since Donald Trump was sworn-in early 2017, the globalist establishment have been commiserating in their various journals of record – about the end of the ‘Liberal World Order’. And they all seem to be blaming it on the ascendency of Donald Trump who they believe is buttressed by the Alt-Right and Vladimir Putin, all of whom are hell-bent on dismantling 70 years of progress and all of the various multilateral international institutions starting with the UN. So the narrative goes. If CFR luminaries like Richard Haas are to be believed, this historical collapse of the liberal elite order is all because of Trump, uneducated Brexit voters, the Russians, and anti-immigration nationalists in Europe. “Liberalism is in retreat. Democracies are feeling the effects of growing populism. Parties of the political extremes have gained ground in Europe. The vote in the United Kingdom in favor of leaving the EU attested to the loss of elite influence. Even the US is experiencing unprecedented attacks from its own president on the country’s media, courts, and law-enforcement institutions,” said Haas in March. The refusal of the liberal intelligensia to admit the real reasons why their order is coming apart at the seams will only hasten its demise. Perhaps it is because of their own arrogance and out-of-touch relationship with the other 90% who work for living, as well as the endless wars for profit, transnational corporate monopolies, and spiraling taxes, fees and fines across the board. Rather than have an honest ‘come to Jesus moment,’  instead they are throwing their toys out of the pram – just look at the diabolical media coverage across CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, the BBC, and the like. Rather than learn or listen to the throngs of protesters in France, German, Brazil, Italy, Greece, or Sweden, instead, elites are doubling down on their Trump-Russia conspiracy theories. It’s for this reason too that the Yellow Vest movement is completely lost on the CFR crowd. It’s true, the world is changing, and rapidly. Granted, it’s not certain that whatever replaces the current world order will be any better than its predecessor; if we are honest about why the old order is no longer fit for purpose, then there is less chance that any real progress is going to be made going forward. Let that be the underlying lesson of 2018.


21stcenturywire--2019-12-13--The Financialization of the US Economy Should Terrify All Americans

Wall Street road sign with the New York Stock Exchange bearing American flags visible in the background. (Photo: Alex Proimos. Source: Wikicommons)  Although academics have nuanced definitions of financialization, it boils down to the financial sector – such as banks, credit card businesses, and insurance companies – becoming an increasingly larger part of the overall economy. Financialization enriches a select few at the majority’s expense and should terrify all Americans.  The financial sector produces no goods that can be consumed, such as food, clothing, or medicine. As a result, an expanding financial sector without the matching growth of the “real” economic sector transforms productive economic activities to the business of a casino, using real resources but producing no tangible output.  Even more, a rapidly growing financial sector is stoked by borrowed money or debt, something that has historically been the catalyst for financial crises, recessions, and even depressions. If unchecked, the financial sector’s increasing prominence will, in time, damage the real economy and the social fabric of the United States.  The financial sector sits between savers and borrowers: it takes money from savers and channels those funds those who want to borrow, such as businesses and projects.  The performance of the financial sector depends on how well it carries out two tasks: providing savers with the range of financial instruments they want and channeling savings to the most productive areas, namely, projects with the highest rate of return.  This then supports the growth of the real economy that produces goods and services that can be consumed or invested in, creating high paying jobs and overall prosperity in the process.  The financial industry plays an essential role in creating a balanced and high performing economy that includes growth, low unemployment and inflation, stability, and a manageable level of national debt to protect future generations.  Since 1980, the relative size of the American financial sector has about doubled in the overall economy. Now the question is, has the U.S. economy’s real performance increased since then?   In the 1950s and 1960s, the average real annual economic growth rate was above 4 percent, but since 2009, it has been below 2 percent. From 1946 to 1973, real median household income surged 74 percent, but the numbers have not risen significantly for nearly 40 years.  Financialization has increased the wellbeing of the top 1 percent and especially the top 0.01 percent, and all of this with the debt-to-GDP ratio rising from 32 percent in 1980 to a whopping 106 percent in 2018….  Continue reading this story at The Globe Post  ***   Author Hossein Askari is an Emeritus Iran Professor of International Business and International Affairs at the George Washington University. In 1991, he was asked by the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia to mediate and restore their diplomatic relations and by the government of Kuwait to improve relations with Iran  READ MORE FINANCIAL NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Financial Files


breitbart--2019-09-21--Trump to Host UN Event Urging Protection of Religious Freedom

Trump to Host U.N. Event Urging Protection of Religious Freedom

Trump will keynote the event, and Vice President Mike Pence will introduce the president.  Trump will seek broader international support for efforts to safeguard religious freedom amid the increasing persecution of people based on their faith beliefs and the growing number of attacks on houses of worship.  “The President will call on the international community to take concrete steps to prevent attacks against people on the basis of their religion or beliefs and to ensure the sanctity of houses of worship and all public spaces for all faiths,” the press release states.  Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins said in a statement to Breitbart News, “We are grateful for President Trump’s bold decisive leadership on international religious freedom.”  No one should have to practice their faith or worship God in fear. The Trump administration’s record is witness to the fact that they clearly understand the foundational role international religious freedom plays in our national security, as well as the economic and social stability of foreign nations. History will record President Trump was right in making religious freedom a top priority in our nation’s foreign policy.  The Trump administration continues to expand efforts to combat the persecution of people based on their religious beliefs and to broaden support for the defense of human life throughout the world.  Travis Weber, FRC vice president for policy and government affairs, wrote Tuesday at Townhall that the United States under Trump’s leadership has “already distinguished itself as a global leader” on the issue of religious freedom.  Weber also observed four ways the Trump administration can continue its “wake-up call” to the “current worldwide crisis” of religious freedom:  “The U.S. can and should lead the world in advancing religious freedom,” Weber wrote. “The consequences of ignoring the victims of religious oppression are far too grave. If President Trump highlights these areas in his UN speech … it would boost the United States in its role as a world leader on religious freedom.”  On the issue of the dignity of all human life, Bradley Mattes, president of Life Issues Institute and the International Right to Life Federation, recently commended United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar for their “unprecedented letter” inviting other world leaders to stand with the U.S. in defending life at the U.N.  The secretaries’ letter followed a joint statement at the 2019 World Health Assembly by the U.S., Brazil, Egypt, Ghana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia in which the countries condemned the use of the phrase “sexual and reproductive health and rights” to force a pro-abortion agenda.  “[P]lease encourage other countries in your region to join this growing coalition to push back against harmful efforts to interpret long-standing international instruments as requiring anti-family and pro-abortion policies,” Pompeo and Azar wrote to the other world leaders, “and to promote proactively positions that will protect families and strengthen the health of all people.”


aljazeera--2019-01-15--Indias mega Kumbh festival gets BJP boost ahead of election

India's mega Kumbh festival gets BJP boost ahead of election

New Delhi, India - Over 100 million people will be taking a holy dip at the confluence of two rivers in northern India's Prayagraj city as the eight-week-long Kumbh festival began on Tuesday.  The Kumbh, billed as the world's biggest gathering of humanity, is a mass pilgrimage in which Hindus gather in specific locations along the holy rivers Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical river Saraswati for a holy dip that they believe will cleanse their sins and bring salvation.  The religious event in the Uttar Pradesh state, which will continue till March 4, is being organised by the right-wing governments at both the federal and state levels in an election year.  Astrology determines most aspects of the UNESCO-listed festival, including its exact date and length. Where the festival will be held depends on the positions of the planet Jupiter, sun and the Earth.  "It is an exhilarating experience. To be part of a sea of humanity that arrives to take a dip in the holy waters, it is humbling and joyful. You abandon your fears at the Kumbh and hopefully your sins," Gopal Mishra, a devout Hindu who has been to the festival several times, told Al Jazeera.  There are six particularly auspicious days to bathe, termed as Shahi Snan, meaning a royal bath. The biggest bathing day is February 4, when approximately 30 million people are expected to take a dip.  The first Shahi Snan began before the dawn on Tuesday.  "Teams will be managing crowds on the river bank. All roads leading to the Kumbh Mela grounds will be packed with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in the coming days," Bimlesh Kumar, a senior official at the government tourism department told Al Jazeera.  "We are expecting around 120 million people, and an additional two million foreign visitors this year. The festival will continue for 49 days. An average two million people are likely to take a dip every day," he added.  Prayagraj city had been preparing for the festival for months as the government built communal areas with 20,000 beds and a tented city with 4,200 "premium" tents around the river.  According to a report, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led federal and state governments are spending over $620m, more than triple the public money spent in 2013 on the same event.  The government says 116 roads have been constructed and 524 shuttle buses deployed to transport the pilgrims. More than 122,000 toilets have been built for the attendees.  On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted to say he hoped visitors to this year's Kumbh would "experience India's spiritual, cultural and social diversities".  Translated tweet: "Good wishes for the sacred Kumbh Mela starting at Prayagraj. I hope the devotees from India and abroad will get a glimpse of the country's spiritual, cultural and social diversities. I wish more and more people become part of this divine and grand event."  The relentless promotion of Kumbh by the ruling BJP coincides with the general election due in a few months.  The BJP's electoral losses in five Indian states last month have shown a dip in Modi's popularity.  The ruling party is making renewed appeals to its hardcore Hindu nationalist base in Uttar Pradesh, India's politically most important state, which is hosting this year's Kumbh.  Ahead of the Kumbh gathering, BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath changed the name of the historical city of Allahabad to the more "Hindu" sounding Prayagraj.  The BJP has also announced the construction of a giant statue of Hindu deity Ram in the state.  In contrast, the state police are cracking down on Muslims praying in open areas like parks.  Earlier in 2018, the Indian government had also announced the end of a decades-long policy of giving subsidy to thousands of Muslims heading to the holy city of Mecca to perform the annual Hajj pilgrimage.  Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state with 200 million people, sends 80 MPs to Parliament's lower house, the reason it is a politically crucial state.  Opposition parties say the government is trying to hide its failures in governance and is promoting itself in the media instead of the Kumbh festival.  Images of Modi and Adityanath are splashed on Kumbh promotional billboards across Prayagraj city.  "Kumbh is not a substitute for effective governance. The BJP often behaves like a publicity and marketing company. This holy festival has always been organised by the government. But money was never spent such lavishly, solely for advertisements of the government," Akhilesh Pratap Singh, national spokesperson of the Congress party, told Al Jazeera in Lucknow.  "At the moment, people want answers from them. Where are the jobs for our youth, safety for women, rule of law, industry? It's not possible for them to deflect attention from their governance failures any more," he added.  The Kumbh has been marred several times by stampedes. Over 800 people were killed in 1954, 40 died in Nashik western India in 2003, while 36 people died in the 2013 gathering in Allahabad (now Prayagraj).  On Monday, a small fire broke out at one of the camps, although no casualties were reported.  Hindu religious belief says that in a fight over an urn between the gods and the demons, a few drops of the essence of immortality spilled on to four places on the Earth, which now host the Kumbh, one of which is Prayagraj.  There are three different kinds of Kumbh: an Ardha (or half) Kumbh held every six years at two locations, a Purna (or full) Kumbh every 12 years at four locations and a Maha Kumbh that happens every 144 years or after 12 Purna Kumbhs.  Critics of the Modi government say a half Kumbh is being given unprecedented prominence this time and there is a conscious attempt to boost support for events that reinforce Hindu symbols appealing to the BJP's Hindu nationalist support base.  India's 1.3 billion people are about 80 percent Hindu and appeals to religion or caste are deeply ingrained in Indian politics.  A report by the investigative magazine Caravan last month said the BJP's ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is attempting to drum up support for the government using the Kumbh ahead of the elections.  Hindu supremacist groups such as the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) are clamouring for a government order to bypass the Supreme Court in order to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya city of Uttar Pradesh.  In 1992, a Hindu mob tore down a medieval mosque, which they claim stood at a contested site believed to be the birthplace of Ram.  "Right from the Babri mosque demolition, the right-wing in India always uses religious congregation to promote Hindutva or a militant radical strain of Hinduism backed by the current ruling party. Previous Kumbh festivals from the mid-1980s onwards have been fertile ground for making political demands," Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political analyst in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera.  But the ruling BJP denies any political overtones to the festival.  "It is a sacred and auspicious time for Hindus. Kumbh has a special place in not just the religious but cultural life of Indians. Every government, irrespective of ideology, has been organising this festival at a mega scale," Sudhanshu Mittal, spokesperson of the ruling BJP, told Al Jazeera.  On January 31 and February 1, a Dharma Sansad (religious assembly) will be held at the Kumbh by the VHP, one of the many far-right Hindu groups linked to the ruling BJP party.  On the opening day of the festival, the Indian media reported slogans of "Modi, you lead the fight, we are with you" and "the temple will be built in Ayodhya" being raised on loudspeakers amid religious Hindu chants.  The idea is to use Kumbh as a rallying point, says Akshaya Mukul, the author of "Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India".  "In the times of divided polity and an election year, a Hindu nationalist party like BJP will definitely extract political mileage out of it. Social media is abuzz with videos praising the BJP for its arrangements. Apparently, never before has a state administration worked so hard," Mukul told Al Jazeera.  "It is ironic that in a state where infants die for the lack of oxygen, arrangement of a religious fair is seen as a marker of good administration," he said, referring to a 2017 tragedy in which more than 60 infants died for lack of oxygen in a state-run hospital in Uttar Pradesh due to unpaid bills.  "The BJP will use this year's Kumbh to the hilt and maximise benefits. It remains to be seen if it succeeds or not since it has failed in fulfilling its basic promises of jobs, education and healthcare," said Mukul.


aljazeera--2019-02-15--The victory was so strong Afghans celebrate Soviet pullout

'The victory was so strong': Afghans celebrate Soviet pullout

Kabul, Afghanistan - Mohammad Wazir Razi "Kabuli", now about 52, was very young when the Soviet Army invaded his country. But his memory of what followed in the years after is impeccable.  "I was in grade six and everything changed overnight, our school, our neighbourhood. The Soviets hadn't just invaded the country, they invaded our culture and religion too," he recalled.  "They imposed the national anthem on us, they made young boys forcefully attend pro-Soviet meetings and join national marches. They even tried to stop people from praying and attending religious events," he told Al Jazeera.  The Soviet army invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to support a communist government that was facing internal threats.  The largely Muslim population did not welcome a Russian intervention in support of an already unpopular regime.  Armed Afghan fighters, labelled the mujahideen, launched a rebellion against the superpower that resulted in a decade of bloodshed and destruction.  For Kabuli, the horrors of the invasion came too close to home. As a family of religious scholars, they faced persecution from the Soviet-supported communist regime.  "They targeted not just the young men, but also women, children and the elderly. They tortured religious leaders, removed their nails. They jailed hundreds of people," he said.  Witnessing the suffering of those around him convinced Kabuli it was his duty to join and fight the Russians, and at a very young age, he left school to help the fighters.  "Being young, I was mostly given logistical responsibilities and in the few battles that I did participate, I was given the role of a nurse to provide first aid to the injured," he said.  "In the end, after nine years of fighting, we won. We defeated the Soviets, with few resources. And today, we celebrate that victory of Islam against the communists," he added with pride.  Some of the prominent Mujahideen leaders went on to establish themselves as political actors.  Among them is Atta Mohammad Noor, a prominent leader of the Jamiat-i-Islami party and the former governor of Balkh province.  He celebrates the anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal as a victory not just for Afghans, but also for everyone in the former Soviet bloc.  "We are very proud of our fight and struggle against the Soviet Union. We are proud that we defeated one of the two major superpowers of that time, despite poverty and lack of resources," he told Al Jazeera.  "The mujahideen victory brought freedom to so many other countries in the eastern bloc which was controlled by Soviet Union. They got freedoms because of the mujahideen. Because we took up weapons in our country, they were able to get freedoms," he said.  "Militarily the Soviet army was not defeated. They continued to control much of Afghanistan, at least the cities and also part of the countryside - not unlike the current situation," said Thomas Ruttig, co-director, Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN), drawing a comparison with the potential withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.  "But unlike the US now, they really were in an economic crisis," he added.  The nine-year-long Afghan war was too costly for the Soviet Union. An estimated 15,000 Soviet troops lost their lives, with more than twice that wounded.  The financial burden ran into the billions. A number of historians say the withdrawal of the Soviet army dealt a blow to the national morale that contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union.  "The victory was so strong that its impact was felt in Germany with the fall of the Berlin wall, and in at least 10 other countries that eventually separated from the Soviet Union control," Kabuli said.  He said Afghans didn't get to experience the fruits of their struggle because of the persistent conflict that followed in their country.  After the Soviet withdrawal, the mujahideen descended into factions that fought brutally among themselves and reduced parts of the capital to rubble.  "As a result, the Taliban emerged and gained dominance," Noor said. "That not only undermined our achievements but also the name of the mujahideen to some extent."  Thirty years after the withdrawal of Soviet forces, the Kremlin is once again trying to have influence in Afghanistan.  Last summer, US officials began to hold a series of peace talks with the Taliban representatives.  Russia started its own parallel negotiating track, hosting meetings in Moscow in November and earlier in February.  At that gathering, several Afghan politicians, many of whom were former mujahideen fighters, including Noor, represented Afghan interests, in a first of its kind meeting with the Taliban.  "Any country that helps in ensuring security and peace in Afghanistan, we welcome and support it," Noor told Al Jazeera.  The Russian special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said on Wednesday that the US had "completely failed" in Afghanistan, and Moscow could be an honest broker.  He urged US troops to leave as quickly as possible.  "They could stay for another few years but in the end, they'll have to go, and this time in disgrace," Kabulov said.  Some of the former mujahideen, however, view Russia's role in the peace talks with suspicion.  "I believe that Russians only want to take revenge from the US, for their defeat in Afghanistan. They want to once again be involved in our regional politics actively," said Faizullah Jalili, a former mujahideen fighter.  "This is a good opportunity for the Taliban to have such a powerful partner on their side against the US," he said.  "After the lessons that the Russian learned from their experience in Afghanistan, I don't think they have the will to do what they did back then," shared Kabuli.  "But whoever wants to make peace with us, our arms are open for embrace," he added.


aljazeera--2019-09-20--Multiple casualties after bomb goes off on bus outside Karbala

At least 12 people have been killed and several others wounded in a blast from a bomb planted on a bus near the Iraqi city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, two local police officers said.  Two police spokesmen at the blast site told Reuters News Agency that an explosive device planted on the bus detonated at a northern entrance to the city, setting fire to the vehicle.  Quoting local officials, the Associated Press said five passengers were wounded in the explosion, which occured as the bus was passing through an Iraqi army checkpoint between Karbala and the town of al-Hilla.  One official told The Associated Press that before the blast, a passenger exited the minibus but left a bag containing explosives under one of the seats.  The device was then detonated remotely at the checkpoint.  There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.  The officials said all of the dead were civilians killed in the explosion and subsequent fire in the bus  The bombing took place during a holy period marked by Shias between two important religious events, Ashoura and Arbaeen.  Arbaee is the annual commemoration marking the end of the mourning period for the martyrdom of Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed's grandson.  Iraqis and Shia pilgrims from around the world visit Karbala, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Baghdad, during this time of year.


aljazeera--2019-10-08--Iran sees Iraq unrest as a plot to undo bilateral ties

Since they erupted a week ago, the deadly protests in Iraq have been tracked closely in Iran where they are seen as a plot to undermine ties between the neighbours.  Tehran has close but complicated relations with Baghdad, holding significant clout among its Shia political groups.  The two countries fought a devastating war from 1980 to 1988 and Iran's influence in Iraq grew after the US-led invasion toppled longtime ruler Saddam Hussein in 2003.  Clashes that broke out in Iraq last week between protesters and security forces have killed over 100 people and wounded over 6,000 - most of them demonstrators struck by bullets.  The rallies began on Tuesday with calls to reduce corruption and unemployment but have spiralled into demands for the fall of the government and overhaul of the political system.  A string of Iranian officials have since come out with statements accusing their country's arch-foes of being behind the unrest.  "Enemies seek to sow discord but they've failed & their conspiracy won't be effective," supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying on his office's Twitter account.  "Iran and Iraq are two nations whose hearts & souls are tied together...This bond will grow stronger day by day," it said.  State news agency IRNA said the supreme leader was reacting to the violence in Iraq.  The official news agency weighed in with its own commentary, accusing the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel of stirring the Iraqi protests in order to spoil Iran's ties with Iraq and Syria.  "Unprecedented protests in Iraqi cities... show that some forces inside and outside of the region are seriously concerned about the closeness and cooperation" of Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus, it added.  Iran's government spokesman Ali Rabiei opened his weekly news conference on Monday with a statement on the Iraqi crisis.  He said there "are ill-wishers who seek to sabotage any opening between us and those neighbours who have had differences of opinions in recent years".  The spokesman called on "the great people of Iraq to show more self-restraint and seek democratic and legal means to reach their demands.  "As always, the Islamic Republic of Iran expresses its readiness to stand beside Iraqi brothers and sisters and help them. No form of propaganda can sever the people of Iran and Iraq."  Iran has accused its foes of deliberately stirring trouble in Iraq at a time when vast numbers of pilgrims are heading there for one of the world's largest religious events.  A top military adviser to Khamenei said those behind the unrest would be unable to deter the faithful, however.  "They want to scare people into not going to Arbaeen, but even if it rains arrows and stones, Hussein's lovers will not be afraid," Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.  Arbaeen marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein by the forces of the Caliph Yazid.  Last week, Iran urged citizens who were planning to head to Iraq to delay their travel for the pilgrimage, which culminates on October 17 with the Arbaeen commemoration.  On Monday, Iran reopened the Khosravi border crossing with Iraq following its closure last week as the protests raged.  IRNA said the fact that the "provocations" came ahead of Arbaeen showed Iran's enemies were "scared".  Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi said those responsible for the unrest in Iraq aimed to undermine Arbaeen.  "The seditionists intend to undermine and sap enthusiasm for this great event," he said, quoted by state television's website.  "The vigilant people of Iraq exposed this sedition. But everyone must be careful. The seditionists are seeking new tricks at any moment to overshadow the Arbaeen ceremony and to undermine it."  The hardline Keyhan newspaper said "evidence" pointed to the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel being involved.  A columnist in the reformist Shargh daily also suggested the Americans, Israelis and Saudis might be the "hidden hands" behind the Iraqi protests.  "Even if that is not the case, the chaotic and tense situation in Iraq today can prepare the grounds for these actors to ride the wave to fulfil their objectives and demands," wrote Abdelrahman Fathollahi.


bbc--2019-08-25--Nigerias fertility goddess festival

Nigeria's fertility goddess festival

The Osun Osogbo festival, a traditional celebration that is thought to be 600 years old, is under way in Nigeria's south-western Osun state.  The two-week festival is considered to be the biggest annual traditional religious event of the Yoruba people.  It attracts thousands of worshippers and spectators not just from Nigeria but from all over the world.  Traditional beliefs involving animist spirits are still widely held in Nigeria.  Devotees at the Osun-Osogbo festival believe that the sacred grove forest, situated on the outskirts of the city of Osogbo, is one of the last remaining places that the spirits, or "Orishas" reveal themselves to bless them.  The festival is marked with daily performances of people dancing, singing, playing the drums and showing off elaborate costumes to appease Osun, the goddess of fertility.  The famous Eyo masquerade performers from Lagos state have taken part in this year's festival.  The main attraction of the festival is the Arugba, a virgin maiden who is supposed to help the people communicate with the deity, who leads a procession of devotees to offer sacrifices to the river.  The Arugba, also known as the 'calabash carrier', has a large calabash on her head underneath a colourful veil.  It contains the sacrifices of the entire community and those offered by the people in attendance.  Every Arugba has to remain a virgin during her time in the role.  You may be interested in:  Before the procession to the river, worshippers offer prayers at the priestess' shrine.  Experts on traditional religion in Nigeria say the festival was started by the founders of the town of Osogbo around 600 years ago.  They had planned to build their houses by the river bank, but as they began felling trees, it is said the spirit of the river-god Osun called out to them, ordering them away.  The grove has been a sacred area of worship for the spirit's devotees ever since.  In 2003, the last remaining 67 acres of virgin forest in the area, was recognised by Unesco as a World Heritage Site.  The chief host of the festival Oba Jimoh Olanipekun, whose title is Ataoja of Osogbo, also plays a major role in the event. Here he is honoured by visiting monarchs from neighbouring towns.  The festival also attracts foreigners, some of them are tourists, others are drawn by what they see as a religious and cultural connection.  "We have a large group of Orisha devotees in Slovenia and in all parts of ex-Yugoslavia, so a lot of these people came here to celebrate with the Nigerian people because we share the same culture... we all worship the nature," a worshipper from Slovenia told the BBC.  "We are thrilled about this festival and we are all getting the blessing of Osun here, from the very source of it, and we are grateful to all Nigerian people for making this place available for tourists and devotees."  Traders take advantage of the thousands of visitors to the town to sell beads and religious ornaments.  Christian missionaries had tried to stamp out animist beliefs while Nigeria was under British rule.  Rituals involved with Orisha worship at that time included human sacrifice, which was stopped by the authorities.  But since the 1980s, the festival's popularity has been growing in part because of the activism of Austrian-born artist Susanne Wenger, who rebuilt the shrines and worked to get the grove protected.  Ms Wenger arrived in Nigeria in 1950s, she later divorced her husband and resolved to stay in Osogbo for the rest of her life.  She was also known as Adunni Olorisha.


birminghammail--2019-04-01--Isra and Miraj 2019 - when is it how is it celebrated and is it a public holiday

Isra and Miraj 2019 - when is it, how is it celebrated and is it a public holiday?

With the holy month of Ramadan not far away, the Islamic calendar is beginning to come to life with various events.  Next up is Isra and Miraj - the name for two parts of a night-time journey undertaken by the Prophet Muhammad.  It comes a month before Ramadan so it is part of a greater awareness and preparation for that upcoming month of daily fasting.  This physical and spiritual journey is remembered and celebrated each year - usually on the 27th day of Rajab, the seventh month in the Muslim calendar.  So what is this event and how is it celebrated? Here's all you need to know.  Isra and Miraj refers to two parts of a journey made by Muhammad.  The Isra refers to his physical journey from Mecca to what the Qur'an describes as the 'farthest mosque in Jerusalem.'  Miraj refers to the prophet's spiritual journey to Heaven.  This religious event is also known as Lailat al Miraj, with the first word translating as 'night'.  Masjid Al Aqsa is regarded as the location of the 'farthest mosque' - this traditionally describes the large sacred site sometimes called Haram Al Sharif (Noble Sanctuary).  The sanctuary contains multiple mosques including the gold-plated Dome of the Rock and the silver-domed Quibly building.  Some worshippers refer to the Quibly mosque as Masjid Al Aqsa but this name is usually used to describe the entire site.  He is said to have travelled on a flying creature called the Buraq, which had the head of a woman, the body of a horse, wings and - in some depictions - the tail of a peacock.  Muhammad ascended to Heaven with the angel Gabriel and met a different prophet at each of the seven levels of Heaven. Firstly he met Adam, then John the Baptist and Jesus, then Joseph, Idris, Aaron, Moses, and Abraham.  He was then instructed by Allah (God) that Muslims must recite a ritual prayer called Salah (or Salat) several times a day - he was initially told they must pray 50 times a day but after asking for this to be reduced, it eventually ended up at the five daily prayers that are now one of the pillars of the religion.  In 2019, Isra and Miraj is on Wednesday, April 3.  Although the exact date of Muhammad's journey is not certain, it is widely believed to have taken place in 621 AD on the 27th day of Rajab, the seventh month in the Muslim calendar and one of four holy months in which fighting is not allowed.  The Islamic calendar is based on the moon and, because the Western calendar is based on the sun, the dates of Muslim events move back each year.  So the 2019 date is earlier than in 2018, when Isra and Miraj was on Friday, April 13, which is in turn 10 days earlier than in 2017.  Muslim days runs from sunset to sunset and so worshippers will start to celebrate on the evening of Tuesday, April 2.  However, some scholars believe Muhammad's journey took place in another month altogether - such as Dhu'l-Hijjah, Ramadan or Rabi' al-Awwal.  Because Islamic officials cannot say with absolute certainty when it should take place, Isra and Miraj is not a compulsory celebration.  Islam only has two annual celebrations that Muslims MUST take part in: the two Eid events of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Other events on the Islamic calendar are not mandatory.  For those that choose to do so, Isra and Miraj is marked in various ways.  Some Muslims gather at their local mosque for prayers, while others celebrate at home by telling the story of Muhammad's journey to children and reciting prayers at night.  In some Muslim countries, cities are illuminated with candles and lights.  Worshippers sometimes take part in fasting.  Fasting can be observed at any time except on six prohibited days of the year so it is allowed at Isra and Miraj but is not any more significant or beneficial than on a normal day.  Because of uncertainties over the exact date, some Muslims don't celebrate Isra and Miraj at all.  Isra and Miraj has NOT been designated a public holiday in the United Arab Emirates this year.  It was a public holiday in previous years, but has not been included in the UAE Cabinet's list of official holidays for 2019.  There will, however, be a 'dry day' in the UAE city of Dubai. Hotels in Dubai will refrain from serving alcohol between 6pm on Tuesday, April 2, and 7pm on Wednesday, April 3, to mark the occasion, reports The National.  Oman has announced a two-day public holiday (April 3 and 4) to mark Isra and Miraj, and in Kuwait there is a holiday on April 4.  It's not a bank holiday in the UK.


birminghammail--2019-09-04--When is Diwali 2019 in the UK All the dates and celebrations for Festival of Lights

When is Diwali 2019 in the UK? All the dates and celebrations for Festival of Lights

As the nights start to draw in and we head towards autumn and winter, we will soon be glad of some illumination to brighten the gloom.  The celebrations of Diwali - the Festival of Lights - will be among the events that bring a warm and pretty glow to Birmingham and cities across the UK and around the world.  It involves millions of lights being placed at temples, shops, homes, businesses and other buildings in the countries where the festival is observed.  Diwali comes around in October or November every year. But like so many other religious events, the date varies from year to year.  This festivity - also written as Dipavali, Deepawali and similar variations - is celebrated by the Hindu community. The word means 'rows of lamps.'  It's also observed by Sikhs, Jains and some Buddhists.  So when will it be this year? Here's what we know about Diwali in the UK for 2019.  The main date of Diwali this year is Sunday, October 27.  Diwali is actually a five-day festival so it runs two days before and after that main night.  It will begin on Friday, October 25 and end on Tuesday, October 29.  In southern India and Singapore, the main day of Diwali will be a day earlier, on October 26.  In 2018, Diwali fell on November 7 and in 2020 it will be on November 14.  Diwali is one of the religious festivals where dates change every year, as also happens with Islamic events including Eid and with Christian events including Easter, Lent and Mother's Day.  The third day of the festival - the main Diwali night - takes place on the darkest night of the lunar month, which is when there is a new moon.  That's known as Kartik Amavasya (New Moon Day). It is the darkest night after the Hindu month of Ashvin has ended and the month of Kartika has begun.  When the date of that new moon is known, the Diwali festival can be given its place on the calendar. It also falls on the 15th day of the month of Kartika.  Diwali is not a public holiday in the UK.  But it is an official holiday in several other countries including India, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, Myanmar, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.  Diwali symbolises the victory of light over darkness, right over wrong, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance.  The exact events behind Diwali vary, depending on the region and the religion.  For some, it celebrates the story of King Rama's return from exile after he defeated Ravana and his evil army. As Rama returned to the city of Ayodhya, people lit the path home by lighting rows of clay lamps.  Others see it as the day that Lord Krishna defeated the demon Narakasura.  And in eastern India, Diwali is linked to the goddess Kali, who represents the destruction of evil.  The first day of the festival is also the time when the goddess Lakshmi was born and the main night is when Lakshmi married the god Vishnu.  For some Hindus, the main night of Diwali is also the start of the new year.  For Sikhs, Diwali comes on the same day as Bandi Chhor Divas - the Day of Liberation. It marks the date when Guru Hargobind was released from prison.  It also marks other Sikh historical events including the founding of the city of Amritsar in 1577 and the day of the death of Bhai Mani Singh in 1738.  And for Jains, Diwali is an observance of the death of Mahavira.


drudgereport--2019-01-16--Hindus converge for largest-ever human gathering

Hindus converge for largest-ever human gathering...

From June last year, Dilip Trigunayak would stride out each morning to the banks of the Ganges and will the holy waters to recede. The clock was ticking. In six months, the floodplains where he stood would be the site of the largest human gathering in the world, probably ever.  “I would watch the water levels going up and down,” the bureaucrat says. “From then my anxiety started.”  More than 120 million Hindu devotees, as well as tourists, are expected to visit the north Indian city of Prayagraj over the next few weeks for the Kumbh Mela, a vast spiritual festival at the point where two sacred rivers, the Ganges and Yamuna, converge.  As the rivers have emptied of monsoon rain in recent months, Indian authorities have swung into action, reclaiming the riverbed and laying the skeleton for a temporary city that at 15 sq miles (39 sq km) is two-thirds the size of Manhattan.  The festival started on Tuesday morning when tens of thousands of Hindu ascetics charged – roaring, naked and ash-smeared – into the water, sanctifying it for the tens of millions of pilgrims who will follow in the coming days and weeks.  Praygraj is said to be one of four sites in India where drops of the essence of immortality were spilled from an urn being fought over by gods and demons. The festival moves between the four locations, with Prayagraj the largest and most lavish. Pilgrims travel from across the country and wait for days for their opportunity to bathe there for a few seconds, including at least 30 million people on the most auspicious day.  “People come here to taste the nectar of immortality,” says Sarabhang Giri, an Australian who was ordained a sadhu, or Hindu saint, in 2004.  With an election looming in India, more earthly matters are also under contemplation. For India’s Hindu nationalist government, the Kumbh’s message of unity across the religion’s castes and innumerable deities dovetails nicely with the ruling Bharatiya Janata party’s goal of consolidating Hindu votes.  This is the first Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj since the city’s Mughal-era name of Allahabad was changed. No Kumbh Mela has ever been so well funded, or so heavily promoted in the media and on billboards, invariably alongside the face of Narendra Modi, India’s Hindu nationalist prime minister.  “In many recent Kumbhs there’s always been a political presence of some sort,” says Kama Maclean, an associate professor of south Asian history at the University of New South Wales. “For most people who go it’s a religious event. But from the 1930s people were going to the Kumbh Mela, bathing in the Ganga, and then going up [India’s first prime minister] Jawaharlal Nehru’s house and learning about nationalism.”  Pilgrims at the Unesco-listed festival will traverse a pop-up city of more than 185 miles (300km) of roads, nearly two-dozen pontoon bridges, a hospital, 40 police stations and 120,000 toilets. At night, the city is illuminated by more than 40,000 lights. Last Sunday a parade of Hindu ascetics on elephants and camels passed billboards advertising matrimonial websites and the Kumbh’s free wifi.  The core of the festival is the estimated 200,000 Hindu saints in attendance, many of whom emerge from seclusion in forests and mountains to take up residency in the tent city, where they perform prayers, administer blessings and lecture on Hindu scripture.  Many belong to one of the 13 major sects represented at the fair, first formed as militant defenders of Hindu temples, and who in the past have turned their fire on each other to determine who bathes in the holy river first.  “They have physically fought over the order,” says Giri. “Thousands of people have died in Kumbh Melas through history. Now they’ve worked out treaties saying this is the order in which we do it, and if there’s any change, there has to be big discussions.”  As well as keeping the peace between holy orders, organisers must work to ward off disease. Some epidemiologists and historians trace the first cholera pandemic of the 19th century to 1817’s Kumbh Mela, from where the infection spread via colonial British naval ships to rest of Asia, Europe and eventually the United States.  Apart from building toilets, and deploying an army of more than 9,000 “night sweepers” to collect or treat waste, authorities try to keep the river flowing at an optimum speed of at least 200,000 litres a second: fast enough to avoid stagnation, but not too quick that it washes away bathers.  Stampedes are another constant threat. Thirty-six people where killed by a crush at a Prayagraj train station at the most recent event. In 1954, an elephant charged a dense crowd, killing more than 500 people.  The key to public safety is to keep the mammoth crowds moving, says Devesh Chaturvedi, the chief public servant who organised Prayagraj’s last Kumbh Mela in 2013. “Even if the water is 500 metres away, we have a system where the pilgrims can be moved for another three or four kilometres. People won’t worry about how much they have to walk. But after five or six hours of walking they should finally get their dip.”  One pilgrim, Devi Prasad, says he has walked hundreds of miles by foot from his village in Bihar state to bathe in the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna. A few more hours on foot is no trouble, the 63-year-old adds. “If you want to get close to God, you have to walk.”


eveningstandard--2019-08-26--Union demands new bank holiday between August and Christmas

The government has been urged to create a new public holiday before Christmas to help people cope with the "intense" pressures of the world of work.  Workers will have to wait until Christmas for the next bank holiday after today, a four-month gap which the TUC said should be filled with a new statutory day off.  The union said workers in Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland and Cyprus are entitled to 15 bank holidays a year, almost twice as many as in the UK.  General secretary Frances O'Grady said: "As new technology changes our economy, the benefits should be shared by working people. That means less time at work, more time with family and friends, and decent pay for everyone.  "But, instead, work is becoming more intense. Workers in Britain put in millions of hours of unpaid overtime every year but get fewer public holidays than their counterparts across Europe.  "Working people deserve a break and, as the days start to get shorter, we could all do with something to look forward to. The government should create a new public holiday between now and Christmas."  A business department spokesman said: "We regularly receive requests for additional bank and public holidays to commemorate a variety of occasions - such as cultural, history, military and religious events - and we consider them on a case-by-case basis.  "We have no current plans to add to the well-established and acknowledged bank holidays already in place, but next year's early May bank holiday will be on May 8 to ensure as many people as possible can mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day."


france24--2019-08-09--More than two million Muslims begin annual hajj pilgrimage

Fethi Balaid | Mulism pilgrims wait for prayers at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca on August 8, 2019, prior to the start of the annual Hajj pilgrimage in the holy city.  More than two million Muslims begin the annual hajj on Friday as the Saudi hosts seek to deter politicisation of the pilgrimage against a backdrop of simmering Gulf tensions.  The hajj, one of the world's largest religious gatherings, is one of Islam's five pillars and must be undertaken by all Muslims with the means at least once in their lives.  It consists of a series of religious rites which are completed over five days in Islam's holiest city and its surroundings in western Saudi Arabia.  "All of the arms of state have been deployed (and) we are proud to serve as 'God's hosts'," said security forces spokesman Bassam Attia.  In total some 2.5 million faithful, the majority from abroad, will undertake the pilgrimage this year, according to local media.  "More than 1.8 million visas were delivered online without the need for middlemen. It's a success," said hajj ministry official Hatim bin Hassan Qadi.  "We feel cleansed by achieving this pillar of Islam and meeting people from across the world. It's marvellous," said Mohamed Jaafar, a 40-year-old Egyptian pilgrim.  "It's an indescribable feeling. You have to live it to understand it," said an Algerian in his fifties completing the pilgrimage for the first time.  "It's a golden opportunity and moment," said his female companion.  Mecca, built in a desert valley, is home to the Kaaba, a cube structure that is the focal point of Islam and draped in a gold-embroidered black cloth.  Muslims around the world pray towards the Kaaba, which is located in the Grand Mosque, and pilgrims walk around it seven times.  Worshippers will participate in weekly prayers late on Friday morning.  During the pilgrimage separate streams of men and women, grouped by nationality, will travel to Mina on foot or in buses provided by the authorities.  A district of Mecca, Mina sits in a narrow valley surrounded by rocky mountains and is transformed each year into a vast encampment for pilgrims.  A total of "350,000 air-conditioned tents have been pitched," said a Saudi official.  Worshippers will climb Mount Arafat, also known as the "Mount of Mercy", for hours of prayers and Koran recitals.  After descending, they will gather pebbles and perform the symbolic "stoning of the devil".  That marks the beginning of Eid al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, marked on Sunday.  Pilgrims then return to the Grand Mosque to perform a final "tawaf" or walk around the Kaaba.  This year's hajj takes place to a backdrop of Gulf tensions following a series of attacks on tankers, the downing of drones and maritime traffic being intercepted.  Riyadh blames regional foe Tehran for the attacks on commercial shipping, accusations Iran vehemently denies.  Despite the absence of diplomatic ties between the two countries, some 88,550 Iranian pilgrims are due to take part in the hajj this year according to the Tasnim news agency.  As in previous years, Saudi authorities have been at pains to stress that the hajj is a religious event and have sought to prevent its politicisation.  Riyadh claimed its two-year embargo on Doha -- which includes restrictions on Qataris travelling to the kingdom -- would not affect the pilgrimage.  But hajj official Hassan Qadi acknowledged "very few Qataris have come to Mecca for the pilgrimage".  Saudi's hajj ministry accused Qatar of "politicising the hajj and creating obstacles for Qatari pilgrims," the SPA state news agency reported.  The scale of the pilgrimage presents vast security and logistical challenges, with tens of thousands of safety officers deployed.  Riyadh faced strong criticism in 2015 when some 2,300 worshippers were killed in the worst stampede in the gathering's history.