US continues to defy International Court of Justice’s orders in cases filed by Iran
Press TV – October 28, 2021
Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations says the US administration continues to disregard orders issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which have been handed down in cases filed by Iran against US and vice versa.
Majid Takht-Ravanchi made the remarks in an address to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, emphasizing that Iran acknowledges “the vital role of the ICJ in the prevention of hostilities and mitigation of crises through peaceful settlement of disputes as well as in strengthening the rule of law, preserving international order and tackling unilateral measures.”
“Due to adoption of a number of legislative and executive acts in the United States in flagrant violation of international law, the immunity of states and their properties from suit before US courts as well as immunity from jurisdiction and enforcement have been removed against Iran,” he added.
Takht-Ravanchi noted that as a result of the filing of cases in the US courts against Iran as well as its officials and the Central Bank (CBI), “the assets of the CBI have been subjected to execution in order to satisfy a default judgment.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that such asset blocking and enforcement proceedings against the CBI and certain Iranian companies and banks in the US is in violation of provisions of ‘Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights of 1955’ between the two countries,” Iran’s UN envoy said.
Takht-Ravanchi said following the unilateral withdrawal of the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the unlawful re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran, Iran filed an application instituting proceedings against the US with regard to violations of multiple provisions of the Treaty of Amity.
He said on October 3, 2018, the ICJ issued an order unanimously requiring the US to remove any impediments on the importation of foodstuffs as well as medicines and medical devices to Iran and also ordered Washington to ensure that the licenses and necessary authorizations are granted and that payments and other transfers of funds are not subject to any restriction in so far as they relate to the aforementioned goods and services.
“Regrettably, the United States has not only failed to comply with the Court’s Order but, by imposing new sanctions, especially during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, has also deliberately defied that Order,” Takht-Ravanchi said.
Iran, he noted, has on several occasions brought the US non-compliance with the Order to the Court’s attention and the answer provided by the US in this regard has always been a repetition of its previous contentions; that humanitarian transactions are exempt from its sanctions.
However, Takht-Ravanchi added, “through tightening the grip of sanctions after the Court’s Order, the US … violated this Order which requires that ‘Both parties shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve’.”
Tehran has on multiple occasions called on the United Nations court to order the immediate lifting of the sanctions, and demanded compensation for damages incurred in their wake.
Sanctions had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers- the US, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia.
Former President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the deal with Iran in May 2018 and reimposed draconian sanctions as part of the so-called maximum pressure campaign against the country.
Earlier this year, the ICJ ruled that it can take on Iran’s bid to overturn illegal US sanctions re-imposed by Trump after he pulled Washington out of the nuclear deal.
The United States had tried to argue that Iran could not base claims at the ICJ on the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights between the two countries. However, a majority of a panel of 16 judges found the treaty could be used as a basis for the ICJ’s jurisdiction.
The new US administration said it is “disappointed” by the ruling, despite President Joe Biden’s criticism of his predecessor for reinstating the bans on the Islamic Republic after leaving the landmark accord.
Israel to Attack Iran? Washington Gives the Green Light to the ‘Military Option’
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 28, 2021
Some might recall candidate Joe Biden’s pledge to work to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was a multilateral agreement intended to limit Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. The JCPOA was signed by President Barack Obama in 2015, when Biden was Vice President, and was considered one of the only foreign policy successes of his eight years in office. Other signatories to it were Britain, China, Germany, France, and Russia and it was endorsed by the United Nations. The agreement included unannounced inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities by the IAEA and, by all accounts, it was working and was a non-proliferation success story. In return for its cooperation Iran was to receive its considerable assets frozen in banks in the United States and was also to be relieved of the sanctions that had been placed on it by Washington and other governments.
The JCPOA crashed and burned in 2018 when President Donald Trump ordered U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, claiming that Iran was cheating and would surely move to develop a nuclear weapon as soon as the first phase of the agreement was completed. Trump, whose ignorance on Iran and other international issues was profound, had surrounded himself with a totally Zionist foreign policy team, including members of his own family, and had bought fully into the arguments being made by Israel as well as by Israel Lobby predominantly Jewish groups to include the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Trump’s time in office was spent pandering to Israel in every conceivable way, to include recognizing Jerusalem as the country’s capital, granting Israel the green light for creating and expanding illegal settlements on the West Bank and recognizing the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel.
Given Trump’s record, most particularly the senseless and against-American-interests abandonment of JCPOA, it almost seemed a breath of fresh air to hear Biden’s fractured English as he committed his administration to doing what he could to rejoin the other countries who were still trying to make the agreement work. After Biden was actually elected, more or less, he and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken clarified what the U.S. would seek to do to “fix” the agreement by making it stronger in some key areas that had not been part of the original document.
Iran for its part insisted that the agreement did not need any additional caveats and should be a return to the status quo ante, particularly when Blinken and his team made clear that they were thinking of a ban on Iranian ballistic missile development as well as negotiations to end Tehran’s alleged “interference” in the politics of the region. The interference presumably referred to Iranian support of the Palestinians as well as its role in Syria and Yemen, all of which had earned the hostility of American “friends” Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Israel inevitably stirred the pot by sending a stream of senior officials, to include Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to discuss “the Iranian threat” with Biden and his top officials. Lapid made clear that Israel “reserves the right to act at any given moment, in any way… We know there are moments when nations must use force to protect the world from evil.” And to be sure, Biden, like Trump, has also made his true sentiments clear by surrounding himself with Zionists. Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland have filled the three top slots at State Department, all are Jewish and all strong on Israel. Nuland is a leading neocon. And pending is the appointment of Barbara Leaf, who has been nominated Assistant Secretary to head the State Department’s Near East region. She is currently the Ruth and Sid Lapidus Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which is an AIPAC spin off and a major component in the Israel Lobby. That means that a member in good standing of the Israel Lobby would serve as the State Department official overseeing American policy in the Middle East.
At the Pentagon one finds a malleable General Mark Milley, always happy to meet his Israeli counterparts, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, an affirmative action promotion who likewise has become adept at parroting the line “Israel has a right to defend itself.” And need one mention ardent self-declared Zionists at the top level of the Democratic Party, to include Biden himself, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and, of course, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer?
So rejoining the JCPOA over Israel objections was a non-starter from the beginning and was probably only mooted to make Trump look bad. Indirect talks including both Iran and the U.S. technically have continued in Vienna, though they have been stalled since the end of June. Trita Parsi has recently learned that Iran sought to make a breakthrough for an agreement by seeking a White House commitment to stick with the plan as long as Biden remains in office. Biden and Blinken refused and Blinken has recently confirmed that a new deal is unlikely, saying “time is running out.”
And there have been some other new developments. Israeli officials have been warning for over twenty years that Iran is only one year away from having its own nukes and needs to be stopped, a claim that has begun to sound like a religious mantra repeated over and over, but now they are actually funding the armaments that will be needed to do the job. Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi has repeatedly said the IDF is “accelerating” plans to strike Iran, and Israeli politicians to include former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have regularly been threatening to do whatever must be done to deal with the threat from the Islamic Republic. Israeli media is reporting that $1.5 billion has been allocated in the current and upcoming budget to buy the American bunker buster bombs that will be needed to destroy the Iranian reactor at Bushehr and its underground research facilities at Natanz.
In the wake of the news about the war funding, there have also been reports that the Israeli Air Force is engaging in what is being described as “intense” drills to simulate attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. After Israel obtains the 5000 pound bunker buster bombs, it will also need to procure bombers to drop the ordnance, and one suspects that the U.S. Congress will somehow come up with the necessary “military aid” to make that happen. Tony Blinken has also made clear that the Administration knows what Israel is planning and approves. He met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on October 13th and said if diplomacy with Iran fails, the U.S. will turn to “other options.” And yes, he followed that up with the venerable line that “Israel has the right to defend itself and we strongly support that proposition.”
Lapid confirmed that one of Blinken’s “options” was military action. “I would like to start by repeating what the Secretary of State just said. Yes, other options are going to be on the table if diplomacy fails. And by saying other options, I think everybody understands here … what is it that we mean.” It must be observed that in their discussion of Iran’s nuclear program, Lapid and Blinnken were endorsing an illegal and unprovoked attack to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon that it is apparently not seeking, but which it will surely turn to as a consequence if only to defend itself in the future.
In short, U.S. foreign policy is yet again being held hostage by Israel. The White House position is clearly and absurdly that an Israeli attack on Iran, considered a war crime by most, is an act of self-defense. However it turns out, the U.S. will be seen as endorsing the crime and will inevitably be implicated in it, undoubtedly resulting in yet another foreign policy disaster in the Middle East with nothing but grief for the American people. The simple truth is that Iran has neither threatened nor attacked Israel. Given that, there is nothing defensive about the actions Israel has already taken in sabotaging Iranian facilities and assassinating scientists, and there would be nothing defensive about direct military attacks either with or without U.S. assistance on Iranian soil. If Israel chooses to play the fool it is on them and their leaders. The United States does not have a horse in this race and should butt out, but one doubts if a White House and Congress, firmly controlled by Zionist forces, have either the wisdom or the courage to cut the tie that binds with the Jewish state.
As evidence emerges of provocateurs inciting the Jan 6 Capitol riot, was an asset working on behalf of the FBI to stir up trouble?
By Kit Klarenberg | RT | October 27, 2021
The bureau has form for this modus operandi, after all. Just what was the role of mysterious ex-Marine Ray Epps in fomenting the invasion? And why’s he been removed from the list of suspects and not been arrested?
Ever since January 6, speculation has abounded that the US authorities either knew what was going to transpire in advance and allowed it to happen, or undercover state infiltrators played some role or other in orchestrating the upheaval.
While acknowledging that FBI informants were on the ground that day, and, indeed, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers – two far-right groups that played prominent roles in the Capitol break-in and preceding protests – both have intimate ties to the Bureau at the highest levels, the latter theory has been universally dismissed as conspiratorial nonsense.
Yet, given the agency’s history, the notion isn’t so far-fetched. After all, for decades during the Cold War, the FBI operated a dedicated counter-intelligence program, known as COINTELPRO, that sought to infiltrate, undermine and discredit activist groups and protest movements from within. A key tactic engaged in by undercover provocateurs was marshalling others to engage in violence.
More recently, in October 2020, the bureau foiled a deranged plot hatched by the Wolverine Watchmen militia group to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. It’s been revealed that 12 of the individuals involved in the doomed conspiracy were FBI informants.
Now, pro-Trump website Revolver has offered the most compelling evidence yet that undercover provocateurs of some distinction were pivotal to the events of January 6.
The website records how, by January 8, the FBI had assembled mugshots of its first 20 ‘most wanted’ Capitol rioters, offering cash rewards for successful identifications and fruitful leads. It took just three days for resourceful Antifa activists to pinpoint ‘Suspect 16’ as Arizona resident Ray Epps, a former high-ranking US Marine. Swathes of evidence supported the identification, including, somewhat amazingly, a direct admission by the man himself to his local newspaper, the Arizona Central.
Published January 11, the report discussed how Epps had been approached by the outlet and asked for comment about a widely circulated video from the night of January 5, in which someone closely resembling him boldly proclaimed to a crowd of fellow Trump supporters, “We need to go into the Capitol.” He confirmed he was that individual, but played down the significance of his comments, alleging that the “only thing” he meant was “we would go in the doors like everyone else.”
He went on to assert that the violent manner in which protesters subsequently entered was “totally, totally wrong,” but did not clarify why, in the same clip, he also declared, “I’ll be arrested” for proposing they gain entry to the building in the first place.
In the following weeks, news reports of arrests of individuals who’d busted into the Capitol were published almost daily, although Epps’ name never came up. Indeed, the FBI seems to have taken no decisive action in this regard until almost six months later, and, even then, not in a manner most would have expected. At an indeterminate point on July 1, between the wee hours of the morning and early evening, his mugshot was abruptly removed from the bureau’s most-wanted list, leaving an unaccounted-for gap between Suspects 15 and 17.
There is no indication that this was because he had been arrested. In every other case of a successful arrest, the corresponding photo of the suspect in question is slapped with an “arrested” logo, and Epps’ name doesn’t appear in the dedicated, searchable Justice Department Capitol Breach Cases database. Quite why he apparently remains at liberty is perplexing, although how he came so quickly to the FBI’s attention is no mystery.
The video referenced by the Arizona paper is one of many depicting Epps aggressively advocating the breach of the Capitol from January 5 onwards. That evening saw a law enforcement-mediated standoff between Trump supporters visiting Washington DC for the next day’s planned and widely promoted protest, and Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists.
Strikingly, an aspect of that particular clip not mentioned in the news report is the extremely hostile reaction his bold suggestion elicited from those around him. After he repeatedly advocated “going in”, other pro-Trump protesters respond with a shouted chorus of “no!”, before chanting in unison “Fed!” over and over, prompting Epps to awkwardly clarify that he meant “peacefully”.
Multiple separate clips show Epps moving between different groups in the crowd, and repeating the same routine, loudly calling for attendees to enter the Capitol building, and typically being met with indifference or even outright antipathy. In one, his audience’s exhaustion with his antics is evident – he asks for “one minute” to make his pitch yet again to another group of Trump supporters, but the throng responds that he has only “30 seconds”, despite a sympathetic protester drawing attention to Epps’ military background and calling for him to be respected.
This activity alone would surely mark him out as of interest to the FBI – after all, determining the degree to which what transpired on January 6 was planned in advance and, if so, by whom, were central initial questions in its probe that remain unanswered. However, Epps’ movements the next day, much of which was likewise captured on film, would make him one of the most valuable sources of information on the Capitol’s infiltration.
Revolver meticulously reviews numerous videos showing Epps apparently issuing orders to a masked Capitol rioter, seemingly also a former US Marine, who appears to have been armed with super-strength bear mace, to have engaged in a range of incendiary acts, and to have repeatedly provoked other protesters to commit violent acts and not back down from law enforcement. That rioter, Suspect 273 – also known as #MaroonPB – coincidentally remains at large today, too.
Even more tantalisingly, though, one clip shows Epps right on the frontline when the protest turned violent and the police barricades were broken through for the first time. Ryan Samsel, who has been blamed for kickstarting the “insurrection”, is pictured standing in front of the barricade, in a bitter showdown with the officer behind.
Epps emerges from the left of the frame, takes Samsel aside, whispers something in his ear, then vanishes. Moments later, Samsel and others begin charging at the barricades, knocking them down – a pivotal act that allowed for the eventual deluge of protesters into the Capitol. Media reports in the immediate aftermath of January 6 suggested the infiltrators’ path was effectively laid by the DC Police’s failure to deploy precautions such as ‘frozen zones’ (areas officially off-limits) and the hardened barriers commonly used for major events.
Samsel was arrested just three weeks after January 6 – conspicuously, he’s one of only a few individuals accused of comprising the large “breach team” who’s been taken into custody. According to his attorney, in prison, he’s been subjected to vicious torture, his jaw, nose and orbital bone having all been shattered, and his right eye damaged so badly he may be permanent half-blind.
Almost a year later, we’re still no closer to learning the truth about January 6. In the meantime, that date has been endlessly invoked by lawmakers, pundits and journalists as a grave attack on US values and democracy. Some have compared the event to 9/11, while the White House has likened it to the Civil War and proposed wide-ranging new domestic spying powers to avert another such catastrophe.
Consideration of how state capitol buildings have been repeatedly invaded during protests in the past, and DC’s Capitol Hill was overwhelmed at the conclusion of the 2017 Women’s March, has been entirely lacking. But that doesn’t fit the narrative many powerful people wish to perpetuate about January 6, so this staggering oversight is unsurprising. That the show trials of the 648 people charged in connection with the riot so far will shed no light on potential deep-state machinations that day is likewise almost inevitable.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
The Covid vaccine victims who will not be silenced
By Kathy Gyngell | TCW Defending Freedom | October 28, 2021
IT’S hard to tell sometimes whether the mainstream media is ingenuous and stupid, or disingenuous and malign. Their across-the-board, uncritical and almost adulatory reporting of Israel’s ‘first out of the traps’ mass vaccination programme prompts this observation. Check out Israel on Google: however many pages you search, you won’t find one critical article on the Israeli vaccination programme’s efficacy or ethics.
Had it been an unmitigated success there’d be no cause for surprise. But the truth is otherwise. Despite its early roll-out and achieving rates of vaccination in vulnerable groups upwards of 90 per cent, it’s no secret that over the summer the country experienced another wave of the virus that vaccination proved no barrier to. By early August the vaccinated (not the unvaccinated) in Israel were reported by a leading Israeli health official to account for 95 per cent of severe and 90 per cent of new hospitalisations for Covid-19. Significant ‘excess’ deaths in non-Covid vulnerable age groups also raised serious questions about the vaccines’ safety. In addition, this pre-print study (un-peer reviewed) published in August found natural immunity conferred longer lasting and stronger protection against the disease and hospitalisation caused by the Delta variant than the vaccine.
None of this evidence caused Israel’s government even a pause for thought. Au contraire the country was first off the mark again – this time with ‘booster’ third and fourth jabs all endorsed by the MSM with articles crediting it with powers its predecessors strangely lacked:
‘ . . . third doses are highly effective at preventing people from becoming infected with Delta, among those who are willing to be vaccinated,’ one enthusiastic professor opined. He said they not only dramatically reduce a person’s susceptibility to infection, they create a barrier to the onward transmission and spread of the virus.
The message from Israel for the UK is clear, or so the i newspaper would also have us believe. The booster is the way forward that our Government must follow with all speed.
It’s not just the politicos and the MSM mouthing the mantra. The Brookings Institute has opined tortuously that despite Israel’s ‘successful’ vaccination programme, its mounting cases make ‘the booster shot of the Covid-19 vaccine more necessary than ever’.
No academic looking for a living, breathing example of cognitive dissonance could find a better one.
This is the theory we’ve explained more than once in these pages. It accounts for the unaccountable – in this case for vaccine enthusiasts’ (do more) irrational response to the vaccines’ failure to deliver; for the ‘doubling down’ phenomenon – anything rather than acknowledge they may have got it wrong or placed too much reliance on what was always uncertain.
Faithful to the theory, they claim in face of negative data that their actions were successful in averting the worst, going further into denial with professions that had they not acted it would have been worse; thus setting up a canny ‘heads-we-win, tails-you-lose’ interpretation of things.
Festinger, the originator of this particular theory of human behaviour, explains it as ‘a psychic condition of tension and discomfort brought about by a palpable contradiction in an individual’s mental world’. It is an unease that must be eliminated: ‘Accordingly, something in the individual’s conscious awareness has to be invented, altered, ignored or denied.’
What is undoubtedly being denied by the authorities and their propagandists is the other side of the story – not only the inconvenient data but the human testimonies of those who have fallen foul of the experimental vaccine. This is the ultimate denial, keeping invisible the very real victims and survivors of the vaccines whose accounts are too threatening to the official narrative for the authorities to acknowledge.
Thank God then for the The Testimonies Project from Israel … to make sure their voices are heard, since they are not being heard in the Israeli media.
It’s a project that needs replicating worldwide to ensure that the millions of Covid vaccine victims are not airbrushed out of history and that there will be record of the human suffering that politicians can and must be brought to account for.
You can watch it here.
Trucking Alliance warns of looming “disaster” if vaccine passports are introduced
The proposals would not only be an attack on civil liberties, it would cause further disruption to supply chains.
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | October 27, 2021
The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) has warned of substantial “supply chain disruptions” if the US enforces vaccine passports at the border.
A few weeks ago, the US Department of Homeland Security announced a vaccine mandate for all international travel including truck drivers that will take effect in January. The announcement has been heavily criticized by cross-border truckers. According to Transportation Network, one executive in the Canadian trucking industry warned that the mandate would lead to a “disaster.”
This week, the CTA warned that the mandate would increase supply chain disruptions. Trucks facilitate about 70% of the $650 billion trade between Canada and the US. About 40,000 US drivers and 120,000 Canadian drivers operate in the cross-border trade between the two countries.
The CTA said that about 20% of drivers will stop cross-border operations once the vaccine mandate is enforced.
“CTA conservatively estimates that 20 percent of Canadian truck drivers crossing the border (22,000), and 40 percent of U.S. truck drivers (16,000), would almost immediately exit the Canada-US trade system should the vaccination mandate take effect in January 2022,” the organization said.
It called on both the US and Canadian governments to “reexamine appropriate mandate timelines for cross-border truck drivers.”
The group also argued that more time is needed to create a “seamless mutual system of identification for drivers” to avoid delays when drivers are showing proof of vaccination.
However, the Biden administration appears to be disregarding the warnings of “dire consequences” from leading truck organizations by proceeding with the vaccine passport plans.
Doctor: “Society Has Convinced Kids That They’re Killing Granny”
By Richie Allen | October 28, 2021
A GP has told Talk Radio that masks have no place in schools and that “children have been convinced by society that they are the ones letting Grandma die.”
Speaking to Julia Hartley-Brewer, Dr. Renee Hoenderkamp said:
“In fact there are lots of arguments to not have masks in school. There are so many harms that are done by masks and I am so tired of hearing people say, “it’s nothing, it’s easy to wear a mask.” It isn’t.
I have seen children over the last 20 months reduced from gregarious, outgoing, confident young teenagers, into gibbering wrecks who are having panic attacks all day and coming to see me with their parents because they don’t know how to cope anymore.
And they don’t know how to cope because they have been convinced by society that they are the people that are letting Grandma die. They are the people that are catching this germ at school and then bringing it home and spreading it throughout society. We need to stop.”
It’s unconscionable isn’t it? And yet it is really happening. The nation’s children have been brainwashed into believing that they are walking talking biological weapons who can kill their grandparents with a hug.
If that isn’t child abuse, then what is?