"In an interview with Dale Gavlak, a Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press and Mint Press News, Syrian rebels tacitly implied that they were responsible for last week’s chemical attack.
“From numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families….many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the (deadly) gas attack,” he writes in the article.
The rebels noted it was a result of an accident caused by rebels mishandling chemical weapons provided to them.
“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.
As Gavlak reports, Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels died in a weapons storage tunnel. The father stated the weapons were provided to rebel forces by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, describing them as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”
“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K’. “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”
“When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,” she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.
Gavlak also refers to an article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph about secret Russian-Saudi talks stating that Prince Bandar threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin with terror attacks at next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if Russia doesn’t agree to change its stance on Syria.
“Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord,” the article stated.
“I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” Saudi Prince allegedly told Vladimir Putin.
Mint Press News stated that some of the information couldn’t be independently verified and pledged to continue providing updates on this topic."
"Germany has recognized the online currency bitcoin as a legal unit of currency. The move improves the virtual currency's image, but also means the people who have bitcoins will have to answer to the tax man.
From food to toilet paper, and drugs to weapons - everything is available on the Internet and, increasingly, purchases are paid with virtual currencies such as bitcoin.
The German Finance Ministry has recently recognized bitcoin as a currency unit and as private money, subjecting holdings of bitcoins to German tax laws.
The move has somewhat polished up bitcoins still dubious image, putting Internet trading in the currency on a legal footing and allowing the exchange of the virtual currency into real dollars or euros. Online currency conversion sites determine the value of Bitcoins according to supply and demand.
Currently, one bitcoin is valued at about $110 (82 euros) with overseer group Bitcoin Foundation limiting the total number of currency units to 21 billion.
Taxable income
However, since bitcoin was not universally recognized as a currency it remained private money, the German Finance Ministry said. Nevertheless, the cyber currency was subject to German tax laws, the ministry said, including value-added tax on sales and income tax on profits garnered from bitcoin business."
"Growing Bitcoin buzz: In-person Bitcoin exchanges make a splash in Berlin
Published time: August 24, 2013 16:58 Edited time: August 26, 2013 17:52
Supporters of Bitcoin spent Saturday engaging in personal exchanges in Berlin, taking place in a mobile art space which supports the cryptocurrency. Its official recognition by the German state earlier this month is only aiding its expansion.
Bitcoin first burst onto the global scene in 2008 and has since been gaining rapid momentum. Germany is fast becoming a hotbed of exchanges, with August 16 marking its official recognition by the country under the term “Rechnungseinheiten,” which roughly translates to “units of account.”
“It’s a real step towards it becoming a universally, accepted, legitimate other option to state-issued currencies,” said RT’s Peter Oliver in Berlin. In some places in the German capital, people even use the parallel currency to pay for simple commodities such as food and drink. Numerous small online merchants also accept it.
Bitcoin Exchange Berlin hosted their third meeting on Saturday at the city’s Platoon Kunsthalle (Platoon Art Hall) to launch a European hub where people can both buy and sell a selection of products using Bitcoin and buy and sell the currency itself in a stock-exchange type climate.
“We’ve got many innovative people here from all over the world, coming together," Aaron Koenig, founder of Bitcoin Exchange Berlin, told RT. "Berlin has always been a place to try out new things. Did you know that the computer was invented in Berlin? So I think that it’s just natural that Bitcoin is very strong here.”
Buyers attend with notebooks or electronic devices in order to create an account with the currency and buy it. People attending the gatherings are actively encouraged to set up a ‘wallet’ through which transactions can take place.
Germany’s “BXB” (Bitcoin Exchange Berlin) site lists as its intention the provision of the opportunity for members of the Bitcoin community “to meet and collaborate on ideas” in the hope of broadening the community itself and bringing the currency to higher prominence within “Berlin, Germany, Europe and around the world.”
Only one thing left for it! GET STUCK IN **TODAY**!
And so, last night, Twitter decided to label this site, as containing malware, or otherwise being engaged in disreputable conduct. I within 10 minute or so of the event, requested the ban be lifted, and (per the second below, which is even more recent and was completed only four hours ago), after having checked that the site didn't contain any malicious code.
This morning I have this reply in from twitter (an automated reply, to be clear); note the timing is likely based on Twitter's HQ, not GMT/BST where I am):
REPLY IN FROM TWITTER
"Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 20:36:04 +0000
Hello,
Twitter has systems that blocks the posting of suspected harmful URLs in order to make Twitter safer and more secure for our users. If you see a warning about malware or spam when attempting to send a Tweet with a URL, this means the URL may have been flagged by our systems as potentially harmful.
If you manage the domain of the reported URL, please take the following actions:
• If your website is showing up as a malware threat, you'll need to clean up any outstanding malware threats before your URL will be un-flagged. You can find out more information on how to clean your site of malware threats at Google's Resources for Websites and Site Owners:https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/163633?rd=1
Even if Google's diagnostic report of the URL is clean, we may decide to continue blocking the URL on Twitter as potentially harmful. If the URL of the site you manage is being blocked and you are sure that your site is not being used for abuse on Twitter, reply to this email to let us know.
Please make sure you cannot Tweet your URL before responding to this message.
FULL GOOGLE DIAGNOSTICS taken about 06.40 am Friday 30th).
"Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for www.occupythebanks.com
What is the current listing status for www.occupythebanks.com?
This site is not currently listed as suspicious.
What happened when Google visited this site?
Of the 352 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 0 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2013-08-29, and suspicious content was never found on this site within the past 90 days.This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS15169 (GOOGLE).
Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?
Over the past 90 days, www.occupythebanks.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.
Has this site hosted malware?
No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.
If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center. "
We will reply to this Twitter email today, but meantime, as the RSS has also been totally trashed, perhaps now might be a time to bookmark our site, and make a daily visit; as you can see read RED above, no matter what we say, no matter how clean of malware this site is, Twitter, may just decide to keep the site listed as 'unsafe'. We do wonder, we do. As we watch freedom of speech disappear all around us, just what the future brings (apart from the obvious nuclear holocaust). TWEET #OccupyTheBanks http://www.occupythebanks.com/search?q=TWITTER http://www.occupythebanks.com/search?q=FALSE+POSITIVE http://www.occupythebanks.com/search?q=HACKTIVISM Tweet The game, continues:
I suggest you JOIN OUR SITE NOW (follower gizmo moved to the top left sidebar until this is resolved). this will give those of you with Google accounts, notification of new posts, that way, absent RSS, and now, absent Twitter & of course, Facebook (which we may be able to recover). Will someone please donate?
What is the current listing status for www.occupythebanks.com?
This site is not currently listed as suspicious.
What happened when Google visited this site?
Of the 353 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 0 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2013-08-30, and suspicious content was never found on this site within the past 90 days.This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS15169 (GOOGLE).
Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?
Over the past 90 days, www.occupythebanks.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.
Has this site hosted malware?
No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.
If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center.
Updated 4 hours ago
"As you can see from the BRACKETING of the time during which Twitter decided to CEASE allowing our URL to pass through twitter, we have NO MALWARE nor SPAMMY content. We will now write to twitter and request the de-listing of our URL, and report back as ever, on whether twitter does the right thing, or decides, for reasons we will all be sure of, to continue to maintain the site as banned from being sent via twitter. Meantime, please note, you can help us earn money (and earn money yourself) AND GET OUR SITE THROUGH TWITTER, by using this URL shortening service, which we highly recommend. Never, EVER, let CENSORSHIP SUCCEED. #DARKCABAL DARKEST #SYRIA STRIKE YET #GOLANHEIGHTS We're sure Twitter will do the right thing; sure they're not as stupid as their bandwidth supplier in the UK (we guess the recently named war criminal BT) and if not, sure YOU will. ;) Why not check out some of our most popular pages, just in case; we ALL and I do mean ALL need to be ready to ENSURE we CONTROL information flow in the West, NOT SAUDI WAR CRIMINALS.