Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Index on Disgrace

By Craig Murray | April 22, 2018

The second half of my life has been a continual process of disillusionment with the institutions I used to respect. I suppose it started with the FCO, where I went from being Britain’s youngest ambassador to being sacked for opposing the use of intelligence from torture, at the same time having an insider view of the knowing lies about Iraqi WMD being used as a pretext for invasion and resource grab.

I still had some residual respect for the BBC, which respect disappeared during the Scottish independence referendum where BBC propaganda and disregard for the truth were truly shameless. My love of the universities was severely tested during my period as Rector of Dundee University, when I saw how far the corporate model had turned them from academic communities developing people and pursuing knowledge, to relentless churners out of unconsidered graduates and financially profitable research, with nearly all sense of community gone. My respect for charities vanished when I discovered Save the Children was paying its chief executive £370,000 and had become a haven for New Labour politicos on huge salaries, which was why it was so involved in pushing a pro-war narrative in Syria. When Justin Forsyth and Brendan Cox – both massively salaried employees who came into Save the Children from the revolving door of Gordon Brown’s office – were outed over sexual predation, that seemed a natural result of “charities” being headed by rich party hacks rather than by simple people trying to do good. As for respect for parliament, well the massive troughing expenses scandal and all those protected paedophiles…

It has become difficult to hang on to respect for any institution, and that is unsettling.

Which brings me to last week’s annual awards from Index on Censorship. The winners of the awards – from Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Honduras and Egypt – all seem worthy enough, and there is even some departure from the neo-con narrative in recognising a human rights problem in Egypt.

But the Chairman of Index on Censorship is, incredibly, Rupert Murdoch lead hack David Aaronovitch, and he presided over the awards, in the very week in which the newspaper for which he writes produced this appalling attack on freedom of expression:

Inside there was a further two page attack on named academics who have the temerity to ask for evidence of government claims over Syria, including distinguished Professors Tim Hayward, Paul McKeigue and Piers Robinson. The Times also attacked named journalists and bloggers and, to top it off, finished with a column alleging collusion between Scottish nationalists and the Russian state.

That the Chairman of “Index on Censorship” is associated with this kind of attack on freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of research is sadly unsurprising. The guest list of the Index ceremony had a distinct right wing tinge including A C Grayling and Sara Khan, as well as a good smattering of the BBC, which was also represented on the judging panel. The irony of the state broadcaster being part of a panel on freedom of expression is plainly lost.

I realised something was very wrong with Index on Censorship when I contacted them over a decade ago, when Jack Straw attempted to ban the publication of my book Murder in Samarkand, after it had passed successfully through the exhaustive FCO clearance process over a time-consuming year. I tried to interest them again when my second book The Catholic Orangemen of Togo was dropped by my publisher following libel threats from mercenary commander Tim Spicer of Aegis/Executive Outcomes/Sandline. On both occasions I was told that then Chief Executive of Index, John Kampfner, did not regard these attempted book bannings as incidents of censorship. Presumably because they weren’t somewhere like Cuba or Zimbabwe…

The truly appalling Times attack on academics was part of a coordinated and government-led campaign to delegitimise anybody doubting the official narrative on Salisbury and Syria. The BBC weighed in with this horrible effort:

The government then issued a ridiculous press release branding decent people as “Russian bots” just for opposing British policy in Syria. In a piece of McCarthyism so macabre I cannot believe this is really happening, an apparently pleasant and normal man called Ian was grilled live on Murdoch’s Sky News, having been named by his own government as a Russian bot.

The Guardian uncritically published the government’s accusations in full, and astonishingly seemed proud that it had made no attempt to investigate their veracity but had merely published what the government wished them to publish:

The Guardian naturally was just as reliable as the BBC in driving home the message that anybody who doubted the government’s word on Syria was a flat-earth denier of the truth:

Mr Freedland is of course a perfect representation of an interesting fact. Those who are most active in telling us that we must attack Syria, and that anybody who questions the government’s pretexts is insane or evil, are precisely the same individuals who supported the war in Iraq and attacked those who doubted the existence of Iraqi WMD. Indeed these people – Jonathan Freedland, David Aaronovitch, Oliver Kamm, Alan Mendoza, Andrew Rawnsley, John Rentoul, Nick Cohen – are the leaders of the tiny, insignificant number of people who still believe that the invasion of Iraq was both justified and beneficial in its result.

Yet these people of proven terrible judgement, they and others of their media class, are the arbiters who are allowed to dictate the terms of what is and what is not an acceptable public utterance on the situation in Syria.

When Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the opposition, one of two things had to happen. Either the Overton window had to shift to allow for the reflection of views held by the leader of the official opposition and his myriad supporters, or the leader of the opposition had to be castigated and humiliated as an unreasonable lunatic. Corbyn’s rational scepticism on British involvement in the conflict in Syria is a key moment in this process. Despite the fact Corbyn’s scepticism is supported by a wide swathe of diplomatic and military opinion within the UK, it has to be portrayed as fringe, extreme and irrational.

We thus have the extraordinary spectacle of a coordinated government and media onslaught on anybody who doubts their entirely fact free narratives. Those who were demonstrably completely wrong over Iraq are held up as infallible, and given full control of all state and corporate media platforms, where they deride those who were right over Iraq as crackpots and Russian bots.

Meanwhile public trust in the state and corporate media hits new lows, which is the happy part of this story.

Support Craig Murray’s continued writing.

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Dear Salafist Wahhabist Apologists

By Paul Larudee | Dissident Voice | April 22, 2018

Your head chopper heros are apparently not what Syrians have in mind when they think of democratic revolution.

Mehdi Hasan (MH) can hardly be blamed for the ignorance that he displays in his Intercept article, “Dear Bashar al-Assad Apologists: Your Hero Is a War Criminal Even If He Didn’t Gas Syrians.” He has apparently never been to Syria, doesn’t often do research on Syria, and gets his information from proponents of a single point of view, representing a bunch of idealists that want to usher in their idea of a liberal democracy in Syria, without benefit of electoral niceties until their power is already ironclad. What’s wrong with this picture?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start by deconstructing the absurdities and the language in the MH article.

Thankfully, MH has spared us the need to deconstruct the absurd accusation that the Syrian armed forces have used chemical weapons. He apparently accepts that they don’t need to, that there is no benefit in using them, so why would they? OK, then who did? Cui bono? Easy answer. The motive of the promoters of destruction in Syria is to create a pretext for the US and its partners to bomb, invade and establish a no-fly zone; i.e., to directly take on the Syrian government and its allies. These war criminals include the neoconservative cabal in the US, the Zionist and Israeli proponents of using the US to fight Israel’s perceived enemies, and the Saudi and Qatari adventurists backing the Project for a New Salafist Paradise. These are the same players who brought us Iraq I and II, Libya, Afghanistan forever, Somalia and Yemen. What more could we wish for?

So let us move on to the MH complaint about barrel bombs. What is the complaint, exactly? Are they more horrible than other types of bombs? Is it OK to use bombs manufactured in western munitions factories for delivery by jet airplanes but not ones manufactured in Syria and delivered by helicopter? Never mind. It’s a great opportunity for MH to use the hyped term “BARREL BOMB” in order to enrage and terrify an undiscerning readership.

But what about all the civilian casualties, and isn’t the Syrian army to blame? Well, no, ISIS and the pseudonymous al-Qaeda affiliates are quite happy to post videos of their stonings, beheadings, crucifixions and immolations, so we know the army can’t be the only ones. In fact, given the summary executions of non-Muslims in territories “liberated” from the government, is there any reason to think that the forces fighting the Syrian government are responsible for fewer civilian deaths? I myself met refugees who had fled up to 70 km over the mountains in the dead of winter to Latakia in March, 2013 with no more than the clothes on their back. No one knows how many children and old people died.

Aircraft? The anti-government fighters don’t have them, do they? No, but they seem to be quite resourceful in eliminating innocent human lives nonetheless. An example is the at least 10,000 civilians that have lost their lives in Damascus due to mortars and “hell cannons” (which also use “barrel bombs”) since the start of the hostilities. Other examples include the withering four-year siege of the Shiite towns of Foua and Kafraya near Idlib and the unrelenting bombardment via “hell cannon” of the city of Aleppo from the enclave of East Aleppo until it was finally recovered by government forces in late 2016.

On the other hand, for those (unlike MH and the mainstream media), who consider evidence to be relevant, there is a plethora available to show that the Syrian army has been unusually respectful of civilian life. The claim is that Syria and its Russian allies have obliterated entire neighborhoods, raining bombs on the civilian population. The facts are somewhat at odds with this description.

First, there are the civilian casualties themselves. The UN stopped keeping casualty statistics in early 2016, but even the anti-government Syrian Observatory for Human Rights concedes that less that 1/3 of all casualties are civilians. No other war on record has had such a low ratio. By comparison, 2/3 were civilian casualties in Vietnam, WWII and most other wars.

Second, the Syrian army liberation of Homs, Aleppo and other areas has followed a typical progression that is quite the opposite of “just kill them all”.  First, the army surrounds the area and lays siege. At this point, if the army wants to flatten the area and bring an end to the resistance there, it has the perfect means to do so. But it does not.  Instead, it positions relief supplies at the perimeter and makes them available without prejudice to the inhabitants. It also offers sanctuary to all who wish to leave. Amazingly, this includes even the fighters.  Syrian fighters willing to lay down their arms are offered amnesty. But many are not initially willing to accept amnesty, and many are not Syrian. To these, the government offers safe passage to other parts of Syria under opposition control, even permitting the fighters to keep their small arms.

If they refuse, the siege and the fighting continue, often for more than a year, and bombing is often a part of the campaign, especially toward the end, after multiple unilateral ceasefires from the government side, to try to conclude a peaceful end, as in Aleppo. The bombing is typically in the least inhabited areas, in order to remove cover for fighters, so that the army will incur fewer casualties when it goes in.  The strategy doesn’t always work, but the low ratio of civilian casualties is a testimony to its relative success.

Why does the Syrian government do this?  Wouldn’t it be easier to just level the entire area, civilians and all, and be rid of the fighters once and for all?

Not really. The government is aware that families are split, with some fighting on one side and some on another. One of the reasons so many Syrians remain loyal to the government is that it is seeking to protect all Syrians on all sides, with the intention of regaining their allegiance. The government also recognizes that many of the opposition fighters are, in effect, mercenaries, for whom fighting is a way to put food on the table when there are no other sources of income. Such fighters are not really enemies, just desperate people. Given an opportunity, they will easily return to the government side.

Then there are the hyped bombing casualty statistics. As I pointed out in 2015, even if we accept the statistics of the highly biased anti-government Human Rights Watch, the number of casualties per bomb is only two, including combatants.  If we apply the ratio of civilian deaths, that is less than one civilian casualty per bomb, a clear indication that the Syrian air force is being far more respectful of civilians than the US was, for example, in its bombing of Raqqah, where twice as many civilians as fighters were killed.

But MH is slamming a position that nobody holds. The number of “leftists” that consider Bashar al-Assad a hero infinitesimal. There may be many Syrians who do, but that is not who MH is referring to. MH is misinterpreting the actions of some journalists (including “leftists”) to correct distortions and false information as defense of Assad. Perhaps the distinction is too subtle for him, but an aversion to disinformation and lynch mob mentality is not the same as being pro-Assad. It’s not very helpful to say, on the one hand, that you oppose intervention in Syria, and then take all your (false) information from pro-intervention sources. In that case the interventionists will applaud your non-intervention stance.

Those of us whom MH accuses of being pro-Assad are nothing of the sort.  We believe that Syrian sovereignty and territory should be fully respected (as MH also claims to believe), but we think it is important to counter the fake news and propaganda that are being used to justify the invasion of Syria. MH is in love with fake news. He prefers not to mention the killing of police in the uprisings that he describes as “peaceful demonstrations”. He prefers to cherry-pick the opinions of Syrian refugees in Germany rather than the views of the vast majority of refugees (displaced persons) who evacuated to government areas without leaving Syria. He produces the Human Rights Watch report on 50,000 morgue photos but not the deconstruction by investigator Rick Sterling. And he repeats the al-Qaeda claim and false film footage that Madaya was starving and in need when it was, in fact, sitting on a mountain of aid supplies being denied by the fighters themselves to the population.

If MH can’t see the difference between being pro-Assad and not falling for interventionist propaganda, that’s his problem. What’s astonishing is the number of “leftists” that rail against interventionism but base their views on the drivel purveyed by the interventionists themselves in the mainstream media, and that originates from propaganda mills like the White Helmets, the Aleppo/Ghouta Media Center and other lavishly funded set designers for warmongers. If MH is not an interventionist, he’s nevertheless making their case for them.

Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | 1 Comment

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian families, attempt to take over homes in Hebron

Ma’an – April 21, 2018

HEBRON – A group of Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian family and attempted to take over two homes on Saturday in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

Local activist Aref Jaber told Ma’an that a group of Israeli settlers “attacked” two homes in the Old City and attempted to take them over, demanding that the families leave their homes.

The homes belonged to the Jaber and Kfeisheh families.

Jaber added that the same group of settlers had previously taken over a home belonging to the al-Zaatari family, near the Ibrahimi mosque in the Old City.

“These continuous threats by Israeli settlers are meant to terrify Palestinian families in order to force them to leave their homes.”

Located in the center of Hebron — one of the largest cities in the occupied West Bank — the Old City was divided into Palestinian and Israeli-controlled areas, known as H1 and H2, following the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre.

Some 6,500 Palestinians and 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers live in the Old City of Hebron, according to a 2016 report by legal rights NGO BADIL.

Palestinian residents of the Old City face a large Israeli military presence on a daily basis, with at least 32 permanent and partial checkpoints set up at the entrances of many streets.

Additionally, Palestinians are not allowed to drive on al-Shuhada street, have had their homes and shops on the street welded shut, and in some areas of the Old City, are not permitted to walk on certain roads.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers move freely on the street, drive cars, and carry machine guns.

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Russia-Iran ties soar high under US pressure

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | April 22, 2018

A commentary entitled Tehran, Moscow boosting strategic relations, appearing last week in the Iran Daily newspaper, which is close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – and subsequently circulated by IRNA – noted as follows:

“Policies adopted by Tehran and Moscow are becoming more harmonious on a daily basis as their bilateral as well as multilateral moves and measures are becoming more consistent with each other.”

The general expectation was that in the downstream of the 2015 Iran nuclear pact opening the door to Iran’s integration with the international community, Russia-Iran ties might get atrophied. But the exact opposite is happening. A senior Iranian official told Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to Syria, at a meeting in Tehran last week that the two countries are having their relations at the highest level in recent times.

If any single factor is to be held accountable for this, it must be American policies. The US’ containment policies toward Russia pursued under President Barack Obama have continued during the Trump presidency – and, arguably, even intensified. For Iran, on the other hand, the expected scale of integration with the international community has not materialized following the implementation of the 2015 nuclear pact due to the US’ negative attitude. The inertia of the Obama period has given way to hostile US policies under President Trump.

Meanwhile, the conflict in Syria has found Russia and Iran on the same side as staunch supporters of President Bashar Al-Assad. The Russian-Iranian cooperation deepened progressively during the period since the deployment of Russian forces to Syria in September 2015 and proved effective in stemming the tide of the war in favor of the Syrian government.

In the process, the overall Russian-Iranian relations began acquiring a strategic character, which they had lacked previously. Today, the spectre of US sanctions haunts both countries. The quasi-alliance with Iran provides much-needed strategic depth to the Russian policies in the Middle East. Whereas, Russia’s robust support on the vexed nuclear issue is invaluable help to Tehran at the present juncture. If Iran’s relations with the West run into difficulty under US pressure, Tehran’s dependence on Russia will only increase. Suffice to say, the more these countries face hostility from the US, the stronger their quasi-alliance is becoming. Shades of the “new type of relations” between Russia and China!

Two developments this week highlight that Middle Eastern politics has to reckon with a new geopolitical reality in the developing Russian-Iranian quasi-alliance. First, in a major statement two days ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hinted that following the recent western missile strike on Syria, Moscow may consider supplying the advanced S-300 missile defence system to Damascus.

If Russia upgrades the Syrian air defence system, the military balance will shift in favor of Damascus and thereby Iran will also be a beneficiary, since Syrian capability to deter any further Israeli adventures in its air space will help the consolidation of long-term Iranian presence in the Levant as well. (Following the killing of several Iranian personnel in a recent Israeli missile attack on a Syrian base near Damascus, the Chief of the Iranian Army Abdolrahim Mousavi said on Saturday that “destroying the Zionist regime is one of the major tasks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.”)

In a second development this week, Russian energy minister Alexander Novak was quoted as saying that Russia has received the first shipment of oil under the oil-for-goods deal agreed upon in 2014 (and ratified by the two countries last year) with a view to eschew the use of the US dollar in their bilateral trade transactions. Under the deal, Russia would initially buy 100,000 barrels a day from Iran and sell the country $45 billion worth of goods.

Indeed, the implications are profound when Russia and Iran, two energy superpowers, collaborate on oil trade. The two countries have also signed six provisional agreements to collaborate on “strategic” energy deals worth up to $30 billion. The Russian Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov recently disclosed that Russian investment in developing Iran’s oil and gas fields could total more than $50 billion.

According to Ushakov, Iran’s formal entry into the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union is now only a matter of months. The free-trade deal between the EEU and Iran will be a game changer for Russian-Iranian economic cooperation on the whole. Meanwhile, with Russia’s support, Iran has also applied for membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US lawmakers urge Pentagon to buy Israel’s Iron Dome missile system

Press TV – April 22, 2018

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the US Congress have called on the US military to immediately purchase the Iron Dome, a short-range rocket interception system developed by Israel.

Congressional representatives Grace Meng and Peter Roskam authored this week a letter that was signed by 40 other lawmakers asking the Pentagon to invest $500 in Israeli missile and rocket systems in the upcoming 2019 fiscal year.

“US-Israel missile defense cooperation is a critical investment in the safety and security of Israel and stability in the Middle East,” Roskam said in a press release on Saturday, claiming that Israel’s test launches of the missile system indicated its reliability.

The letter was addressed to the House of Representative Appropriations Subcommittee and stated that the purchase and the investment would help US forces abroad protect themselves from “aggressive” countries like Russia and North Korea.

“Today, our forces face challenges from an emboldened, aggressive, and increasingly militarized Russia, North Korea, and other adversaries heightening our immediate need for advanced missile defense systems to protect our forward-based forces and key fixed installations,” Roskam noted.

“Adoption by the [US] Army of Iron Dome could provide an important near-term capability to US forces as well as a surge production capacity if we or Israel required the system in a time of crisis,” he argued.

The system passed its first ever trials in the US in September last year at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

In real combat situations, however, the system has had difficulty intercepting and targeting simple, unguided Palestinian rockets.

The Iron Dome, designed by Israel’s Rafael weapons manufacturer, uses Tamir interceptor missiles, largely produced by Raytheon, a major US arms company.

The US had previously considered deploying Tamir batteries across Europe as a deterrence against Russia.

The $500 million asked by the lawmakers is separate from Washington’s annual military and economic aid to Israel.

Under the latest aid package, Tel Aviv will receive $3.8 billion annually for the next 10 years, consisting of $3.3 billion in military aid and $500 million for the regime’s missile and rocket programs.

The US will pay Israel a total of $705 million for missile development in 2018, far more than the $147 million that Trump had initially requested. Congress increased the amount upon Israel’s request.

From 2019 onwards, however, Israel will no longer be able to ask Congress to raise US military aid beyond the amount stipulated in the memorandum of understanding that the two allies signed in 2016 under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | 3 Comments

US Mainstream Media Attacks North Korea for Supporting Palestine in a Disgusting Display of Nuclear Hypocrisy

By Adam Garrie | Eurasia Future | April 22, 2018

While Donald Trump is busy giving himself credit for the efforts of Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in to reconcile the two Korean states in the hope of ending the Korean War/Fatherland Liberation War, Trump’s domestic opponents are busy saying that the man who threatened to “destroy” North Korea in front of the UN General Assembly just seven months ago is somehow going “soft” on North Korea. Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to respond with his customary bombast.

But while the typical back-and-forth between Trump and his media critics continues, one mainstream media publication in the US has taken things a step further by trying to damage the spirit of good will surrounding the DPRK’s rapprochement with Seoul. Newsweek has quoted form an official Korean source Minju Joson, regarding Pyongyang’s condemnation of the slaughter of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators who have been attacked by the military of the Tel Aviv regime during the Great March of Return.

Newsweek published the following statement from the government of the DPRK:

“Israel’s wild act of destroying Mid-east peace and mercilessly killing Palestinians is a hideous crime that deserves denunciations thousands of times. If the U.S. is interested in protecting human rights, it should keep pace with the efforts of the international community to denounce and check Israel’s human rights abuses. But, the U.S. chimed in with Israel in the eyes of the international community, fully disclosing that it is applying double-dealing standards in human rights and politicizing it”.

While the intention of the Newsweek piece was clearly to sow resentment towards the DPRK among Zionist Americans, Newsweek may not achieve the desired result. As the treatment of Palestinians becomes ever more barbaric at the hands of a regime intent on spilling blood in Gaza and the West Bank, even many Americans with Zionist sympathies including actress Natalie Portman have expressed their condemnation of the regime’s activities. While Portman’s stand has been applauded by many, the regime’s Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz has said that Portman’s remarks “border on antisemitism”. This charge is clearly ridiculous for obvious enough reasons, but it is nevertheless being proffered by a regime desperate for legitimacy.

But while the Tel Aviv regime continues to cling on to its illegal nuclear weapons, the DPRK has expressed a willingness to cease testing its weapons while promising the goal of de-nuclearisation in order to achieve peace between Pyongyang and Seoul in line with the desires of the DPRK’s northern neighbours China and Russia.

While North Korea has not actively enraged in the long cold Korean War since 1953, “Israel’s” wars have been endless since 1948. The regime continues to occupy Palestine and part of Syria while it has recently threatened Lebanon with a new invasion.

While North Korea’s uneasy truce with South Korea has not resulted in catastrophe even at the lowest ebbs in relations, the same cannot be said for the Tel Aviv regime’s relations with its neighbours. The Newsweek piece which was intended to slander North Korea has actually helped to raise the important issue of double standards in the US where North Korea’s defensive nuclear programme is presented as something which threatens the world while “Israel’s” offensive and illegal nuclear programme is virtually never discussed. As none of “Israel’s” neighbours have nuclear weapons and as none of the world’s nuclear powers have directly threatened the regime, no country in the world has less of a justification for nuclear weapons than “Israel”. Even in the case of Pakistan and India, two of the world’s most confrontational neighbours with nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan can always justify the presence of its weapons based on the threat posed by the other. “Israel” has no such justification available.

The US hypocrisy regarding the DPRK vis-a-vis the “Israeli” regime is nothing new. These morosely unjust double standards go back decades. In 1967, the American Naval Ship USS Liberty came under a sustained attack from the “Israeli” air-force and torpedo boats without any warning or justification. In spite of Liberty’s commanders sending communications informing “Israel” that they were an “allied” US ship, the attack persisted for hours. Archival material has revealed that some of the pilots were aware that the ship was American, but that they were ordered by their superiors to keep attacking.

Ultimately, 34 Americans died in the attack while 171 were severely wounded. The incident was systematically hushed up by the US government and media. Many researchers suspect that “Israel” had attempted to stage a false flag incident that would later be blamed on Egypt, in order to coerce the US into attacking Egypt and its Soviet ally. Because “Israel” was not able to kill all the men on board, the plan failed as the survivors knew full well that it was “Israel” and not Egypt nor any other Soviet ally that had attacked their ship.

By contrast, the US media could not stop talking about the DPRK’s capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968. There is still no consensus as to whether the US Naval ship that was captured by the DPRK was in North Korean or international waters. Unlike the allied USS Liberty in the Mediterranean, the USS Pueblo was an enemy ship conducting espionage activities against a communist Asian state at the height of the US war in Vietnam. The incident therefore ought to be viewed in this wider content. In any case, the DPRK captured the ship where it remains to this day as a museum piece. One American died during the capture and the rest of the crew were eventually released into US allied South Korea.

Objectively, any American should be able to see that what “Israel” did to the USS Liberty is a vastly bigger issue than what the DPRK did to the spy-ship USS Pueblo. Yet decades later, it is an ever more militaristic “Israel” that is given billions by the United States, while North Korea continues to be sanctioned and threatened by the United States, in spite of the fact that 2018 has seen Pyongyang and Seoul reach a new detente which will see Koreans from both sides of the 38th parallel marching together in the Olympics under a flag of unity.

The events mentioned in this piece are one of the reasons that Palestinians and North Koreans alike, have no faith whatsoever in the United States and the so-called international community it endlessly asks to unite against North Korea, while equally imploring it to abandon Palestine.

So while Newsweek seeks to condemn North Korea for its consistently principled stand as a friend of Palestine, the truth of the matter is that while North Korea has never been a legitimate threat to the wider world, “Israel” not only remains a threat, but has a history of confrontation with almost every country in the region. The fact that the regime continues to slaughter Palestinians protesting for rights to their stolen land is proof positive that while North Korea is embracing peace, the Tel Aviv regime remains more militant than ever.

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | 5 Comments

A Brilliant Early Defender of Palestine – Book Review

(Colin Andersen, Balfour in the Dock. J.M.N. Jeffries and the Case for the Prosecution. Bloxham, Oxon: Skyscraper Publications, 2017)
Reviewed by Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | April 18, 2018

J.M.N (Joseph) Jeffries was an outstanding British journalist whose book Palestine: The Reality (1939) is described by Colin Andersen as ‘a masterwork of history and a scathing indictment of British policy in Palestine from 1914 to 1938.’

George Antonius’ seminal work, The Arab Awakening, had been published only the year before but it is a more general account of British betrayal of the Arabs, whereas the value of the Jeffries book lies in his single-minded focus on Palestine and the force of his arguments. Few copies of the book were printed, and it is now almost impossible to find even in libraries. By Edward Said and many others, however, its value as an early exposure of British perfidy has long since been recognized.

Zionism itself was a wicked idea from the start. Herzl was not ignorant of the realities on the ground in Palestine. In the form of the people, he wanted to remove them and in the form of the land he wanted to turn Palestine into something else. Chaim Weizmann was no better. He lied, deceived and dissimulated as a matter of course. By 1914, with one exception, Zionism had no support anywhere. The Ottoman sultan, the Kaiser, and the Tsar’s government had all turned their backs on it. By Jews around the world, the Zionists were regarded as cranks, fanatics, and heretics but the one exception was critical. In Britain, the seed of imperial support for this mad idea had been sown by Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, when in 1903 he backed Zionist settlement in East Africa.

By 1917 Zionism had been absorbed into British imperialism. The motive was not gratitude for Weizmann’s chemical research in support of the war effort or anything as fanciful as sympathy for a persecuted people bent on returning to their ancient homeland but the recognition that Zionism was a tool Britain could use. The chief villains of the piece, in Jeffries’ reading, were the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, and his Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, both of whom, to use a term now current, ‘weaponised’ Zionism, first to bring the US into the war and then to turn Palestine over to their Zionist proxies, much as the US, Britain, France and their ‘allies’ have tried hard over the past seven years to put Syria in the hands of their takfiri proxies.

It was Jeffries, an outstanding correspondent for the London Daily Mail, who in 1923 exposed the deception deliberately built into Sir Henry McMahon’s correspondence with the Sharif Husayn of Mecca in 1915. The Sharif had outlined the area in which the Arabs were to be granted independence in return for supporting the British war effort. McMahon made specific exceptions for Mersin and Alexandretta (Iskanderun) and ‘portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, which cannot be said to be purely Arab.’ The excluded region had a substantial Christian percentage, but in line with its imperial tactics of divide and rule Britain chose to regard only Muslims as ‘Arab’ despite the role Christians played in the formulation of the Arab national idea.

This region ‘west of Damascus’ was the coastal littoral Britain intended to allocate to France in Sykes-Picot the following year but on no map, can Palestine be found west of Damascus. Homs and Hama are mentioned but not Jerusalem, for the obvious reason that the British knew that the Sharif Husayn would never agree to its exclusion from the area set aside for ‘Arab independence.’ Although Antonius is given the credit he deserves for exposing the depth of deceit in the McMahon letters to the Sharif Husayn, it was Jeffries, in articles written for the Daily Mail in 1923, based on a copy of the text he had been given by King Feisal, who first brought this deception to the attention of the British public.

The Husayn-McMahon correspondence was followed in 1916 by the treachery of Sykes-Picot and in 1917 by the further treachery of the Balfour declaration, a pledge not just made to the Zionists but largely written by them. Behind the caviling and declarations of nothing but good intentions, Jeffries knew exactly what they were up to the formula of a ‘national home’ was adopted for the time only because pressing for statehood would be regarded even by the British government as too provocative. The ‘country without a people for a people without a country’ was a brazen lie which the Zionists pretended to believe because they did not want the Palestinians to be there. They were being wished away psychologically long before they could be removed physically. As Jeffries was to write, they were nobodies who would eventually ‘vanish like mist before the sun of Zion.’

Behind his lofty, somewhat detached philosophical exterior, Balfour was as remorseless as the fanatics whose cause he was promoting, not in their interests, as they undoubtedly realized, but Britain’s.  Zionism, he wrote in 1919, right or wrong, good or bad, was rooted in traditions, present needs and future hopes of ‘far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.’ Crucially, the words ‘now’ and ‘inhabit’ point to what Balfour, the British government, and the Zionists, colluding, had in mind: Palestine did not belong to the Palestinians, they were only ‘inhabiting’ it and only for ‘now.’ In the same statement Balfour, in a rare moment of truth, wrote that insofar as Palestine was concerned ‘the Powers have made no statement of fact which is not admittedly wrong and no declaration of policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate.’

In Palestine: The Reality Jeffries traced Balfour’s declaration from inception through gestation to birth. As Colin Andersen writes, far from being a pure and lofty initiative of the British government, the declaration was in its drafting ‘very much an Anglo-Zionist-American affair.’ The process began ‘in earnest’ in June 1917, when Weizmann, Lord Rothschild, and Sir Ronald Graham, assistant undersecretary at the Foreign Office, visited Balfour, who had just returned from a five-week visit to the US, where he met the leading US Zionist, Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis.  The question of a declaration on Palestine was discussed and after seeing Weizmann and Rothschild back in London, the drafting began, as Jeffries was to write, ‘on both sides of the Atlantic.’

It remains very worthwhile to consider how these drafts changed. As documented by Jeffries, in its first draft, prepared in July 1917, the British government spoke of Palestine being recognized as ‘the National Home of the Jewish people’, with the conditions of their ‘national life’ being determined with representatives of the ‘Zionist Organization.’ There is no mention of the theme dwelt upon by Balfour and others in the government of historical Jewish suffering and the need for a refuge and neither is there any mention of the majority of the population – Arab – actually living in Palestine.

On July 18 the Zionists produced their amended version in which Palestine would be ‘reconstituted’ as the national home of the Jewish people. In August Lord Milner, a senior figure in the government prepared a draft removing ‘reconstituted’ and referring to ‘a’ Jewish national home ‘in’ Palestine. This was approved by Balfour but opposed by Edwin Montagu, Secretary of State for India, both Jewish and anti-zionist, who described Zionism as a ‘mischievous political creed’, who said there was no Jewish nation and even argued that Zionism should be declared as illegal ‘and against the national interest.’ By longing for the day when he could ‘shake British soil from his shoes’ and go to Palestine, the British Jew would have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and admitted that ‘he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain or to be treated as an Englishman.’ At a Cabinet meeting on October 4, Montagu again objected vigorously, with the support of Lord Curzon, who asked ‘How was it proposed to get rid of the existing majority of Mussulman inhabitants and to introduce the Jews in their place?’

In Washington on October 13, President Wilson approved to have the British draft, clearly without spending much time thinking about it. Back in London, a reworded draft referred to the British government viewing with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish ‘race’, a phrase as bereft of any logic, historical or otherwise, as the Jewish ‘people’ or ‘nation.’ This time, however, the draft referred to the civil and religious rights of ‘existing’ non-Jewish communities in Palestine – the Palestinians, 90 percent of the population- as well as the rights of Jews elsewhere who were content with their existing nationality ‘and citizenship’, Balfour added.

This draft was also approved by Wilson. Alterations at the behest of Louis Brandeis led to further rewording, especially ‘people’ instead of ‘race.’ The reference to the rights of the ‘existing non-Jewish communities’ raised objections from the Zionists. How could anyone think that they could be damaged by the establishment of a national Jewish home? After all, did not Jewish religious tradition prescribe that the stranger must be looked after? In their inverted world, it was the stranger, themselves, who owned the land and the true owners, individually and collectively, the people of Palestine, who were the strangers, not that the  Zionists had any intention of looking after them or even sharing the land. They wanted to get rid of them.

The final form of the declaration was approved by the War Cabinet on October 31 and issued on November 2. It ends with Balfour’s request to Lord Rothschild to bring the declaration to the notice of the Zionist Federation. Nothing more cynically humorous had ever been penned than these two lines, wrote Jeffries, seeing that the Zionists had collaborated in drafting the declaration: in its final form it would never have been issued without their approval. Jeffries describes the document as the most discreditable produced by a British government in living memory.

He follows a trail spotted with lies and deceit to where it led after the war, to a mandatory administration of Palestine top-heavy with Zionists and Palestine resistance to the Anglo-Zionist occupation of their land. By 1937 the Peel report was recommending partition and transfer of part of the Palestinian population, a solution which the Zionists wanted not in part but full but part would at least be a start. Wrote Jeffries: ‘How can anyone suggest that about a quarter of the Arab population should be removed by force from the land which they and theirs have occupied for centuries?’

Colin Andersen, blending original material from Palestine: The Reality and Jeffries’ other writings with his own analysis and interpretation, has produced a book that no student of Britain’s deceits from Husain-McMahon to the Balfour Declaration should leave unread. There is a broader context, of course. In 1917, as the Balfour Declaration was being prepared and the world was reacting to the Bolshevik revolution, Lloyd George was giving assurances to the British labor movement that territorial annexation was the last thing the government had on its own mind.

The British were sick of war and the government was alarmed at the effects of the Bolshevik revolution, at a time it needed to ‘comb out’ more working-class men of fighting age to send to the front. They had to be deceived. In December 1917, addressing trade union leaders, Lloyd George asserted that ‘our one object in the war was to defend the violated public law of Europe, to vindicate Treaty obligations and to secure the restoration of Belgium.’ The release by the Bolsheviks of the contents of Sykes-Picot on November 23 had been an embarrassment but the Labor Party could still issue a statement praising Lloyd George, whose speech had revealed ‘a government and a people seeking no selfish or predatory aims of any kind, pursuing with one unchanging mind, one unchanging purpose: to obtain justice for others so that we thereby secure for ourselves a lasting peace. We desire neither to destroy Germany or diminish her boundaries: we seek neither to exalt ourselves nor to enlarge our empire.’

The immense harm which has been done to the Palestinians also has to be set in a broader regional context. The partition of Arab lands was of a piece with the planned partition of Anatolia, where the powers planned to establish a Christian Armenian ‘protectorate’ in eastern provinces where the population was 80 percent Muslim. In 1919 Lloyd George was the principal architect of the Greek invasion of western Anatolia, which was not to end, after great loss of life and massive destruction, until 1922. In the same year the British government launched the ‘war of intervention’ against the Bolsheviks: in the 1930s it launched the war of non-intervention against the republican government of Spain as well as enabling the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the Japanese invasion of China. Class and money interests of the British establishment took precedence over national interests (not that by this same establishment they were seen as being any different).

We can see continuity in the leading role Britain has played in the destruction of Iraq and Libya and the devastation of Syria by armed proxies over the past eight years, up to the missile attack of April 14. The record of lies, deception, intimidation, and aggression all the way since 1915 is practically seamless. We can only imagine what a journalist of the caliber of J.M.N Jeffries would have made of all this.

– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press).

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | 2 Comments

Who Is Terrance Yeakey?

This video is meant for educational purposes only. All rights belong to it’s rightful owner/owner’s. No copyright infringement intended.

This is a segment taken from the documentary A Noble Lie. You can get more information on this film at the link below: http://www.anoblelie.com

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Video | | 2 Comments

Statement of Alexander Shulgin to the OPCW

The following is the unofficial translation of the statement made by Alexander Shulgin, the head of Russian delegation at the OPCW, at that body’s April 18 Executive Council meeting at the Hague. The text is provided by the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Netherlands.

Mr. Chairperson,

I would like to start my speech with the words that belong to the great thinker Martin Luther, “A lie is like a snowball: the further you roll it, the bigger it becomes”.

This wise aphorism is fully applicable to politics. He who has chosen the path of deception will have to lie again and again, making up explanations for discrepancies, spreading disinformation and doing forgery, desperately using all means to cover the tracks of the lies and to hide the truth.

The United Kingdom has entered this slippery path. We can clearly see all of this on the example of the “Skripal case” fabricated by the British authorities, this poorly disguised anti-Russian provocation accompanied by an unprecedented propaganda campaign, taken up by a group of countries, and the finalized unprecedented expulsion of diplomats under a far-fetched pretext. Please, do not try to pass this group for the international community – it is far from that.

It has already been a month since the Prime Minister of Great Britain Theresa May put forward some extremely serious accusations against Russia of the alleged use of chemical weapons. We have been waiting for an explanation for a long time, counting on our British colleagues to eventually back up these loud statements with some at least halfway intelligible facts. We have repeatedly proposed to them to work together on the investigation of the events in Salisbury, have been requesting information. The response consisted in haughty, arrogant statements saying Russia should confess to the crime.

The British side continues to scatter absolutely unfounded accusations, disseminating more and more new, often senseless, versions of the events. The British politicians and officials simply cannot stop anymore and continue pouring down new torrents of lies. London sabotages every attempt to conduct a truly objective investigation into the incident in Salisbury with the participation of Russian experts. They have classified everything, supposedly conducting their own national investigation. Although the “responsible” have already been designated.

Why they are doing this is obvious. Great Britain strives to avoid at all costs the establishment of the truth about the events, hide all evidence, which could unmask them. They are simply playing for time. Because the further it gets – the more difficult it will be to figure out what really did (or did not) happen in Salisbury.

The lie always fears the truth, for the truth is the most terrifying weapon against lies. Let us, therefore, turn to the naked facts which demonstrate how insolently and clumsily the British government is disseminating the insinuations regarding the “Skripal case”.

LIE №1

Russia does not respond to any legitimate questions made by the United Kingdom on March 12, 2018 through the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to London A.V. Yakovenko (some of the allies of the United Kingdom keep repeating this like a mantra).

I would like to remind you that the British side has suggested that we confess to one of the two versions it has made up: either the poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripal was a purposeful action by Russia, or Russia has lost control over the arsenal of chemical weapons it allegedly has. Despite the brazen nature of this ultimatum, we definitely did not ignore it, but immediately gave an unequivocal answer: Russia has nothing to do with the chemical incident in Salisbury. Great Britain has not contacted us with any other questions.

LIE №2

Great Britain acts in strict compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The facts demonstrate exactly the opposite. Thus, the Article IX of the Convention stipulates that States Parties shall conduct bilateral consultations on any ambiguous issues. We see that in reality the United Kingdom has avoided complying with this provision and still refuses to interact with us. As far as the British ultimatum communicated through the Ambassador of the Russian Federation I have mentioned is concerned, it cannot in any way be considered a “proposal of cooperation” in the sense of the CWC or a “request for legal assistance”.

On our part, on April 13, we sent through the Technical Secretariat a note to the British side under the Paragraph 2 Article IX with a list of legitimate questions that we have regarding the “Skripal case”. We have been acting strictly in accordance with the Convention and expected that our partners from London would do the same. There still has been no response. It is as if the United Kingdom did not notice the Convention at all or did not want to act in accordance with its norms.

We also witnessed how London came up with a new form of work – “the independent verification by the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW of the British side’s findings.” I would like to underscore: there is nothing like this in the Convention. This is an invention by the United Kingdom. Instead of precisely following the provisions of the Convention, the United Kingdom tries to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.

LIE №3

Russia refuses to cooperate in establishing the truth.

In the reality, it is exactly the opposite. Russia is extremely interested – probably, even more than any other country – in an honest, open and impartial investigation of the incident in Salisbury. We have repeatedly proposed, asked, demanded from the British side to cooperate in the investigation. We have put forward for the consideration of the 57th extraordinary session of the Executive Council a draft decision that contained the call for Russia and Great Britain to establish such interaction with the involvement of the Technical Secretariat. We expressed then and confirm now our readiness to cooperate with the OPCW and within the OPCW.

Unfortunately, all of our efforts stumble into a blind wall of complete unwillingness of London to interact.

LIE №4

The United Kingdom claims that Russia, allegedly, infinitely multiplies its versions of the chemical incident in Salisbury trying to divert from itself the wave of criticism for the alleged use of chemical weapons on the British soil.

In the reality, this is what the British side has been doing, disseminating through its so-called “independent” media the infinite versions: the poison first was in the suitcase, then on the door handle, then in the buckwheat, then at the restaurant, then in the flower bouquet, then in the ventilation system of the car, then in perfume, etc.

LIE №5

The Russian leadership has allegedly stated that the extermination of traitors abroad is the state policy of the Russian Federation.

This is slander and complete nonsense. Let them demonstrate where they saw this. Obviously, the United Kingdom will not be able to present a single example of a statement of this kind because nothing similar has ever been said by the Russian leadership.

LIE №6

The conclusions made by the experts of the Technical Secretariat based on the results of the analysis of samples collected from the Skripal father and daughter confirmed that they had been poisoned with a substance from the “Novichok” family.

Our military experts are ready to present their evaluation of what was said in the report by the Technical Secretariat based on the results of the work of the group of specialists in the United Kingdom.

For now, I will only say one thing: the claim that the Technical Secretariat confirmed that this chemical points to its Russian origin is an outright lie. The report itself does not say a single word about the name “Novichok”; the CWC simply does not contain such a concept. And in the report by the Technical Secretariat there is also no confirmation of the “Russian footprint” in the chemical substance found in Salisbury.

Nevertheless, the British authorities immediately disseminated in the world media the fake news that the OPCW supposedly confirmed that the Skripals were poisoned with “Novichok”, and that the latter, they say, was developed in the USSR and Russia only, hence Moscow is to blame. This is how the findings of the report by the Technical Secretariat are being falsified.

LIE №7

The so-called “Novichok” is a Soviet invention and it, supposedly, could have been produced only in Russia.

It is necessary to remind that “Novichok” is the name invented in the West for a group of chemical agents which were developed in many countries, including in the United Kingdom. In one of his recent interviews, the Secretary of State Boris Johnson confirmed that the United Kingdom has samples of this substance at the laboratory in Porton Down. Actually, we have a lot of questions to ask this laboratory. It would be interesting to know how they determined that the Skripals had been poisoned with a “Novichok”-type nerve agent. Because any reasonable person would understand that you can establish this if you have the original component to which you can compare the chemical which has been found. It follows that this laboratory has a stock of “Novichok”, and, possibly, also the antidotes which were used in the Skripals’ treatment.

In Russia, there has never been any research and development or experimental work conducted as part of a programme under the name of “Novichok”. I reiterate, there has never been a programme with such a name. In the Soviet times, starting with the 1970s, not only the Soviet, but also the British and American scientists were working on creating new types of nerve agents. This is how the famous VX nerve gas was created. And in the 1990s, after the breakup of the USSR, the Western special services exported from Russia a group of chemists together with the documentation. The specialists in the West began to closely study the documents and, based on them, started working in this direction, achieved certain results, which were made public.

We know very well that the “Novichok”-type nerve agents were in production in a number of countries. And, unlike our Western partners, who are constantly rolling their eyes and saying that they know something but that it, as they say, is intelligence data and they cannot reveal it, we operate in a different fashion. We work with open sources. Thus, on December 1, 2015, the United States Patent and Trademark Office contacted the Russian agency responsible for issues concerning patents with a request to check the patentability of an invention made by an American scientist T. Rubin. Here is this document (demonstration).

This document talks about the invention of a special bullet, the distinctive feature of which is that it has a separate cavity for equipping it with different kinds of toxic agents. When using the mentioned invention, the lethal effect is achieved due to the effect of this toxic agent on the human body. In other words, this ammunition falls under the jurisdiction of the CWC. The principle of operation of the bullet consists in equipping it with binary components which interact with each other upon impact. And this is what we read on the page 11 of this official American document, “At least one of the active substances may be selected from nerve agents including… tabun (GA), sarin (GB), soman (GD), cyclosarin (GF), and VG, … VM, VR, VX, and [attention!] Novichok agents.”

In other words, this document confirms that in the United States the “Novichok”-type nerve agents were not just produced but also patented as a chemical weapon. And not some long time ago, but just a couple of years ago – the patent is dated December 1, 2015.

Moreover, searching by the key word “Novichok” on the digital source google.patents.com you can find over 140 patents issued by the United States, related to the use and protection from exposure to the “Novichok” toxic agent.

These are the real facts, not some idle talk, and the response to those who insolently claim that the “Novichok”-type nerve agents existed and were produced in the USSR and Russia.

LIE №8

One of the victims, a Russian citizen Yulia Skripal is, allegedly, avoiding contacts with her relatives and refusing the Russian consular assistance.

Presently, the British authorities are zealously hiding Yulia Skripal from the media and the public. Her whereabouts are unknown. The Russian side, as well as her relatives (her cousin Victoria was refused an entry visa by the British authorities) are being denied access to her. She does not have the opportunity to go back to Russia and undergo medical examination and treatment.

The abovementioned circumstances indicate that, in fact, the Russian citizen Yulia Skripal is being held hostage by the British authorities, held by force on the territory of the United Kingdom, subjected to psychological manipulation.

I have given just a few examples of how the British authorities spread disinformation and blatantly lie. This list of disclosures could, probably, go on, but we should probably stop here. It is typical that the United Kingdom is not even thinking about refuting any of their theses, despite the fact that they are completely unfounded.

I have no doubts that in the future, we can await new waves of disinformation, pseudo-leaks to the media, insolent attacks on us by the British officials. But no real evidence will ever be produced.

The United Kingdom demonstrates clear unwillingness to adequately cooperate regarding the investigation of this obscure story. This convinces us that the United Kingdom does not want any truth. They cannot allow it to come to light.

The report presented by the Technical Secretariat concerning the British specialists’ findings poses a number of questions and calls for additional detailed examination, including by the British side. Any specialist would understand that the final conclusions can be made only having before your eyes the materials of the chemical and spectral analysis of the mentioned samples. And the Technical Secretariat has passed these materials only to London.

We underscore, Russia will not take at face value any conclusions regarding the “Skipal case” until one simple condition is met: the Russian experts will be provided with access to the victims, as well as to the mentioned materials of the OPCW expert analysis and the entire volume of the real information regarding this incident London has at its disposal.

We have solid grounds to believe that all of this is a gross provocation against Russia by the special services of the United Kingdom. And if the British side continues to refuse to cooperate with us, it will only reaffirm our conviction that this is exactly the case.

Mr. Chairperson,

One cannot help but recall the following saying: for some people lying is not a means of justification, but a means of defence. On April 16, we heard yet another strange statement: the G7 calls upon Russia to respond to the legitimate questions of the United Kingdom regarding the “Skripal case”. You can consider this statement our response.

At the same time, we would like to hear from the British side the answers to the numerous and specific questions of the Russian Federation regarding the incident in Salisbury. Moreover, we would be grateful if the representatives of the G7 could explain to us why their countries launched a diplomatic war against Russia based on some fakes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Russia Urges US Military to Scale Back in Korean Peninsula

teleSUR | April 21, 2018

Russia is welcoming North Korea’s decision to suspend nuclear and missile tests, while simultaneously urging the United States and South Korea to scale back on their own military activities in the peninsula.

In a statement released Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said: “We consider this decision to be an important step toward further easing of tensions on the Korean peninsula and the strengthening of positive trends on settlement of the Northeast Asian situation.

“We are urging the United States and the Republic of Korea to take adequate accommodating steps aimed at slowing down military activities in the region and reaching mutually acceptable agreements with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the upcoming intra-Korean and U.S.-North Korean summits.”

According to Russian state press agency TASS, Moscow is hoping the situation proceeds along the path originally suggested by Russia and China.

North Korea announced early Saturday that it was suspending all nuclear and missile tests, and focusing its development instead on socialist economic development and peace.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country no longer needs to conduct tests because it has completed its goal of developing nuclear weapons.

“The northern nuclear test ground of the DPRK will be dismantled to transparently guarantee the discontinuance of the nuclear test,” North Korean state news agency KCNA said.

Kim is scheduled to hold talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in May, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in next week.

He has recently held meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the CIA’s head and Secretary of State appointee, Mike Pompeo.

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment