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Iran’s shock therapy breaks JCPOA stalemate

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | July 8, 2019

A series of announcements in Tehran through the past week took the situation around the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) — and the US-Iranian standoff — to an inflection point.

On July 1, it transpired that Iran has exceeded the limit of enriched uranium stockpile under the JCPOA, which is 300 tons. On July 8, Tehran announced a rollback in its obligations under the JCPOA by starting to enrich uranium to a higher purity than 3.67% that would fulfil the needs of its power plants. (Iran had previously said that it needed 5% enrichment for its Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) and 20% for Tehran research reactor.)

A criticality has been reached. The Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Fact Sheet outlines how this came about.

Tehran has characterised the past week’s moves as remedial steps under Para 36 of the JCPOA, which it is entitled, to protect its interests. Tehran also says these are reversible steps if only the E3 (Britain, France and Germany) comply with the JCPOA.

Tehran has forewarned that every 60 days, it might otherwise make further moves to jettison its commitments under the JCPOA. Nonetheless, Tehran also acknowledges that although the E3 are yet to meet Iran’s demands, especially in regard to a non-dollar direct payment channel known as INSTEX, certain efforts in that direction are continuing, and they could still bear fruit.

Equally, talks are going on with China and the UK regarding the redesign of Arak reactor (which the US had originally undertaken to carry out under the JCPOA) although Iran has the technology to redesign the reactor on its own if these talks do not show results.

All in all, Tehran has taken certain modest steps that do not even remotely amount to a surreptitious dash for nuclear weapons. On the contrary, these moves are transparent and there is no attempt to restrict the IAEA inspectors’ access to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nor is Tehran challenging the IAEA intrusive safeguards.

This is crucial. In sum, Tehran has given a two-fold signal. One, the costs for the US’‘maximum pressure’ policy is going to steadily rise, as Tehran will steadily counter-escalate. Two, the remaining signatories to the JCPOA (E3, Russia and China) cannot waffle any longer and must reciprocate Iran’s impeccable compliance  with the JCPOA by providing it with an economic lifeline.

Again, there is a hidden message too. Much as Iran is inch by inch distancing itself from the JCPOA — although reluctantly and with caveats — it is not conspiring to kill the 2015 deal. Curiously, Iran’s principal drive still is to somehow bring the US back into the JCPOA. And Tehran takes seriously Trump’s stated aversion to war.

The bottom line, therefore, remains where it was: Does the Trump administration have the intellectual capacity and sensitivity to fathom the Iranian (Persian) culture and psyche? Does it get the point that Iranians never negotiate under threats?

The good part, paradoxically, is that Trump has overplayed his cards and is left with few options today aside a military strike that would have incalculable and catastrophic consequences. The US’ maximum pressure strategy has effectively driven Iran to the pre-2015 position. On the other hand, the regime-change project piloted and uttered by National Security Advisor John Bolton and extravagantly funded by the State Department has flopped.

There is no sign of an uprising in Iran against the authorities. Of course, there is dissent within Iran, but then, it was always there and will always be there — but is far from life-threatening for the regime.

Unfortunately, it is being overlooked that the negotiations leading to the 2015 deal were only possible after the US unequivocally jettisoned the ‘regime change’ agenda towards Iran and, secondly, after the US conceded that Iran shall have the right to enrich uranium like any non-weapon member state of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

That is to say, if President Trump is serious about negotiating with Tehran, he needs to abandon the ‘maximum pressure’ approach by at least freezing the escalation ladder and offering economic reprieve by suspending some of the sanctions. One way could be by allowing the INSTEX — Europe’s trade channel for doing business with Iran despite US sanctions — to become really functional in the coming days. Trump can do this if he wants to, by simply feigning indifference to the INSTEX providing the mechanism for European, Russian, Turkish, Chinese or Indian companies to resume trading activities with Iran.

This brings us to the phone conversation between French President Emmanuel Macron and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday. For sure, Macron is acting as an intermediary between Trump and Rouhani to facilitate negotiations. The French have clarified that there is no move to trigger the nuclear deal’s dispute resolution mechanism for now — “It’s not an option at this moment” — although Macron said Tehran’s announcement on Sunday amounted to a ‘violation’ of the JCPOA.

Hectic behind-the-scenes consultations are taking place even as an emergency meeting of the IAEA is scheduled in Vienna on Wednesday at US request. Iran’s cooperation with the highly intrusive IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities is the focal point. Iran will attend the meeting.

Macron sounded out Rouhani on Saturday about American officials being present during the future talks between Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA —  ‘4+1’ (China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany). Rouhani concurred with the rider that it shouldn’t mean re-negotiation of the JCPOA. He added that Tehran will not object to the US participation in 4+1 meetings, provided the Trump administration removes the sanctions.

The chances are that these high-level exchanges and discussions on new ideas and initiatives may open the door to the pathway leading to the formation of new talks involving the US and Iran.

July 9, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Russia Vows Mirror Response to Mid-Range Missile Deployment in NATO Countries

Sputnik – July 5, 2019

Russia will provide a mirror response to the deployment of mid-range and low-range missiles in NATO nations in Europe, according to the First Deputy Chair of the Russian Federation Council, Vladimir Dzhabarov.

Meanwhile, Russia’s permanent mission to the alliance said Friday, after a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, that Moscow considers NATO’s attempts to blame the destruction of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on Moscow groundless.

“We pointed to the fact that attempts to pin the blame over the destruction of the INF Treaty on Russia were groundless”, the mission said in a statement.

Russia stressed the need for restraint, the mission said. Russia confirmed that, should the United States quit the treaty, Moscow did not plan to install any “relevant weapons in Europe and other regions as long as there are no US missiles of short and medium range there.”

“We stressed that further inflaming the political and military situation in Europe carried real risks”, the statement said. “We have called on the NATO countries to make a similar statement”, the mission added.

Russia and NATO exchanged, at the NATO-Russia Council meeting, information on military exercises and called to boost military contacts, Russia’s Permanent Mission to NATO added

“The Parties had an information exchange on important exercises of NATO and Russia to increase the predictability of military activities and prevent misperceptions of each other’s intentions. The Russian Side noted the demand for intensifying mil-to-mil contacts”, it said.

On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin enacted the official suspension of Russia’s participation in the 1987 INF Treaty. The move came months after the United States suspended its obligations under the accord on 2 February and warned that it would launch a withdrawal process which would be completed in six months unless Moscow remedied the country’s alleged violations of the deal. Russia pledged to act proportionally.

The INF Treaty was signed in 1987 by then-leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and then-US President Ronald Reagan. Under the agreement, the leaders agreed to destroy all cruise and ground-launched ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres (310 and 3,400 miles).

July 5, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

The DPRK’s News Report on The Recent Kim-Trump Meeting is Not Only Accurate But Highly Instructive

By Adam Garrie | Eurasia Future | 2019-07-04

After being conditioned to think of both South Korea and the United States as the “imperial savage aggressors”, it would clearly be a challenge for DPRK media directors to shift this narrative in order to prepare the people for the eventuality of peace and partnership with Seoul and Washington. Beyond this, if the DPRK leadership was apprehensive about the realistic chances of securing a comprehensive peace with the South and the United States, the news and propaganda output of the country would not have dramatically shifted in terms of how Americans and South Koreans are portrayed.

Last year, it was observed by frequent visitors to Pyongyang that old anti-American and anti-South posters and art displays had been replaced by public art emphasising a shared North-South Korean fraternity. This was a good indication that the DPRK was preparing its people for a shift in an otherwise semi-unilateral public mentality that has been carefully crafted since the days of Kim il-Sung.

Thus, in a country in which social developments tend to be stable and centrally managed, a change in official government narratives is vastly more indicative of actual policy than it would be in more open countries.

This trend was confirmed exponentially in the DPRK’s official television news report on the Kim-Trump summit on the DMZ. Contrary to what one might expect, the news broadcast is fully accurate in terms of its factual content and its failure to omit crucial details. The report speaks about the warm personal bonds between the DPRK’s Supreme Leader and the US President whilst also offering constructive realism about a would-be timeline for a final peace deal.

The DPRK report acknowledges that an extended peace process will be a gradual and time consuming phenomenon and that there are bound to be some reasonable disagreements along the way. However, the report remains optimistic that the sincere willingness of Kim and Trump to open up a new era of peace and enlightenment remains a goal that is both realistic and mutually advantageous.

In this sense, the tone of the DPRK’s report was more dignified and more accurate than what came out of western liberal media in the aftermath of the historic meeting during which time Donald Trump became the first sitting US president to enter the DPRK. Beyond this, the DPRK revealed previously unseen photos of Ivanka Trump shaking hands with Kim Jong-un. This contrasted sharply with liberal media’s mockery of Ivanka’s presence in Korea and in Japan for the G20 summit. Assuming that Donald Trump sees this footage, he will be all too aware that whilst American and European liberal media heaped scorn on his daughter, DPRK media portrayed her interaction with Kim in a stately and respectful manner.

The DPRK also showed footage of Kim shaking hands with US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. As Mnuchin is best known for announcing new sanctions on multiple countries, the fact that he was personally introduced to Kim could be an indication that the US might become more wiling to lessen sanctions during rather than after the de-nuclearisation process.

Whilst scepticism might get otherwise non-entities onto television, the genuine spirit of optimism shared by Moon Jae-in, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump is palpable. The fact that this optimism is now being conveyed by the once stridently anti-American and anti-South DPRK media means that Pyongyang is conditioning its population for an irreversible shift in relations with the wider world.

July 4, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Beijing urges Canada not to ‘naively’ rely on U.S. to pressure China

CGTN | July 3, 2019

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Wednesday that Canada is “fully responsible” for difficulties facing bilateral relations, stressing that Canada should not “naively” rely on the United States to pressure China.

Geng made the remarks at a regular press conference in response to recent remarks by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau regarding China’s detention of two Canadian citizens.

China confirmed last December that two Canadians – former diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor – were being investigated on suspicion of “engaging in activities that endangered China’s national security.”

Trudeau said on Tuesday that he was “confident” that U.S. President Donald Trump had made good on his promise to raise the cases during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan’s Osaka last week.

Geng said China had published a news report on the meeting between Xi and Trump, noting that he has nothing to add.

“We hope the Canadian side would not be too naïve,” he said. “Don’t think naively that asking certain ‘ally’ to pressure China would work.”

China, whose judicial authorities work independently in accordance with the law, does not allow other countries to interfere in its judicial sovereignty, the spokesman stressed.

“The Canadian side should not naively believe that its so-called allies would make real efforts for it,” he said.

“Relations between China and Canada are currently undergoing severe difficulties and the Canadian side is fully responsible for that,” Geng said, urging Canada to take actions as soon as possible to bring bilateral ties back on the right track.

Tensions rose between Beijing and Ottawa late last year over the arrest of Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada.

Read more:

Wang Yi: Meng Wanzhou case ‘deliberate political move’

Huawei: Confident in the innocence of its CFO Meng Wanzhou

Meng was arrested on December 1, 2018, at Vancouver International Airport at the request of the United States, which is seeking her extradition on fraud charges. Both Meng and Huawei have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. And Beijing has repeatedly demanded Washington to withdraw its arrest warrant and the extradition request against Meng.

July 4, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Venezuelan Navy Captain Dies in State Custody, Maduro Orders Investigation

By Lucas Koerner | Venezuelanalysis | June 30, 2019 

Caracas – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered a probe into the death of a retired navy captain in the custody of Venezuelan intelligence officials on Saturday.

Captain Rafael Acosta Arevalo, 49, was transferred to Dr. Vicente Salas Military Hospital where he died at approximately 1 am Saturday morning, his lawyer told Bloomberg.

According to a statement by Venezuela’s Defense Ministry, Acosta was presented before a military judge at Caracas’ Fort Tiuna military base on Friday when he reportedly fainted, prompting the judge to order his immediate transfer to the health facility. No further details have been made public at the time of writing.

However, the opposition has disputed the official account, claiming that the navy officer died as a result of toture.

Venezuelan Attorney Tamara Suju, who serves as self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido’s envoy to the Czech Republic, took to Twitter, alleging that Acosta “arrived at court in a wheelchair, presenting grave signs of torture.” Her comments were echoed in a statement by Guaido’s office calling for an “independent international forensics team” to investigate the death.

Acosta, who retired from active service a decade ago, was arrested by Venezuela’s Military Counter-Intelligence Command (DGCIM) on Wednesday on charges of terrorism and sedition, in connection to a purported coup plot revealed by Communciations Minister Jorge Rodriguez that same day.

Rodriguez presented an allegedly intercepted video conference showing Acosta extensively discussing the coup plans with other alleged conspirators, which included seizing arms stored at the Central Bank before mounting an assault on Miraflores Palace in order to “eliminate target 1 and target 2,” referring to President Maduro and National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello. The retired navy captain described the assassination of the president and the Socialist Party’s number two as a “decisive, striking, mediatized and internationally noteworthy act” that would win over military officials still ambivalent about the coup.

In a statement Saturday, Venezuela’s Communications Ministry indicated President Maduro ordered a “thorough and exhaustive investigation” into the incident.

For its part, the Attorney General’s office likewise issued a declaration announcing that the 86th Caracas Metropolitan Area prosecutor, with a specialty in human rights, had been assigned to conduct an “independent, objective, and impartial” probe into the death.

In response to the incident, US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Kimberly Breier took to Twitter Sunday, condemning the death as “a grim reminder of how Maduro & his Cuban advisers are persecuting the military & National Assembly.”

Meanwhile, the EU’s spokesperson for foreign affairs, Maja Kocijancic, termed the case “a stark illustration of the arbitrary nature of the judicial system in the country” and called for a “full and independent investigation.”

July 1, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

‘This Is Popular Resistance’: US War With Iran Spells Victory for Houthis in Yemen

Sputnik – June 27, 2019

If the US goes to war with Iran, the biggest losers will be the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, an Iranian scholar told Sputnik Wednesday. With the Houthis on the offensive already, an Iranian attack on Saudi infrastructure in the early hours of the war would open the door to Houthi invasion.

In recent months, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have stepped up their attacks on Saudi soil, launching ballistic missile attacks as well as drone strikes against nine different urban locations across southwestern Saudi Arabia. While the Saudis and their US allies have tried to point the finger at Iran, accusing it of waging a proxy war against Riyadh by way of its fellow Shiite Houthis, the truth is that for all their technical sophistication, the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen has failed to destroy the resistance to its onslaught and instead steeled Yemeni resolve like never before.

Mohammad Marandi, an expert on American studies and postcolonial literature who teaches at the University of Tehran, told Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear Wednesday that as the US and Saudi Arabia have had Yemen under an effective state of siege for years, there has been “really no way for Iran to give them substantial support.”

“My assumption is that Iran does give them support, but that support is almost nothing compared to what the Saudis have and what the Emiratis have. It would be almost nothing in comparison.”

Indeed, Sputnik reported in February on multiple exposes by Amnesty International and CNN that showed the extent to which the United Arab Emirates has supplied its proxies in Yemen with Western-made weapons, including American MRAPs, Serbian machine guns and French-made LeClerc main battle tanks. Among the recipients of that aid was Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which controls substantial territory in southeastern Yemen.

Further, Sputnik reported last week that the type of anti-air missile used by Houthi forces to shoot down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over Yemen earlier in the month, the Soviet-made SA-6 Kub, is so heavily proliferated across the world that US Central Command’s attempt to use it as proof of Iranian patronage is all but impossible.

“So the fact that the Yemeni people, despite the overwhelming support of Western countries for Saudi Arabia, and the infinite amount of money that the Saudis and the Emiratis have spent on waging war against the Yemeni people – the very fact that they’ve been able to stand up and to prevent the United States’ allies or their clients in the region from winning and taking the country shows that this is not a proxy war; this is a popular resistance,” Marandi said.

However, you wouldn’t be able to tell that if you read the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

“Yemen’s Houthi rebels have accelerated missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, highlighting the kingdom’s military vulnerabilities in defending itself against an Iranian ally amid a crisis in US-Iran relations,” WSJ’s Jared Malsin wrote.

“Everything points toward the direction that Iran and the Houthis have teamed up for their mutual benefit to increase missile and drone attacks against targets in recent days and weeks,” Fabian Hinz, an independent analyst based in Germany, told the paper for the story.

Marandi told Sputnik the reason why the Western media and Western think tanks call it a proxy war is “because they want to escape the fact that they are not calling out their governments for the crimes against humanity that they are involved in. In other words, they want to create a moral equivalent between the Saudis and the Yemeni people who are being massacred so that they won’t be answerable in the eyes of public opinion.”

“So, they say it’s a proxy war, so it’s, you know, it’s two bad guys fighting each other. This way, when their governments give hundreds of millions of dollars, or in the case of the Europeans, tens of millions of dollars each of weapons to the Saudis or the Emiratis, they don’t have to feel ashamed about it, or they don’t have to shame their governments,” he said.

That said, Marandi told hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou that the tide was clearly turning against the Saudi-led alliance, which includes not only the UAE and the Yemeni government-in-exile, but also Sudan, which has sent thousands of warriors from its Janjaweed militia – the paramilitary group responsible for a large part of the genocide in Darfur – to fight in Yemen. Other countries, such as Senegal, have sent troops to fight with the coalition as well.

The conflict broke out slowly in Yemen beginning in September 2014, amid a rising tide of dissent. When Ansar Allah, a militia drawn from northern Yemen’s Zaidi Shiite Muslim minority that followed their late leader Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, joined by supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, seized the capital of Sanaa in March 2015 and forced Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to flee the country, Hadi escaped to Riyadh, seeking help in returning to power. Saudi airstrikes began almost immediately.

The Houthis’ September Revolution rode on dissent over the outcome of the country’s 2011-12 revolution, part of the Arab Spring uprisings that saw Saleh thrown from power and Hadi, his vice president, assume Saleh’s former office. The revolution promised to address issues of chronic mass unemployment and a poor economy, as well as to restructure the country’s administration for the first time since North and South Yemen were reunited in 1990.

The Houthis helped make the 2012 revolution, but rejected the federalization proposed by Hadi as a move that would entrench, not alleviate, regional poverty. The final straw came in 2014, when a sharp spike in gas prices, combined with a slew of right-wing proposals by Hadi that included slashing social program funding, drove Saleh supporters into the streets and the ranks of the rising Houthis.

“Now, for the first time, we’re beginning to see the Yemenis go on the offensive, and they are striking vulnerable targets inside Saudi Arabia,” Marandi said. He predicted that in the event of an all-out war between the US and Iran, the Saudis and Emiratis would suffer such terrible consequences in just the first few hours of the conflict that the Houthis or other anti-Saudi Yemeni forces would immediately seize the opportunity and likely invade Saudi Arabia “within days.”

“There would be chaos in these countries,” Marandi noted. “Therefore, it’s not simply Iran. If the United States thinks they can wage a war against Iran and that it will be something manageable, they are deeply mistaken.”

June 27, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Iran releases first photos of downed US drone’s wreckage

Press TV – June 21, 2019

Iran has released the first photos of the wreckage of a US spy drone which was shot down early Thursday after intruding into the Iranian airspace.

The IRGC Aerospace Force displayed parts of the doomed drone on Friday noon, refuting earlier claims by the US that the UAE was flying over international waters, and had not violated the Iranian airspace.

Wreckage of a US spy drone shot down by the IRGC air defense forces on Thursday morning as displayed on Friday. (Photo by IRIB News Agency)

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said Thursday it had shot down the unmanned US aircraft after it breached the country’s airspace.

Iran issued “numerous” warnings before shooting down the aircraft, Brigadier General Qader Rahimzadeh, the second-in-command of Iran’s Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base, said on Friday.

The last warning was issued at 3:55 am, ten minutes before the shoot-down, IRGC Aerospace Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said.

He made the remarks to reporters on the sidelines of an exhibition held in Tehran to showcase the drone’s wreckage.

US President Donald Trump initially issued a series of cataclysmic threats, insisting that the RQ-4 Global Hawk was flying over international waters when it was taken down by an Iranian missile.

However, the GPS coordinates released by Iran put the drone eight miles off the country’s coast, inside the 12 nautical miles from the shore, which is Iran’s territorial waters.

Wreckage of a US spy drone shot down by the IRGC air defense forces on Thursday morning as displayed on Friday. (Photo by IRIB News Agency)

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi earlier told the Swiss envoy that “there are irrefutable evidence about the presence of this drone in Iran’s airspace and even some parts of its wreckage have been retrieved from Iranian territorial waters.”

Swiss ambassador summoned 

The Swiss envoy, whose country represents the US interests in Iran, was later summoned to the Iranian foreign ministry on Friday morning, and received an official note which he said will immediately deliver to the US.

In a meeting with an Iranian foreign ministry official, Swiss Ambassador Markus Leitner was asked to tell the US that the Islamic Republic is not after a war with any country, but the Iranian Armed Forces will give a “crushing response to any aggression.”

The Swiss envoy was told that the US will be held accountable for the consequences of such provocative measures.

“The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will show restraint as long as possible to preserve the security and tranquility of the sensitive region of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

“But if the other side takes a provocative and unconsidered move, they will not hesitate to give a reciprocal response with unpredictable consequences,” the Iranian official noted, saying the response will be detrimental to all parties involved.

In a letter on Thursday, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht-Ravanchi told the United Nations that the international community needs to confront Washington’s destabilizing actions.

“Iran condemns, in the strongest possible terms, this irresponsible and provocative wrongful act by the United States, which entails its international responsibility,” he wrote in a letter addressed to UN chief António Guterres and the UN Security Council on Thursday.

Takht-Ravanchi wrote that Iran had the right to defend its sovereignty according to the world body’s Charter.

June 21, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

West’s black ops like virus, secretly destroying nations until it’s too late – Russian intel chief

RT | June 18, 2019

Western secret services are perfecting clandestine tools which are designed to weaken countries like viruses weaken bodies, the Russian foreign intelligence chief has said. This kind of warfare is currently used in Venezuela.

The criticism came from Sergey Naryshkin, who heads Russia’s foreign intelligence agency SVR. He said spies are constantly improving the tool used to dispose of governments that the West does not like.

“We are talking about creating a universal algorithm for conducting clandestine influence operations in a continuous manner and on a global scale,” he said. According to the official, this clandestine work “never stops and targets not only enemies, but also friends and neutral powers in the times of peace, crisis and war.”

It can be compared to the action of a virus; it can spend decades destroying a human organism without symptoms, and once diagnosed, often it’s too late to treat it.

The methods used to influence and destabilize other nations include creating network-oriented structures that can operate on a premise of public activism, art, science, religion or extremism, the Russian official said. After collecting data on the fault lines in a targeted society, those structures are used to attack those weak points in a synchronized assault, overwhelming the nation’s capability to respond to crises.

Simultaneously the perpetrators push a narrative through local and global media and social networks that claims that the only way to resolve problems is to replace the government of the victim nation with another one, possibly with direct foreign support.

“We can observe this scenario being implemented in Venezuela,” Naryshkin said.

The US is currently trying to replace Venezuela’s elected President Nicolas Maduro with another person, Juan Guaido, whom Washington recognized as the legitimate head of the South American nation.

Among others, the US backs his bid with economic sanctions against Venezuela and a massive diplomatic and media campaign in support of the pretender. Guaido’s attempts to actually seize power in Caracas have been futile, so far.

The Russian intelligence chief was speaking at an international security forum in Ufa, Russia, which is hosted by the Russian National Security Council. The event is meant for officials directly involved in policy making on security issues. Almost 120 nations are participating in this year’s gathering.

June 18, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Ottawa hires hit man to overthrow Venezuelan government

By Yves Engler · June 17, 2019

Allan-Culham-Canada-OEA

Allan Culham

Meet the hired gun Ottawa is using to overthrow the Venezuelan government.

The brazenness of Ottawa’s intervention in the South American country’s affairs is remarkable. Recently Global Affairs Canada tendered a contract for an individual to coordinate its bid to oust President Nicolás Maduro. According to buyandsell.gc.ca, the Special Advisor on Venezuela needs to be able to:

“Use your network of contacts to advocate for expanded support to pressure the illegitimate government to return constitutional order.

“Use your network of civil society contacts on the ground in Venezuela to advance priority issues (as identified by civil society/Government of Canada).

Must have valid Government of Canada personnel TOP SECRET security clearance.”

The “Proposed Contractor” is Allan Culham who has been Special Advisor on Venezuela since the fall of 2017. But, the government is required to post the $200,000 contract to coordinate Canada’s effort to overthrow the Maduro government.

Culham is a former Canadian ambassador to Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Organization of American States. During his time as ambassador to Venezuela from 2002 to 2005 Culham was hostile to Hugo Chavez’s government. According to a WikiLeaks publication of US diplomatic messages, “Canadian Ambassador Culham expressed surprise at the tone of Chavez’s statements during his weekly television and radio show ‘Hello President’ on February 15 [2004]. Culham observed that Chavez’s rhetoric was as tough as he had ever heard him. ‘He sounded like a bully,’ said Culham, more intransigent and more aggressive.”

The US cable quotes Culham criticizing the national electoral council and speaking positively about the group overseeing a presidential recall referendum targeting Chavez. “Culham added that Sumate is impressive, transparent, and run entirely by volunteers”, it noted. The name of then head of Súmate, Maria Corina Machado, was on a list of people who endorsed the April 2002 military coup against Chavez, for which she faced charges of treason. She denied signing the now-infamous Carmona Decree that dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court and suspended the elected government, attorney general, comptroller general, and governors as well as mayors elected during Chavez’s administration. It also annulled land reforms and reversed increases in royalties paid by oil companies.

After retiring from the civil service in 2015 Culham described his affinity for another leading hard-line opposition leader. Canada’s current Special Advisor on Venezuela wrote, “I met [Leopoldo] López when he was the mayor of the Caracas municipality of Chacao where the Canadian Embassy is located. He too became a good friend and a useful contact in trying to understand the many political realities of Venezuela.” But, López also endorsed the failed 2002 coup against Chavez and was convicted of inciting violence during the 2014 “guarimbas” protests that sought to oust Maduro. Forty-three Venezuelans died, hundreds were hurt and a great deal of property was damaged during the “guarimbas” protests. Lopez was also a key organizer of the recent plan to anoint the marginal opposition legislator Juan Guaidó interim president.

In his role as Canada’s ambassador to the OAS Culham repeatedly took positions viewed as hostile by the Chavez/Maduro governments. When Chavez fell gravely ill in 2013, he proposed the OAS send a mission to study the situation, which then Vice-president Maduro described as a “miserable” intervention in the country’s affairs. Culham’s comments on the 2014 “guarimbas” protests and support for Machado speaking at the OAS were also unpopular with Caracas.

At the OAS Culham criticized other left-of-centre governments. Culham blamed elected President Rafael Correa for supposedly closing “democratic space” in Ecuador, not long after a failed coup attempt in 2010. When describing the Honduran military’s overthrow of social democratic president Manuel Zelaya in 2009 Culham refused to employ the term coup and instead described it as a “political crisis”.

In June 2012, the left-leaning president of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, was ousted in what some called an “institutional coup”. Upset with Lugo for disrupting 61-years of one-party rule, Paraguay’s ruling class claimed he was responsible for a murky incident that left 17 peasants and police dead and the senate voted to impeach the president. The vast majority of countries in the hemisphere refused to recognize the new government. The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) suspended Paraguay’s membership after Lugo’s ouster, as did the MERCOSUR trading bloc. A week after the coup Culham participated in an OAS mission that many member countries opposed. Largely designed to undermine those countries calling for Paraguay’s suspension from the OAS, delegates from the US, Canada, Haiti, Honduras and Mexico traveled to Paraguay to investigate Lugo’s removal from office. The delegation concluded that the OAS should not suspend Paraguay, which displeased many South American countries.

Four years later Culham still blamed Lugo for his ouster. He wrote: “President Lugo was removed from office for ‘dereliction and abandonment of duty’ in the face of rising violence and street protests (that his government was itself instigating through his inflammatory rhetoric) over the issue of land rights. Violence in both the countryside and the streets of Asuncion threatened to engulf Paraguay’s already fragile democratic institutions. Lugo’s impeachment and removal from office by the Paraguayan Congress, later ratified by the Supreme Court, launched a firestorm of protest and outrage amongst the presidents of Paraguay’s neighbours. Presidents Rousseff of Brazil, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Cristina Kirchner of Argentina, were the chief defenders of Lugo’s right to remain in office.”

After retiring from the civil service Culham became more candid about his hostility to those trying to overcome extreme power imbalances in the hemisphere, decrying “the nationalist, bombastic and populist rhetoric that many leaders of Latin America have used to great effect over the last 15 years.” For Culham, “the Bolivarian Alliance … specialized in sowing its own divisive ideology and its hopes for a revolutionary ‘class struggle’ across the hemisphere.”

Culham praised the defeat of Cristina Kirchner in Argentina and Dilma Rousseff Brazil.

In a 2015 piece titled “So long, Kirchners” he wrote, “the Kirchner era in Argentine politics and economics is thankfully coming to an end.” (Kirchner is the front runner in the upcoming election.) The next year Culham criticized Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s bid to have UNASUR challenge her impeachment, which he celebrated as “a sign of change in Latin America”.

Culham denounced regional integration efforts. In a long February 2016 Senate foreign affairs committee discussion of Argentina, he denounced diplomatic forums set up by Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela and others to break from US domination of the region. “Since I’m no longer a civil servant”, Culham stated, “I will say that CELAC [The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States] is not a positive organization within the Americas. Mainly because it’s built on the principle of exclusion. It purposefully excludes Canada and United States. It was the product of President Chavez and the Chavista Bolivarian revolution.” Every single country in the hemisphere except for Canada and the US were members of CELAC.

Culham criticized left-wing governments position at the US dominated OAS. Culham bemoaned the “negative influence ALBA [Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America] countries have brought to the OAS” and said Argentina “often sided with Bolivarian revolution members” in their “negative agenda” at the OAS, which he called “very close to my heart”.

In his comments to the Senate committee Culham criticized Kirchner for failing to pay the full price to US “vulture funds”, which bought up the country’s debt at a steep discount after it defaulted in 2001. He described Kirchner’s refusal to bow down to highly predatory hedge funds as a threat to the “Toronto Stock Exchange” and labeled a Scotia Bank claim from the 2001 financial crisis a “bilateral irritant” for Canada.

Canadian taxpayers are paying a hardline pro-corporate, pro-Washington, former diplomat hundreds of thousands of dollars to coordinate the Liberal government’s bid to oust Venezuela’s government. Surely, there is someone in the House of Commons willing to inquire about Canada’s Elliot Abrams?

June 17, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

India & Israel Are Officially Diplomatic Allies At The UN

By Andrew Korybko | EurasiaFuture | 2019-06-12

India just made history at the UN earlier this week, but in what’s sure to be interpreted as an ignoble way by the supporters of the emerging Multipolar World Order. Encouraged by the massive mandate that he received after his resounding re-election last month, Modi gave the go-ahead for his government to break with decades of its post-independence political traditions by unprecedentedly supporting “Israel” at the global body and voting against granting consultative status to a Palestinian NGO that allegedly has ties with Hamas.

The self-professed “Jewish State’s” deputy chief of mission in India praised this diplomatic pivot by tweeting “Thank you #India for standing with @IsraelinUN and rejecting the request of terrorist organization “Shahed” to obtain the status of an observer in #UN. Together we will continue to act against terrorist organizations that intend to harm”, in what certainly signifies that Modi’s second term in office will see his country more determinedly siding with the fading Unipolar World Order at the multipolar one’s expense.

India had hithero been trying to make inroads with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), but its hopes for future progress on this front have likely been dashed by the self-inflicted soft power damage that it just did by diplomatically allying with “Israel” at the UN. Although Resistance leader Iran continues to beg India to reconsider its decision to abide by the US’ unilateral sanctions regime against it, it’ll now be doing so with the full knowledge that the South Asian state is officially one of its hated “Israeli” foes’ key allies in thwarting the attempts of the Palestinians to have a greater global voice in publicizing their plight. This would make the Islamic Republic’s further outreaches to India even more humiliating than before, possibly raising the chance that it might finally give up in order to save “face” and protect its hard-earned and very proud reputation as the world’s leading anti-Zionist state.

In parallel with this, the global pivot state of Pakistan is now by default the most prominent pro-Palestinian voice in South Asia, especially after Minister for Human Rights Dr. Shireen Mazari recently promised that her country will continue supporting the Palestinians and urged all her Muslim counterparts to do so as well. The fact of the matter is that the Palestinian and Kashmiri causes are inseparable because they’re essentially one and the same — the indigenous Muslim majority of each region have been oppressed by foreign occupiers for decades and have yet to be granted the right to democratically decide their own political futures. Actually, it’s precisely because of these interlinked conflicts that India and “Israel” initially began to ally with one another because they play the same roles in each of them. Accordingly, they’ve increased military cooperation to such a point that “Israel” is now India’s second-largest military supplier and India is “Israel’s” top arms destination.

It therefore shouldn’t be any surprise that India decided to add an official diplomatic dimension to its already-existing military-strategic alliance with “Israel” by supporting it at the UN against the Palestinians. Seeing as how the Indian side hasn’t protested the “Israeli” deputy chief of mission’s tweet thanking it for “rejecting the request of terrorist organization ‘Shahed’” and vowing that “together we will continue to act against terrorist organizations that intend to harm”, it can be logically assumed that New Delhi informally regards Hamas and all those allegedly affiliated with it as “terrorists”, which is only natural considering how fast its alliances with the US and “Israel” are progressing. As such, whether it concerns Russia, China, Iran, or even the Palestinian cause nowadays, India is no longer practicing its over-hyped policy of “multi-alignment” but is instead decisively pivoting against each of the aforesaid multipolar forces despite still clinging to this slogan in an unconvincing attempt to cover its tracks.

June 12, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Egypt, Jordan, Morocco to attend US-led Palestinian conference

MEMO | June 11, 2019

Egypt, Jordan and Morocco have informed the Trump administration they will attend a US-led conference in Bahrain this month on proposals for boosting the Palestinian economy as part of a coming US peace plan, US officials said on Tuesday, reports Reuters.

Egypt and Jordan’s participation is considered especially important since historically they have been key players in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and are also the only Arab states to have reached peace agreements with Israel.

However, Palestinian leaders’ decision to boycott the June 25-26 conference has raised doubts about its chances for success. They have shunned a broader diplomatic effort that US President Donald Trump has called the “deal of the century,” which they see as likely to be heavily tilted in favour of Israel and denying them a state of their own.

Despite that, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a chief architect of the long-delayed peace plan, is pressing ahead with arrangements for the Bahrain meeting, where the economic components are expected to be unveiled as the first step in the plan’s rollout.

Acceptance of the invitation to the conference by Jordan and Egypt will bring to the table two countries that border both Israel and Palestinian areas.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have previously confirmed their attendance, a White House official said.

The official declined to say what level of representation the countries would send. US officials have said they were inviting economic and finance ministers, as well as business leaders from the region and around the world.

Global financial bodies including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank also plan to be present.

US officials have been vague about the timing for the second phase of their initiative, which would be the release of proposals for resolving the thorny political issues at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

With Israel heading for new elections in September after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to meet a deadline to form a government, uncertainty is expected to further delay the full release of the plan.

Most experts are skeptical the Trump administration can succeed where decades of US-backed efforts have failed.

 

June 11, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nicaragua Approves Amnesty Law To Bring Peace

teleSUR | June 9, 2019

In an effort lead by the FSLN, to bring peace and reconciliation, Nicaragua’s National Assembly has approved a law that will provide amnesty for those involved with right-wing violence during the distabilization process last year.

The new law will grant a one off amnesty to those who committed crimes during the right-wing protests last year, it will apply equally to those with or without active cases against them. However, article 3 of the constitution states that the amnesty is conditional and will be withdrawn if the perpetrators re-offend.

The law was proposed by 70 lawmakers of the ruling Sandinista party, the FSLN, who hold a majority in the Assembly, Edwin Castro, a FSLN lawmaker said; “this is a sovereign act that seeks peace, reconciliation, that seeks forgiveness with justice, with reparation, and with no repetition.”

Castro continued; “it hurts us to have to grant amnesty to confessed assassins of policemen, to torturers of the San Jose school in Jinotepe, who murdered Bismarck Martinez, but we are aware that we have to put our country first.”

The right-wing opposition in Nicaragua, who have allegedly received funds and training from the U.S. government’s NED, have been responsible for a number of criminal offenses in their bid to overthrow the elected government led by Daniel Ortega. Most recently, the remains were found of an elderly Sandinista supporter, Bismarck Martinez, who was kidnapped and tortured to death in Jinotepe by opposition activists. Another high profile offense was in 2018 when demonstrators set fire to the leftist “Radio Ya” station whilst journalists were still inside.

However, the government hopes that they can bring peace to the country by granting amnesty on the condition of not re-offending. This is part of wider efforts to bring the country together, other initiatives have included the establishment of peace talks between government and the opposition, which the government has remained committed to despite the failure of the opposition coalition, Alianza Civica, to condemn US economic sanctions, which was an early request from the FSLN.

June 9, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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