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‘Maybe worse than Cold War’: Kremlin spokesman on US-Russia relations

RT | April 1, 2017

Ties between Russia and the US are probably worse than in the Cold War, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with ABC News, adding that the blatant anti-Russia propaganda has led to Americans seeing Russian hackers “in every fridge.”

One of the major setbacks for US-Russia relations was the decision in December by the Obama administration to expel 35 Russian diplomats from the US and close two diplomatic compounds over hacking allegations.

“This is something that was never seen in the diplomatic affairs of the world for decades! Let’s imagine: the property of the Russian Federation covered with diplomatic immunity was occupied by US secret service agents. Well, is it friendly? I’m afraid not. It’s not legal in terms of international law. So of course it was very significant damage for our bilateral relations,” Peskov said.

When asked if current US-Russia relations could be described as “a new Cold War,” Peskov was not at all ambiguous.

“New Cold War? Well, maybe even worse,” the Russian President’s spokesman told ABC News. Addressing repeated claims that Moscow somehow meddled in the 2016 US election, Peskov blasted the allegations as libelous.

“This campaign was nothing but slander, all those fake news [stories] having nothing beneath and no evidence. We’ll continue to suggest to everyone saying that Russia was interfering in the domestic affairs, to read Mr. Putin’s lips.”

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked – yet again – if Moscow had meddled in the US election, to which he replied, “Read my lips – NO.”

The ABC host then gave Peskov a couple of unpleasant figures: nine percent of Americans think of Putin favorably, and nine percent believe Russia could be a US ally. The spokesman was not surprised though, and said there is a reason for these attitudes.

“The US public have been a target for severe anti-Russian propaganda, and they felt victims of that propaganda, and because of that, the American people think that yes, Russian hackers are everywhere, in every fridge, iron, and so on and so forth. But it’s not true! Those are fake news [stories] and this is slander.

“We understand that there are people who are doing their best to keep the issue on the agenda. So let them do it before the audience is bored, and before they change their subject.”

Finally, asked whether Putin preferred Donald Trump as president, Peskov said that it is simply a matter of “whose ideas are closer to you, and whose ideas are more welcomed in Russian public opinion,” but it is not a matter of “preferring someone.”

“Listen, it’s simple. We have a variety of politicians in every country, and in the US. Some of them are saying that they are in favor or re-establishing good relationship with Russia. [They say], ‘We think that we have a lot of problems, and we are sure that we won’t be able to agree upon everything, but we are sure that we have to have a dialogue.’

“There are also those who say, ‘No, Russia is our enemy. And we’re strictly against any contact with them. And we don’t give a damn about their interests, and we reject any possibility of cooperation, even when it is in our own interests, let’s say, in the field of combatting terror.’

“Which one would seem more attractive to you? For us, those who say, ‘We disagree in lots of things, but we’re going to talk to Russians.’”

If the two presidents decide to meet some time soon, it could be a chance to resume dialogue between Russia and the US, Peskov concluded.

Read more:

French presidential hopeful Fillon dismisses Russian ‘interference’ in election as ‘fantasy’

April 1, 2017 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Trump Dumps US 16-Year Plan to Topple Mideast States, Ex-Military Official Says

Sputnik – 01.04.2017

US President Donald Trump’s decision not focus on toppling Syrian President Bashar Assad marks the end of a 16-year-long master plan to effect regime change across the Middle East, former US Army Major Todd Pierce told Sputnik.

On Friday, White House spokesperson Sean Spicer said the United States should accept the political reality with respect to Assad and focus on eliminating Daesh, outlawed in Russia.

“The US policy going back to 2001 according to WikiLeaks has been the neoconservative fascist modeled plan of people like Richard Perle and Michael Ledeen to create the greatest chaos and catastrophe with the greatest human cost possible in Syria,” Pierce said on Friday.

The consistent US strategy to systematically destroy established governments across the entire Middle East region goes back to after the September 11, 2001, or 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States, Pierce pointed out

Former NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark “revealed that immediately after 9/11, the Bush administration began to implement that plan with seven Mideast countries targeted for destruction, with Syria in line right behind Iraq,” Pierce said.

“That US policy was so successful in that diabolical purpose that we depopulated much of Syria with the people often having nowhere to go but to Europe, with that massive population shift to Europe in turn having consequences for European politics, as we have seen,” he stated.

Pierce said President Donald Trump should be applauded if he remained consistent in abandoning the strategy of systematically destabilizing and toppling Arab governments.

“If it is true that this fanatical militaristic scheme of the US government to target Assad for regime change is now to be considered in light of political reality, meaning to cease and desist [from] the war against Syria, the whole world should breathe a sigh of relief,” he said.

However, international opinion should also launch a campaign to bring the true architects of this program to trial at the International Court of Justice at The Hague in The Netherlands, Pierce insisted.

“They should also demand that the planners of this U.S. policy of human destruction be charged and tried as war criminals, as [former Serbian President] Slobodan Milosevic was,” he said.

Trump campaigned in the 2016 US presidential election on a policy of ending efforts to topple governments across the Middle East in the name of promoting agendas of democracy and human rights.

April 1, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Labour’s Witch-hunt Against Ken Livingstone

By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | March 31, 2017

The ongoing Ken Livingstone (“Get Corbyn!”) saga grows yet more preposterous. After outrage that the former London mayor had said Hitler was a Zionist (when he clearly hadn’t, as I pointed out at the time here and here), Labour suspended Livingstone amid accusations that he had made anti-semitic, offensive and false historical claims.

Now as Livingstone fights to avoid expulsion before a closed hearing of the party’s national constitutional committee, it emerges that Labour’s general secretary, Iain McNicol, has written to Livingstone saying that the hearing is not interested in the historical accuracy of his statements or whether what he said was anti-semitic. Rather, it is about whether his conduct has been “grossly detrimental” to the party.

In other words, this is a kangaroo court. Because, of course, Livingstone’s comments have been detrimental to the party. Not least, they have angered the UK’s powerful Israel lobby. That is the same lobby – directed by the Israeli embassy and working through groups like the Jewish Labour Movement – that was recently exposed by an undercover Al Jazeera investigation as plotting to bring down a British government minister. Crossing people like that is undoubtedly detrimental to the party, because they are prepared to destroy Labour before they allow it, or its leader, to campaign on behalf of Palestinian rights.

That is why, as long as Livingstone or Corbyn are around, the JLM and its allies in the liberal media, like the Guardian’s Owen Jones and Jonathan Freedland, will keep helping to confect an “anti-semitism crisis” in Labour, acerbating the very problems they blame Corbyn for creating.

In this context, one can understand why McNicol is denying Livingstone the chance to air the historical facts in an open hearing. Because the better the case Livingstone makes for collaboration between the Nazis and Zionists, the more detriment the JLM and others will do to the Labour party. Certainly, JLM leader Jeremy Newmark, who testified against Livingstone on Thursday, will benefit from the lack of public scrutiny of his statements.

McNicol’s logic here is entirely circular, of course. As long as Labour indulges the JLM leadership, and continues to draw a veil over Israeli oppression of Palestinians, the party will have a quiet life. If Labour tries to do the right thing – promoting justice for the Palestinians, upholding international law and soothing a long-festering wound of British malfeasance in the Middle East – it will face a perfect storm from the JLM.

Remember as you watch this farce play out that Owen Jones is due to give a memorial lecture this Sunday (April 2) to the JLM, whose leaders barely bother to conceal the fact that they are more loyal to the Israeli government than the democratically elected leader of their own party. If Jones cared about Labour as much as he claims, he shouldn’t touch the JLM with a barge-pole. Instead it has him in a bear hug.

April 1, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

UAE expands military presence in Africa, Mideast: Report

Press TV – May 1, 2017

The United Arab Emirates is quietly expanding its military presence into Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East, a US report says.

According to the Associated Press, the UAE has new overseas bases on the African continent after deploying expeditionary forces to Yemen and Afghanistan.

The UAE is taking part in a Saudi war on Yemen to restore a former government to power, which has killed about 12,000 people so far.

Yemeni sources have revealed that the United Arab Emirates is trying to establish control over the strategic island of Socotra in the Arabian Sea, which Yemen’s resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi had rented out to the Persian Gulf kingdom for nearly a century.

According to IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly, the UAE is building an airstrip on Perim or Mayun Island, a volcanic island in Yemen that sits in a waterway between Eritrea and Djibouti in the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.

UAE military bases in Africa

The UAE has also been building up a military presence in the Eritrean port of Assab, the US-based private intelligence firm Stratfor has said.

Satellite images show new construction at a once-deserted airfield, which Stratfor links to the UAE. It also reported development at the port and the deployment of tanks and aircraft, including warplanes, helicopters and drones.

“The scale of the undertaking suggests that the UAE military is in Eritrea for more than just a short-term logistical mission supporting operations across the Red Sea,” Stratfor said in December.

South of Eritrea, the UAE agreed with the authorities of Somalia’s breakaway northern territory of Somaliland in February to open a naval base in the port town of Berbera.

Previously, the UAE international ports operator DP World reached an agreement to manage Somaliland’s largest port nearby.

Moreover, the UAE is suspected of launching air raids in Libya and operating out of a small air base in the North African country’s east, near the Egyptian border.

The seven-state federation also deployed special forces troops in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks to support the US-led alleged war against the Taliban.

The UAE, currently, hosts Western forces, including American and French forces, at its military bases.

The UAE has seen its military grow in recent years. Back in 2011, it confirmed working with private military contractors, including a firm reportedly tied to Erik Prince, the founder of the infamous US security firm, formerly known as Blackwater, to build up its military.

The Associated Press also cited Colombia’s media reports as saying that Colombian mercenaries were serving in the UAE’s military.

In 2014, the UAE introduced compulsory military service for all Emirati males aged between 18 and 30. The training is optional for Emirati women.

April 1, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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