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Sudan PM to Pompeo: Government has no mandate to normalize with Israel

Press TV – August 26, 2020

Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has dashed America’s hopes for quick normalization with Israel, saying his government has no mandate to establish ties with Tel Aviv and any such a decision should wait until after the transitional period ends in the African country.

During talks in the capital Khartoum on Tuesday, Hamdok “clarified” to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the country’s transitional period “is being led by a wide alliance with a specific agenda — to complete the transition, achieve peace and stability in the country and hold free elections,” Sudanese government spokesman Faisal Saleh said in a statement.

It “does not have a mandate beyond these tasks or to decide on normalization with Israel,” Hamdok was quoted as saying.

The Sudanese prime minister also reaffirmed the importance of separating normalization of ties from a US decision to remove Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, Saleh pointed out.

Sudan’s interim government took power last year after longtime leader Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by the army following mass popular protests. It is set to remain in office until elections in 2022.

Pompeo arrived in Khartoum on Tuesday to push for Sudan’s normalization with Israel, two weeks after the US brokered a highly contentious peace deal between the regime and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Following the talks, the US State Department said in a statement that Pompeo and Hamdok discussed “positive developments in the Sudan-Israel relationship.”

Sudan which has no formal relations with Israel has been cozying up to the regime over the past year.

In February, Sudan’s leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the chairman of the ruling council in the country, met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Uganda, sparking anger among politicians and the public at home, where anti-Israel and pro-Palestine sentiments run high.

After the US announced the UAE-Israel deal, Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Haidar Badawi Sadiq said in an interview with Sky News Arabic that “there is no reason for the hostility to continue between Sudan and Israel,” in comments that drew Netanyahu’s praise and raised speculation that Khartoum may be the next in line to normalize with Tel Aviv.

The Sudanese official was, however, sacked shortly afterwards over “unauthorized” comments, with Sudanese Foreign Minister Omer Ismail saying that his ministry “didn’t discuss the possibility of relations with Israel in any way.”

Palestinians have derided the UAE’s decision to normalize with Israel as “backstabbing,” with President Mahmoud Abbas warning other Arab countries against following Abu Dhabi’s lead.

Pompeo in Bahrain to talk normalization

Pompeo visited the Israeli-occupied territories before arrival in Sudan.

Later on Tuesday, Pompeo left Sudan for Bahrain as part of a tour aimed at getting more Arab countries to follow in the UAE’s footsteps.

Palestinians have denounced the agreement as a “betrayal” of their cause.

Meanwhile, there are reports that an Israeli delegation and top aides to US President Donald Trump will fly together on board an Israeli airliner directly from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi on Monday for talks on cementing UAE-Israel normalization deal.

Netanyahu said in a video statement that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, US Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz and other US officials will escort the Israeli delegation led by national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat.

A high-ranking US administration official confirmed the participation of Kushner, O’Brien and Berkowitz, and said former US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook would also be on the flight.

Talks will focus on ways to promote Israeli-UAE cooperation in various sectors, Netanyahu added.

August 26, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 1 Comment

After Beirut blast, Israel revives tales of Hezbollah ammonium nitrate terror plots

By Gareth Porter | The Grayzone | August 26, 2020

Israeli officials have exploited the massive explosion at the Port of Beirut this August to revive a dormant propaganda campaign that had accused the Lebanese militia and political party Hezbollah of storing ammonium nitrate in several countries to wage terror attacks on Israelis.

The Israeli intelligence apparatus had planted a series of stories from 2012 to 2019 claiming Hezbollah sought out ammonium nitrate as the explosive of choice for terrorist operations. According to the narrative, Hezbollah planned to covertly store the explosive substance in locations from Southeast Asia to Europe and the US — only to be foiled repeatedly by Mossad. In each one of those cases, however, the factual record either contradicted the Israeli claims or revealed a complete dearth of evidence.

The narrative first debuted in the Israeli press after a June 2019 story in the British pro-Israel daily The Telegraph on alleged Hezbollah storage of the explosive around London. The Times of Israel introduced for the first time the much broader theme that Hezbollah planned to use the explosive for “huge, game-changing attacks on Israeli targets globally.”

Next, “new details” appeared in the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth from “unnamed Israeli intelligence officials,” disclosing how Israel had supposedly stymied ammonium nitrate-based terror plots by Hezbollah in London, Cyprus and Thailand.

Following the calamity of the Beirut explosion, the narrative story was opportunistically revived in the Israeli media, with The Times of Israel summarizing an Israeli Channel 13 report citing an “unsourced assessment” that Hezbollah “apparently planned to use the ammonium nitrate stockpile that caused a massive blast at Beirut’s port this week against Israel in a ‘Third Lebanon War’.”

A review of the supposedly open-and-shut cases in both Thailand and Cyprus, however, reveals serious questions about the evidence used to accuse Hezbollah suspects and the role of the Mossad in those cases. It also shows that an alleged Hezbollah plot involving ammonium nitrate in New York City was contrived by the FBI and Justice Department without any real evidence.

Thailand: Muddling the Issue, Bending the Law

The arrest of Hussein Atris, a dual Swedish-Lebanese citizen, in Bangkok on January 13, 2012 occurred after the Mossad received a report that a terrorist attack was due to occur in the middle of that month. The Israeli intelligence agency had given the Thai police a list of 14 or 15 suspects — all Iranian or Lebanese — to be placed under surveillance, including Atris.

But it was Atris who received the bulk of attention. After his arrest, he told police about goods he had stored in a commercial building in Bangkok. Shortly after his arrest, he was taken out of his cell to a house where he was interrogated by three Mossad agents, as was typical of Mossad operations in countries where Israel cultivated close relations with law enforcement. On January 17, Thai police visited the commercial building near Bangkok and reportedly found 4.8 tons of urea fertilizer and 40 liters (100 pounds) of ammonium nitrate.

Atris was immediately charged by the police with “possession of prohibited substances.” But in fact, the ammonium nitrate that Atris had stored in the building was not illegal; it was merely a component of frozen gel packs for sore muscles commonly bought and sold wholesale and retail all over the world.

The boxes of gel packs were stored along with electric fans, slippers and copy paper on the second floor of the building. And as Atris explained to his interrogators and to a reporter from the Swedish dailyAftonbladet who interviewed him in jail, he had been purchasing various goods in Asia and exporting them to other countries like Liberia. He had already arranged for a freighter to ship the goods he had stored there, as the chief of Bangkok metropolitan police confirmed in an interview with the New York Times.

The Mossad interrogators refused to accept the explanation by Atris and accused him of lying about his business. Further clouding the picture, police found two tons of urea fertilizer in bags labeled as cat litter on the same floor as the cold packs. But Atris told an interviewer he had never dealt with fertilizer in his business, and that he believed “it must have been placed in our storage facility by someone, probably Mossad.”

Mossad and its Thai allies were committed to the idea that Atris was a Hezbollah operative from the beginning, even though they apparently had no actual hard evidence to back it up. The claim of Hezbollah membership was nevertheless sold successfully to cooperative local and national news media. A Reuters story headlined “Thailand: Hezbollah man arrested in terror scare.” When he was brought to trial in 2013, Atris firmly denied any links to Hezbollah, and the court ultimately found that there was no evidence to support the contention by the police and Mossad that he was in any way involved with the Lebanese movement.

International press coverage of the case blurred details in a way that incorrectly suggested terrorist intent. When Atris’s case went to trial in July 2013, Agence-France Presse falsely reported that he and “unidentified accomplices” had “packed more than six tons of ammonium nitrate into bags,” thus confusing the already commercially-packaged cold packs with the urea fertilizer, which was not an illegal substance under Thai law and which he specifically denied owning. Time magazine distorted the case more seriously by referring to the bags of urea fertilizer as “chemicals being assembled into explosives… in bags labeled as kitty litter.”

In the end, Atris was convicted of “illegal possession” of ammonium nitrate, which was a banned substance under Thai law. However, the country had not intended for the provision to apply to frozen gel packs for pain relief, which are commonly traded in bulk internationally.

Despite the absence of any evidence that Atris was either a Hezbollah agent or a terrorist, the US State Department bowed to its Israeli allies and declared him to be “a member of Hezbollah’s overseas terrorist unit.”

Cyprus: The mysterious appearance of ammonium nitrate

In 2015, the Cypriot government’s prosecuted Canadian-Lebanese Hussein Bassam Abdallah for allegedly being part of a Hezbollah ammonium nitrate terrorist plot after police found 420 boxes of the fertilizer in the house where he was staying. Yet virtually no details about the case were ever released because the entire legal process took place behind closed doors. What’s more, Abdallah’s defense was never made public.

Furthermore, information from the Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida, which Israelis have often used to disseminate propaganda into the Arab Middle East, raises serious questions about the origin of the ammonium nitrate found in the house where Abdallah was staying. The newspaper published a story citing a “private source” who said that Mossad agents had been tracking Abdallah, following his every movement and intercepting all his phone calls from Cyprus. The Mossad surveillance continued, according to the story, “until he obtained the materials and fertilizer, after which Cypriot authorities were informed [and] raided his place of residence and arrested him and seized two tons of [ammonium nitrate].…”

By reporting an apparent Mossad account that the ammonium nitrate was not at the house until just before Mossad tipped off the police, the Al-Jarida account obviously suggested that the timing of its appearance was not merely coincidental.

This was not the first time that Mossad-related evidence against one of its targets turned out to be highly suspect. Two Iranian men who were visiting Mombasa, Kenya in 2012 were charged with having buried 15 kg of the explosive RDX on a golf course. However, they had been interrogated — and one of them allegedly drugged — by three Mossad agents. Though Kenyan police had supposedly been carrying out constant surveillance on them for the entire length of their stay, no direct evidence of the Iranians ever possessing RDX came to light. That anomaly resulted in the case against the Iranians being thrown out by Kenya’s Court of Appeal , and suggested that Mossad itself had planted the explosive on the golf course.

In Abdallah’s case, the evidence also indicated the use of a classical prosecution tactic was employed to force him to admit to a Hezbollah ammonium nitrate terrorism plot: forcing a plea bargain on him by the threat of a much longer sentence if he refused to plead guilty.

After the first week of interrogation, a Cypriot security official told a journalist that Abdallah denied all charges against him and was not “cooperating” — meaning he was not admitting what both Israel and Cyprus wanted him to. Weeks later, however, following a trial closed to the public, Abdallah admitted to all eight charges against him. The semi-official Cyprus News Agency reported he had given the police a statement that the ammonium nitrate was to have been used for terrorist attacks against Jewish or Israeli interests in Cyprus. In return he was given a six-year sentence instead of the 14 years he would have received without the deal.

Abdallah’s defense lawyer, Savvas A. Angelides, pressed his client to accept the plea bargain, advancing the political interests of Cyprus as a close ally of Israel. For his part, Angelides had his eyes on a high-level national security posting in his country’s government. Sure enough, in early 2018, the lawyer was appointed Defense Minister of Cyprus.

The idea that Hezbollah obtained ammonium nitrate for use in New York City – another Israeli contention – was not supported by any evidence whatsoever. In this case, a Lebanese-American named Ali Kourani stood accused of hatching a Hezbollah terror plot. But the closest the US Justice Department could come to linking to ammonium nitrate was a statement in its criminal complaint against him.

It claimed that in May 2009, Kourani “entered China at an airport in Guangzhou, the location of Guangzhou Company-1, i.e., the manufacturer of the ammonium nitrate-based First Aid ice packs sized in connection with thwarted IJO attacks in Thailand and Cyprus.” The suggestion that a trip to Quangzhou somehow counted as evidence of an effort to procure ammonium nitrate for Hezbollah terrorism was patently absurd.

London and Germany: Mossad’s phantom Hezbollah explosives

The next apparent Israeli intel dump arrived in the form of a June 2019 story in the Telegraph UK, a right-wing Murdoch-owned daily which loyally follows Israeli propaganda lines. According to the report, in 2015, the UK MI5 intelligence service and London’s Metropolitan Police were tipped off by the Mossad about thousands of ice packs containing three tons of ammonium nitrate in warehouses in Northwest London. The Telegraph revealed that London police had arrested one man “on suspicion of plotting terrorism” but had eventually released him without charges. That detail was the giveaway that the British had come to realize that they had no evidence linking cold packs or their owner to any Hezbollah terrorist plot — contrary to the Israel narrative.

The Telegraph’s suggestion that MI5 decided not to prosecute to disrupt the threat isn’t credible, because no one was ever prosecuted.  And its implication that the British government kept quiet about the episode because it was protecting the Iran nuclear deal did not apply once Trump tore up the agreement in 2018. The British government, which banned Hezbollah in February 2020, has never suggested that the Lebanese militia had been plotting to use ammonium nitrate from warehouses in the UK to carry out terrorist attacks.

According to a report this May by Israel’s Channel 12, days before Germany announced its banning of Hezbollah from the country, Mossad had gathered information on alleged Hezbollah terrorism-related activities in Germany. The supposed plotting consisted of the identification of warehouses in southern Germany where the Mossad said Hezbollah was storing ‘hundreds of kilograms” of ammonium nitrate.

After the information was presented to German intelligence and law enforcement agencies, according to the report, the German Interior Ministry announced in April 2020 that it was banning Hezbollah. It simultaneously raided four mosque associations accused of being close to Hezbollah. But German law enforcement never announced any action regarding warehouses supposedly holding ammonium nitrate, indicating that the German government found nothing that backed up the claims by Mossad.

Hoping to seize the Beirut explosion as a historic propaganda opportunity, the Israelis clearly believe they can fashion a new and more powerful narrative by knitting together false claims related to these episodes. Their objective is to achieve their longtime objective of forcing Hezbollah out of the Lebanese government by implicating it in the calamitous blast. So far, Western corporate media appears inclined to accept the baseless Israeli claims on face value. The day after the blast in Beirut, the Washington Post reported that Hezbollah “has long shown an interest in acquiring [ammonium nitrate] for use in a variety of terrorist plots.”

August 26, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | 3 Comments

Lebanon to complain to UNSC about Israel border escalation

Press TV – August 2020

Lebanon says it will file a complaint with the United Nations Security Council about a recent Israeli attempt at escalation that saw the regime fire dozens of flares over the country’s border.

The country’s Supreme Defense Council announced the plan during a meeting chaired by Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Wednesday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Early in the day, Israel’s Channel 12 said the regime had fired more than 30 of the projectiles into Lebanon.

Lebanon’s al-Manar television network, however, described the projectiles as phosphorous shells and identified the targeted areas as the southern Lebanese towns of Houla and Mays al-Jabal.

The regime described the development as a “security-related incident.”

Israeli media initially said the firing came amid concerns over what they called a possible infiltration near Kibbutz Menara in the Upper Galilee area, located near the Lebanese border and the Israeli-occupied Syrian territory of the Golan Heights.

Neither the Lebanese army nor the country’s resistance movement of Hezbollah has, however, reported carrying out any such operation into the occupied territories.

Netanyahu’s threat

The escalation was followed by a vocal threat, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying in a statement, “We shall react forcefully to any attack against us.”

“I advise Hezbollah not to test Israel’s strength,” it added, alleging, “Hezbollah is once again endangering Lebanon due to its aggression.”

Hezbollah became an integral part of the Lebanese defensive structure after forcing the occupying regime into a retreat during two wars that Tel Aviv waged against Lebanon in the 2000s.

The Israeli military adventurism came as the occupied territories have been on alert over the possibility of a retaliatory attack by Hezbollah after one of its members was martyred in an Israeli act of aggression on the Syrian soil last month.

Ali Kamel Mohsen was killed during an Israeli attack near the Syrian capital of Damascus on July 20, according to a statement by Hezbollah.

Hezbollah said at the time that a response to the deadly aggression was “inevitable,” which led to the deployment of more troops by the Israeli regime to the north of the occupied territories.

Israel claimed a week later that the regime’s forces had thwarted an effort by Hezbollah resistance fighters to infiltrate into the occupied territories through Lebanon’s Tel Aviv-occupied Shebaa Farms.

The movement denied the claim. It said all Israeli reports about border clashes with the movement’s fighters were fake and served to boost the morale of Israeli forces by fabricating fictitious victories.

August 26, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | 2 Comments

COVID-19 economic decline brings IMF back to Latin America

By Paul Antonopoulos | August 26, 2020

The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic brought the International Monetary Fund (IMF) back to Latin America. In December 2005, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Argentine President Néstor Kirchner announced that they had paid the debts that South America’s two largest countries had with the IMF. At the time, Brazil paid $15.5 billion and Argentina about $9.81 billion, cancelling its debts. In addition to being historic, this transaction marked an era. The two South American powers freed themselves from the influence of the IMF and showed unprecedented political coordination, which was also complemented by political support from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

The bloc also gave impetus to its neighbors: Uruguay, for example, cancelled its debt of $1.08 billion in 2006, while Bolivia freed itself from the fund that same year after an agreement allowed a $250 million debt to be forgiven.

However, everything seems to have changed 15 years later. Latin America is one of the world’s most affected regions from the COVID-19 pandemic – medically and economically. The IMF’s director, Kristalina Georgieva, predicts a 9.3% contraction for the region in 2020, compared to a 4.9% decline worldwide. Georgieva said that as a result of the new coronavirus pandemic, the organization has doubled access to emergency financing, disbursing a total of $25 billion to help 70 countries. Of those, about $5.5 billion went to 17 countries in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The IMF director especially mentioned the cases of Chile, Peru and Colombia, which the IMF signed flexible credit line agreements totalling $107 billion.

An analysis by Teresa Morales, Nicolás Oliva and Guillermo Oglietti from the Latin American Strategic Center for Geopolitics (CELAG) shows that between April 17 and May 1, the IMF also helped Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Granada, Haiti, Panama, Paraguay and Saint Lucia with a total of $3.48 billion. CELAG researchers indicated at the end of May that “Latin American countries have started a new indebtedness process with the IMF.” In this sense, they warned that the IMF “will certainly mean short-term relief to face a very adverse external front, but that it certainly has its counterpart in the conditions of macroeconomic policies and their known consequences.”

However, we have not yet entered into a critical debt process. This is not so much because Latin American countries are not looking for it, but because of the very lukewarm response of multilateral organizations like the IMF to the pandemic. In this sense, the emergency financing lines provided by the organization have been of low magnitude and, for the time being, leave out the countries of the region with a low credit rating. Despite everything, this does not mean that the Fund has not returned to the region. The IMF has had a process of rapprochement with Latin America since the economic crisis of 2008 with loans of $57 billion to Argentina in 2018 and $4.5 billion to Ecuador.

It will depend on how much the countries in the region will need financing as a result of the pandemic to see if the IMF’s role as a financier in Latin America will be strengthened. One of the main changes is a nuance of the Washington Consensus, the traditional series of measures promoted by the IMF, the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury Department. The Washington Consensus pursues trade liberalization, fiscal adjustment, privatization policies and deregulation of the capital market, among others.

The Fund made a very strong self-criticism of the Washington Consensus. For example, now the reforms are not necessarily all implemented and, in some cases, the Fund recognized the importance of capital control by the State, the importance of counter-cyclical policies and the reduction of inequality through progressive fiscal policies. The organization is now more flexible and has started to allow government officials to participate in designing reform plans. It is likely this was allowed only after the IMF received massive criticism for choking Greece economically between 2008 and 2018 that tarnished the Fund’s image and reputation all around the world.

The Fund essentially has become more cunning and has learned that the same economic changes in all countries is counterproductive, not only in terms of economic results, but also in terms of the institution’s legitimacy. This change does not mean that it is a new institution, it still very much is the IMF with an orthodox bias, focused on liberalization policies. The IMF continues to have a preference for structural reforms, such as social security reform, tax reform, labor reform and, in some cases, trade reform.

In Georgieva’s address to the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean, the IMF will maintain its supposed solid commitment to the region in terms of capacity-building and economic policy advice. In this context, the IMF director asked Latin American countries to be able to reorient policies when the time comes to help workers get back to work and asked them to do so using fiscal stimulus with prudence. In her message, Georgieva said that as shocks dissipate, fiscal soundness and debt sustainability must become priorities for economic policy. However, it appears rather that Georgieva is attempting to prepare Latin America to once again be dominated by the IMF.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

August 26, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , | 1 Comment

Iranian Axis Of Resistance Falls Victim To US-Israeli Covert Campaign

South Front | August 25, 2020

A large explosion rocked the Arab Gas Pipeline in Syria on August 24 causing a blackout in the country’s capital Damascus and multiple other cities and towns.

The explosion occurred between the towns of Ad Dumayr and Adra the a result of a ‘terrorist attack’, according to Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Ghanem. The incident led to a pressure drop and cascading shutdowns of the country’s power stations. Authorities almost immediately extinguished the fire, but as of August 25 morning blackouts were still seen in many towns and even in the capital, with some power restored to hospitals and government buildings.

This is the sixth time that stretch of the gas pipeline has been hit by an explosion over the course of the Syrian conflict, Kharboutli added, refusing to speculate about possible causes of the latest blast. The US envoy for Syrian affairs James Jeffrey insisted that the explosion was likely an attack by ISIS.

Earlier, ISIS claimed responsibility for several drone and rocket attacks on Syria’s oil and gas infrastructure in the Homs desert. In April, a mysterious explosion also erupted on a natural gas pipeline near al-Shadadi in the province of al-Hasakah. This area is in the hands of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces and the US-led coalition. Then, some sources also accused ISIS cells operating in the area. However, there are many more than just one suspect.

In January, Damascus said divers had planted explosives on offshore pipelines belonging to the Banias refinery on the Mediterranean coast, but the damage had not halted operations. This attack was likely conducted by Israeli forces.

The terrorist attack in Syria took place two days after a top Iranian nuclear official has for the first time described the July 2nd fire at the Natanz nuclear facility as sabotage.

“The explosion at the Natanz nuclear facility was a result of sabotage operations,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said adding that “Security authorities will reveal in due time the reason behind the blast.”

The fire at Natanz caused severe damage, setting back the development of advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges. On top of this, Iran was targeted by a series of strange explosions and fires at various military and industrial sites across the country.

These developments together with the attacks in Syria and the blast in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, raise more and more concerns that Iran and countries from the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance became a target of a major Israeli-led or even US covert destabilization campaign.

August 25, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

Poisoning protest leader Navalny ‘would not benefit’ Moscow, says Russian Foreign Ministry, labels Western allegations ‘offensive’

RT | August 25, 2020

Moscow does not stand to benefit from the alleged poisoning of anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said, noting the haste with which Western media and governments made the insinuation.

The ministry issued a statement on Tuesday evening, following a meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, during which the subject of Navalny was raised, among other issues.

Lavrov pointed out the “suspicious haste” with which the narrative about Navalny’s alleged poisoning was picked up in Washington and Brussels and instantly compared to the “poisonings” of Alexander Litvinenko and the Skripals – which were blamed on Moscow before any investigations happened.

“The question inevitably arises – who benefits from it? The Russian leadership clearly does not.”

The ministry added that accusations of a ‘cover-up’ made against the Russian doctors who first treated Navalny were untrue.

“We consider deeply offensive the accusations of ‘covering up the truth’, directed from some Western capitals to the doctors in Omsk, who immediately rendered highly professional aid” to Navalny, the ministry said.

“They gave the patient’s complete medical history to the team of German doctors,” the statement continued. “We hope that the German doctors will show the same professional approach and will not allow the results of their laboratory tests to be used for politicized purposes.”

Navalny fell ill during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow on Thursday, and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk, where his condition was stabilized. He was airlifted to Germany on Saturday for further treatment, at the request of his wife and associates.

On Monday, German doctors said Navalny was poisoned by a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors, but were unable to say which. However, the Omsk hospital unit chief Dr. Alexander Sabayev told reporters the same day that the activist tested negative for any drugs, including cholinesterase inhibitors.

The European Union has already called for a “comprehensive investigation” of Navalny’s alleged poisoning. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seconded that on Tuesday, saying that “Navalny’s family and the Russian people deserve to see a full and transparent investigation carried out, and for those involved to be held accountable.”

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters the German doctors were “rushing” to use the term poisoning, and that an investigation was premature.

“There must be a reason for an investigation. At the moment, all you and I see is that the patient is in a coma,” Peskov told reporters. He added that any suggestions Putin was involved in Navalny’s condition were “hot air” and the Kremlin would not take them seriously.

Meanwhile, the security committee of the Russian parliament has begun an investigation into whether foreign governments were involved in harming Navalny’s health “in order to create tension within Russia, as well as formulate new accusations against our country,” according to its Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin.

August 25, 2020 Posted by | Russophobia | Leave a comment

UNRWA calls for unimpeded passage into Gaza for vital goods

MEMO | August 25, 2020

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) called on Tuesday for all vital goods to be granted unimpeded passage into the besieged Gaza Strip, including fuel for electricity. UNRWA made the appeal against the background of 14 years of an illegal blockade and the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The agency in Gaza is extremely concerned about the closure of the lone power plant since last Tuesday, 18 August,” UNRWA said. “The closure of the plant has caused the power feed to decline to two or three hours per day, followed by 20 hours of interruption.”

This, explained UNRWA, will have a negative impact on the wellbeing and safety of the people of Gaza and devastating effects on the Strip’s vital services, including hospitals. “Thus, this puts at risk the lives and health of nearly two million people, including 1.4 million registered Palestine refugees.”

The official statement from the UN agency pointed out that, “Under international humanitarian law, the passage of all relief consignments, in this case fuel for electricity, should not be prevented.”

Commenting on the situation in the Gaza Strip, the Director of UNRWA Affairs in the Palestinian territory, Matthias Schmale, said that the call is being made to all concerned parties to maintain a supply of electricity that is sufficient to meet the basic needs of the civilian population. “UNRWA is, furthermore, concerned about other measures perceived as punitive to the civilian population, such as closing down the fishing zone, as well as the escalating tensions and military activities.”

Gaza, Schmale pointed out, has now been hit by air raids for more than ten nights in a row. “All parties must show utmost restraint and protect the civilian population with full respect for their dignity and human rights.”

August 25, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

Pompeo Lands in Sudan to Push Normalization with Israel

Palestine Chronicle | August 25, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in Sudan on Tuesday on a tour urging more Arab countries to normalize ties with Israel, following the US-brokered Israel-UAE agreement.

Pompeo, the first American top diplomat to visit Sudan since 2005, arrived on a historic “first official non-stop flight” from Tel Aviv, he tweeted from the plane.

Israel remains technically at war and has no formal diplomatic relations with Sudan, which for years supported hardline Islamist forces under its former strongman Omar al-Bashir.

But its new transitional government has vowed to break with the Bashir era following his ouster last year amid popular pro-democracy protests.

Pompeo was to meet Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and Sovereign Council Chair General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to discuss continued US support for the civilian-led transitional government “and express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship”, the State Department said.

Sudan, which has launched sweeping social and political reforms, now hopes Washington will soon take it off its blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism as it seeks to fully re-integrate into the international community.

Closer ties with US ally Israel would help, and both sides have already taken a series of steps, muddied however by mixed messaging from Sudan.

The Pompeo visit comes as Sudan is in deep economic crisis — having suffered decades-long US sanctions and the 2011 secession of the country’s oil-rich south.

Grappling with high inflation and the coronavirus pandemic, the country badly needs to attract more foreign aid and investment.

August 25, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 1 Comment

US Benefits From Terrorist Efforts to Disrupt Syria’s Reconstruction, Russian MoD Says

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 25.08.2020

The Russian military has repeatedly accused the Pentagon of training ‘former’ terrorist militants to continue the fight against Damascus at the at-Tanf base in southern Syria, and has cited intelligence reports on US forces’ evacuation of Daesh (ISIS) commanders from the country. Washington has strongly denied the allegations.

Terrorists operating in the vast desert area of central Syria continue to disrupt the region’s reconstruction, and the US is the primary beneficiary of this state of affairs, as it allows Washington to justify its continued illegal military deployment in the country’s northeast, a spokesman for the Russian military grouping in Syria announced in a briefing Tuesday.

“Through their actions, the terrorists disrupt the process of socio-economic reconstruction of Syria and the establishment of relations between local Arab tribes and Damscus. Such a situation primarily benefits the United States, and allows them to justify their presence in the country’s east,” the spokesman said.

Pointing to a recent uptick in terrorist activity in the Syrian Desert, a vast region accounting for about 55 percent of the Arab Republic’s total area, the spokesman said it could be attributed to an ‘amnesty’ program for former militants by Washington’s Kurdish allies.

“Over the past month, the Syrian Desert area has seen a significant increase in the activity of militants consisting of former Daesh terrorists. Most of these militants appeared in this area following the ‘amnesty’ conducted by so-called ‘Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria’,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman also pointed to efforts by the militants to commit acts of sabotage. Earlier this month, a Russian major general was killed after an improvised explosive device (IED) laid by militants went off, he recalled.

“By sabotaging transport communications and carrying out acts of sabotage against Syrian oil and gas industry facilities, by attacking patrols and the posts of Syrian Army units, militants are destabilizing the situation in the region. On August 18, an explosion of an IED planted by terrorists in Deir ez-Zor province killed senior Russian military advisor Maj. Gen. Vyacheslav Gladkikh,” the spokesman said.

Gladkikh was killed and two other servicemen were injured after the vehicles they were traveling in were hit by an IED near the At-Taim oil field, about 15 km outside the city of Deir ez-Zor.

Combined Russian-Syrian Operation to Clear Desert of Terrorists

The spokesman said that Russian forces and their Syrian allies conducted an operation to clear the Syrian Desert region of the terrorist remnants in a major operation conducted between August 18 and 24, and promised that the operation would continue until the complete destruction of all US-controlled armed groups in the area.

According to the official, the operation by Russian and Syrian air power, combined with artillery and work by reconnaisance and special operations forces, has led to the elimination of 327 militants, 134 of their hiding places, 17 observation posts, 7 warehouses and 5 underground weapons and ammunition storage facilities.

Russian Military’s Allegations of US Support for Terrorists

The Russian military and media have repeatedly accused the US of training as many as 1,200 former terrorist militants at the at-Tanf garisson in the southern Syrian province of Homs, with Moscow alleging that the US intended to use these fores to create a so-called ‘New Syrian Army’ to continue to destabilize the war-torn country after Daesh was defeated. The Pentagon has dismissed the allegations as “false and absurd.”

In 2018, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, pointed to at-Tanf as being one of two staging areas for the continuation of an armed struggle against Damascus by the jihadists, with the other said to be located at Camp Shaddadi, under the control of US-allied Kurdish forces operating in the northeast.

In addition to these training facilities, the Russian, Syrian and Iranian militaries have accused the US anti-Daesh coalition of evacuating Daesh commanders and members of their families by helicopter. In March 2018, late Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani urged Iranian officials to ‘slap the West in the face’ with Iranian intelligence on alleged US cooperation with the terrorists, and to inform Washington that Tehran knows what the US is up to in Syria and Iraq. Soleimani, who assisted both Syrian and Iraqi forces in their battle against Daesh, was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.

August 25, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

UAE snubs three-way meeting with US, Israel over F-35 spat

Press TV – August 25, 2020

The Emirati envoy to the UN has reportedly snubbed a meeting with his Israeli and American counterparts after Tel Aviv spoke out against Abu Dhabi’s potential acquisition of American F-35 warplanes despite a normalization deal between the two sides.

The meeting had been scheduled for Friday at the UN headquarters in New York among Lana Nusseibeh, Gilad Ardan, and Kelly Kraft as a means of celebrating the August 13 deal that enabled “full normalization” of relations between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the occupying regime.

Israel’s Walla news site, however, reported on Monday that the Emirati official had opted out of the meeting a week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had opposed the sale of F-35s and other advanced weapons to any country in the Middle East, including Arab countries that have peace agreements with Israel.

Netanyahu also rejected earlier reports that he had given the green light to such sales to the UAE as part of the normalization deal.

Walla further said Emirati officials would refrain from holding any such high-level meetings with Israeli officials until Netanyahu “clarifies” his position on potential sales of the F-35s to Abu Dhabi.

Tel Aviv claims to have a “military edge” in the region and invariably pressures Washington into helping it retain the self-proclaimed primacy.

The UAE says the peace agreement with Israel should remove “any hurdle” for Abu Dhabi to purchase the advanced jets.

“We have legitimate requests that are there. We ought to get them,” said Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargashin an interview with the Atlantic Council on Thursday. “The whole idea of a state of belligerency or war with Israel no longer exists” following normalization.

Observers say the complications that have followed the UAE-Israel normalization agreement point to the flimsy nature of their relations, which have been received with uniform opposition from all Palestinian factions and many other countries.

Speaking alongside Netanyahu during a trip to the occupied city of Jerusalem al-Quds, US Secretary of State, reiterated America’s commitment to protecting Israel, while suggesting that Washington could rethink selling the warplanes to the UAE.

“The United States has a legal requirement with respect to [Israel’s alleged] qualitative military edge, and we will continue to honor that,” Pompeo said, adding the US “will now continue to review” its military ties with the UAE.

As per America’s Israel policy, Washington has to take protecting Israel’s security into consideration before selling any weapons to countries in the Middle East region.

With that in mind, the US has so far sold 16 of the warplanes to the occupying regime and plans to add dozens more to the fleet.

August 25, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

Reports say the explosion at Iranian nuclear plant had a criminal cause

By Lucas Leiroz | August 25, 2020

A new focus of tensions and uncertainties appears to be emerging in Iran. Recent reports from the Iranian authorities have concluded that the explosion at the Natanz nuclear plant had a criminal cause, most likely caused by a sabotage operation. Not many details have yet been provided about the completion of the investigations. The Iranian government has announced that more information about the case will be released soon but made clear the authorities’ certainty about the criminal nature of the plant’s fire.

In July, a major explosion hit the Iranian nuclear power plant at Natanz, used especially for enriching uranium – an essential activity for the development of nuclear technology. The explosion sparked a huge fire that caught the attention of the media around the world at the time. After the incident, no fatalities or leaks of radioactive materials were reported in the region, so the damage was considered low.

Immediately after the explosion, several rumors were spread about the real nature of the event, as it is common on such occasions. Some of the rumors claimed that Israel had triggered the explosion with the intention of damaging Iran in its nuclear development plans. At the time, all rumors were denied and no “conspiracy theory” was highlighted. Now, after the result of the investigations, such rumors have surfaced, but the Iranian government remains silent about them, stating that the investigations’ data will be revealed later.

Despite the uncertainties surrounding the case, the proximity of the date of the explosion in Natanz with other similar events in Iran brings us intriguing reflections and leaves many questions unanswered. In fact, since June, a series of repeated explosions at Iranian plants has been reported. In June, there was a major explosion at the nuclear power plant at Parchin’s military base in Tehran. This plant is the largest explosive factory for Iranian forces and is therefore a place of great strategic value for the country. Shortly thereafter, there was the event in Natanz, after which, in July, another major explosion occurred at the Isfahan power plant in central Iran. Still, not only plants have been victimized by mysterious explosions in Iran, but also several other facilities: on June 30, an explosion at a clinic in Tehran left 19 dead; in July, two people died in an explosion at a factory also in Tehran; also in July, a major fire in the port of Bouchehr destroyed several vessels, but left no victims. All these incidents have had no well-defined explanation and are therefore the subject of rumors.

The most curious thing is to note that the explosions occurred shortly after Iran intensified its uranium enrichment project. The withdrawal of the US from the 2015 nuclear agreement led Tehran to reconsider the national nuclear plan and to announce the resumption of the uranium enrichment program in the first half of June, on a date coincidentally close to the beginning of the series of explosions. Whether or not there is a causal relationship between both facts, the proximity of the dates is minimally interesting and justifies the suspicions and hypotheses raised by several experts. This is not a mere “conspiracy theory”: the possibility that foreign powers are sabotaging Iran’s nuclear program through some secret operations is quite plausible, regardless of whether it is factual or not.

Since the resumption of the uranium enrichment program, Iran has received several accusations from other countries, mainly from Israel, that it is planning to acquire an atomic bomb. Tehran vehemently denies such accusation, as it has done on many other occasions – according to various statements by Shiite religious leaders, the building of a nuclear bomb is condemnable according to the Islamic religion, so Iran, as an Islamic Republic, could not undertake such project. However, Iranian military progress remains intense and the results are visible. The country recently announced the development of a new long-range ballistic missile, causing even more negative reactions in the West and Israel, where the speech about a possible Iranian nuclear bomb is gaining strength.

In fact, we should expect the Iranian authorities to provide more information about the case and only then express opinions about it. For the time being, the most interesting thing to note is the war of narratives around Iran: even with several pronouncements denying the accusations, the United States and Israel maintain the claim that Tehran is building an atomic bomb as an official state discourse; on the other hand, the opinion of experts on possible sabotage against strategic installations of the Iranian government is classified as a “conspiracy theory” or “false rumor” and is immediately rejected.

There is, of course, an information war around the case. We do not know if it was foreign sabotage – and we may never know – but we do know that such subversive activities really exist and often happen.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

August 25, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

‘First Day’, the drama about a transgender 12yo, shouldn’t be on the BBC children’s channel. It’s harmful, shameless propaganda

By Debbie Hayton | RT | August 24, 2020

I’m transgender myself but this film is misleadingly telling viewers as young as six that if they are unhappy with their sex then they can choose the other one, and then all will be fine. But they can’t and it won’t, of course.

The transition from primary school to secondary school can be an anxious time for all children, and it is surely a worthy topic for children’s television to cover.

But “First Day” – the latest offering from the children’s arm of the BBC – focuses on a transgender-identified child who transitions from male to female at the same time. The synopsis is simple: an unhappy feminine boy, mocked and bullied by others, overcomes enormous adversity to become the centre of attention, popular with peers and feted by teachers after they metamorphose from boy to girl.

The four-episode miniseries – produced in Australia and originally shown on ABC – opened last week on CBBC, the BBC TV channel aimed at 6 to 12 year olds. The scene was set when the high school principal told 12 year-old Hannah Bradford that while they would be enrolled under their legal name Thomas, but that any non-legal documents would use the name Hannah.

So far so good – and preferred names are used widely in schools – but then came the bomb-shell: Hannah would be required to use the sick bay toilets in case other parents found out that “a boy was using the girls toilets”. Hannah’s heart-felt plea that they were not a boy pulled hard on the emotional heartstrings. Less than three minutes into episode one, the young hero was already pitched against unknown and unseen adults who presumably might be “transphobic”.

The series continues on Wednesday 26th August at 5 pm, with a plot reminiscent of a modern-day fairy tale. Hannah’s initial plan is stealth: to hide the past and pose as a girl to all the other children. But the first hurdle – a sleepover party – could be Cinderella at the ball. Hannah is not allowed to sleep over, but not for the sake of the other girls. Hannah’s parents were adamant: it was purely about Hannah’s safety and need for support. The disappointment is palpable when Hannah’s doting mother arrives at the party. The car might not turn into a pumpkin on the way home, but the events of the next day could have come straight from Disney.

Hannah’s friend calls, Hannah tells her the truth, they hug, and they all live happily ever after. Despite continued obstacles – there are two more episodes to fill – Hannah wins over bullies, overcomes fears and, by the time the series finishes on September 9th, blossoms to become a key role model at the school camp.

But while fairy stories are set in fantasy, “First Day” is supposedly rooted in reality and that worries me. As a teacher, I know that 6 to 12-year olds are yet to develop critical thinking skills. Indeed, some still believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy.

“First Day” makes outrageous claims that are neither challenged nor analysed but presented as unquestionable truth. As Hannah came out to the friend, impressionable primary school children hear that, “It’s like when you’re born, everyone thinks you’re a boy or a girl, but you know you are not. You’re really the opposite.” When the friend suggests that Hannah is really a boy, she is rapidly corrected, “No, I’m really a girl. It’s just when I was born, I looked like a boy, and everyone thought I was a boy”.

This is just not true. I’m transgender myself and I was most definitely a boy. What matters is not what anyone thinks but scientific truth. Not surprisingly, therefore, what makes Hannah a girl is never explained, though Hannah’s distaste for boys’ toys roots it in sexist stereotypes. Hannah did not want trucks for birthday presents, therefore Hannah is a girl. Deliberately and necessarily simple – considering the target audience – but potentially devastating for any young boy watching who doesn’t like trucks either.

At the same time, young female viewers were presented with a role model of their own in Sarah. A progressive script may have celebrated the fact that girls can crop their hair and play with trucks. But poor Sarah was cast as an unhappy child scared that she was “getting further and further away from who I really am”. Inevitably, Hannah took her in hand and told her, “I’m going to help you”. Unforgivably, in my view, the sentence was never completed with, “tell a teacher.”

But this is not an educational film, it is shameless propaganda. The primary school viewers are told that if they are unhappy with their sex then they can choose the other one. They can’t, of course, but biological facts are not in the script. Setting the programme among a group of 12-year olds avoided the knotty problem of puberty. In real life, we all know that it is much harder for older boys to pass as girls. Unless, of course, their natural physical development had been halted by puberty blockers: powerful cancer drugs that act on the pituitary gland to stop the production of sex hormones in the gonads.

But that did not trouble the film makers as they presented a happy ending without ever hinting at the consequences. The rather emotional conclusion paints a picture of happy children – with Hannah centre stage – starting out on perfect lives. The uplifting soundtrack announces, “this is where it all begins”, but what actually does begin is never made clear to the young viewers who by now are possibly indoctrinated with misinformation.

As the British National Health Service itself warns: “Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria. [Nor is it] known what the psychological effects may be. It’s also not known whether hormone blockers affect the development of the teenage brain or children’s bones.”

In a final twist, transgender-identified Hannah Bradford is played by transgender-identified Evie MacDonald, something that can only magnify the impact on impressionable youngsters considering the MacDonald family’s high-profile activism. Evie’s mother, Meagan MacDonald is a transgender advocate in Australia, offering advice to parents of “Gender Diverse Children”, while Evie models fashion and took on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison personally over a tweet she perceived as being “hateful” towards trans kids.

Evie is a patient at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne (RCH) and features in the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for trans and gender diverse children and adolescents. According to 9 News Australia, Evie is taking hormone blockers, which perhaps explains why a 14-year old male could successfully portray a 12 year-old child who passes as a girl.

This is a politically savvy family at the heart of a film that has a political message. It is not harmless entertainment; it promotes an ideology that has driven a 1767% rise in demand at the RCH Gender Clinic since 2012. That, however, was absent from the film.

While “First Day” might be something for parents to watch – to be forewarned is to be forearmed – it is unsuitable for primary school children, and certainly unaccompanied children, who could well latch on to transgenderism as an escape route from problems around identity and relationships. Parents, be warned!

Debbie Hayton is a teacher and a transgender campaigner, based in the UK. She tweets @DebbieHayton

August 24, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

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