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Iran dismisses claims on sending ballistic missiles to Iraq

Mehr News Agency | September 1, 2018

TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman has dismissed as ‘unfounded’ and ‘absurd’ some earlier report by Reuters claiming that Iran has supplied some Shia groups in Iraq with missiles.

In a Saturday statement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghasemi dismissed as unfounded and ridiculous what has been reported by certain news outlets and media claiming that Iran has sent missiles to Iraq.

In reaction to a report that has just been released by Reuters claiming Iran has given ballistic missiles to some Shia groups in Iraq and is developing the capacity to build more there, Ghasemi said that such claims are aimed at sowing fear among regional countries in line with their policy of demonizing Iran.

The spokesman of Iran’s Foreign Ministry noted that such unfounded claims are merely aimed at affecting Iran’s foreign relations, especially with its neighbors.

September 1, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

Brazil Court Rules Barring Lula Da Silva From Presidential Election – Reports

Sputnik – 01.09.2018

The lawyers of the jailed former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have said they would appeal the ruling by a 4-1 majority of the seven-member top electoral court to the country’s Supreme Court, Reuters reported.

Lula, who served as the country’s president from 2003 through 2010, was sentenced to 9.5 years in prison last summer for allegedly accepting a luxury apartment from a construction firm in return for political favors. Lula has denied the accusations. An appeals court upheld the ruling in January and increased Lula’s jail term to 12 years and a month.

The Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT) vowed in a statement late Friday to secure Lula da Silva’s candidcay in the upcoming October’s vote.

“We will present all appeals before the courts for the recognition of the rights of Lula provided by law and international treaties ratified by Brazil… we will defend Lula in the streets, with the people,” the PT statement was quoted by AFP.

Earlier in August, the PT announced it has registered jailed ex-president Lula da Silva as its candidate in the upcoming October’s election. Papers were submitted to Brazil’s Supreme Court hours before the deadline passed.

The UN Human Rights Committee has urged Brazil to ensure that political rights of Lula were observed given that he was registered as a candidate for the upcoming presidential election. The committee also urged Brazil to refrain from hindering Lula from participating in the election until after his court appeals were completed.

However, the country’s Foreign Ministry has said that Brazilian authorities do not consider binding the UNHR recommendations regarding observance of jailed former president.

According to the recent polls, jailed ex-president Lula da Silva is one of the most popular presidential candidates, however, the new rulling of the Brazil’s electoral court questions Lula’s run in the presidential campaign.

Lula da Silva’s supporters remain, however, optimistic. The PT has launched an appeal for support on Twitter, after which a hashtag translating as “Lula on the ballot box” quickly began trending, AFP reported.

September 1, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | 1 Comment

Lavrov calls murder of Donbass leader ‘blatant provocation’

RT | September 1, 2018

The assassination of the Donetsk People’s Republic’s leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko is intended to undermine the ceasefire deal in eastern Ukraine and make European-backed peace talks “impossible,” Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said.

“It is a blatant provocation aimed at undermining the implementation of the Minsk Agreement in eastern Ukraine,” Lavrov told reporters on Saturday.

Zakharchenko was killed on Friday when an explosive device detonated at a cafe in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) capital, Donetsk. His bodyguard was also killed in the blast, and 11 people were injured.

“Given the current situation, it’s impossible to talk about the nearest meetings in the Normandy format like many of our European partners would have wanted,” Lavrov said. “It is a serious situation that must be analyzed. We are doing it right now.”

The Normandy format, also known as the Normandy Four, is a contact group comprising France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia. The group is tasked with negotiating a peace settlement in eastern Ukraine.

September 1, 2018 Posted by | War Crimes | , | 1 Comment

‘Deceptive’: NYT Botches Story on Suspended Korean War Games

Sputnik – 01.09.2018

The New York Times’ Thursday article “Pause in Military Drills, Ordered by Trump, Leaves South Koreans Uneasy” is giving its readers “deceptive” information, historian and investigative journalist Gareth Porter told Sputnik.

The Times’ article piggybacks on US President Donald Trump’s announcement this week on suspended joint military drills between Washington and Seoul, suggesting that an overwhelming amount of South Koreans are now upset with President Moon Jae In for supporting 45 on the matter.

Porter told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear on Friday that the publication’s article shows that it “has a bug up somewhere about this issue,” since polls in South Korea actually show that upwards of 80 percent of the people support Moon’s decision to mend the country’s relations with North Korea.

“The Times is being very deceptive in this, creating the sense or allusion that South Koreans are upset with Moon about this when, in fact, it’s a small percent of the population,” Porter told hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. “[It’s] trying to sabotage the Trump support for a North-South accord and, even more importantly, support for an agreement of some sort with North Korea.”

The statement released by the White House on Wednesday notes that Trump no longer believes that costly war games are necessary in the current climate, a stance POTUS has repeatedly taken in the past.

“The president believes that his relationship with [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un is a very good and warm one, and there is no reason at this time to be spending large amounts of money on joint US-South Korea war games,” the press release announced, adding that Trump, if he wishes to do so, can easily reboot the exercises.

According to Porter, the Korean War, which halted in an armistice in 1953 but has still not been concluded with a formal peace treaty, “doesn’t have an end because of the vested interests that are tied up in the status quo.”

“It becomes clear with every passing month that there are tremendous interests involving the US national security state as well as the political and media elite, all of whom want to keep things precisely the way they are because they all have interests that are bound up in keeping this present situation of US military hegemony in northeast Asia,” the historian stressed.

Porter, the author of “Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare,” went on to tell Becker that had any other “nominal centrist Republican or centrist Democrat been elected, we certainly wouldn’t be looking at making peace with North Korea.”

“I’m afraid it’s true,” he said, noting that it was shocking to admit.

September 1, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

US military blocks proposed railway linking North & South Korea

RT | September 1, 2018

US military officials have put the brakes on a proposed rail project that would connect the Korean Peninsula, underscoring growing differences between Washington and Seoul on engagement with the hermit kingdom.

The governments of the two estranged nations were set to begin preliminary plans for the rail link last week, but their application to send a train from Seoul across the length of North Korea was denied by the US-led United Nations Command. The multinational military body, which traces its roots back to the Korean War, controls movement across the demilitarized zone which separates North and South Korea.

The decision is the latest illustration of Washington’s hardline approach to dealing with Pyongyang. The US has demanded full denuclearization as a prerequisite to any economic cooperation with North Korea, while Seoul has taken a less extreme stance, favoring constructive engagement with its northern neighbor. South Korean President Moon Jae-in had expressed hope that the rail link would be completed by the end of the year.

Moon has invested considerable political capital into improving inter-Korean relations and has signaled his desire for large-scale investment in North Korea once sanctions are lifted.

September 1, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Illegal Occupation | , | 1 Comment

What Does a Nuclear Bomb Explosion Feel Like?

Motherboard | August 29, 2018

The existential threat of nuclear war is no longer a Cold War memory. With nine countries armed with around 15,000 atomic bombs up to 53 times stronger than those dropped in the Second World War, the stakes are arguably higher.

Ahead of the International Day against Nuclear Tests on August 29, we met up British atomic veterans who were present at test sites in Australia and the Pacific, to find out what it’s like to experience a nuclear bomb explosion up close.

While most people know about the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, fewer are aware that an additional 2,000 atomic bombs were detonated after World War II and tested on hundreds of thousands of young soldiers to prepare them for nuclear war.

September 1, 2018 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | 2 Comments

Lawyers Petition for 9/11 Grand Jury

Corbett Report Extras – August 31, 2018

Today we’re joined by Mick Harrison (and David Meiswinkle) of the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry to discuss their recent petition to the U. S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York to convene a special grand jury into the unprosecuted federal crimes relating to the destruction of three World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001. We talk about the committee and its formation, the nature and powers of a special grand jury, and what legal options remain for those seeking justice for 9/11.

Show Notes and MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=27961

September 1, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Video | , | 1 Comment