Corruption is Everywhere > The CIA's political interference in USA elections; Some serious issues with Scottish National Party finances

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Former CIA chief Michael Morell, who wrote ex-spy letter

dismissing The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop reports,

misled signers by saying he’d ‘clear’ it with agency

By Miranda Devine

May 7, 2023 10:30pm  Updated

MORE ON CIA:

Robert Kennedy Jr. claims CIA killed his uncle, President John F. Kennedy

Ex-CIA Moscow station chief reveals why he refused to sign Hunter Biden laptop ‘disinfo’ letter

The ex-CIA chief who wrote the letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials falsely claiming that emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop published by The Post before the 2020 election were Russian disinformation misled his fellow signatories when he assured them that he would “clear the statement with the Publication Review Board at CIA” the following day.

CIA sabotage Biden-Trump debate

In an October 18, 2020, email obtained by The Post, Michael Morell asks his fellow spooks, including former CIA Directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta and Mike Hayden, to sign the letter, explaining that he and former CIA agent Marc Polymeropoulos had “drafted the attached because we believe the Russians were involved in some way in the Hunter Biden email issue and because we think Trump will attack Biden on the issue at this week’s debate and we want to give the VP a talking point to use in response.”

Morell asks the CIA alumni in the group to “highlight your Russia work” in their affiliations when they sign the letter and assures them that he will secure pre-publication clearance from the CIA “tomorrow.”

But the letter was published by Politico the following day, Oct. 19, 2020, leaving no time for the required pre-publication security review by the CIA, a lifelong obligation for all former agency employees, and a process that could take several months.

The letter was published by Politico before it could be reviewed by the CIA.

It also omitted the boilerplate disclaimer required by the CIA to be included in any such intelligence assessment, which would have declared: “All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Morell had no time for the official security review by the CIA, because, as he explained in his email, the imperative was to provide a “talking point” for then-candidate Joe Biden in the final campaign debate against incumbent President Donald Trump in just three days’ time.

“Either he lied or somebody at the CIA violated their own policies,” says lawyer Tim Parlatore, who has spent the past year pursuing the 51 intelligence officials on behalf of Trump.

“When you think about the speed at which the CIA works in their pre-publication process, that would be pretty stunning to get an OK that quickly without the required disclaimers. It would implicate someone within the CIA in the plot against the president [Trump].”

He points out that the CIA and other government agencies have harshly punished other such breaches of the vital security provision.

Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell asked his fellow spooks to sign the letter he and a colleague had “drafted … because we believe the Russians were involved in some way in the Hunter Biden email issue.”

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Former Navy SEAL Matthew Bissonnette was forced to pay the federal government $6.8 million for violating pre-publication and non-disclosure obligations when he published his book “No Easy Day,” about his role in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Parlatore did not receive a reply from John Hoffister Hedley, chairman of the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board, when he wrote last May urging action on the “egregious breach by several former CIA employees that appears to have been overlooked by your agency.”

The CIA did not respond to The Post’s request for comment Friday.

Someone needs to be held accountable for this mess or the CIA's credibility, what's left of it, will take another pathetic hit. The CIA has to get out of politics, but then, what would Deep State do?

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Scottish National Party treasurer quits as crisis over the party's finances deepens

By Paul Godfrey

 

Scottish National Party Leader Humza Yousaf has assumed the role of treasurer after MP Colin Beattie resigned

following his arrest into a probe into misuse of the party's finances. File Photo by Robert Perry/EPA-EFE

April 20 (UPI) -- The treasurer of Scotland's ruling Scottish National Party has resigned after being arrested by police investigating the party's alleged misuse of $745,000 in independence campaign donations to pay for the party's operating costs.

Colin Beattie, the MSP for Midlothian North, who was questioned and released under investigation said in a statement posted on his Twitter account Wednesday that he was standing down to avoid being a further distraction to new party leader Humza Yousaf's work to get the embattled party back on track.

Right! Taking over the treasurer's portfolio won't be a distraction at all!

"I have also informed the SNP Chief Whip at Holyrood that I will be stepping back from my role on the Public Audit Committee until the police investigation has concluded," said Beattie who also pledged to cooperate fully with Police Scotland.

SNP's Constitution and Electoral Commission rules dictate that the party leader automatically assumes the role of treasurer until a replacement is appointed, which Yousaf said would take place "as soon as possible."

Yousaf also offered thanks to Beattie upon his departure.

"I know that his decision to step back from the role of SNP national treasurer will not have been an easy one but he has done so in the best interest of the party," he said.

Deputy first minister Shona Robison said Yousaf had taken "very swift action to ensure that party members, as well as the public, can be confident in the future governance and transparency of the party.

"We've got to absolutely get our house in order, the public will expect nothing else, but meanwhile we also have to address some of those concerns that the public have about other matters like the cost-of-living crisis," Robison said.

But opposition parties criticized Yousaf for failing to tackle the crisis head-on.

"This is the right decision, made by the wrong man," said Scottish Labor deputy leader Jackie Baillie. "While Humza Yousaf played for time and failed to do the right thing, Colin Beattie at least could see the writing on the wall.

"For too long, a culture of secrecy and cover-up has been allowed to fester at the heart of the SNP," she added. "And while the investigation spreads, the SNP is still refusing to take the basic step of suspending MSPs who are the subject of police inquiries. Humza Yousaf's failure to act has made it clear -- his priority is the cover-up to protect the SNP, not the people of Scotland."

Beattie's arrest on Tuesday came two weeks after party chief executive Peter Murrell, who is the husband of former first minister and party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, was arrested in a raid on the couple's Glasgow home and held in police detention overnight. He was also released without charge.

Scottish Conservative Party Chairman Craig Hoy is also calling on Yousaf to suspend Beattie, Murrell and Sturgeon from the party saying the probe was "consuming" the SNP.

Beattie, 71, was serving a second term as national treasurer having previously held the post from 2004 to 2020, returning to the role in 2021 to replace Douglas Chapman, who quit in a row over accusations the party restricted his access to its financial information.

Earlier this month, the SNP announced its contract with its accountants, Johnston Carmichael, had ended. The firm made the move reportedly months prior to Murrell's arrest following a review of its "client portfolio and existing resources and commitments," a decision that left the party without auditors for six months.

Oh! That sounds like fun!

Former OPCW Director Slams Media for 'Wall of Silence' on Douma False Flag Operation

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Former OPCW director defends Douma whistleblowers as ‘extremely competent’,

slams media for creating ‘wall of silence’

19 Oct, 2020 18:38 

Bustani at a hearing amid US efforts to remove him from his post as director-general of OPCW

© Reuters / Jamil Bittar

The former head of the OPCW has defended the whistleblowers who alleged that it engaged in a cover-up of exonerating evidence in Douma, arguing efforts to silence him prove the dissenters right.

Jose Bustani, the OPCW’s founding director general, has fiercely defended the inspectors who braved political pressure from their own organization along with the US and its allies to expose the apparent cover-up of evidence countering Washington’s hole-filled narrative that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government used chemical weapons in Douma in April 2018. 

In an interview with the Grayzone, Bustani lamented the political co-option of the body he helped establish by the US, which – together with its allies, including Britain and France – barred him from testifying before the UN Security Council earlier this month, using the bizarre excuse that he lacked the expertise to speak about the operations of the organization he once led. 

Not only are the Douma whistleblowers “extremely competent…extremely professional and extremely reliable” – trusted colleagues from his early days at the OPCW – but the group’s very reluctance to hear them out signaled it lacked confidence in its own revised conclusions of Syrian guilt in the Douma attack, Bustani told the outlet. The body’s insistence Assad had used chemical weapons was held up after the fact to justify US airstrikes on Damascus.

“If the OPCW is confident in the robustness of its scientific work on Douma,” Bustani explained, referring to the official report alleging the use of chlorine gas on civilians by the Assad government, “it should have little to fear in hearing out its inspectors.” 

If, however, the claims of evidence suppression, selective use of data, and exclusion of key investigators, among other allegations, are not unfounded, then it’s even more imperative that it should be dealt with openly and urgently.

Otherwise, the OPCW is just a political tool in the hands of NATO, Deep State, etc.

Bustani explained he had volunteered to testify before the UN Security Council because he felt it was his “duty” to help the whistleblower inspectors get the fair hearing they had been denied and bring their concerns to a wider audience. The inspectors, who only resorted to leaking their version of the report last year after complete institutional stonewalling, “are an asset to the OPCW” and giving them an opportunity to “set the record straight” would repair the organization’s greatly damaged credibility, Bustani said.

US Influence on Douma probe

He expressed horror that a delegation of US officials had reportedly met with OPCW inspectors early on in the investigation to “convince them a chlorine attack had occurred” after the body’s initial report questioning whether there had been a chemical attack at all had been allegedly doctored to be more favorable to the US narrative. Bustani speculated that perhaps the inspectors had been intimidated into meeting with the Americans, stating emphatically that “If I were [still] Director General, this would never have happened.”

Threats from John Bolton

The veteran diplomat is certainly no stranger to US intimidation, having infamously been bullied out of his position in the run-up to the Iraq War by the Bush administration, specifically cabinet official John Bolton. Bustani was allegedly given “24 hours to leave the organization” in 2002 after his efforts to bring Iraq into the OPCW threatened to scuttle the administration’s flimsy “weapons of mass destruction” narrative. Making a personal visit to the OPCW’s The Hague headquarters in March 2002 to inform Bustani that the war-hungry Bush administration didn’t like the diplomat’s “management style,” Bolton supposedly told him “we have ways to retaliate against you,” making a pointed mention of his “two sons in New York.” 

After an initial effort to pressure member states into voting him out failed, the US threatened to withhold funds from the OPCW and even began surveilling his office.

Disappearing security personnel

Bustani shared more details about the US-led efforts to get him to “resign” in 2002, including that the wall behind his desk was “full of listening equipment” and that it took an investigator two days to remove all the devices. When he tried to bring the surveillance to the head of security for the organization, the official and all the equipment in his “huge office” simply “disappeared” – a bizarre event Bustani said was never explained.

MSM toes US narrative

Bustani was also highly critical of the mainstream media’s sweeping failure to cover the scandal with the exception of the occasional critical piece slandering the whistleblowers, noting that in his experience even nominal coverage from the New York Times or Le Monde would have “really helped” to convince the OPCW to take action in hearing out the dissenters’ concerns. Even commentators who had supported him against the Bush administration's warmongers in 2002 had willingly participated in the creation of an “impenetrable wall of silence” that prevented the investigators from being heard, he complained, noting that the apparent embargo persists more than a year after the “real” report on the events in Douma in April 2018 was leaked.

Everything but science

Three members of the OPCW’s Douma Fact-Finding Mission have come forward to challenge the body’s official conclusion that the Assad government used chlorine gas on Syrian civilians in the attack that was immediately – before any sort of investigation could be conducted – met with retaliatory US airstrikes. One of the whistleblowers stated when he came forward in November at a Brussels briefing organized by the Courage Foundation that “most of the Douma team felt the two reports on the incident…were scientifically impoverished, procedurally irregular and possibly fraudulent,” and that evidence had been tampered with.

The organization has refused to consider the whistleblowers’ claims, instead denouncing the investigators as not credible and recommending tighter security measures to prevent further leaks.

It's curious that American media outlets, most of which are rabidly anti-Trump, would miss this chance to blame Trump, Bolton, and Bush for corrupting the OPCW. There must be a more important reason for them to toe the official narrative, rather than bash conservatives over this. That would be the case if Deep State owned the media. The media would reflect Deep State's interests above their political interests. Does that make sense to anyone but me?

The Two Michaels Have Spent a Year and a Half in a Chinese Prison Because of Trudeau's Hypocrisy

Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor

Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been in a Chinese prison for more than 1.5 years. They were arrested just days after Canada did something really, really stupid. They arrested Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei, as she landed in Vancouver, on request by the US. She is suspected of violating American sanctions against Iran.

Canada (ie Trudeau) should have told Trump years ago not to expect us to help with prosecuting people suspected of breaking American sanctions. Most American sanctions have to do with economic matters, not strategic matters. Trump has been bullying countries into buying American products, especially weapons systems through such sanctions. There is only one way to handle a bully and that is to stand up to him. Trudeau didn't have the courage. Jean Cretien would have told Trump to get lost, and there would never have been the arrests of the two Michaels.

To my astonishment, the extradition court didn't throw the case out of court because Meng was not accused of violating any Canadian laws. You can't be extradited from Canada for breaking a law that doesn't exist in Canada. Nevertheless, the judge somehow saw it differently. If you have read much of my other blog, you will know how much I think of Canadian judges.

So, now we have Meng leisurely lounging in one of her two Vancouver mansions, and the two Michaels surviving in a Chinese prison that is anything but luxurious. And the Liberal government is doing nothing about it, nothing! The Attorney General has the authority to dismiss Meng's case, whereupon the two Michaels will be sent home, but he won't. Why?

The Great Hypocrisy

Two years ago Trudeau greatly interfered in a case the Attorney General was allowing to go to prosecution despite backroom political maneuvering where the PM and his staff created a law specifically to rescue the company from prosecution. The company, SNC Lavalin, the most corrupt company in Canadian history, would be allowed to buy their way out of prosecution. The AG balked and got her back up the more people from the PMO pushed her. Her courage and backbone got her fired as AG and replaced with someone with a more flexible spinal column, a team player, someone who would protect the PM at the expense of the Canadian people. 

The consequence, Trudeau lost two of his best ministers, they quit. Both were women and one is indigenous. As a feminist who stands up for indigenous peoples, his hypocrisy was glaringly obvious. And, it is alarmingly obvious now as he stands before his cottage (remember when we had a parliament?) and pronounces over and over again that Canada is a country of laws and the government will not interfere with the law.

The two Michaels give Trudeau the opportunity to restate that every few days, as if it were true. I think he believes if he says it enough, we Canadians will actually believe it and forget all about the SNC-Lavalin fiasco. Consequently, it has become another fall-out from his corrupt handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair.

My question is, who approved the arrest of Meng Wanzhou in the first place? When the request came in from Washington to arrest her and hold her for extradition, who approved it? Who was the top person to authorize it? Was it a politician? If so, then politics has already interfered with the judicial system. If not, then why did we arrest someone who broke no Canadian laws? As a favour to the USA? How does that fit with politics not interfering with justice?

The Canadian government can intervene to end Meng's extradition trial. Should it?

Extradition Act allows justice minister to intervene at any point during judicial phase

Mark Gollom, Olivia Stefanovich · CBC News 

Any decision on the fate of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, currently awaiting a decision on extradition from Canada, is going to have political fallout. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

While seasoned jurists say the Canadian government has every legal right to intervene to free Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou from her extradition trial to the U.S., some experts warn such an action could have significant political ramifications.

"The question isn't whether the [Canadian government] can, the question is whether they should," said Toronto-based lawyer Brian Greenspan.

In 1999, the Extradition Act was amended to include a specific provision that provides the federal minister of justice the power to intervene in an extradition at any point during the judicial phase.

"The minister has the right to withdraw the authority to proceed and to end the extradition proceeding, and it's totally at the discretion of the minister of justice," Greenspan said.

Extradition proceedings continue in the case against Meng, who was arrested in 2018 in Vancouver on behalf of American justice officials. The United States wants to prosecute Meng for fraud, alleging she lied to banks about her company's connections with Iran, which could possibly violate U.S. sanctions.

The issue of the Canadian government intervening in the case of Meng, the daughter of the Chinese technology giant's founder, was raised recently by the wife of Michael Kovrig, one of two Canadians being held in China on charges of spying.

The Trudeau government has accused China of detaining Kovrig and Michael Spavor in retaliation for the arrest of Meng. Some have suggested Canada could secure their freedom if it put an end to the extradition proceedings against Meng and allowed her to return to China. 

Trudeau has said his government continues to work behind the scenes to secure the release of the two Canadians but has ruled out a prisoner exchange.

Still in custody

The Office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, David Lametti, said in a statement Tuesday they are "well aware of the laws and processes governing" the extradition proceedings.

"As Ms. Meng's case remains before the courts, and the Minister of Justice has a direct role in the extradition process, it would not be appropriate to comment further on this matter," the statement said.

Former Supreme Court of Canada justice John Major said while Lametti can intervene at any time in the extradition process, it would be unusual — especially if after a prolonged court hearing, it concluded in favour of extradition.

But Major noted there may be reasons to do it, especially as Kovrig and Spavor languish in Chinese detention. 

"I would hope before the attorney general intervenes, [he] would have reasons that convince Canadians he should," Major told CBC News.

"The attorney general has to be very cautious in overruling a trial judge who has conducted a full hearing … You just want [Lametti] to act judiciously, not politically."

'Be very cautious'

Major said Canada is stuck in a difficult position, because if the attorney general quashes the judge's decision in Meng's case, the U.S. could react. Likewise, if the judge turns down extradition, China could retaliate.

"It's a delicate situation where you have the U.S. at odds with China and Canada being caught in the middle," Major said.

Donald Abelson, director of St. Francis Xavier University's Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, said he believes it would be "a very dangerous game for Canada to play in terms of succumbing to pressure" to intervene politically in the case.

"I don't think that's a game that we want to play," said Abelson, who was also a founding director of the Canada-U.S. Institute. "It puts us in a very, very precarious position because we don't want to be seen by the Americans as succumbing to Chinese political pressure."

No, we want to be seen by Americans as succumbing to American political pressure.

Abelson said Canada would be "tempting fate" with the U.S, particularly in the current political climate, where the Chinese government has become the focus of Donald Trump's ire in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic and the countries' trade war.

Abelson said Canada doesn't want to become a "punching bag" for Washington.

David Carment, a professor at Carleton University's Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, said he believes Canada's intervention would prompt the Trump administration to use it as a rallying cry to undermine Trudeau's leadership and his pursuit for a majority government when he calls an election.

"I think all sort of diplomatic gloves would come off in this case. The United States would come out fighting and work to undermine this current government's mandate," he said.

So, it seems that the AG should not interfere with the judicial system for political reasons???????

WhaaaaaT?

Christopher Sands, director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said that the state department officials who brought the case forward against Meng would be unhappy with Canada's decision to intervene.

But Canada's decision to intervene came when they arrested Meng, in the first place.

Trump would likely be angry, send off a dismissive tweet or give Trudeau the cold shoulder at the next G7 meeting. But Sands doesn't believe it would result in major policy ramifications against Canada.

"Would it be 'Canadians are no longer allowed to cross the border?' No. The relationship between us and Canada is too big and complex for that," he said. "I can't see any lasting damage."

From CTV News:

But Treasury Board president Jean-Yves Duclos emphasized the importance of judicial independence when he was asked about this option to withdraw the extradition during his Tuesday press conference.

"In Canada, we have not only a tradition but a responsibility to work in a manner that is supportive of the integrity and the independence of our justice system," Duclos said.

"This is very important for the way in which our institutions work in Canada, we have a separation between the executive, and the legislative, as well as the judicial systems, and that's exactly what it should be."

Unless, of course, you are talking about SNC-Lavalin!

Brazil's High Court Approves Investigation into Bolsonaro - Corruption is Everywhere

By Clyde Hughes

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, shown in Jerusalem on March 31, 2019, is facing an investigation Monday

after being accused of meddling with the federal police. Photo by Heidi Levine/UPI | License Photo

April 28 (UPI) -- The Brazilian Supreme Court Monday approved an investigation into whether controversial President Jair Bolsonaro tried to interfere with the country's federal police.

Justice Minister Sergio Moro accused Bolsonaro Friday of trying to replace the head of federal police, the equivalent to the FBI, with someone more willing to share intelligence and police business with him.

"The president of the republic ... is also subject to the laws, just like any other of the country's citizens," Supreme Court Judge Celso de Mello said Monday. "No one, absolutely no one, is entitled to infringe and show contempt for our country's laws and constitution."

Sergio Moro submitted his resignation last week in protest of this move.

Local media said Bolsonaro's interest in removing the federal police head centered around an investigation involving his son Carlos Bolsonaro and the dissemination of fake news.

"The president emphasized to me, explicitly, more than once, that he wanted someone [to lead the federal police] who was a personal contact, whom he could call, from whom he could get information, intelligence reports," Moro said.

Carlos Bolsonaro and his brother Flavio are also under investigation for embezzlement. Bolsonaro said accusations that he tried to shield his sons from prosecution are unfounded. He said he was also well within the law if he wanted to replace the leader of the federal police.

"The prerogative is mine, and the day I have to submit to any of my subordinates, I cease to be president of the republic," Bolsonaro said last week.

I could live with that!

New (4th) OPCW Whistleblower Slams ‘Abhorrent Mistreatment’ of Douma Investigators

A fourth OPCW whistleblower has emerged to defend the two veteran inspectors who challenged a cover-up of the chemical weapons probe in Douma, Syria. The new whistleblower lamented that other staffers have been “frightened into silence.” 

By Aaron Mate

The Grayzone

A new Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) whistleblower has surfaced in response to a malicious and factually flawed attack by OPCW leadership on two veteran inspectors who challenged the official story of an alleged chemical attack by the Syrian government in Douma. 

In a statement provided to The Grayzone, the new OPCW whistleblower described being “horrified” by the “abhorrent … mistreatment” of the inspectors. The new whistleblower also warned of a climate of intimidation designed to keep other staffers “frightened into silence.”

The official is now the fourth OPCW whistleblower to air serious concerns about the chemical watch dog’s Douma probe. The Grayzone has independently verified the official’s identity and status with the OPCW, and granted them anonymity to protect them from potential retaliation.

The first two whistleblowers – the inspectors – are veteran OPCW experts and team leaders who deployed to Syria in April 2018. A third staffer has dissented from the official version of events, but declined to make their views public out of fear that they and their family would be harmed.

The findings by the first two whistleblowing inspectors severely undermined allegations by Western nations and Syrian opposition groups that the Syrian government carried out a chemical attack in Douma.

However, OPCW leadership excluded their scientific work, re-wrote their initial report, and barred them from adding any further input to the investigation. The inspectors’ evidence and the high-level campaign to bury it came to light through a series of leaks that began in May 2019. OPCW leadership has retaliated against the two by falsely portrayed them as rogue actors with only minor roles in the investigation and incomplete information.

The statement by the new OPCW whistleblower forcefully defends the inspectors and denounces the campaign by organization leadership to destroy their reputations.

“The mistreatment of two highly regarded and accomplished professionals can only be described as abhorrent,” the OPCW official wrote. “I fully support their endeavours, in that it is for the greater good and not for personal gain or in the name of any political agenda. They are in fact trying to protect the integrity of the organisation which has been hijacked and brought into shameful disrepute.”

One of the two whistleblowing former inspectors has been identified publicly. He is Ian Henderson, a 12-year veteran of the organization and weapons expert. Henderson led on-the-ground inspections in Douma and conducted a detailed engineering study of gas cylinders found at the scene. He concluded that the cylinders were likely “manually placed” rather than being dropped by air – a finding that suggests the attack was staged on the ground by the militants who controlled Douma at the time.

The OPCW buried Henderson’s study and released a final report that echoed the version put forward by the US Department of State and British Foreign Ministry, strongly implying that the cylinders were dropped by the Syrian military.

The second inspector has not identified themself, and is known only as Inspector B. This person is a 16-year OPCW veteran who coordinated the OPCW team’s scientific and technical activities in Douma and was the chief author of the main report – until OPCW leaders seized control of the investigation and rewrote its findings.

In remarks last month, OPCW Director-General General Fernando Arias dismissed the pair’s scientific work as “erroneous, uninformed, and wrong,” and insisted that they “could not accept that their views were not backed by evidence.”

In letters published by The Grayzone, the inspectors rebutted Arias’ claims and argued, in B’s words, that they in fact “could never accept that a scientific investigation is not backed by science.”

The new OPCW whistleblower stood by the inspectors. “It is quite unbelievable that valid scientific concerns are being brazenly ignored in favour of a predetermined narrative,” they wrote. “The lack of transparency in an investigative process with such enormous ramifications is frightful.”

The official went on to suggest that fear of retaliation is preventing more OPCW officials from coming forward. “I am one of many who were stunned and frightened into silence by the reality how the organisation operates,” the official wrote. “The threat of personal harm is not an illusion, or else many others would have spoken out by now.” The official does not provide additional details.

Another OPCW veteran, who served in a senior role but no longer works at the organization, has also warned of severe threats to their security. In a letter published by The Grayzone, the former senior OPCW official expressed alarm about a cover-up of the Douma probe and of the intimidation of dissenting voices. The former official described their tenure at the OPCW as “the most stressful and unpleasant ones of my life,” and voiced concern that “they will not hesitate to do harm to me and my family.”

In their rebuttal letter to Arias, Inspector B complained that Arias’ public statements have left “so many obvious clues, that anyone within the Organisation (and among many delegations) would have no doubt as to [the whistleblower’s] identities. Such recklessness has created a serious safety concern.”

According to the inspectors, a delegation of US officials visited the OPCW to apply “unacceptable pressure” on the Douma team to place blame on the Syrian government for a chemical attack that might not have happened at all. 

Both Henderson and Inspector B have called on Arias to allow for a transparent, scientific hearing where all of the suppressed evidence and studies can be heard. In their statement, the new OPCW whistleblower echoed the inspectors’ demand.

“The lack of transparency in an investigative process with such enormous ramifications is frightful,” the official wrote. “The allegations of the two gentlemen urgently need to be thoroughly investigated and the functionality of the organisation restored.”

Full text of statement on Douma scandal from new OPCW whistleblower is available on the Grayzone

Talk About ‘Collusion’: How Foreign-Backed Anti-Oil Activists Infiltrated Canada’s Government

Or, how wealthy American environmentalists bought the Canadian government and destroyed Alberta's Oil Sands industry

If this kind of political interference had happened in the USA, there would have been war. But in Canada, it won't even make a wave in the political ocean. Our politicians and media are so entrenched in the system, they don't even care that they have been had. 

I'm sure, if Ms Krause continues her research she will find connections between Tides and the global climate hysteria. This is not Deep State at work, but perhaps I can call it, Shallow State.

Piece by meticulously researched piece, Vivian Krause has spent almost 10 years exposing this story

A protest in Washington against Canada's oilsands.Bloomberg

Special to Financial Post
Gwyn Morgan

Canadians watching Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election might be tempted to find comfort in their certainty that such foreign interference could never happen here.

Except it already has. And while the Russian government at least denies interfering in American political affairs, the perpetrators who meddled in Canadian elections have publicly trumpeted their success in devising and executing their plan aimed at helping elect who they wanted.

This story has all the elements of a fiction novel.

Unfortunately it’s real.

This story has all the elements of a fiction novel. Unfortunately it’s real. Piece by meticulously researched piece, B.C.-based independent researcher Vivian Krause spent almost 10 years exposing the story. Every detail has been corroborated, including with American and Canadian tax records, together with documents and statements from the perpetrators themselves.

The story begins in 2008, when a group of radical American anti-fossil-fuel NGOs created their “Tar Sands Campaign Strategy 2.1” designed explicitly “to landlock the Canadian oil sands by delaying or blocking the expansion or development of key pipelines.” A list of key strategic targets included: “educating and organizing First Nations to challenge construction of pipelines across their traditional territories” and bringing “multiple actions in Canadian federal and provincial courts.” A “raising the negatives” section includes recruiting celebrity spokes-persons such as Leonardo Di Caprio to “lend their brand to opponents of tar sands and generating a high negative media profile for tar sands oil.”

What would become a massively disruptive intrusion into Canadian affairs would take years and a large amount of money. Enter the Rockefeller Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. They, along with environmentalist charities, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the U.S.-based Tides Foundation, a murky organization that provides cover as a legal laundering service that can funnel donations into activist groups, without revealing the source.

Independent researcher Vivian Krause uncovered evidence of a U.S. led green campaign to landlock Alberta oil. Shaughn Butts / Postmedia

Since both American and Canadian tax laws require charities to document receipt and disbursement of funds, Krause was able to gather irrefutable evidence that tens of millions of dollars were transferred from Tides U.S. to its Tides Canada affiliate. Moreover, Krause was able to obtain 70 covering letters showing the recipients and how they used the funds.

They went towards mobilizing First Nations against the fear of oil spills, including payments to help build “indigenous solidarity resistance to pipeline routes,” to maintain “opposition to oil tankers” and to “provide legal support for actions constraining tar sands development.” Funding also went to the Great Bear Initiative Society to build support for designating the so-called “Spirit Bear” habitat as a nature reserve.

Payments went to the Pembina Institute to “advance…the narrative that oil sands expansion is problematic”; to Greenpeace Canada “for events to show opposition to pipelines and tar sands expansion”; to the Living Oceans Society “to build opposition to the Kinder Morgan Pipeline”; and to Forest Ethics “to conduct education and outreach opposing the Kinder Morgan and Northern Gateway pipelines.”

But the American anti-oilsands funding effort didn’t stop at encouraging opposition to oil pipelines. The Victoria-based Dogwood Initiative received millions of dollars from Tides Canada to run get-out-the-vote campaigns in the 2017 B.C. provincial election, including deploying a throng of campaign workers in the riding of Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver. After his election, the B.C. government would be in the hands of an NDP/Green alliance bent on fighting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Money was also funnelled to campaign activists working to help the Liberals win the 2015 election. Vancouver-based Leadnow received directly and through the B.C.-based Sisu Institute more than $1 million from Tides Canada towards the objective of defeating then prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, which supported expanding the oil and gas industry. Leadnow claims its campaigners helped defeat Conservative candidates in 25 ridings.

If it weren’t for all that American funding directed at a campaign mobilizing First Nations and other anti-pipeline activists, the Liberals might not have been so successful in running against the Harper Conservatives; but then, without the election of an ideologically anti-oilsands Liberal government, the funding for the anti-oilsands campaign might not have been enough, either. The website of the Tar Sands Campaign boasted until recently a quote from team leader Michael Marx: “The controversy from the campaign contributed to political victories at the provincial and national level in 2015 and led to bold climate commitments by Canadian leaders.” After the CBC reported this past January on the campaign (which the National Post and Financial Post, with Krause’s help, had been reporting on for years) on The Weekly hosted by Wendy Mesley, Marx’s quote was taken off the campaign’s site. (The episode is very much worth watching.)

But the campaigners received a bonus beyond their wildest dreams when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed one of their most dedicated eco-warriors as his principal secretary. Prior to ascending to the most powerful post in the Prime Minister’s Office, from 2008 to 2012 Gerald Butts was president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF Canada), an important Tides campaign partner. Butts would use his new powerful position to bring other former campaigners with him: Marlo Raynolds‏, chief of staff to Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, is past executive director of the Tides-backed Pembina Institute. Zoë Caron, chief of staff to Natural Resource Minister Amarjeet Sohi, is also a former WWF Canada official. Sarah Goodman, on the prime minister’s staff, is a former vice-president of Tides Canada. With these anti-oil activists at the epicentre of federal power, it’s no wonder the oil industry, and hundreds of thousands of workers, have plummeted into political and policy purgatory.

Now, Butts, the architect of this economic and social disaster and national-unity crisis has resigned amid a scandal alleging inappropriate favours for SNC-Lavalin. I wonder if this resignation will pay as well as the last one: When Butts resigned from WWF Canada to join the PMO, Krause discovered that he subsequently received two separate payments from WWF Canada totalling $361,642. When Krause asked him about it, he explained in a May 26, 2016 tweet that: “It was my contract severance.” That’s startling. Over my entire career leading one of Canada’s largest companies and serving as a director of four others, I have never heard of “severance” paid when someone decided to quit.

But then, in a way, Butts never did. He would prove to be as or more useful to the anti-oilsands activists at WWF Canada and other hard-core environmental groups being inside the government, rather than outside it. From one job to the next, he never stopped fighting Alberta’s oilpatch.

That is the latest sorrowful chapter in this scandalous story — a story that never could have been told without the determination of Vivian Krause, a real Canadian patriot who dedicated 10 years uncovering the truth.

Gwyn Morgan is the retired founding CEO of Encana Corp. 

A Quick Sketch to Outline the Scandal in Canada That is Casting Dark Shadows Across the Face of Justin Trudeau

Corruption is Everywhere

- Even in the Office of Canada's Far-Left Mr. Sunshine

National Observer

For 16 years the global engineering and construction giant SNC-Lavalin cultivated a close relationship with the Muammar Gaddafi family, particularly his son Saadi.

According to criminal charges, for almost a decade of that period, up until the fall of the regime, SNC paid Saadi Gaadafi almost $50 million in exchange for billions of dollars in airport, pipeline, and water infrastructure projects.

Saadi Gadaffi

Oh, and prisons.

Let's go over that again.

A Canadian company is charged with bribing a family infamous around the world for murder, torture, rape, abductions, and widespread human rights abuses, and doing it for its own profit. They didn't stop until the regime collapsed in 2011 and Swiss authorities came knocking. Charges were laid in April 2015.

A corruption prosecution of this gravity is unprecedented in Canada.

Moreover, had the Libyan regime not collapsed and the bribery discovered, would this company still be in the game, still arranging prostitute parties and funnelling money to the Gaddafis?

It's highly significant that SNC is no stranger to disciplinary action over its conduct. During the 2001-2011 period of the alleged Libyan bribery, the company has:

been barred from bidding on Asian Development Bank projects for fabricating qualifications and documents (2004);

settled corruption allegations with the African Development Bank over bribes in Mozambique (2008) and Uganda (2010);

bribed Canadian officials with $22.5 million in relation to a McGill hospital contract (2009);

been credibly found by the World Bank as participating in high-level corruption in Bangladesh in 2009-2010, and entered into a voluntary debarment from World Bank-financed projects. (SNC-Lavalin has since been acquitted of criminal charges, but the voluntary debarment remains in place);

entered into a voluntary agreement to compensate seven Quebec municipalities for obtaining contracts through questionable means (1996-2011);

made illegal federal election campaign donations (2004-2011), entering into a voluntary compliance agreement with the federal elections commissioner

SNC knowingly enabled and overlooked monstrous tyranny and abuse.

The company cannot pretend it was unaware of Gaddafi's vicious cruelty while expensing his son Saadi Gaddafi's prostitutes, lavish lifestyle, and showering him with millions of dollars a year.

The company financed his soccer aspirations and sponsored his team despite widespread reports that, just a few years earlier, his bodyguards had opened fire on soccer fans for booing a referee favouring him. Between 20 and 50 were killed in the ensuing chaos.

Then there was Bashir al-Rayani, a professional soccer coach who challenged Saadi Gaddafi in 2005, only to disappear shortly before his bludgeoned body was dumped near his home.

A brief search and one can find more horror stories associated with SNC-Lavalin. But that should be sufficient to indicate that this company has little or no regard for the law or for any of the myriad people adversely affected by their relentless bribery.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper put in place a law that forbids companies convicted of corruption from bidding on federal infrastructure contracts for 10 years. But as soon as Justin Trudeau and his very Liberal Party won the election in 2015, SNC began intense lobbying of the government to find a solution that didn't involve going to trial.

SNC and the very Liberals cam up with a law that is used in a few countries, including Britain, called Deferred Prosecution Agreement. It is basically a plea deal. The very Liberals snuck the new law into the bowels of a large omnibus federal budget, and it passed without scrutiny in the Spring budget of 2018.

However, Canada's senior Public Prosecutor decided it wasn't in the best interests of Canadians, or probably anyone else in the world, to offer SNC a DPA. Two weeks later, Canada's Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Reybould, agreed with her and informed SNC that they would not be getting a DPA offer.

Well, __it hit the fan! SNC began frantic lobbying of the Trudeau government, which, in turn, began pressuring the Attorney General to reconsider. For months, everyone from the Prime Minister, his senior staff, the Clerk of the Privy Council, pressed Wilson-Reybould to reconsider.

SNC-Lavalin threatened the government with thousands of lost jobs and even moving its headquarters from Montreal to London. Trudeau panicked. One of the very first things he mentioned to the AG when he next met her was to remind her of the job losses and that he was the MP for Papineau, a riding in Montreal where many of those workers lived.

The AG asked the PM if he was interfering with her decision and he backed off. Meanwhile the PM's Chief of Staff, Gerald Butts informed the AG's Chief of Staff that there was no solution that did not involve interference.

From here the sort gets even less believable. In January, a Halifax MP and cabinet minister, Scott Brison. suddenly decided he had to retire. He hadn't talked about it to anyone. People were amazed that no-one had any idea he was thinking of retiring. I strongly suspect that he had no idea himself until just before it happened. 

This resulted in a mini cabinet shuffle, and guess who go shuffled? The Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould. She was replaced with a new AG, an MP, would you believe, from Montreal, who seems a lot more amenable to offering SNC-Lavalin a DPA. Except, __it hit the fan again.

Someone leaked the story to Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper and all hell breaks loose. Trudeau flatly denies the story saying it is completely untrue, that no pressure was applied to the AG, she was not threatened, they just had to have a cabinet shuffle because Scott Brison resigned. 

A few days later, Jody Wilson-Reybould resigned from her new cabinet position stating that she has lots confidence in the Prime Minister. 

The parliamentary justice committee, dominated by very Liberals was pressured into holding investigations into the affair. At first they didn't want to allow anyone of any importance to speak to the committee. A brilliant, young CBC digital reporter suggested the inquiry into the fox and the henhouse was restricting evidence to the mouse and the rusty lawnmower. I think she nailed it.

Finally they agreed to call the clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's top bureaucrat, and, supposedly, non-political. His testimony was anything but non-political. Eventually, JWR, herself, got to testify, although limited somewhat by Cabinet Privilege. 

With documentation, she contradicted some of the Clerk's testimony and exposed the pressure, the political angle, and the fact that she told the PM she had made up her mind way back in September and that all the pressure was tantamount to political interference, and it had to stop. It stopped over Christmas holidays and immediately after she was moved from the portfolio.

Whether she was threatened with removal she will not say because of cabinet privilege. The Clerk was invited back to Committee to rebut JWR's testimony but before he could do that another high profile female cabinet minister resigned. Jane Philpott was a former health minister and Indigenous-services minister, and was president of the federal Treasury Board when she quit the cabinet. Philpott was widely seen as one of Trudeau's most capable ministers.

Philpott quit in solidarity with JWR stating that she cannot support the government line on the whole affair. The government accused her of being JWR's friend!!! Like it just a couple of emotional women, not two of the most respected and capable ministers in the very Liberal government. The rest of his cabinet, like trained monkeys, chanted the mantra - "the PM has my full confidence!"

Trudeau refuses to accept responsibility for the affair and, in all probability, will find a way out of the situation for SNC-Lavalin to avoid justice. He has followers who believe so emphatically in his righteousness that they cannot see what is so plainly visible. He's a politician. A very ambitious politician. Canadian PM is nowhere near the pinnacle of his political ambitions. He, I believe, is determined to be the saviour of the world.

More on Trudeau later... meanwhile -

SNC Lavalin had gone to court seeking a review of the decision by the federal director of public prosecutions last fall to not enter negotiations so desperately sought by the firm’s executives. Today, the Federal Court has struck down SNC-Lavalin‘s appeal.

The new Attorney General has a hard decision to make, and while he may get lots of encouragement to make it, chances are, if he decides to offer SNC a plea deal, his encouragers will be nowhere to be found come October and federal election time.

Soros-Funded NGOs Aiming to Bring Down Hungarian Gov't – Foreign Minister

George Soros © imago stock&people / www.globallookpress.com

The activities of organizations funded by US billionaire investor George Soros in Hungary are “anti-democratic,” as they want to undermine the government in Budapest, the foreign minister of Hungary told RT.

Soros “would like this government to fail, he would like to kind of fire this government because he doesn’t like our approach, doesn’t like our policies,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze.

“We find it very anti-democratic if someone from abroad would like to influence Hungarian voters on whom to vote for,” he asserted.

Several days before the interview, the Hungarian parliament began to discuss a bill allowing authorities to audit NGO executives and request detailed reports on their foreign donations.

Earlier in January, chairman of the ruling Fidesz party Szilard Nemeth said that “these organizations must be pushed back with all available tools, and I think they must be swept out, and now I believe the international conditions are right for this with the election of the new president [Donald Trump].”

Last September, Nemeth, who is also the deputy chairman of Hungary’s National Security Committee, submitted a list of 22 NGOs “connected to the Soros network for the purpose of having these organizations screened.”

Foreign Minister Szijjarto said it is obviously the right of his country to be protected from foreign influence. “This is what we have heard a lot from the US for the last months – that external influence is so dangerous… So, it’s a good reason – if this is the American position, it can be our position as well.”

Hungary, which lies at the very heart of Europe, last year became a main passageway for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees eager to reach northern European countries. The government, led by right-wing President Viktor Orban, responded by erecting fences along Hungary’s borders and introducing strict border controls. Budapest has consistently refused EU-backed mandatory resettlement quotas, calling them a blow to member states’ sovereignty.

Szijjarto cited intelligence reports alleging that “there were organizations which helped illegal migrants find ways to Hungary, to find where they could violate our border, to find out how to apply for asylum status, and these reports have said that George Soros was in the background of these organizations.”

video 26:18

Countries to Hungary’s east and south are concerned about Soros’ operations, too. In Macedonia, an organization called Stop Operation Soros (SOS) has been launched. Its founder, Nikola Srbov, accused Soros of hijacking civil society, calling upon followers to “fight against one-mindedness in the civil sector, which is devised and led by Soros,” according to Vecer newspaper.

Russian prosecutors branded the Open Society Foundation (OSF), a major Soros asset, and Open Society Institute’s Assistance Foundation threats to the country’s constitutional order and national security in 2015, and banned them from providing grants to Russian partners.

Groups run by Soros have also been accused of meddling in Ukrainian affairs and supporting the 2013 Euromaidan protests that led to the ouster of democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovich.

Why the Spy Trade is Such a Booming Industry

Profession is thousands of years old, but motivations behind it remain basically the same

By Brian Stewart, for CBC News

Russian President Vladimir Putin's alleged attempt to meddle in the U.S. election has raised new concerns about global espionage. But, as Brian Stewart explains, there's been a massive surge in spying for years. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press)

The alleged Russian plot that targeted the U.S. presidential election has raised concerns we're headed for Cold War levels of spying, but there's actually plenty of evidence the world soared past that point years ago.

In a CBC News documentary that aired four years ago, intelligence experts described new global threats as almost a pandemic of espionage that seems to know no limits.   

It was clear revolutionary forms of spying had emerged, the most powerful of which was the kind of cyberattack skulduggery Russia allegedly used to try to destabilize the Democrats and help Republican Donald Trump win the presidency. 

Sure, Cold War espionage was baffling enough — dubbed "a wilderness of mirrors" by the British — but it was at least more focused on the big power struggle between the U.S. and Soviet Union and far more technologically limited than today's sleuthing free-for-all.

There are now an estimated 120 countries involved in espionage, each trying to infiltrate military, political and economic targets all over the world.

High-tech snooping dramatically increased espionage threats and the quantity of information governments collect. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images)

And those are just the official spy operations. Non-state and corporate spies have become much more active, not to mention rogue cyber warriors who sell their wares as independents and major organized crime and terror groups.

I suggest there are other categories of cyber-spies. Powerful organizations such as might be operating under the UN banner, or for oligarchs like George Soros, the Koch brothers, etc., could well be entering the field of play. Remember, 2 years ago Lord Christopher Moncton overheard a British envoy to the UN Climate Change forum predict the fall of Conservative Prime Ministers from Australia and Canada. They were standing in the way of a global agreement on climate change that would cede powers to the UN to fine or punish countries for failing to meet targets in CO2 reduction. Both PMs were gone within a year. The climate change agreement was seen by Monkton as the first major step into a one-world government.

More threats, bigger budgets  

Globalization naturally helps the growth of espionage by making it easier for covert operators to move around more open societies. At the same time, high-tech internet snooping ensures it's often possible to steal sensitive information without even leaving a secure base. 

These growing threats naturally boost national spy agency budgets. The British MI6 foreign intelligence service is reportedly expanding by 40 per cent over four years, while U.S. spy operations already spend $70 billion a year.

More threats and more information to be analyzed has resulted in budgets hikes for spy agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency. (Reuters)

So the shadow world keeps expanding, but this brings us to the big question: why the global addiction to espionage and its many dark crafts? 

Spying is known as one of the world's oldest professions and the motives behind it have remained consistent over thousands of years: fear, avarice, insatiable curiosity and a desire to undercut real or imagined opponents.    

At the most basic level, spies seek to feed governments with as much information as possible on threats emanating from other powers, as well as intelligence about economic and scientific competitors, and sometimes even antagonistic political groups that might do them harm.

Information overload 

It's often said 90 per cent of all useful intelligence can be had from open public sources, but that secret 10 per cent that can only be obtained through covert means is still gargantuan.

Modern espionage produces information overload. And the fact that the goal is to collect, send and analyze this deluge of data for risks and opportunities as quickly as possible means intelligence operations are only getting bigger.  

And consider how competition works in spying. Governments tend to prefer analysis of secrets from several sources rather than just one, so you have the U.S. with 17 separate intelligence hubs and Russia with a half dozen.

See my next post: U.S., Russia - Long History of Election Interference.

The National Security Agency is one of 17 separate U.S. intelligence groups. (Jason Reed/Reuters)

Historical jitters have also contributed to the insatiable craving for more secrets that motivates leading espionage powers.  

It's no coincidence that the U.S., Russia, China, Israel and Iran, to name just a few, all suffered sneak attacks in war that left them convinced the best defence is an espionage offence and that they can never learn too many secrets.

The U.S., for example, has been exposed for spying on allies like Germany, while Russia has alarmed several governments including Poland, Ukraine, Germany, Sweden and Norway with a surge in espionage and covert interference.

Kremlin's goals

Moscow's methods of political sabotage allegedly include hacking political parties and state agencies, creating fake news stories to stir up xenophobic passion and providing money to far-right parties.

The goal seems to be to sow discord through the Western alliance and destabilize the EU while also trying to ensure an end to sanctions against Moscow.

Putin's goals include disrupting NATO and destabilizing the EU. (Mikhail Klimentyev/AP)

Mark Galeotti, a leading authority on Russian security, says even President Vladimir Putin's most aggressive espionage efforts are primarily motivated by defence.

"Every external operation is first and foremost a domestic one," he wrote in a study for the European Council on Foreign Relations. "This means carrying out operations to prevent 'foreign interference' as the Kremlin sees it, as well as dividing strategic rivals such as the EU."  

Whatever the mindset, the aggression comes at a time when international nerves are already on edge because of political turmoil in the EU, constant concern about terrorism, as well as a potentially unpredictable new era with Trump in charge of the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump says he'll make cyberwarfare a 'priority' in the fight against ISIS and other terrorist groups. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

The fact it's so difficult to track and expose so many cyber threats from Russia and other sources only means we can expect even more of them.   

A new term, "hybrid warfare," is increasingly used in NATO to characterize clandestine and cyberattacks that could target governments, military sites, energy infrastructure like nuclear plants, stock markets and basically entire economies.

In a very rare public warning, MI6 boss Alex Younger recently said the difficulty in dealing with so many global phantoms "should be a concern to all who share democratic values."

"Data and the internet have turned our business on its head."

Canada not immune

No country seems immune to hacking and meddling — certainly not Canada. Top security figures including former CSIS director Richard Fadden have warned that other countries have likely already tried to influence our elections.

Canadian government computers have been hacked, including those at our premier scientific research body, the National Research Council, in 2014. The Harper government described the perpetrator as "a highly sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor."

Former CSIS director Richard Fadden says other countries have likely already tried to influence Canadian elections. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Canada, like all advanced countries, is a target of economic espionage. That's where foreign countries, trade  competitors and cybercrime groups try to steal secrets from key sectors such as aerospace, biotechnology, chemicals and nuclear energy. 

Adding pure greed to the mix of state insecurities makes the global scourge of spying even more difficult to combat, especially when few countries have totally clean hands.

A great many international conferences and studies over years have struggled to find ways to control espionage, especially cyberattacks. Some even argue progress will come only if perpetrators, including the U.S., China and Russia, come to fear retaliation by equally damaging attacks. 

But escalating covert attacks to combat bad behaviour does have a chilling Cold War ring to it, and there's also the risk counterattacks might actually make this espionage pandemic even worse.  

Brian Stewart

Canada and abroad

One of this country's most experienced journalists and foreign correspondents, Brian Stewart is currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. He also sits on the advisory board of Human Rights Watch Canada. In almost four decades of reporting, he has covered many of the world's conflicts and reported from 10 war zones, from El Salvador to Beirut and Afghanistan.