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Trump plans to hold summit with Putin in Reykjavik – report

RT | January 15, 2017

US President-Elect Donald Trump has told British officials that he wants to hold a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Reykjavik, Iceland, the Sunday Times reported.

The meeting with Vladimir Putin is set to become Donald Trump’s first foreign trip, and the US leader will start working on an agreement limiting nuclear arms within a “reset” in US-Russian relations, according to the newspaper.

Sources close to the Russian Embassy in London said to The Sunday Times that Moscow would agree to a summit between Putin and Trump.

The meeting would come just over 30 years since the historic summit on October 11-12, 1986, between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the second in a series of meetings that relaunched the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The latest report comes just a day after Trump expressed openness to lifting the sanctions against Russia “under certain conditions.”

In an hour-long interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Trump said he wants to keep the sanctions that the Obama administration recently imposed on Russia “at least for a period of time.”

However, Trump added that he would consider lifting the restrictions, depending on how helpful the Russians are in the fight against terrorism, as well as assisting with other goals that he feels are key to the US.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

China, Vietnam agree to manage differences on South China Sea

Xinhua | 2017-01-14

BEIJING – China and Vietnam on Saturday issued a joint communique, pledging to manage maritime differences and safeguard the peace and stability of the South China Sea.

The communique was issued as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong paid a four-day official visit to China since Thursday.

China and Vietnam had “a candid exchange of views” on maritime issues, according to the communique.

Both countries pledged to seek basic and long-term solutions that both sides can accept via negotiation, and discuss transitional solutions that will not affect each other’s stance including the research of joint development, it said.

Both sides agreed to fully and effectively implement the Declaration on the Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the South China Sea and strive for the early conclusion of a Code of Conduct (COC) on the basis of consensus in the framework of the DOC, said the communique.

Both sides agreed to manage maritime differences and avoid any acts that may complicate the situation and escalate tensions so as to safeguard peace and stability of the South China Sea, it said.

During Trong’s four-day visit, he met with five of the seven members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, including talks with General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping, and separate meetings with Premier Li Keqiang, top legislator Zhang Dejiang, top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng and top graft-buster Wang Qishan.

Yu and Trong also attended a grand reception marking the 67th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties as well as the upcoming Lunar New Year.

According to the communique, both sides believed that the visit was a great success that had further enhanced political mutual trust, consolidated traditional friendship, deepened strategic partnership of comprehensive cooperation and contributed to regional peace, stability and development.

The two countries agreed that it was of great importance and strategic guidance to bilateral ties that the high-level officials of both countries and parties, especially the top leaders of the two countries, maintain frequent contact, it said, calling for more exchanges and cooperation via bilateral mutual visits, sending envoys, hotlines, annual meeting and meetings at multilateral occasions.

Both sides also encouraged cooperation on economy and trade, defense, security and law enforcement, cultural, youth and local areas, the communique said.

Vietnam supports and will actively participate in a summit forum on the international cooperation along the Belt and Road to be hosted by China in 2017, said the communique.

Besides Beijing, Trong also paid a visit to east China’s Zhejiang Province, it said.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Economics | , | 1 Comment

Why Did the Al-Jazeera Expose Fail?

By Gilad Atzmon – January 14, 2017

“The Lobby”, the Al-Jazeerah expose of the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish Lobby infiltration into British politics is a landmark in journalism. It seems that Qatari TV outsmarted Israeli intelligence in the UK and beyond.

In the program, an undercover journalist named ‘Robin’ managed to infiltrate into the corridors of the Jewish lobby in Britain, secured the trust of a senior Israeli intelligence officer and, most importantly, managed to reveal the depths of Israeli interference in British politics.

We learned how Israel and its lobby plot against Britain and the Brits. In the program, Shai Masot, an Israeli official was caught on camera conspiring to “bring down” a British minister.

We learned how our own treacherous MPs shamelessly serve a foreign power and foreign interests. In Episode 3 we witness British politicians and Israeli lobbyists such as MP Joan Ryan  caught on camera smearing a Labour voter as an ‘anti-Semite’, and practically conspiring against her own party. Ms Ryan does it all for the Jewish state, a state with a horrid record on human rights and war crimes.  I wonder what is it that motivates MP Ryan? Is it  greed, or is it just power seeking?

The Brits should certainly ask themselves how come it is left to a Qatari TV network  to reveal the shocking news about their democracy being taken over by a foreign Lobby. Should this not be the concern  for the BBC or the Guardian? And even after the Al-Jazeera expose, the British media remained silent and the question must be asked: would it have stayed as silent had Shai Masot been a Russian? Would it have stayed as silent if MP Joan Ryan was exposed as an Iranian lobbyist?

But Al-Jazeera fell into an all-too-common trap. Troubled by its own findings, it tried to soften them with the usual politically correct fluff.  Instead of concentrating on the British aspect of this saga and allowing the Brits to speak for themselves, Al-Jazeera allowed an Israeli – academic Ilan Pappe to speak for us. Similarly, Jackie Walker, certainly a victim of the Israeli campaign was also asked, “as a Jew” (as well as a Black person), to spell out for us her own identitarian philosophy. All other commentators on the Israeli espionage operation came from recognised Palestinian solidarity perspectives. Despite the fact that the dirty dealings of the Israeli Embassy and the treason of members of the Israeli lobby groups in Britain is a clear offence against British sovereignty and the British people, only one Brit, journalist Peter Oborne, addressed the offence from a clear British perspective.

This is wrong. “The Lobby” exposed, above all, a gross interference with British sovereignty, a crude intrusion into the British democratic process and government. Al-Jazeera failed because it turned this British national tragedy into an internal Jewish dispute.

For obvious reasons, Al Jazeera chose not to delve into the deep, cultural meaning of the Israeli operation. Israel is, above all, the Jewish state and, as I have mentioned many times before, plotting against other people’s regimes is deeply embedded in Judaic teaching and Jewish culture. It is in practice the message of The Book of Esther, which teach the Jews how toconspire against their rulers and, by proxy, to win over their enemies. You can read The Book Of Esther for yourselves (it’s pretty short and very entertaining): http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Bible/Esther.html

Shai Masot was no junior embassy employee as claimed. He was a senior intelligence officer operating from the safety and immunity of its embassy on behalf of the Jewish state. He was working alongside Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev and the two are seen together in the film, sitting side by side, addressing various Jewish lobby groups. Shai Masot has been recalled and, I understand, is currently seeking other employment. Mark Regev should now be expelled and the matter must be investigated by MI5.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | 5 Comments

‘EU’s new tool against political opponents is to link them to Russia’ – targeted Danish journalist

RT | January 14, 2017

Danish Journalist Iben Thranholm, who was branded as a Russian propagandist and included on an EU blacklist for comments she made on migrant policy, tells RT that such character assassinations have become the new go-to tactic of Western governments.

Thranholm is a Danish current events columnist who penned an opinion piece for Russia Insider in 2016, in which she explained her reservations about the EU’s current migrant policy and its inability to properly integrate Muslim migrants into European society.

She had also written a piece for RT earlier in which she explained how the “spiritual vacuum” created by Western cultural nihilism is the core factor behind growing Muslim radicalization within the EU.

She also criticized the EU’s unwillingness to recognize religion as a factor at all as just one indicator of this trend.

These and other comments earned the Danish journalist a spot on the EU’s East StratCom Task Force black list – a body set up in 2015 with the purpose of “collecting examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation articles” – not unlike American Senator McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt of the 1950s.

“Today, it is me who is on the list,” Thranholm says. “Tomorrow it could be a different journalist who has similar views. They claim that I’m damaging – doing harm – to the EU just for criticizing them. I criticized them for their immigration policy,” she says, adding that many people in Europe agree with her.

The Danish journalist argues that the EU’s mechanism for dealing with such dissenters “is to link the person with Russia, or claim that there are close ties between this person and Russia. And then, this person is just not trustworthy anymore – it’s a kind of character assassination.”

“It’s hard to believe that modern democratic Europe has ended up in some kind of totalitarian or semi-totalitarian democracy where our leaders have a special definition of what is democracy – and if you don’t agree with it, you will be put on the list. I think it’s very, very alarming and very disturbing,” she said.

Thronhalm has gone to great pains to explain that her views are not anti-Islamic. As she wrote for RT in 2015, “Secularism, relativism of values, materialism and democracy as a new religion (idolatry devoid of a deity) constantly prove their feeble inadequacy when facing Islamism.”

Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen has recently defended her inclusion on the EU task force’s blacklist, saying she was promoting a “Kremlin narrative,” when prodded by Marie Krarup, who heads Denmark’s People’s Party and shares views similar to Thranholm’s. Thranholm later wrote that she was “appalled” at the minister’s conclusion that her inclusion on the list was justified, comparing the decision to one that would be taken by a “totalitarian Soviet state.”

Read more:

Europe’s moral and spiritual vacuum invites acts of terrorism

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | , | Leave a comment

‘US ending sanctions on Sudan as reward for shifting to West’

Press TV – January 14, 2017

The American government is ending some economic sanctions against Sudan as a reward for Khartoum’s closer ties with the West and Saudi Arabia, an African American journalist in Detroit says.

“The Sudanese government has shifted its foreign policy more towards Saudi Arabia,” said Abayomi Azikiwe, editor at the Pan-African News Wire.

“This is reflected in their participation in the war against Yemen… also they’ve broken diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Azikiwe said in a phone interview with Press TV on Friday.

“So I think this is a reward for Sudan in regard to moving closer to the West,” he added.

Obama signed an executive order on Friday to ease but not eliminate some trade and investment sanctions against Khartoum, arguing that the East African country has shown “a marked reduction in offensive military activity, culminating in a pledge to maintain a cessation of hostilities in conflict areas.”

The outgoing president expressed determination that the situation which led the US to impose and continue the 20-year-old sanctions had changed in light of Sudan’s “positive actions” over the last six months.

Sudan has been under US sanctions since 1997. Washington accuses Khartoum of supporting terrorist groups, and it has blacklisted the country as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1993.

The US has accused Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir of war crimes related to the conflict-torn Darfur region.

Violence broke out in Darfur in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels rose against the long-time ruler, accusing Bashir’s Arab-dominated government of marginalizing the region.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump administration to adhere to Iran nuclear deal: Afrasiabi

Press TV – January 14, 2017

Despite earlier threats made by US President-elect Donald Trump to dismantle the nuclear agreement with Iran, his pick for US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has called for a “full review” of the accord, but fallen short of seeking an outright rejection. Reacting to the remarks, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-e Ravanchi emphasized that the nuclear deal also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not negotiable.

Kaveh Afrasiabi, author and political scientist from Boston, believes that Tillerson’s remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee show that the incoming administration will abide by the JCPOA.

“At least in the intermediate term, the Trump administration is going to stick with the nuclear agreement while it is reviewing it,” Afrasiabi told Press TV on Friday night.

There are “some positive signs coming from the cabinet members of the Trump administration” regarding the implementation of the JCPOA, he added.

Tillerson implicitly emphasized on maintaining the nuclear deal by saying that the US should use elements of the nuclear agreement.

Afrasiabi interpreted Tillerson’s statements as positive and a good sign compared to all the negative rhetoric made by Trump himself and some of his associates.

He recalled that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued several reports on Iran’s full compliance with its obligations under the nuclear accord.

“Tillerson should not have any problem with the compliance and enforcement” of the deal, because it is a win-win agreement that serves the interests of both sides, he noted.

He mentioned that the new administration’s right to review agreements signed by its predecessor “should not morph into questioning this multi-lateral agreement (JCPOA).”

Iran and the six world powers signed the nuclear accord in July 2015. According to the deal, the Islamic Republic agreed to restrict its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions by the P5+1.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Economics | , , | 1 Comment

Donald Trump and Iran’s Mohammad Mosaddegh have much in common

By Adam Garrie | The Duran | January 14, 2017

Donald Trump is no fan of post-1979 Iran, but name me any former US President who was? However, there is one character in modern Iranian history that Trump ought to feel some level of sympathy with. That man is former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

Mohammad Mosaddegh was the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in 1951. He promised to make industry work for the people, he promised to make Iran into a society that served Iranian not foreign interests. Many called him a nationalist and an extremist, but his popularity did not wane.

Iran/Persia, a once proudly independent state was now a subject of western economic Imperialism. In this context, one might say that Mosaddegh wanted to ‘Make Iran Great Again’ and because of that the people supported him. Sound familiar?

Prior to Mosaddegh, Anglo-Iranian Oil, now known as British Petroleum/BP, owned Iran’s oil and the lion’s share of profits went abroad. Feeling that this was unjust, Mosaddegh nationalised Anglo-Iranian’s holdings in Iran so that Mexico… sorry Britain, couldn’t rip off the Iranian people.

This made Britain very angry. The UK elite at the time wanted Iran to be a pliant state that would not challenge the existing order. But Mosaddegh took on the establishment. So one day Britain asked the CIA to overthrow Mosaddegh and they did. In 1953 the CIA ousted him from power ushering in years of undemocratic rule which went along with the company line coming out of Washington and London.

This was one of the reasons why tensions built up in 1979, tensions which ultimately ushered in an Islamic Republic. Had Mosaddegh been allowed to govern in peace, Iran may well have remained a constitutional monarchy with some left wing and some right wing governments, but not an Islamic Republic.

Not content to overthrow democratically elected leaders abroad like Mosaddegh and Chile’s Salvador Allende, the CIA with help from Britain’s MI6 are now openly trying to discredit Donald Trump in hopes that he will be removed from office, one way or another.

It is largely unprecedented for the CIA or MI6 to subvert democracy in their own states. There are two noteworthy exceptions.  The assassination of John F. Kennedy remains a dubious affair in history, although the combination of official state lies in the Warren Report and wild conspiracy theories about JFK, have made the truth almost impossible to know in full.

Likewise, in the 1970s there were rumors that a military coup would unseat Harold Wilson as British Prime Minister. There may have been some truth to the fact that some in the UK military and intelligence wanted to do so. But ultimately, this came to nothing. Of course the allegation at the time was that Wilson was a Soviet agent, but in the more sane 1970s, few in Britain of any political party actually believed this.

But this is 2016. The mainstreamers have now become the conspiracy theorists and what’s more, they are actively engaging in and cheering on an open conspiracy to over-throw the democratically elected President of the United States.

For years, the smug liberal elite criticised Alex Jones and labelled him a conspiracy theorist because he stated that the historical reasons behind the creation of America’s Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, remain valid today.

His critics and even many of his listeners thought that maybe Jones was speaking theoretically, but ultimately the modern 2nd Amendment served other purposes. Did America really still need a well-armed citizen militia? Would defending one’s liberty against tyranny really be necessary in the 21st century? Surely the British monarchy wouldn’t do anything to subvert American political independence? That last happened in 1812.

Well the more things change the more they stay the same. It is Donald Trump, the American populist who stands in the way of the American Deep state and the British establishment’s desire for the western world to be run according to their playbook.

Now, mainstream commentators are admitting the possibility of civil war in 21st century America and Donald Trump’s supporters, labelled as nationalistic, gun totting conspiracy theories are saying, ‘HEY ELITISTS, LEAVE OUR DEMOCRACY ALONE’!

There’s a new status quo in town, but there is also a new lunatic fringe…they used to be called the American political establishment.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Golden Showers’: Zinoviev letter of 2017?

By Neil Clark | RT | January 14, 2017

Just when you thought ‘Fake News’ had nowhere else to go, up pops BuzzFeed to take it to a whole new level. The site’s publication of an unverified, error-filled dossier on Donald Trump and his alleged links to Russia, marks a new journalistic low.

It shows us just how desperate those who want to sabotage better relations between the US and Russia have become.

The document – as BuzzFeed itself acknowledges – was prepared for “political opponents” of Trump and handed over to the FBI by serial warmonger and obsessive Russia-hater John McCain.

It’s also been claimed by “people familiar with the matter” that the document was the work of a former British MI6 agent – who we’re now told has “gone into hiding.”

If true, the involvement of ‘James Bond’ in this wouldn’t be the greatest surprise. For when it comes to trying to subvert democracy by playing the ‘Russian threat’ card, the UK Intelligence Services have plenty of previous experience. In fact, the ‘Golden Showers’ dossier – and the way it has come to the public’s attention – has uncanny similarities with another piece of ‘fake news’ which was making the rounds back in 1924 – and which was also designed to put the kibosh on rapprochement with Russia.

In January of that year, Britain’s first ever Labour government came to power. Labour’s economic program was timid – but what really alarmed the Establishment was the party’s stated desire to improve relations with the Soviet Union. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald gave full diplomatic recognition to the Soviet government in February, proposed new treaties with Moscow, and opened up negotiations about a British loan to the USSR.

That simply could not be allowed to happen. After Labour’s Attorney-General dropped the prosecution of a Communist writer who had urged soldiers not to fire on their fellow workers during a strike, the Liberals and Conservatives joined up to vote for an inquiry, with the motion drafted by Sir John Simon, who later called the incident ‘Trumpery.’

A new general election was called for late October. Just four days before the poll: a sensation. Under the headlines “Civil War Plot by Socialists’ Masters: Moscow Orders to Our Reds; Great Plot Disclosed,” a letter appeared in the Daily Mail newspaper purporting to be from a leading Bolshevik Grigory Zinoviev.

It was marked “very secret” and contained orders on how to organize a revolution in Britain. The letter said that Labour’s recognition of the Soviet government would aid the communist cause.

The Kremlin vehemently denied the authenticity of the document. “Well, they would say that wouldn’t they,” said the Russia-bashers, with a knowing wink.

“The ‘Red letter’ caused a great stir,” wrote historian A. J. P. Taylor. “Labour was denounced as the accomplice of the Communists; alternatively as their dupe.”

Perhaps the Tories would have won anyway, but damage was done to Labour, who lost forty seats. The Conservatives returned to power after less than year out of office and didn’t sign a new treaty with Moscow. The anti-Russian Establishment could sleep easily once again – the Soviet Union’s isolation would continue.

It is now universally accepted that the Zinoviev letter was a fake. In 1999, a new report commissioned by Labour Foreign Secretary Robin Cook found that the letter was forged by a MI6 agent’s source and “probably was leaked from SIS [the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6] by somebody to the Conservative Party Central Office.”

Back in 1924, it had been the Kremlin that had been telling the truth. It was those who had not wanted better relations with Moscow – the spooks, anti-Russian politicians and their allies in the media – who were promoting ‘fake news.’ Anyone else see the parallels with today?

The Zinoviev letter of 1924 was not the only time the British intelligence services have tried to bring down those who wanted closer ties with Moscow. In his 1987 book Spycatcher, former MI5 Assistant Director Peter Wright revealed plots by M15 (and the CIA) to destabilize Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson in the 1960s and 70s. We know that MI5 kept a secret file on Wilson throughout his years in Parliament.

Critics of Wilson accused him of being ‘paranoiac,’ but as noted in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you. Now, in 2017, it’s not Ramsay MacDonald or Harold Wilson, but Donald Trump who’s being targeted.

‘Golden Showers,’ as dodgy a document as the Zinoviev letter, has exactly the same aim: to wreck any hopes of improved relations with Russia and to keep a Cold War going.

If The Donald continues to call for a new ‘partnership’ with Russia, then, we will be told, it’s all because he’s being blackmailed by Putin. There can be no other explanation. But, in fact, it’s the Western intelligence services and their political/media allies who are doing the blackmailing. The message to any prospective leader of the US or Britain is clear – if you don’t toe the Establishment line on Russia, we will do everything we can to destroy you. The pressure on Donald Trump to ‘conform’ on Russia is tremendous. It’s this attempt to bully foreign policy ‘dissidents’ into taking the Deep State line, and the complicit role of the media in promoting/publicizing fake news which furthers the agenda, which is the big story. When it was #PizzaGate everyone laughed, but when it was Golden Showers it was a case of: “True or not true – this is an important story which needs airing!”

And that’s because of the geo-politics.

To update the A. J. P. Taylor quote about Labour and the Zinoviev letter: ‘Trump was denounced as the accomplice of the Russians; alternatively as their dupe.’ It’s the same for any leading public figure who wants a change in Western foreign policy.

To understand why the prospect of better relations with Russia terrifies the Deep State, all we have to do – as I noted here – is to follow the money trail.

As the great Upton Sinclair might have put it, it’s hard to get someone to understand there is no ‘Russian threat’ when their (very high) salary depends on there being a ‘Russian threat’ – and promoting that ‘Russian threat’ very aggressively.

To justify its enormous budget – particularly at a time of ‘austerity’ – MI6, like NATO, needs a Russian bogeyman. Only in December, the Head of the service, Alex Younger, attacked Russia for their operations in Syria, which have thwarted the plans of the British and American elites and their regional allies for ‘regime change’ in the country.

It’s worth noting that not just the ‘Golden Showers’ dossier, but the ‘Russia hack’ claims, have been linked to British Intelligence.

Then of course there’s the various ‘pundits’ and ‘experts’ whose salaries are paid by ‘non-partisan’ think-tanks which are financed by US defense companies. And the bellicose Bear-baiting politicians whose campaigns are funded by the military-industrial establishment.

Cold War uber-hawk Henry ‘Scoop Jackson,’ whose name lives on in the hardcore anti-Russian neocon ‘think tank’ the Henry Jackson Society, was nicknamed the ‘Senator from Boeing’ because of his links to the defense industry.

The public in America and Britain might want their countries to get along better with Russia and work together in fighting genuine threats like ISIS [Islamic State, formerly ISIL]; the problem is that too many people in elite circles do not.

British leftists who are delighting in what’s happening to Trump at the moment: beware. For the very same strategy will be deployed against UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn if he continues to defy the spooks and neocon gatekeepers by calling for an end to Cold War 2.0. Who knows? A dodgy dossier on ‘Corbyn the Collaborator’ might already have been prepared and be ready for circulation to ‘sympathetic’ journalists and anti-Russian websites, whose principled opposition to ‘fake news’ and disseminating unverified claims will mysteriously disappear.

Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. He has written for many newspapers and magazines in the UK and other countries including The Guardian, Morning Star, Daily and Sunday Express, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Spectator, The Week, and The American Conservative. He is a regular pundit on RT and has also appeared on BBC TV and radio, Sky News, Press TV and the Voice of Russia. He is the co-founder of the Campaign For Public Ownership @PublicOwnership. His award winning blog can be found at http://www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. He tweets on politics and world affairs @NeilClark66

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Trump Dossier: Created by Spies”R”Us?

By Phil Butler – New Eastern Outlook – 14.01.2017

Chris Steele is a former MI6 and FBI asset who compiled a dossier of unsubstantiated allegations about President-elect Donald Trump. The current Director at the private security and investigation firm Orbis Business Intelligence, is a curious player in the sensational efforts of Trump adversaries. Here is what I discovered about the former British intelligence officer.

For Donald Trump’s part, his press conference this week revealed his righteous indignation at just how far his opponents will go to smear his coming administration. Shunning Buzzfeed and ostracizing CNN for their irresponsible broadcasting of the “dossier”, Mr. Trump was crystal clear in pointing the finger at crooked media and the people behind. The incoming president was also clear in identifying his adversaries, a fact that has been corroborated.

The Steele dossier was contracted by both Republican and Democratic adversaries of Mr. Trump. Senator John McCain, the notoriously hawkish Arizona arms industry puppet, admitted he turned over the dossier to the FBI. While McCain’s involvement is shocking enough, I believe other familiar faces funded the extended smear campaign. The Guardian has done some of the homework in tracking down how this dossier came into being, but this “Steele” character is still a bit of an enigma.

Chris Steele has only this week come into the limelight, but Mother Jones had actually reported on some of his activities back in October of 2016. By using The Guardian story, and what can be gleaned from the Mother Jones report, profiling Mr. Trump’s new nemesis is actually not so difficult. Steel’s LinkedIn profile and connections are telling. Steele has received some interesting endorsements on LinkedIn.

First, Jonathan Winer, who’s a Special Envoy at US Department of State, acknowledged the former MI6 agent on his international relations skills, it is key to note that Winer is not only the special envoy for Libya, but he was previously a senior director at Margery Kraus’ APCO Worldwide, a former Assistant Secretary of State, and Secretary of State John Kerry’s legislative assistant. Are your eyebrows raised?

Paul Andrews, who’s director of Ultrax Consulting Limited also recommended Steele. Of further interest is the fact Andrews was a member of Her Majesty’s Foreign Commonwealth Office for 15 years. Maybe a direct quote from Andrews’ security agency will shed more light:

“ULTRAX has, both directly and indirectly, been a leading provider of training services to Her Majesty’s Government and is one of a small number of private companies to have been entrusted with providing consultancy services and training to Ministry of Defence and Government Agencies with a National Security agenda.”

Clovis Meath Baker CMG OBE is a senior adviser to the UK Government’s so-called Stabilisation Unit. He recommended Steele for his “counterterrorism” capacity. As an interesting note here, Baker is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the world’s oldest independent think tank on international defense and security.

Chris Burrows, Steele’s fellow director at Orbis, he’s in the same circles as the Trump dossier author, but with a wider reach within the LinkedIn community. Burrows was the First Secretary of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office for 9 years, and is perhaps tied in part to the Moscow element of this story. His recommendations include one from Fedor Zhavoronkov, who is the most intriguing figure in this loop of spooks I found so far. Zhavoronkov was a key security account manager for the famous Grant Vympel agency in Russia formed from the famous special operations Group “Vympel, which took part in storming the Russian “White House” in support of then President Boris Yeltsin. I mention this only because the 2nd October Revolution only narrowly failed with the reluctant help of elements of the Russian military. Of dissenters in Russia, there are still many.

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge takes the same track I did in framing the connections of Christopher Steele, but he goes further in assessing the credibility of the so-called “Trump dossier”. Durden quotes one Andrew Wordsworth, co-founder of London-based investigations firm Raedas, who often works on Russian issues, who called the dossier “unconvincing” at best. What is most “convincing” for me is the fact Chris Steele was involved with Alexander Litvinenko, the man whose death the British leadership tried to pin on Vladmir Putin. According to today’s reports, Steele has now fled his multimillion pound sterling home fearing his own life. You read this correctly, the web of “Putin probably did it” macabre is growing huge.

The murdered Russian double agent Alexander Litvinenko, Ukraine revolution cheerleader and warmonger Senator John McCain, MI6 spooks out the ying yang, Fake News going rampant, the US intelligence community melting down, and Donald Trump accused of more infidelity than Putin himself – what else can we expect in the next few days? McCain visits the scene of his war crimes, then flies home to turn over make-believe dossiers on a new president? Oh well, just read this Daily Mail piece and find a copy of Alice in Wonderland, then come back and tell me which crazy world we live in.

Phil Butler is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Dossiers, Make Believe and Fantasy

The CIA, Trump and Unverified News

By Binoy Kampmark | Dissident Voice | January 13, 2017

London — Morning breakfast news on the BBC’s Radio Four on Friday was a delightful affair filled with discussions on Russia (when do we not talk about that busy, stirring Bear these days?), Donald Trump, dossiers and the intelligence fraternity. Did it even matter that various sources have been unverified, subject matter lumped together in cumbersome conversations on fake news, sexual frolics and the like?

Discussants on the Beeb who kept listeners company over coffee included former, recently confessed spook Frederick Forsyth, for years the go-to creator of the spy narrative, and the official intelligence historian Sir Christopher Andrew.

For Forsyth, the allegations outlined by former British spy Christopher Steele that Trump found himself in prancing company with Russian hookers, dubious real estate deals targeted as bribes and a treasonous coordination with the Russian intelligence services to defeat Hillary Clinton, beggared belief. Trump was hardly that much of a buffoon, surely.

On Wednesday night, the US director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., issued a statement in the aftermath of a conversation with Trump on the Steele dossier, suggesting that the agencies had “not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable.” Naturally, despite any claims about authenticity, the report had been circulated within the deepest recesses of spook central. Clapper would never want to deny his own officials the pleasure of that smut.

The New York Times conceded that much of the story remained “out of reach – most critically the basis question of how much, if anything, in the dossier is true.” You would think that this point was most salient, rendering any other discussion empty and flatulent.

Nonetheless, the paper would go on to assert that it was “possible to piece together a rough narrative of what led to the current crisis, including lingering questions about the ties binding Mr. Trump and his team to Russia.”

With the US presidential inauguration fast approaching, the press jackals have been swarming. The tid bits offered by the Steele report are themselves shrouded, stemming from September 2015 when an anti-Trump Republican donor (naturally, we do not know the name) commissioned Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research firm stacked by former journalists turned information hit-men, to do some digging. The mission was simple: find as much debilitating dirt as possible and sink the Trump ship.

Steele, considered at one point one of Britain’s foremost Russian experts within MI6, was considered ideal for the job of funneling information to Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS. The themes of those memos were stock standard: the old compromising (kompromat) material, with sex being central; and the hacking of the Democratic National Committee with discussion by Trump officials with Russian entities.

Trump has not done himself any favours, preferring to throw meagre carrion at the press corps, and hope that it miraculously dissipates. His polemical advisors would have been best served to tell him to shut it. News is not interesting. Allegations have become the gold dust of political debate.

This latest battle of spite and indignation reveals that internally, there is a war between claims and institutions within the United States. The intelligence community finds itself unsheathing its weapons. Trump has duly responded.

The point being missed here is the possibility that the servants of the elected commander-in-chief may actually be subverting the Republic, for all Trump’s sullen, and childish authoritarianism.  Sources garnered from the very foundry of deception have assumed an aura of reliability. The argument about fake news has been turned inside out.

While care should be taken in packaging the entire US intelligence community into a neat box of anti-Trump enthusiasts, a good number of former officials were very keen that Hillary Clinton take over the reins in the White House. Views were expressed throughout the election cycle: Trump had to be defeated at all costs.

Once it became clear that Trump was gaining electoral momentum at nerve racking pace, it was important to side with the Clinton electoral team on a revived Cold War mantra: the Russians were doing terrible things, with Trump operating in the shadow of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For former CIA and NSA director under George W. Bush, Gen. Michael Hayden, Trump was “the useful fool, some naïf, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.”

Former CIA Director Michael J. Morell also took a step that can only be regarded as singular and institutionally troubling: coming out from the shadows to pick his preferred candidate while denigrating another.

In August, he bored readers with his resume in an opinion piece for the New York Times.  (“In my 40 years of voting, I have pulled the lever for candidates of both parties.”)  He expressed a solemn view that Trump was “not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.” Russia’s Putin “had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

The Fourth Estate used to be the solemn interrogating power of the parliamentary galleries. Being unelected, it was given, as an accident of history, a certain influence. Like all power, it can be misdirected, even ill-informed. The questioners can become vessels and conduits.

Over time, that same estate has withered, becoming a faint echo of investigation and fact checking. Even in notionally democratic states, it can be co-opted. As Glenn Greenwald has argued, the most useful tool of the deep state has been the US media, “much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials.”

Leakers are punished; facts are not cross-checked. The hack now floats in an ether of speculation, fed by the unverifiable, and pampered by the intelligence official. The battles now seemingly are not over narratives of veracity but narratives of invention. Power, it would seem, to the creative in this new Republic of trouble that is the United States.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at: bkampmark@gmail.com.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Lobby P3: An Anti-Semitic Trope

January 12, 2017

In part three of The Lobby, our undercover reporter travels to the Labour Party Conference, revealing how accusations of anti-Semitism by group within Labour targeted Israel critics and saw some investigated.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Obama extends national emergency on Iran

Press TV – January 14, 2017

US President Barack Obama has declared the continuation of his country’s national emergency against Iran, claiming that despite full commitment to its nuclear deal with the six world powers, the Islamic Republic still poses “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to America.

The outgoing president informed Congress of his decision in a letter on Friday, saying that the national emergency, which was declared on March 15, 1995, “is to continue in effect beyond March 15, 2017.”

The National Emergencies Act requires the president to extend a national emergency within 90 days of its anniversary date, before it is automatically terminated.

Obama admitted in his letter that Iran had delivered on its commitments pursuant to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a landmark nuclear deal that was struck between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries — the US, the UK, France, China, Russia, and Germany — on July 14, 2015.

Under the landmark deal, which entered into force on January 16 last year, Iran undertook to put restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions imposed against the country.

“Since Implementation Day, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) has repeatedly verified, and the Secretary of State [John Kerry] has confirmed, that Iran continues to meet its nuclear commitments pursuant to the JCPOA,” Obama said in his notice.

“However, irrespective of the JCPOA, which continues to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is and remains exclusively peaceful, certain actions and policies of the Government of Iran continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” the outgoing president added.

In November, Obama extended a separate national emergency against Iran, which was originally declared by former US President Jimmy Carter on November 14, 1979.

He also extended the state of emergency with respect to Libya, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Venezuela.

A state of emergency gives the US president special powers, including the ability to seize property, summon the National Guard and hire and fire military officers at will.

The state of emergency also forms the basis for most US sanctions against other countries.

January 14, 2017 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment