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‘Expulsion of Russian diplomats over Berlin murder case suits trend of blaming Moscow for everything, whether it’s true or not’

RT | December 5, 2019

Germany seems to be joining the cohort of those playing the old-time blame-Russia game, having expelled two diplomats citing Moscow’s unwillingness to help probe a murder of a suspected terrorist on its soil.

On a sunny day in August, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili – formerly a Chechen militant suspected of terrorist activity in Russia and a Georgian national – set off for his last walk through the Kleiner Tiergarten park located in one of Berlin’s central boroughs. Not long after that, he was shot dead in broad daylight by an assassin who allegedly used a silenced pistol to do the job.

The high-profile murder case returned to the spotlight when Berlin made a bold move expelling two Russian diplomats.

The official rationale was that “we’ve not seen that Russia backs us in inquiring into the murder,” as Chancellor Angela Merkel mildly put it. Germany’s Foreign Office, on their part, echoed Merkel’s points but stated that “serious and immediate participation by the Russian authorities is still required.”

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow was surprised by Berlin’s accusations, telling the press he couldn’t comprehend what led Germany to believe Russia was involved in the killing.

“We have communications channels set up for our law enforcement agencies … these should be used. If our German partners claim that Russia doesn’t cooperate enough, I don’t know what that assessment is based upon.”

The Prosecutor General’s Office that took over the probe claimed of having “sufficient factual evidence that the killing may have been ordered by state authorities of the Russian Federation or the autonomous Republic of Chechnya which is a part of Russia.” They have not revealed any details.

Berlin was “absolutely reluctant” to deteriorate its relationships with Russia which “are not in as good shape as they ought to be,” according to political analyst Dr. Werner Patzelt. Thus, he believes expelling the diplomats “was something like a final resort” to make Moscow co-operate.

But the fact that no evidence was presented made some German politicians very uneasy.

“That the federal government singles out two Russian diplomats, although the investigation is still going on, is difficult to understand without having clear information,” said Alexander Lambsdorff, vice-president of the Free Democrats’ (FDP) parliamentary group.

The media immediately started making comparisons with the Skripal poisoning saga over the Russian connection. There’s one similarity with the British case – there was no evidence presented to the public, but the blaming started immediately.

For years, there has been a “tendency to blame Russia for this and that, beginning with the putsch in Kiev, and the MH17 crash in Ukraine, the Skripal case and now this,” Willy Wimmer, former Vice President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, told RT.

Western Europeans are concerned “that everything is used to blame Russia whether it’s true or not,” he argued. The German authorities who expelled the Russian diplomats, “have to say more,” Wimmer urged, adding, “they have to explain why they did it and if there is really enough evidence to create problems for our diplomatic relations.”

Germany has been under pressure the US and some other Western allies over its business relations with Russia, in particular the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline that Washington pledged to sanction.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

French Black Bloc’s utter uselessness… except to the French government

By Ramin Mazaheri – The Saker Blog – December 5, 2019

On December 5th France’s long, long, LONG-awaited General Strike against austerity measures began, and it was a huge success: 90% of trains were shut down nationwide, there was an unprecedented walk out by teachers, and as many as 1.5 million people marched despite temperatures near zero.

And yet the march in Paris was a total failure.

For nearly four hours I watched perhaps 500 Black Bloc members hijack the front of the march and stop an estimated 250,000 people from moving.

Just 500 unarmed Black Bloc – not battle-hardened, insane Daesh terrorists – stopped a quarter million people from advancing for FOUR hours!

The length of the delay was the only really notable aspect, because as far as violent demonstrations in Paris go it was pretty tame. A big reason for that is because the bottleneck Black Bloc chose meant cops couldn’t attack them from many angles.

However, I restate the facts: not Daesh, not armed, 1 Black Bloc for every 250 protesters, 4 hours of protester kettling (if you want to call one-way kettling, “kettling”).

December 5th was thus obviously a major victory for Black Bloc and their online propaganda, and for another reason as well: The bottleneck was also right in front one of the biggest union community centres in Paris. Black Bloc overturned a huge construction trailer and set it ablaze right in front of the center, which I’m sure is covered in black smoke tonight. Clearly, Black Bloc was expressing their total disregard for the unions and trying to say on a day which was to be lead by unions that Black Bloc was more powerful.

That’s understandable, for reasons I’ve listed here and elsewhere. This puts Black Bloc on the side of the Yellow Vests.

But only on this issue. The huge, flaming difference is that Yellow Vests are not about to violate the human right of their fellow citizens to march, AND on such an important day, AND at a protest where the whole point is to show how united the nation’s masses are against the 1%.

Hijacking the march simply defied logic of all who reject violent anarchism as a political goal: On Day 1 of the General Strike the whole point was to show Emmanuel Macron that national unity was strong enough to force the withdrawal of the still shrouded in mystery, far-right neoliberal, never before seen anywhere in the world, one-size-fits-all pension system. The demand of the protest couldn’t have been more nationally ratified, and yet Black Bloc’s actions showed that they insist that THEY are the vanguard party which is allowed to reject any democratically national ratification of something as important as preventing old-age poverty.

Do Black Blockers not want a pension, too?

They don’t matter: there are only 2 questions for Parisians to ask tonight.

How did this happen? What should be done?

There are only a few explanations possible for why 500 Black Bloc should have overpowered the 7-8000 cops drafted to be in Paris that day:

1) Black Bloc is better armed.

This is absolutely not the case, and it just takes one look at a French riot cop to agree. Their entire bodies are defended from pain, whereas Black Bloc usually only has a mask. As far as offensive weapons Black Bloc doesn’t have many of those – otherwise, why were we all watching them break down a bus stop with their hands and feet a few hours ago? Why are they always digging up pavement for rocks to throw? Since the Bataclan attacks and subsequent 2-year state of emergency there are up to 10,000 warrantless searches of protesters at every major demonstration in France to prevent the appearance of violent weapons.

2) French cops are cowards.

They simply didn’t want to take them on, despite having far greater numbers, offensive weapons and defensive protection. Countless times I have heard this from Yellow Vests, who are pointing to Black Bloc, then to cops, then asking me to explain why cops aren’t earning their taxpayer-funded salaries and huge benefits.

3) French cops have orders from above to not engage with Black Bloc.

This is obviously partly the answer. Time after time French cops have stood and stared as Black Bloc tore up public property. At at the 1-year anniversary march last month cops watched Black Bloc deface a national monument and tear it apart for projectiles – all cops cared about was keeping protesters trapped inside the roundabout so they could not protest peacefully: Violence discredits protesters with the average person, obviously, and so cops/the government purposely provoke situations of violence/allows them to continue. On December 5th it was nearly three hours before cops seriously tried to disperse Black Bloc so that protest could take place.

4) Black Bloc is infiltrated by cops.

This is what everybody says, and why shouldn’t we believe it? If three or four young cops dress in black and all stand together, everybody in Black Bloc will obviously think: “Well, he must be ok, he’s got a few friends.” This is what I have long attested because I have seen Black Bloc commit crimes and do such absurd actions that nobody who gave a damn about any of the protest goals would possibly commit them, such were the heinousness of said actions. Attacking the Necker Childrens’ Hospital in 2016, at the height of the labor code rollback protests, is the most flagrant example I have debunked, but I have witnessed countless others.

Everybody knew Black Bloc was coming December 5th. Everyone also knew they were coming on May 1, world climate march day in September, the Yellow Vest 1-year anniversary and multiple other Yellow Vest days earlier in the year, and yet Black Bloc ran amok on all of them, except on May 1.

I say they didn’t dominate on May 1 because that was still quite close to when the Yellow Vests were really big: in late March the government started banning protests, gave orders to cops initiate “engagement” with protesters, and basically scared the average person away via threats of arrests, searches, fines, prison sentences, tons of tear gas and bodily harm. So May 1 was simply lined with cops from start to finish, and they ultimately kettled everyone section by section, which also prevented a united march and which also provoked the Salpêtrière Hospital Hoax, which I throughly debunked here.

Everybody knows Black Bloc is coming because these teenagers/young adults are all bragging about it online openly. There were obvious solutions to stop them, none of which are even taken.

Solutions to protect the right to protest… which are never taken

1) Put a 1,000-strong police contingent at the front of the march.

This is obviously not desirable, but at what point does France become wiling to sacrifice aesthetics for a successful, peaceful protest? The French adore their aesthetics, and this is why they keep losing and have become so faithless but sell out painting museums, but shouldn’t peace and order prevail?

2) Forbid anyone wearing all black from marching, or at least from congregating in large numbers.

This not only violates French ideas of the vital necessity of fashion rights, but also their notion of liberty of expression. What they fail to realise is that they are caring more about liberty of personal expression than they are about the human right to demonstrate – which is the highest social expression there is: political – and on a macro level.

3) Demand unions provide security, if they don’t want cops to be there.

The head of the cortege is reserved for the union bigwigs – they are not going to push past Black Bloc. To me, this makes them not worthy of bigwiggedness, but if security cannot be ensured at the head of the cortege they have to fall back behind their own security members. I have zero doubt that rail workers and steel workers are tougher than Black Bloc – this type of union security is always present at such demos for the union elite and they do not mess around. Unions have to provide better security.

4) Citizens must stand up and push past Black Bloc.

Ultimately, the only way to defeat Black Bloc is if the average citizen pushes past them time after time. Full stop.

It is clear that cops are not going to help.

Union security most likely pleads that this is the cops’ job, so they are not going to help either.

And the People should have pushed past them on December 5: I couldn’t believe how long they waited. I would have pushed past them out of sheer annoyance! Out of sheer cold, just to get the blood moving! For three consecutive hours I did live interviews at the same place at Place de la Republique. “Who on earth is leading this demonstration, and why are they just standing there and not rallying the troops,” I wondered repeatedly?!

The discrediting of protests by Black Bloc is a tactic which is old, obvious and a guaranteed winner for the reactionary side. There is absolutely no reason why the huge, huge crowd – I initially wondered if it was the biggest since Charlie Hebdo, it was so big – chose to wait 4 hours just 20 meters from wide-open Place de la Republique.

Therefore, if cops, unions and the government are unwilling to confront Black Bloc it is the job of media to encourage all citizens to push past them and to not be pushed around them.

Before you start to laugh… I know such a call will never be voiced by France’s Mainstream Media. That is a shame – it would work, such a media campaign. What else can I do but my little part here?

I can’t stress enough how much protesters – especially the truly politically engaged ones – hate Black Bloc for discrediting them. They told me to discredit them in my PressTV report, and I did, and with their willing quotes.

The people who liked Black Bloc on December 5 were the young students…who are NEVER at Yellow Vest demonstrations, as I explained here. These newbies thought the rather piddling level of smashing and the 2 or 3 fires were some kind of big deal. To that I say “Hah! The damage was way, way, way worse at least 20 other times this year but you, young Paris punk, were too cool or too scared to join us.” I must admit that Black Bloc provides a beat-up protester populace, like the Yellow Vests, with a sense of satisfaction: “Yeah, give the cops a taste of their own medicine,” is a thought impossible not to have when you have been tear gassed all day… and all month, and all year. However, Johnny-come-lately students have done NOTHING to merit a sense of justified revenge – therefore, they are merely revelling in excitement and sensuality, in typical Parisian fashion, to the total detriment of a national political movement.

The General Strike is the union’s baby – either they win, or they lose face nationally in a perhaps fatal fashion, meaning nobody will take them seriously anymore (the Yellow Vests already don’t). The Yellow Vests are secondary now, and they are happy, mostly, to “converge forces”, finally: they tried to force the government’s hand and could only win some minor concessions but they all know that they obviously, undoubtedly provided the spark for the General Strike. They have redeemed France’s revolutionary heritage (which I explained here).

What Black Bloc did was pure thuggery because all they wanted to do was show their force. That’s what thugs do – thugs are thugs because they are willing to use violence where and at levels normal, good people will not. But a thug’s victory is small potatoes, and short-lived.

They were in charge of the union-led protest for a few hours, but they didn’t possibly overtake the lead of the unions on the General Strike issue: no worker is abandoning their union’s counsel for Black Bloc’s online ranting about “revolution” because of what occurred in Paris on December 5. Their actions were pure self-aggrandisement or sabotage of national unity, and the vast majority of protesters already believed that for years. Black Bloc did not at all beat up cops and replace them as the nation’s toughest force – there wasn’t even a confrontation!

When I see Black Bloc smashing something my usual journalistic play-by-play is along the lines of, “Take that! You convenient stand-in for my father!”

Just… pathetic. Childish. Inflated sense of importance. Check the scoreboard two paragraphs up – you are the only ones impressed with yourselves, Black Blockers.

And so, the Paris protest debacle notwithstanding – which was obviously orchestrated by the French Deep State (what else should we call the illegal infiltration of Black Bloc?) in order to give plenty of protest-besmirching footage to the Mainstream Media, which is in cahoots with the 1% and the aristocrats which France calls a Parliament – the General Strike is off to a great start! Huge turnout, 70% support – a great, historic start, indeed.

France will be shut down this weekend for certain – we’re all waiting to see if the strike is still strong next week? The government will finally reveal the details of the pension reform next week, which will surely inflame people even more.

Black Bloc… thanks for nothing, as usual. Your father was right: you’re incredibly weak (socially and politically).

In fact, you’re now old news, already.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , | Leave a comment

‘All roads lead to Putin!’ Pelosi tells Americans impeachment not really about Ukraine but all about… Russia

RT | December 5, 2019

For Americans still confused why exactly Democrats want to impeach President Donald Trump – something about Ukraine, maybe? – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has helpfully clarified that it’s all about Russia and always has been.

Briefing reporters on the impeachment inquiry on Thursday, Pelosi (D-California) made sure to point out that “this isn’t about Ukraine, this is about Russia.”

“Russia. It’s about Russia. Russia invading eastern Ukraine …all roads lead to Putin. Understand that.”

That may come as a surprise given the Democrats’ recent line of argument that Trump must be impeached because he tried to force new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open a corruption investigation into the gas company that had Joe Biden’s son Hunter on its board – a “quid pro quo” that qualified as bribery and election interference, somehow.

However, as Pelosi explained, it was Russia that somehow “benefited” from Trump withholding US military assistance to Kiev – though she did not say how, since the aid was actually delivered on time. Curiously, she didn’t mention the fact that it was actually the Trump administration which approved military aid to Ukraine in the first place, while the Obama administration refused to, worrying about a worse flare-up in violence.

Perhaps fearing that the case for impeachment on the basis of the alleged “quid pro quo” isn’t quite stacking up the way Democrats wanted it to, Pelosi seems to have reverted to an easier tactic of just shouting “Russia!” and hoping it sticks.

“Sometimes people say I don’t know about Ukraine, I don’t know that much about Ukraine — well, our adversary in this is Russia,” Pelosi continued.

Got that? Never mind that the original story about “collusion” between Trump and Russia crashed and burned after a two-year investigation by Robert Mueller, who couldn’t find any. Never mind that the details about Ukraine’s place in the whole alleged scandal don’t quite add up, or that Zelensky himself denied ever being pressured, or that the facts of the story don’t seem as clear-cut as Democrats and the media claim. None of that matters, really, because… Russia.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

‘Shameless Racism’: 13 Countries Change Long-Standing Position on Palestine at UN

Palestine Chronicle – December 5, 2019

For the first time, 13 countries changed their longstanding positions and voted against a pro-Palestine measure at the United Nations on Tuesday.

Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Brazil, and Colombia voted against the annual resolution regarding the “Division for Palestinian Rights of the Secretariat”, according to the Times of Israel.

They had previously abstained on the vote.

The resolution, which includes a call to halt to illegal Israeli settlements being constructed in the occupied West Bank, still passed with a large majority voting in favor.

The Palestinian representative told the council: “If you protect Israel, it will destroy you all.” He also said Israel’s character as a Jewish state is “shameless racism”.

The New York-based Division for Palestinian Rights oversees the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

The resolution was co-sponsored by Comoros, Cuba, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

The UK, France, and Spain abstained, as they do every year, allowing the resolution to pass with a vote of 87-54, with 21 other abstentions.

The General Assembly adopted five resolutions on the question of Palestine and the Middle East, including one calling on the Member States not to recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regards to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chief Rabbi’s Pious Bid to Sabotage Corbyn

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis speaking in London, 24 March 2015. Credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office/ Flickr)
By Stewart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | December 5, 2019

The mainstream media failed to make the connection between Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis’s brazen intervention to damage Jeremy Corbyn’s election chances and the Shai Masot affair three years ago. And, indeed, all the other orchestrated media smears against the Labour Party leader since then.

So who is this interfering rabbi? Mirvis came to the UK via South Africa, Israel and Ireland and succeeded Jonathan Sacks (bizarrely elevated to the Lords) as Chief Rabbi in 2013. Now Mirvis puts the boot in – right in the middle of the general election campaign – with a stinging outburst in The Times.

As I don’t subscribe to The Times I’ll quote from the Jewish Chronicle report:

… the Chief Rabbi said: “The claims by leadership figures in the Labour Party that it is ‘doing everything’ it reasonably can to tackle the scourge of anti-Jewish racism and that it has ‘investigated every single case’ are a mendacious fiction.”

Without referring to Mr Corbyn by name, Rabbi Mirvis asks: “How complicit in prejudice would a leader of Her Majesty’s opposition have to be in order to be considered unfit for high office?”

He then adds: “Would associations with those who have openly incited hatred against Jews be enough?

Rabbi Mirvis insists he decided to speak out on behalf of the Jewish community.

He says: “The Jewish community has endured the deep discomfort of being at the centre of national political attention for nearly four years.

“We have been treated by many as an irritant, as opposed to a minority community with genuine concerns.”

In a sustained attack on Mr Corbyn’s party, he writes: “The party leadership have never understood that their failure is not just one of procedure, which can be remedied with additional staff or new processes.

“It is a failure to see this as a human problem rather than a political one. It is a failure of culture.

“It is a failure of leadership. A new poison – sanctioned from the very top – has taken root in the Labour Party.”

“A failure of culture” (er, whose culture)?

“A new poison”?

“Openly inciting hatred”?

Mirvis is reported to have accompanied Sacks on the annual Jerusalem Day March of the Flags in 2017. Haaretz correspondent Bradley Burston describes it as “an annual, gender-segregated, extreme-right, pro-occupation religious carnival of hatred, marking the anniversary of Israel’s capture of Jerusalem by humiliating the city’s Palestinian Muslims. We knew what was coming from previous years, in which marchers have vandalized shops in Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter, chanted: ‘Death to Arabs’ and ‘The (Jewish) temple will be built, the (Al Aqsa) Mosque will be burned down,’ shattered windows and door locks and poured glue into the locks of shops forced to close for fear of further damage.”

And in 2015 Burston wrote: “The Flag Parade, and with it, Jerusalem Day, has come to symbolize the worst in us. Arrogance, xenophobia, brute dominance, racist hatred. A march of, by, and for, the worst of our worst.”

So we don’t need lectures on culture, poison or racial hatred from people who hobnob with the worst of Israel’s worst.

People in stained-glass houses shouldn’t throw stones

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, tweeted: “That the chief rabbi should be compelled to make such an unprecedented statement at this time ought to alert us to the deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews.” As a result of which a leading campaigner against racism immediately resigned from a Church of England advisory body in protest. Gus John, a respected author and academic, said: “As a matter of principle, I cannot continue to work with the Anglican church… after the archbishop of Canterbury’s disgraceful endorsement of the chief rabbi’s unjust condemnation of Jeremy Corbyn and the entire Labour party.” He wrote to the CofE’s national adviser on minority ethnic issues: “Those who occupy houses clad with stained glass should perhaps be a trifle more careful when they join others in throwing stones”.

Ever since Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, the pro-Israel lobby has been terrified by the possibility that, if he becomes prime minister, Britain’s supine tolerance of Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and other Arab neighbors will end, and so will trade and arms deals.

Over two years ago Israeli insider Miko Peled, a former Israeli soldier and the son of an Israeli general, warned that Israel was going to “pull all the stops, they are going to smear, they are going to try anything they can to stop Corbyn” and the reason anti-Semitism is used is because they have no other argument.

And his prediction was spot-on.

IHRA definition of anti-Semitism ‘is not fit for purpose’, ‘is open to manipulation’, ‘has no legal effect’, ‘should not be adopted’

Since then we’ve had a queue of high profile Labourites and others sticking the knife into Corbyn, including Zionist extremist Sacks and ex-prime minister Gordon Brown, a dedicated pimp for Israel and dyed-in-the-wool Zionist. Brown insisted that the IHRA definition “is something we should support unanimously, unequivocally and immediately.” He urged Corbyn to remove the “stain” of prejudice from Labour by writing the definition and all of its examples into the party’s new Code of Conduct.

He obviously wasn’t paying attention to the Home Office Select Committee which had recommended two caveats or to eminent legal minds Hugh Tomlinson QC and Sir Stephen Sedley who explained how the IHRA’s diktat is trumped by our right to free expression, which is part of UK domestic law by virtue of the Human Rights Act (something every Labour member ought to know and uphold) and other conventions. Added to which Geoffrey Robertson QC warned that the IHRA definition is “not fit for any purpose that seeks to use it as an adjudicative standard. It is imprecise, confusing and open to misinterpretation and even manipulation.”

Robertson added: “The Government’s ‘adoption’ of the definition has no legal effect and does not oblige public bodies to take notice of it. The definition should not be adopted, and certainly should not be applied, by public bodies unless they are clear about Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights which is binding upon them, namely that they cannot ban speech or writing about Israel unless there is a real likelihood it will lead to violence or disorder or race hatred.”

Had everyone forgotten that the state of Israel was founded by terror groups like the one that murdered 91 in an attack on the British mandate government in the King David Hotel and carried out the Deir Yassin massacre? Israel is the expert in terror. As Norman Finkelstein remarked, “It is more than a rogue state. It is a lunatic state… The whole world is yearning for peace, and Israel is constantly yearning for war.”

And the Israeli government was described by one of Brown’s own (Jewish) MPs, the late and much respected Sir Gerald Kaufman, as a ‘gang of amoral thugs’.

Corbyn a loose cannon who had to be ‘spiked’

Mirvis and others of his ilk fail to understand that the mounting dislike of pro-Israel Jews is due to the failure of people like him to condemn the Israeli regime’s decades-long brutal oppression and foul crimes against our Palestinian friends – Muslim and Christian. Has anyone ever heard Mirvis or Sacks or any of the so-called leaders of the Jewish community here call out Netanyahu and these thugs for their hateful behavior and inhumane policies?

Corbyn isn’t the problem, Zionists are. Corbyn has a long record of support for the Palestinians and other justice causes. He has spent a lifetime campaigning against racism. He has met and spoken with Israel’s enemies, and so what? They are no our enemies. But it doesn’t sit well with the eminence grise pulling the strings. As a loose cannon in a carefully controlled political battlefield, he has to be ‘spiked’. The chosen way to do that is to pick off his allies one by one and, with the help of a compliant media, derail his party’s election prospects by weaponizing so-called anti-Semitism against Labour’s naive and easily scared troops.

But why would anyone take allegations of anti-Semitism seriously from bully-boys who themselves practice or support racism? It is long past time Labour’s Friends of Israel were questioned about their shameless support for the criminal state and its land-grabbing Zionist Project. From the start – before Balfour even – this was unashamedly racist in purpose, as illustrated only last year when Israel enacted Nation-State laws that discriminate against its non-Jewish citizens making them distinctly second-class. There is no place in a socialist organization, or in British public life at all, for people who cannot bring themselves to condemn a regime that behaves in such an obscene manner towards its neighbors, defies international law, thinks it’s exempt from the norms of decent conduct and shows no remorse. What does aligning with apartheid Israel really say about them?

And, by the way, who said it’s OK to use any British political party as a platform to promote the interests of a foreign military power? If people holding public office put themselves in a position where they are influenced by a foreign power, they flagrantly breach the Principles of Public Life. There are far too many Labour and Conservative MPs and MEPs who fall into that category and get away with it.

Pattern of subversion

The upsurge in carefully orchestrated allegations of anti-Semitism coincided with the arrival of Mark Regev as Israel’s new ambassador in London. Regev is big trouble – an ace propagandist, the mastermind of Israel’s hasbara Lie Machine and former spokesman for Israel’s extremist prime minister.  Shortly after he took up his post came revelations that a senior political officer at the embassy, Shai Masot, had been plotting with stooges among British MPs and other maggots in the political woodwork to “take down” senior government figures including Boris Johnson’s deputy at the Foreign Office, Sir Alan Duncan.

The Foreign Office and Johnson promptly dismissed the Shai Masot affair, saying: “The UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed.” The Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, who is Jewish, also declined to investigate.

But Masot was an employee of the Israeli embassy and probably a Mossad agent. His hostile scheming was captured and exposed by an Al Jazeera undercover investigation and not, as one would have hoped, by Britain’s own security services and press. And this is when the escalation to de-stabilize really began. Funny how the mainstream failed to connect Corbyn’s election as Labour leader in September 2015, Regev’s arrival in April 2016 and Masot’s activities later that year. Subversion peaked again at general election time in 2017 and raises its ugly head yet again at election time right now with Mirvis and the Jewish Labour Movement’s submission of 70 sworn statements by serving and ex-Labour officials to the Equality & Human Rights Commission’s inquiry. The JLM is urging the Commission to make Labour acknowledge that it is “institutionally anti-Semitic”.

OK, so Corbyn isn’t the leader he should be. But who is, in the never-ending parade of élite political screwballs?  I have sympathy with Mirvis’s concerns that the Party is too lackadaisical over its handling of anti-Semitism complaints, having looked into a couple of them myself. They take an absurdly long time to investigate and lack ‘due process’.  And I wonder why the Party, in a situation like this, is so stupid that it cannot provide a running total of cases outstanding, upheld and rejected.

I’d also like to know what happens to the troublemakers who hurl malicious and baseless accusations. Are they exposed and thrown out of the Party too? I don’t suppose so – there’d be even more screams of “anti-Semitism!”

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | Leave a comment

Russia ready to extend New START arms control treaty without conditions and further discussions – Putin

RT | December 5, 2019

Moscow is ready to extend the last major nuclear arms control treaty, without conditions or discussions, President Vladimir Putin said as he reiterated Russia’s position on the New START treaty which expires in 2021.

“Russia is ready to immediately, as soon as possible, before the end of the year, extend the New START treaty without any preconditions, so that there would be no double, triple interpretation of our position later. I’m saying this officially,” the Russian president pointed out.

The New START treaty, which obliges Moscow and Washington to reduce the number of its strategic nuclear missile launchers by half, was signed in April 2010. The agreement expires in February 2021, but there’s an option for it to be extended until 2026.

Russia has already filed all the paperwork needed to begin talks on extending the treaty, but the US has not reacted to the proposal. Moscow is concerned that the Trump administration is willing to ditch New START, just like it did with the INF deal.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty banned Russia and the US from the fielding ground-based missiles with a range of between 500km (310 miles) and 5,500km (3418 miles) in Europe, and was the cornerstone of security on that continent since 1987. The US’ unilateral withdrawal from the deal left Russia with no choice but to abandon it as well, raising fears of a new arms race between the two countries.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

NATO Summit: UK Police Block Access and Detain Ruptly Producer Under ‘Terrorism Act’

21st Century Wire – December 5, 2019

A dangerous precedent may have been set yesterday when an accredited journalist and producer for RT’s affiliate news agency Ruptly, was denied entry to yesterday’s NATO Leaders Meeting in north London – before being detained by British police under the Terrorism Act.

After being told his event press accreditation had been suddenly revoked, the video producer was then taken away and temporarily detained by UK police, where his person, belongings and equipment were then searched.

It is still unknown why the journalist was singled out by British authorities, but it seems increasingly likely that this was a case of intimidation and harassment by the British state against what it perceives to be a ‘hostile’ Russian media.

In recent years, Ruptly has developed into a leading international news wire agency, and managing to pull off a number of world exclusives including the illegal extraordinary rendition of journalist Julian Assange by British police from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London last April.

Ironically, this new incident follows on the heels of the launch of UK government’s international campaign for “Media Freedom“. In September, campaign spokesman Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, UK Minister for Human Rights, even warned his UN audience about how “the current crackdown on journalists’ across the world is a deep-rooted problem, and a rebuke to the rule of law.” Presumably, this doesn’t apply to matters at home, only abroad.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

NATO Wants to Dominate Not Only in Euro-Atlantic Region but Also in Middle East – Lavrov

Sputnik – December 5, 2019

A two-day NATO summit dubbed “NATO Engages: Innovating the Alliance” kicked off in London earlier in the week to mark the 70th anniversary of the organisation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated on Thursday following the 26th Meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Bratislava that NATO wants to dominate not only the Euroatlantic region but the Middle East as well.

“NATO continues its reckless expansion, the block’s military infrastructure is moving quickly to the east, close to Russian borders. There’s a permanent fomenting of tension, accusations of aggressive intentions from the part of Russia. All this is happening amid a record increase of military budgets – the decision that was adopted during the recent summit in London,” Lavrov said.

“The facts we see demonstrate us a clear situation: NATO wants to dominate both in the Euro-Atlantic and — if we look at NATO steps in other regions of the world, particularly the Middle East — in the Middle East,” Lavrov said.

Speaking further, the Russian foreign minister noted that Russia has a response to all the threats posed by NATO and will ensure its security without entering an arms race.

“We have a response to all those threats that NATO is multiplying when it directly names Russia and China as targets of these threats. We know how we can respond to these threats and ensure our security without entering an arms race,” Lavrov said.

NATO held its 70th anniversary summit in the UK capital from December 3-4. In its joint statement, the allies reaffirmed their commitment to increasing investment in defence and qualified “Russia’s aggressive actions” and “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations” as threats.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

Obama on Mount Rushmore: Move Over Guys, Room for One More Con Artist

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 5, 2019

I am on the emailing lists of both the Republican and Democratic Parties because I like to know what the enemies of the American people are up to. Recently there has been a lot of squeaking from the GOP in an attempt to put lipstick on the Trump pig, but the truly remarkable emailing has been coming out of the Democratic Party, which is desperately seeking to convince the public that it actually represents something.

Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea have been particularly active promoting their allegedly co-authored The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience. They apparently see themselves as “gutsy” as opposed to parasitical, entitled and corrupt while also leaving out the book’s chapter telling one what to do when a husband is receiving oral sex from an intern in the Oval Office or raping a campaign worker in Arkansas.

But Hillary is ancient history even though there is talk of her making another “run.” And she certainly has done her best to repay the donors of the hundreds of millions of dollars given to the Clinton Family Foundation by attempting to destroy the candidacy of Tulsi Gabbard, the only Democrat who appears to be genuinely opposed to perpetual war and globalism.

Of more recent vintage among “traditional” Democrats is ex-president Barack Obama, who has been beatified by the media, and who has now dedicated himself to the task of removing Trump. It is an admirable goal surely, but for the fact that the Democrats have difficulty in finding a candidate and stitching together a platform that actually resonates with American voters.

Obama has always had a lot going for him. Being half-black meant that he got top marks from the Democratic Party Social Justice Warrior wing just because of what he was genetically when he was born. He is always presentable and well-spoken and does not seem interested in having sex with women other than his wife. He plays basketball, which demonstrated to ghetto voters that he had not lost his roots, even though he was raised by his mother in a largely white middle class environment.

But Obama’s actual achievements after eight years in office can be counted on the fingers of one hand. From a foreign policy perspective, one would include only the easing of restrictions on trade and travel with Cuba and the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran, both of which have been rescinded by Trump. On the domestic side, his hallmark Affordable Care Act has ironically made insurance unaffordable for many. The president basically turned over medical care to a predatory and inefficient health care industry that raised premiums while also diminishing coverage for those Americans who actually had jobs to pay for their insurance. In the foundation I worked at when Obamacare came in group plan premiums doubled in the first year, doubled again in the following year and were about to go up another 25% when we decided that we could no longer afford health insurance. Sure, some Americans got free or subsidized health insurance but the rest of us paid for it and the heartless and soulless health care industry reaped the benefits.

So what else did Saint Obama do? For starters, Obama was the first president in US history to be at war for every single day of his eight year presidency. As president, Obama approved military action in seven countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen as well as special operations on a smaller scale all over the globe.

Obama presided over an offshore prison (which he had promised to close) at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Individuals suspected of being terrorists, however that is defined, were confined there and not a single one was tried. It is believed that many of them have been tortured. The United States Constitution’s Sixth Amendment guarantees a public and “speedy” trial to all those accused of crimes and Obama, by the way, is supposed to be an expert on constitutional law.

Obama exceeded the number of killings by drone carried out by his predecessor George W. Bush. His administration also institutionalized the “profile” killing of individuals on the ground. That meant in the case of Afghanistan any male walking around carrying a gun, as is common in rural areas. Or in some cases, it was guilt even without a gun if it was a male aged over 18. All males over age 18 in Afghanistan were considered to be possible terrorists.

Obama was the first and only president to spend his Tuesday mornings in meetings with his security staff drawing up “kill lists” that included American citizens who were somewhere overseas and considered dangerous. Acting off that list, he was the first and only president to actually execute American citizens without any due process using lethal drones. Anwar al-Awlaki and his son Abdulrahman were targeted and killed in Yemen together with another American citizen, and four other citizens were also executed under Obama in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The al-Awlaki son had not been accused or any crimes or membership in any terrorist groups. Many other foreigners, plus families, friends and neighbors were also killed off the lists based purely on the fact that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of the killing overseas has been carried out in countries with which the United States is not at war, so they are unconstitutional as well as illegal.

Obama ran for president promising to do his best to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He then authorized the spending of $1 trillion to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal.

Under Obama, National Security Agency spying on American citizens accelerated using the authorities granted by the two Patriot Acts. The public would not know about the spying but for the actions of several whistleblowers, to include Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Obama declared “war on whistleblowers,” punishing more of them more severely than any other president.

Obama and his team of women warmongers destroyed the nation of Libya without there being any US national security interest in so doing. They turned it into a failed state and a haven for terrorists, with its looted weapons arsenals supplying radical groups in Africa and the Middle East. Prior to Obama, Moammar Gaddafi’s Libya had been the richest and most developed nation in Africa.

Obama’s desire to bring about regime change in Syria led to the US covert arming of factions of “freedom fighters” with weapons from Libya that produced something like a civil war which killed hundreds of thousands and created a wave of millions of refugees. Most of the fighters trained and equipped by the US joined ISIS or al-Qaeda affiliates. Syria, like Libya, was no threat to the United States when it was attacked by Washington.

Obama directed his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his hostile Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul to explore a reset with Russia with predictable results, initiating the steadily worsening relationship that has continued to this day. He subsequently presided over the attempts to spin the narrative and blame Moscow for Hillary’s loss while also encouraging accusations that Trump and his team were Russian agents. His national security team prepared a dossier that included numerous lies about both Trump and some of his key appointees.

Obama allowed neocon extraordinaire Victoria Nuland to lead the charge against Ukraine, with the intention of bringing about regime change of a government that he considered to be too pro-Russian. He succeeded but spent $5 billion doing so and Ukraine wound up with a puppet government presiding over a country that is both the poorest and most corrupt in Europe.

Obama made a famous “New Beginning” speech in Cairo in June 2009 that led directly to his being awarded a Nobel Peace prize later that year. He promised to reach out to the Muslim world and improve relations with Washington but promptly ignored what he had said for the following seven years, preferring to take the easy path by deferring to Israel’s expressed interests.

Obama always looked the other way when the Saudi Arabians bombed civilians in Yemen. Likewise, when the Israelis bombed Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. And he allowed the monstrous Benjamin Netanyahu to collude with Congress to manage US foreign policy in the Middle East with hardly any pushback from his foreign policy and national security team.

The Guardian prepared a bit of a retrospective on Obama during the week when he handed over the reins of power to Donald Trump in January 2017. It could not have described the man and his failings better: “Obama is, in terms of influence, nothing more than a used-car salesman. His job is not to create policy, but to sell neocon ideas to the general public, but his lack of agency cannot excuse his lack of vision or morals. Under Obama’s notional leadership the world has moved to the very brink of self-immolation in the name of protecting American hegemony. Domestically America still crumbles. He had a nice smile, and a good turn of phrase. He was witty, and cool, and looked good in a suit…but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t just more of the same. He could say the right things, and sound like he meant them, but he was still a monster.”

 

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 2 Comments

Nearly One Million Syrian Refugees Return Home Since 2018: Minister

Al-Manar | December 5, 2019

Nearly one million Syrian refugees have so far returned from Lebanon since June 2018, the pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported on Thursday.

Their return is a result of conveniences provided by the Syrian government, Hussain Makhlouf, the minister of local administration said as quoted by the Syrian paper.

Makhlouf said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has ordered all ministries to provide all necessary help for the returnees to start a new life.

The newspaper, meanwhile, said that as many as 1,400 refugees have returned home over the past few days from Lebanon.

More than one million Syrian refugees are registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon, while the Lebanese government estimated that the true number of Syrians in the country is 1.5 million.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 1 Comment

Iranian Unrest: Cover-Up Of Mass Killings Or Infowar Conspiracy?

By Andrew Korybko | December 5, 2019

The Mainstream Media is pushing forth the weaponized narrative that the Iranian government is carrying out a cover-up of mass killings that supposedly occurred during its recent unrest, though this is nothing more than an infowar conspiracy.

Amnesty International scandalously cited unpublished and vaguely described “credible reports” to claim that over 200 people were killed during Iran’s recent unrest, adding that “the real figure is likely to be higher”. This accusation is part and parcel of the renewed Hybrid War on Iran that’s seeking to capitalize on the failed Color Revolution attempt from last month when tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest the government’s decision to decrease fuel subsidies in order to fund a cash payment plan to the country’s most needy families. It should be said that the majority of the people who participated in these large-scale protests didn’t engage in acts of violence, but their presence at these events inadvertently served as cover for a select cadre of professional provocateurs and foreign intelligence agents to carry out attacks against law enforcement officers and public property by exploiting those people as human shields behind which to hide.

As the author wrote at the time, “Iran’s Protests Are Grassroots, Not Foreign-Driven, And That’s The Real Problem”, while also later warning in an exclusive interview with Iran’s “Young Journalists Club” that Iran is being victimized by a US Hybrid War. These two analyses might initially seem mutually exclusive but they aren’t. Legitimate grievances served to spontaneously bring a critical mass of protesters into the streets, during which time the vast majority of the participants were unwittingly turned into human shields by Hybrid War “sleeper cells” that were waiting for an opportunistic moment to carry out anti-state terrorist activities such as the ones that were previously described. The Iranian authorities ultimately prevailed in restoring law and order, though it’s presumed that some of the most radical provocateurs might have been injured or even killed throughout the course of these security operations, which could naturally occur in any country facing similar unrest.

The US and its regional allies who support the forces responsible for the recent violence desperately wanted to film, selectively edit, and then propagate decontextualized footage of those individuals clashing with the state so that they could then present this as so-called “evidence” that Iran is “killing unarmed protesters”, hoping that this infowar conspiracy would make the majority of the non-violent citizens that participated in the protests suspicious of the state as well as further discredit the country’s international reputation. That plan failed, so now the back-up one is to still make this claim regardless of any fabricated “evidence” and strongly hint that the reason that there isn’t any is because Iran cut off the internet during its “crackdown”. While criticized by some at the time, it was actually a very wise move for the state to do so in order to offset the exact same scenario that was just described, though it unwittingly fed into the US’ back-up infowar narrative.

Even so, that doesn’t mean that it was the wrong thing to do since the benefits of preventing further provocations during that very sensitive time far outweigh the “costs” of having Iran’s adversaries conspiratorially claim without any fabricated “evidence” that the security forces “killed hundreds of innocent protesters”. In terms of the bigger picture, it’s much better to decisively nip the Color Revolution unrest in the bud and deal with unsubstantiated claims from self-interested international forces than to be too afraid of being criticized for cutting off the internet and then having to face the consequences of those same actors fabricating “evidence” to back up their preplanned provocative claims that “hundreds of innocent protesters were killed”. Considering all of this, there isn’t any credence to the West’s accusations that Iran is carrying out a cover-up of mass killings during its recent unrest as these claims are nothing more than an infowar conspiracy.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 4 Comments

US not sending 14,000 troops to Mideast: Pentagon

Press TV – December 5, 2019

The Pentagon has denied a report concerning the expansion of US military presence in the Middle East.

The denial came in reaction to an article published in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

The paper claimed that Washington was weighing the deployment of fourteen-thousand additional troops and a dozen of naval vessels in the region, to counter alleged threats from Iran.

A Pentagon spokesman, however, said that they were not considering sending additional troops to the Middle East.

“To be clear, the reporting is wrong. The U.S. is not considering sending 14,000 additional troops to the Middle East,” Alyssa Farah tweeted.

December 5, 2019 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

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