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Putin’s firewall around Russia-Turkey partnership

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | January 27, 2019

The much-awaited meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his visiting Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan in Moscow last Wednesday focused on the the withdrawal of US troops from Syria. The timeframe of the US drawdown or its scope and directions remain far from clear. Meanwhile, attention is riveted on creating a buffer zone in northern Syria, 32 kilometre wide on the Turkish border, which is under discussion between Washington and Ankara.

The US special representative on Syria James Jeffrey is expected in Ankara in coming days to carry forward the discussions. From present indications, US may control the airspace over the proposed zone and maintain some sort of presence on the ground as well while Ankara has been maintaining that it has the capability to enforce the zone.

Russia, on the other hand, has consistently voiced its opinion favoring Syrian government control over the regions vacated by the US. Indeed, Syrian leadership also has reiterated its determination to regain control over the entire country.

Thus, the meeting in Moscow on Wednesday took place in a supercharged atmosphere amidst speculation that the Russia-Turkey partnership might get rocky. The US never liked the Astana process on Syria between Russia, Turkey and Iran and the American intentions in baiting Turkey with the buffer zone proposal are highly suspect. (Significantly, Erdogan has hit out hard against the coup attempt by Washington to overthrow the Venezuelan government.)

If good diplomacy is about showing tact in handling awkward situations while brilliant diplomacy lies in creating a pathway through a minefield, Putin was probably at his best in navigating the Russian-Turkish partnership out of the reach of US tentacles. Putin’s remarks after the talks with Erdogan once again underscored that in the Russian estimation, any foreign presence on Syrian soil will lack “international legal grounds” if it is not on the basis of an invitation from Damascus or emanating out of a decision of the UN Security Council. But having said that, Putin qualified that “constructive cooperation” nonetheless becomes necessary even with such partners whose presence in Syria may lack legitimacy. Importantly, Putin added that Russia respects Turkey’s security interests. Then he went on to spring a big surprise:

“And the third. The 1998 treaty between the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Turkey is still valid, and it deals specifically with the fight against terrorism. I think this is the legal framework that covers many issues relating to ensuring Turkey’s security on its southern borders. Today we have been discussing this issue thoroughly and intensively enough.”

This needs some explaining. Putin was referring to the Adana Accord of October 1998 between Turkey and Syria regarding cooperation in combating terrorism, which became moribund through the 7-year Syrian conflict. Putin said the agreement “is still valid”, which of course was tantamount to saying that Damascus thought so, too.

In effect, Putin has suggested that the Adana Accord can still serve as the legal and political framework for securing the Turkish-Syrian border to combat terrorism. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov amplified Putin’s remark further in media comments on Saturday. While on a visit to Rabat, Lavrov said, “The Adana agreement of 1998 was concluded between Turkey and Syria, its essence is to eliminate Turkey’s concerns about its security. [Syria] entered into this agreement, assuming certain obligations, and we proceed from the assumption that this agreement remains in force. As I understand, so do the state parties to the agreement.”

That is to say, Putin’s proposal offers an alternative to a Turkish occupation of Syrian territory – or involving a joint operation with the US to create a safe zone inside Syria and to enforce it militarily. The Adana Accord states that Syria is committed to eliminate any activity on its territory that would jeopardize Turkey’s security, including “the supply of weapons, logistic material, financial support to and propaganda activities” of Kurdish groups affiliated to the PKK. (The Syrian and Turkish foreign ministers signed an updated treaty in 2010.)

However, there is a caveat here. In order for the Adana Accord to come alive and fully satisfy Turkey’s security needs on the border region with Syria (which used to be the case till 2011 when Turkey became the staging ground for the US-led project to overthrow the Syrian government), Ankara must resuscitate its contacts with Damascus. Simply put, Putin is nudging Erdogan to restore ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. After all, under the Adana Accord, Syria is committed to protect Turkey’s security, but that obligation is also “on the basis of the principle of reciprocity.”

Interestingly, on Saturday, Syrian state news agency SANA quoted a foreign ministry official as saying, “Syria confirms that it is in compliance with the Adana Interstate Agreement on Combating Terrorism in all its forms and all agreements related to it, but the Turkish regime has been violating the agreement since 2011 up to now by sponsoring and supporting terrorism, training militants and making it easier for them to go to SAR, or through the occupation of Syrian territories with terrorist groups it controls or directly with the help of the Turkish Armed Forces.” Furthermore, SANA reported the Syrian Foreign Ministry as calling on Turkey to “activate” the Adana Accord, leaving the boundary as it used to be before the beginning of the war in 2011.

Clearly, an inflection point has come. Erdogan has a big decision to make. Putin’s goal is to encourage Erdogan to work with Assad, while also taking care to preserve the verve of the Russian-Turkish cooperation and accelerate the Syrian peace process in Geneva.

On the ground, this translates as the Astana partners – Russia, Turkey and Iran (which also, incidentally, had endorsed the Adana Accord in 2003) – coordinating on establishing another de-escalation zone in northern Syria following the US withdrawal. It appears Putin has made an offer Erdogan cannot easily refuse and which may even be his own preferred option.

January 27, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | 1 Comment

Gerd Büntzly, Crime Fighter

Photo by John LaForge: International youth group blockades one of three main gates to Buchel Air Force in Germany, July 2018.
By John Laforge | CounterPunch | January 25, 2019

Hamburg, Germany – I was with Gerd Büntzly, 69, of Herford, in a demonstration in Germany July 17, 2017. So were Steve Baggarly, Susan Crane, and Bonnie Urfer, all of the United States. Ours was a peaceful if covert, night-time occupation of a protected aircraft shelter or bomb bunker far inside the Büchel Air Force Base, near the beautiful Mosel River valley.

We were there to help prevent the unlawful use of the shelter in nuclear attacks or nuclear war preparations. Routine nuclear war planning by US and German Air Force personnel there, using US B61 nuclear bombs (NATO’s so-called “nuclear sharing”), violates the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and several other international treaties, all binding on the United States and Germany.

In spite of our formal complaint to state prosecutors against “selective prosecution” of Gerd, and the violation of his “equal protection” rights, only he was charged, tried, and convicted of trespass and property damage (for clipping fences) in January last year. This Jan. 16, he was in court again appealing the conviction. Susan Crane from California and I travelled to Koblenz to speak on his behalf. Attorneys were quite sure that we two could testify, but ultimately were not allowed.

We wanted to explain that international law has the force of state and federal law in Germany and the United States, a fact recognized by Germany’s Constitution (Art. 25) and the US Constitution (Art. 6). According to Univ. of Illinois Law School Prof. Francis Boyle, writing recently for other nuclear weapons resisters, “International law is not ‘higher’ or separate law; it is part and parcel of the structure of federal law. The Supreme Court so held in the landmark decision in The Paquete Habana (1900), that was recently reaffirmed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in 2006.”

Contrary to modern military strategists, there is no such thing as a “limited nuclear war.” Nuclear weapons only produce massacres. Beginning with 8 to 10 million degrees at detonation, followed by indiscriminate mass destruction from blast effects, city-size mass fires (firestorms) in which nothing survives, and uncontrollable radiation poisoning that produces genetic damage unlimited by space or time, nuclear weapons are just massacre delivery systems.

International law has prohibited the planning and not just the commission of such massacres since 1946.

Professor Boyle wrote last November 1st: “The Judgment of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal meted out severe punishment in 1946 against individuals who, acting in full compliance with domestic law but in disregard of the limitations of international law, had committed war crimes and crimes against peace as defined in its Charter.”

The Nuremberg Charter and Principles apply to individual civilians like us and oblige individuals to disobey domestic laws that protect government crimes. And Nuremberg prohibits all “planning and preparation” of wars that violate international treaties.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit indiscriminate attacks on noncombatants, attacks on neutral states, and long-term damage to the environment. The 1907 Hague Conventions forbid the use of poison and poisoned weapons under any circumstances.

Under the 1970 NPT, it is prohibited for Germany to receive nuclear weapons from the United States and for the US to transfer them to Germany. Germany and the United States are both formal state parties to all of these Treaties.

“By implication,” Boyle explains, “the Nuremberg Judgment privileges all citizens of nations engaged in war crimes to act in a measured but effective way to prevent the continuing commission of those crimes. The same Nuremberg Privilege is recognized in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice which has been adopted as a Treaty (the United Nations Charter) by the United States” [and Germany]. In my opinion, such action certainly includes nonviolent exposure and inspection of sites of ongoing war crimes.”

Because nuclear weapons cannot be used without violating these binding international treaties; since Germany and United States at Büchel are planning and preparing war that violates these treaties; and because the Nuremberg Charter and Principles forbid this planning and preparation, and apply to civilians and military personnel alike, and hold citizens individually responsible; and require citizens to disobey illegal orders, to refuse participation in or ignore international crimes, civil resistance at Büchel is no offense but a civic duty, a lawful obligation, and an act of crime prevention.

In the courtroom, crowded with 40 people, the three-person “bench” (two lay volunteers and one criminal court judge) found Gerd guilty — but reduced his fine from 1,200 Euros to 750 — after making a yawning apology for “deterrence.” Prescient as ever, Professor Boyle’s latest book is, “The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence” (Clarity Press 2013).

John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and edits its newsletter.

January 27, 2019 Posted by | Book Review, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Of Suspected Spies & Cathedrals… and Western Media Hypocrisy

By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 27.01.2019

It’s hilarious to see the double standards of Western media applied in the case of alleged American spy Paul Whelan who is being detained in Russia and facing trial.

Whelan, a former US marine, was denied bail this week in a Moscow court after it emerged that he had been found in possession of state secrets while supposedly holidaying in Russia.

Western media widely aired the theory that the American man has been “set up” by Russian state security after he had received a USB computer stick from someone while staying in a Moscow hotel last month. The person whom he received the disk from has not been identified, but presumably he or she was known to the American, otherwise why would he have accepted the item?

Whelan claims he was in Russia as a tourist and that he didn’t check the contents of the computer mini-disk at the time because he assumed it contained “images of a cathedral he had visited”. He was reportedly arrested soon after receipt of the disk, on December 28, by Federal Security Service (FSB) officers.

This sounds eerily familiar. Remember the two Russian men who visited Salisbury in March last year at around the time of the alleged poisoning of former Kremlin spy Sergei Skripal? Months later, those two men were identified as “suspects” on British CCTV cameras whose images were broadcast by media. Both then promptly came forward to give an interview to Russian media in order to clear their names, which they confirmed as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.

Petrov and Boshirov claimed they were in Salisbury around March 4 as tourists, not as Kremlin assassins as the British media were sensationally alleging. Asked why they were in Salisbury, the pair said it was to visit the medieval English town’s “famous cathedral” and its 123-meter spire.

The immediate reaction by British media in particular was to pour scorn and ridicule on the men’s story. The British government rubbished their claim as “obfuscation and lies”. Journalists and pundits lambasted the pair with guffaws and mockery.

Petrov and Boshirov denied they had any involvement in the alleged poisoning of Skripal – supposedly with a deadly Soviet nerve agent – and they said they were not Kremlin agents but rather worked in the sports nutrition business.

There is no indication thus far that the men’s story is false. Also, what really happened to Skripal and his daughter Yulia remains a mystery since the British authorities won’t reveal where they are – 10 months after the alleged poisoning incident.

The only follow-up media report on the Russian men’s alleged security service affiliation was by the dubious UK-based Bellingcat website, which has a history of fabricating anti-Russian propaganda, such as alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria and the alleged shooting down by Russian-backed separatists of a Malaysian civilian airliner in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

In the case of Paul Whelan, a former US elite soldier who possesses four passports and who apparently visited Russia several times and had become familiar with the country, he is permitted by Western media to plead his innocence invoking an interest in cathedrals and churches. Not a wink of skepticism here.

However, in the case Petrov and Boshirov, who have no known background in military, they are immediately scoffed at for their declared interest in Salisbury’s medieval cathedral, which by the way is world famous and attracts thousands of visitors every year, including many Russian tourists.

What’s more, in the case of Whelan, the Western media has gone further to report that he is being set up by Russian agents, who planted the state secrets in the USB disk. It is speculated in the Western media that the Kremlin is using the American as a bargaining chip in a potential prisoner-exchange deal for Russian citizen Maria Butina. Butina was jailed at the end of last year in the US after she pleaded guilty to espionage charges, following months of isolated detention. The Kremlin said she had no association with its agencies.

Moscow categorically denies that there is an ulterior agenda for doing a prisoner swap. Russian authorities have said that Whelan was simply “caught red-handed” with state secrets and is being prosecuted accordingly. The classified information is believed to contain the names of individuals who work for Russian secret services.

Whelan’s family back in the US maintain he is innocent and that he was in Russia to attend the wedding of a friend. If found guilty, he could be facing up to 10-20 years in jail.

Who knows, maybe the American was set up in a dirty game of state intrigue.

The case of Maria Butina appears to be a disturbing one of the American state framing up a Russian citizen to bolster a political agenda of alleged Russian interference in US elections. Her pre-trial detention in solitary confinement certainly amounts to a form of psychological torture to pressure a confession. Butina is facing several years in prison, despite many observers considering her to be innocent.

But one thing seems glaringly obvious: the double standard being used by Western media which is borne out of its relentless Russophobia.

A former US marine is seen as a plausible tourist interested in viewing cathedrals whom, the Western media claim, is now being persecuted by despotic Russian authorities; while two Russian civilians are pilloried for plying a “ridiculous cover story” about Salisbury’s 123-meter spire.

January 27, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | 3 Comments

US to spend $500bn on nuclear weapons upgrade over next 10 years

Press TV – January 27, 2019

A new US government estimate has found that Washington’s plans for modernizing and maintaining the country’s nuclear arsenal will cost nearly $500 billion over the next decade.

The exact nuclear weapons upgrade cost assessment stands at $494 billion, which is part of a biannual estimate produced by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and reflects a 23-percent increase over the previous estimate of $400 billion released in 2017, which was 15 percent more than the 2015 figure, US-based military journal Defense News reported Friday.

The report points out, however, that the whopping figure for the US nuclear arms upgrade only represents nearly six percent of the country’s overall projected military spending during the time period.

According to the report, three notable changes featured in Washington’s so-called Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) were the development of a low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile, development of a new sea-launched cruise missile and increased plutonium pit production, further adding that they resulted in an estimated $17 billion cost increase over the time period.

It also emphasized that the figure could further increase should the Trump administration follow through on plans in the NPR to keep the B83 nuclear bomb in service longer than intended, or if it develops a land-based nuclear cruise missile following an expected US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia.

Overall, the report adds, the US Defense Department and the Department of Energy (DOE) intend to spend the funds in the following way:

  • $234 billion on strategic nuclear delivery systems and weapons — including submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles and long-range bombers – as well as the nuclear warheads for use from those systems, and DOE’s funding of nuclear reactors for the submarine fleet.
  • $15 billion on tactical nuclear delivery systems and weapons, including tactical aircraft for delivering weapons, management of the warheads for those tactical aircraft; and funding for the new submarine-launched cruise missile.
  • $106 billion for DOE’s nuclear weapons laboratories and production facilities, where the US stockpile of nuclear warheads are maintained and developed.
  • $77 billion on nuclear command, control, commutations and early warning systems, used to coordinate any nuclear-related issues. This is while Pentagon officials have warned over the past two years that its nuclear command and control is at risk of being outdated without major investments.

The report also points out that the remaining $62 billion in projected costs come from “CBO’s estimate of additional costs that would be incurred over the 2019–2028 period if the costs of nuclear programs exceeded planned amounts at roughly the same rates at which costs for similar programs have grown in the past.”

January 27, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | | 1 Comment

Russia Aims To Attract $28B Investment In Power Plant Upgrades

By Tsvetana Paraskova | Oilprice.com | January 24, 2019

Russia’s government approved on Thursday a ten-year modernization program for Russian power plants, expected to attract US$28.8 billion (1.9 trillion Russian rubles) in private investments in the sector, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said.

The government approved today a plan by the Russian Energy Ministry to upgrade nearly 40 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity, which accounts for around 16 percent of Russia’s total installed generation capacity, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said. The project will run through 2031, Medvedev added, noting that Moscow plans to have long-term predictability in electricity prices to provide businesses with long-term predictability of energy costs.

Novak, for his part, said that the program will run between 2022 and 2031. The first competitive selection will be held for 11 GW in April or May, with power supply expected to start in 2022-2024.

Russia’s key selection criteria for equipment will be the low cost per kWh, Novak noted. The modernization program will also aim to have as much domestic equipment and engineering as possible, the energy minister added.

According to the BP Energy Outlook 2018, natural gas will stay the leading fuel in Russia’s power generation through 2040. The share of natural gas, however, will drop slightly from 54 percent in 2016 to 53 percent in 2040. The share of nuclear power in Russia’s power mix is expected to grow to 19 percent by 2040 from 15 percent now, and the share of hydropower generation is seen flat at 15 percent. The share of coal in Russia’s power generation will drop from 14 percent to 8 percent in 2040, according to BP. Despite the fact that renewables will soar by more than 7,500 percent by 2040, renewable energy will contribute just 2 percent to Russia’s primary energy demand in 2040, compared with 17 percent on average among the other BRIC nations (Brazil, India, China).

Russia will also remain one of the leading fossil fuels producers in the world through 2040, with a share of 14 percent of both global oil and gas production, BP says.

January 27, 2019 Posted by | Economics | | Leave a comment

More Child Exploitation as the Globalist Climate Project Creates its very own Bana Persona

By Barbara McKenzie | December 15, 2018

People who followed with awful fascination the Bana account, designed to facilitate the destruction of Syria, will have a sense of deja vu at the arrival on the ‘climate’ scene of another shocking example of cynical child exploitation and manipulation: that of Swedish girl Greta Thunberg.

The Bana Alabed twitter account tweeted ostensibly from Aleppo in the months leading up to its liberation from terrorist forces. Her task was to claim war crimes on the part of “Assad” and Russia and demand action on Syria from world leaders, WIII if necessary, but at least a Libya-style “no-fly-zone”.

War: what’s in a word? | IRRUSSIANALITY

From the age of seven Bana Alabed has been shamelessly exploited by the world’s media, forced to dissemble, to take part in bogus interviews where she clearly had no idea of what she was saying, and to pose with a series of mature men from terrorists to Erdogan to UNICEF’s Justin Forsyth. Although she became a citizen of Turkey, there is no evidence that Bana has ever been to school in Turkey, or given the opportunity to learn the Turkish language,. Instead, she has been given the star treatment, appearing at conferences and flying all over the world (The Crucifixion of Bana Alabed). At the same time her role as a puppet exposes her to eternal ridicule.

We are now being treated to another gruesome spectacle of child abuse, the creation of the Greta Thunberg persona. At 15 Greta is older than Bana, but is self-described as suffering from Asperger’s syndrome, a fact which if anything appears to make the exploitation more acceptable in the eyes of the mainstream and ‘alternative’ media). Bana has been a media star from the age of seven – all the signs indicate that normal life is over for Greta Thunberg too. (For further information on Greta, she now has her own Wikipedia page, in eight languages.)

Greta Thunberg’s function is not to call for destruction, but on the contrary, to warn of impending doom for the planet if we do not do something about CO2 – presumably something which gives more power to the United Nations and helps pave the way for global government. She first hit the headlines with a call to school children to strike to save the climate.

Being both older and a citizen of Sweden, many of the flaws in the Bana accounts are not obvious with Greta. When her account opened Bana’s spoken English was non-existent, and so the contrast between the speech in her videos and the perfectly idiomatic English of her tweets was positively embarrassing. In the case of Greta, however, one could argue that a well-educated Swedish girl might just have the immaculate English of her speeches. Furthermore, the completely passionless delivery of her claims of ‘climate breakdown’ and fast-approaching ‘extinction’ can be put down to her Asperger’s Syndrome.

As with the Bana account, but even more so, Greta’s social media accounts are completely focused on the task in hand (creating ‘climate panic’ in defiance of the facts), and certainly nothing like what might be expected from a 15 year-old, Aspergers or no Aspergers. The Facebook account is series of self-promotional posts with no interraction with comments. The list of people that Greta follows on twitter parallels in an eerie fashion those favoured by Bana Aalbed: world leaders and major political figures such as Antonio Guterres and Bernie Sanders, climate and environment accounts like Soros-funded Greenpeace and WWF (i.e. all supporting the UN’s climate/world government project), like-minded celebrities such as Michael Moore and Ricky Gervais, and like-minded media such as the Guardian.

Bana was never more than media and political spin, promoted by the likes of the New York Times and the BBC, as well of course by the United Nations, but without any mass following. Although she bought up thousands of twitter followers, the majority of comments on her tweets came either from critics or from obvious trolls or bots with a handful of followers. At the very least the same thing will happen with Greta, however the plan is more ambitious. There are clearly genuine hopes of galvanising the world’s youth in her support.

Greta works in tandem with Extinction Rebellion (XR), which appears to be the climate cult’s Antifa, promoting civil disobedience in order to force action on the ‘climate emergency’ (see Frances Leader, From Occupy to Extinction Rebellion: Exposing the Common Purpose).

Within a few short months Greta’s stature was such that she was invited to address the UN’s Climate Change Conference at Katowice, making her plea for ‘climate justice’.

Extinction Rebellion and Greta are both heavily promoted by media specialising in climate catastrophism, from the Guardian’s George Monbiot

to ‘independent analysts’ Media Lens.

Greta was motivated, it seems, by a heatwave in Sweden, due of course to “climate change” -never mind the fact that Swedish high temperature records go back many decades, still unbroken by July 2018, which is hardly consistent with runaway global warming whatever may have happened later that summer.

Sweden June July August high temperature records

Greta’s very first tweet back in June 2018 was to post an article (in English of course) which warned that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.

For the first time in 33 million years, it seems, we are almost at a point where there is no ice at either pole. ‘The chance that there will be any permanent ice left in the Arctic after 2022 is essentially zero,[…] with 75 to 80 percent of permanent ice having melted already in the last 35 years’.

This is obviously claptrap, the Arctic was never anywhere melting away, and latest reports indicate that the poles are putting on ice. The earth has not returned to the temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period when Greenland was colonised – how can we be approaching temperatures not seen in 33 million years?

Being both older and a citizen of Sweden, many of the flaws in the Bana accounts are not obvious with Greta. When her account opened Bana’s spoken English was non-existent, and so the contrast between the speech in her videos and the perfectly idiomatic English of her tweets was positively embarrassing. In the case of Greta, however, one could argue that a well-educated Swedish girl might just have the immaculate English of her speeches. Furthermore, the completely passionless delivery can be put down to her Asperger’s Syndrome.

As with the Bana account, Greta’s social media accounts are completely focused on the task in hand (creating ‘climate panic’ in defiance of the facts), and certainly nothing like what might be expected from a 15 year-old, Aspergers or no Aspergers. The list of people that Greta follows on twitter parallels in an eerie fashion those favoured by Bana: world leaders and major political figures such as Antonio Guterres and Bernie Sanders, climate and environment accounts like Soros-funded Greenpeace and WWF (i.e. all supporting the UN’s climate/world government project), like-minded celebrities such as Michael Moore and Ricky Gervais, and like-minded media such as the Guardian.

As with the Bana account, there is growing concern at the unashamed exploitation of Greta Thunberg:

The spectacle of the globalist media using a young girl in order to panic the world into giving more power to the United Nations is both bizarre and horrifying.

Thousands of the world’s scientists (see here and here) have called climate alarmism a hoax. However, ludicrous as it may seem, we are expected to ignore the facts about geological history, Co2 and global climate, and to follow the lead of a 15 year old who parrots arrant nonsense embedded in unending cliché, on the say-so of the likes of George Monbiot and Media Lens, the very people who have themselves been parroting the same nonsense for years.

And as with Bana Alabed, the media serving the globalist agenda have absolutely no qualms about the callous exploitation and manipulation of a child in order to further the goal of world government.

See also:

Jamie Spry, Global Warming Is The Greatest And Most Successful Pseudoscientific Fraud In History

Windows on the World have produced a series of articles and videos on Extinction Rebellion, see Globalist Fake Revolution

A large number of people have pointed out the function of the climate scare is actually to scare the world’s populace into accepting an ever increasing role for the United Nations, and eventually global government by the Club of Rome elite that control the corrupt United Nations bureaucracy. See for example Agenda 21: The Plan for a Global Fascist Dictatorship. or Maurice Newman, The Corrupted UN Must Not Be Allowed to Lecture Us.

January 26, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Russian Ambassador Says Reports on Alleged Russian Mercenaries in Venezuela Hoax

Sputnik – 26.01.2019

Russian Ambassador in Caracas Vladimir Zaemsky slammed on Friday in a conversation with Sputnik media reports about alleged presence of “private military contractors” from Russia in Venezuela as “another hoax.

“I don’t know about the presence of any Russian private military companies in Venezuela. This is another hoax,” Zaemskiy said.

Earlier in the day, Reuters news agency reported, citing anonymous sources, that “private military contractors who do secret missions for Russia” had recently arrived in Venezuela, which is currently going through a political crisis, to boost safety of the country’s incumbent president, Nicolas Maduro.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters that Kremlin had “no such information.”

On Tuesday, the opposition-run Venezuelan National Assembly adopted a statement declaring President Nicolas Maduro a “dictator.” On Wednesday, opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself the country’s interim president at a mass rally in Caracas. The United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile and Colombia, among others, have recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president, while some other countries, including Russia and Mexico, expressed support for incumbent President Maduro.

January 26, 2019 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | 2 Comments

AMLO Offers to Mediate Between Venezuelan Gov’t and Opposition

teleSUR | January 25, 2019

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador declared Friday his government’s willingness to mediate in the Venezuelan political conflict if the parties request it and without violating the self-determination principle adopted by his administration.

When journalists asked him about the issue during his routine morning conference, Lopez Obrador reminded the public that the Mexican Constitution’s Article 89 establishes that the foreign policy should stick to the principles of non-intervention, self-determination and peaceful solution of controversies.

“It doesn’t mean we’re in favor or against anyone. We’re here to defend the constitutional principles of foreign policy,” he explained.

He was then questioned about his previous idea of mediating the dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition, and declared he would be willing to it.

“We will respect our principles and if the parts requested, we’re at the best disposition to help for a dialogue,” he declared.

The Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard already has instructions to “support within our means, without interfering in the conflict,” and without taking sides, said Lopez Obrador.

“This is related to a historical tradition of foreign policy in our country. We shouldn’t interfere with the affairs of other peoples and nations because we want no hegemony, no foreign government, interfering in the issues that belong to Mexicans only,” said the president.

Establishing a key difference between his administration and the previous three, led by Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderon and Enrique Peña Nieto, Lopez Obrador reiterated his firm position.

“If at some point in time they deviated from this principles, we won’t do it. We won’t act violating, breaking with constitutional principles of foreign policy,” he declared.

The Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said he agrees with the initiative of a new set of dialogues with the opposition to deal with the country’s political and economic affairs.

“The governments of Mexico and Uruguay proposed to launch an international initiative to promote a dialogue between the Venezuelan parts… I say to you publicly that I agree,” said Maduro during a speech at the Supreme Justice Court.

Mexico and Uruguay issued a joint statement calling for Venezuelans to “find a peaceful and democratic solution to the complex context” that the faced in the South American country.

Both governments refused to recognize the opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido as the “interim president” of the Bolivarian republic, maintaining its recognition for Maduro.

“The governments of Uruguay and Mexico call for all the involved parts, within the country and abroad, to reduce tensions and avoid an escalation of violence that could worsen the situation,” says the statement.

Tensions increased when Guaido declared Friday he would appropriate the faculties of the executive branch to combat the “usurpation” by Maduro.

January 26, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

The Vultures of Caracas

By Craig Murray | January 26, 2019

We are frequently told that people in Venezuela have no food, clothing or toilet paper, and that popular discontent with the left wing government is driven by real hunger. There are elements of truth in this story, though the causes of economic dislocation are far more complex than the media would have us believe.

But I ask you to look at this photo of supporters of CIA poster-boy, the West’s puppet unelected “President” Juan Guaido, taken at a Guaido rally in Caracas two days ago and published yesterday in security services house journal The Guardian. Please take a really close look at the photo. Blow it up as big as you can. Scan individual people in the crowd, one by one.

These are not the poor and most certainly not the starving. As it chances I have a great deal of life experience working amongst seriously deprived, hungry and despairing people. I know the gaunt face of want and the desperate glance of need. Look at these Guaido supporters, one by one by one. This designer spectacled, well-coiffed, elegantly dressed, sleekly jowled group does not know hunger. This group does not know want. This is a proper right wing gathering, a gathering of the nicely off section of society. This is a group of those who have corruptly been siphoning Venezuela’s great wealth for decades and who want to make sure the gravy train flows properly in their direction again. It is, in short, a group of exactly the kind of people you would expect to support a CIA coup.

Those manicured hands raised in the air will never throw rocks, or get involved in violence unless against a peasant strapped to a chair for them. It is not this crowd which will suffer as public disorder is manipulated and directed by the CIA. These wealthy ones are immune, just as Davos serves as nothing but an annual reminder of how very poorly God aims avalanches.

There is real suffering in Venezuela. The CIA is working hard to stoke violence, and the genuine poor will soon start to die, both in those egged on to riot and in the security services. But do not get taken in by the complete nonsense that this is a popular, democratic revolution. It is not. It is yet another barefaced CIA regime change coup.

UPDATE Such wisdom as this blog finds is often crowd-source, and with thanks to a commenter below here is some useful information from Jill Stein.

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January 26, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

McCain May Be Dead, but ‘Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran’ Still Resounds

By Brian CLOUGHLEY | Strategic Culture Foundation | 26.01.2019

In 2007, when making a speech during his bid for the presidency of the United States, the late Senator John McCain spoke about Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons’ programme and when questioned as to whether there might be US reaction to such allegations responded by singing “That old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran… bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb.”

This jovial retort about killing people by bombing them was not surprising to those who remembered that during the US war on Vietnam McCain was shot down on a mission to bomb a power generation plant in Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, in the course of the entrancingly-named Operation Rolling Thunder.  If he hadn’t been shot down before he released his bombs there would almost certainly have been civilian casualties and deaths. Power stations in cities are not manned by soldiers, after all, and around the Hanoi plant there were houses that would doubtless be struck by errant bombs.

But who cares about civilians who are killed or maimed in bombing or rocket attacks?

In Syria, for example, in October 2018 “the US-led coalition was responsible for 46% of civilian casualties from all explosive weapon use in Syria.”  And in November Reuters reported that “At least 30 Afghan civilians were killed in US air strikes in the Afghan province of Helmand, officials and residents of the area said on Wednesday, the latest casualties from a surge in air operations aimed at driving the Taliban into talks.”

Forbes records that “the US has never dropped as many bombs on Afghanistan as it did this year. According to U.S. Air Forces Central Command data, manned and unmanned aircraft released 5,213 weapons between January and the end of September 2018. The UN announced that the number of civilian casualties in the first nine months of 2018 is higher than in any year since it started documenting them in 2009.”  On January 25 Defense Post reported that “Afghanistan is investigating reports that at least 16 civilians including women and children were killed in an airstrike in southern Helmand province, the defense ministry said in a statement.” On and on its goes — Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Afghanistan.

There’s nothing new in this, so far as US Secretary of State Pompeo is concerned. As a member of Congress in 2014 he made it clear that he was one of the bombing club. As The Nation reported, “Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS), participating in the same [Foreign Affairs Committee] roundtable, urged the United States and its allies to strongly consider a pre-emptive bombing campaign of Iran’s nuclear sites. He said ‘In an unclassified setting, it is under 2,000 sorties to destroy the Iranian nuclear capacity. This is not an insurmountable task for the coalition forces’.”

The fact that when Pompeo was asked at a US Senate hearing in April 2018 if he was supportive of a preemptive strike on Iran he declared “I’m not. I’m absolutely not” is indicative only of the fact that he is given to duplicity.

Which brings us to Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, who has been an advocate of bombing for many years. He is the man who declared in November 2002 that “We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq” and four weeks before the US invaded Iraq, according to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper in February 2003, “US Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials on Monday that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards.”

Iraq was duly bombed and rocketed and reduced to chaos, and Bolton was totally unrepentant. In an article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph in 2016 he pronounced that “Iraq today suffers not from the 2003 invasion, but from the 2011 withdrawal of all US combat forces. What strengthened Iran’s hand in Iraq was not the absence of Saddam [Hussein], but the absence of coalition troops with a writ to crush efforts by the ayatollahs to support and arm Shi’ite militias. When US forces left, the last possibility of Iraq succeeding as a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional state left with them. Don’t blame Tony Blair and George W Bush for that failure. Blame their successors.”

In November 2016 Bolton was aptly described by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough as “a massive neocon on steroids” but the Financial Times argues that he is not a neocon, because “Neocons believe US values should be universal. Mr Bolton believes in aggressive promotion of the US national interest, which is quite different.” Be that as it may, there are some things that are certain, such as that Bolton is a rabid warmonger who avoided serving in Vietnam just like Donald Trump and George W Bush and Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney and many others. (And here it has to be said that my feelings are strong about this, having served in Vietnam in the Australian Army in 1970-71.)

As noted by the Daily News of his Alma Mater, Yale, “though Bolton supported the Vietnam War, he declined to enter combat duty, instead enlisting in the National Guard and attending law school after his 1970 graduation. ‘I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy,’ Bolton wrote of his decision in the 25th reunion book. ‘I considered the war in Vietnam already lost’.” But now that it is obvious that Washington lost its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bolton is ready for another one.

In July 2018, while tension between the US and Iran was heightening, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, warned Washington about pursuing a hostile policy against his country, saying “Mr Trump, don’t play with the lion’s tail, this would only lead to regret… America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” That was a red rag to a bull, and Trump responded in his normal way by tweeting “To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)”

That is frightening. Any world leader who tweets such things as “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” is verging on the psychotic. And, in his own words, the demented.

Trump’s former foreign policy officials were not altogether in favour of having Iran and North Korea suffer unspecified but obviously terrifying consequences for having expressed its views on Trump policy, but now, as the BBC notes, “Mr Trump has built a foreign policy team that is largely on the same page — his page.”

That’s the Fire and Fury Page, and it’s being proof-read and expanded by Pompeo and Bolton. Stand by for Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran.

January 26, 2019 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | 4 Comments

Iran Defies French Sanctions Threat, Accuses Paris of Destabilising Mideast

Sputnik – January 26, 2019

Iranian authorities have said repeatedly that the country’s rocketry and missile testing activities were in full compliance with international treaties, including the UN Security Council resolution governing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Tehran will be forced to reconsider its relations with European powers if they impose any new sanctions against Iran over its missile testing activities, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi has said.

“Iran has always sought to consolidate peace and stability in the region, and believes the mass sale of sophisticated and aggressive weapons by the US and some European countries, including France, have undermined stability and balance in the region,” the diplomat indicated, according to PressTV.

Qassemi’s remarks follow comments by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Friday that Paris would impose fresh sanctions against Tehran if talks over Iran’s missile program don’t pan out. “We are ready, if the talks don’t yield results, to apply sanctions firmly, and they know it,” Le Drian said.

Emphasizing that Iran’s military capabilities were governed by a defensive “doctrine of deterrence,” Qassemi said that Iran had “designed its defence capabilities based on a realistic assessment of existing threats,” and would strengthen these capabilities if necessary.

“Iran’s missile capability is not negotiable, and this has been brought to the attention of the French side during the ongoing political dialogue between Iran and France,” Qassemi stressed.

Earlier, diplomats speaking to Reuters said that the EU was mulling new sanctions against Iran over its missile program, with the possible restrictions including asset freezes and travel bans on members of the Revolutionary Guards and individuals connected to the country’s missile program. The US, which unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Iran nuclear deal last May, has warned Iran not to engage in testing activities, and lobbied the EU to sanction Tehran.

Iranian officials have repeatedly indicated that their missile program was in line with the terms of the JCPOA and the UN resolution governing it, and indicated that Iran’s missile capabilities were not up for negotiation. Iran has amassed a large arsenal of conventional short, medium and long-range missile systems which it insists are purely defensive in nature. Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Tehran of “defying” the international community, and alleged that Iran was “pursuing enhanced missile capabilities that threaten Europe and the Middle East.”

January 26, 2019 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

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