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Pompeo and the capricious virus

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | May 4, 2020

Iran, by its announcement Sunday that mosques will start reopening in low-risk areas of the country from May 5, has delivered a devastating blow to the ego of the Trump administration, puncturing it beyond repair.

President Hassan Rouhani said mosques would reopen in 132 regions designated as white under a colour-coded system after being consistently free of the new coronavirus. “Friday prayers will also resume in those areas and the mosques that respect the health protocols,” Rouhani added. The US had to settle for a “virtual” Easter mass, but observant Muslims in Iran will pray during Ramadan in their mosques.

Iran has already lifted a ban on inter-city trips and malls, with large shopping centres resuming activities. Rouhani also disclosed that schools in low-risk areas will be re-opened by May 16 to allow for a month of classes before exams are held.

The Health Ministry in Tehran said Saturday the rate of infections has started a definite downward trend. This has been possible because as many as 78 million people were screened for the COVID-19 symptoms in the first phase of a nationwide program and 30 million in the second phase.

For a country with a population of 84 million, this is an astounding record. In contrast, testing in the US remains scarce, with roughly 5.5 million tests performed since the first confirmed US case on January 20th.

A recent analysis by Harvard researchers and STAT shows that as the US tries to move beyond its months-long coronavirus testing debacle — faulty tests, shortages of tests, and guidelines that excluded many people who should have been tested to mitigate the outbreak — it is at risk of fumbling the next challenge: testing enough people to determine which cities and states can safely reopen and stay open.

Iran is one of the Middle Eastern countries hardest hit by the outbreak. Its crisis was compounded by the fact that Trump administration ensured through a barbaric sanctions regime that Tehran would have to combat the pandemic with one hand tied behind its back from the time its first COVID-19 infection cases appeared in late February.

The Trump administration’s — particularly the evangelist secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s — optimistic assessment was that under the assault of Covid-19, Iran would simply collapse for want of medicines and equipment, hospital beds and ventilators.

But the mother of all ironies is that on Sunday, even as Rouhani declared a defining moment in the pandemic in Iran, President Trump revised upward the possible death toll in the US closer to 100,000. Over a million Americans have been infected by the virus so far and nearly 70,000 lives have been lost.

The corresponding figures in Iran tell a story by itself: Iran has a total of 97,424 cases of the coronavirus. 78,422 patients have recovered and been discharged from hospitals so far. The death toll from the outbreak rose by 47 over the past 24 hours to 6,203, Iran’s lowest in nearly two months.

Iran has a population which is a quarter of the population of the US and by the American experience, at least a quarter million Iranian citizens should have been infected and somewhere around 18,000 lives should have been lost by now.

What emerges out of all this is that the US is an incredibly sloppy country despite its vainglorious claims of being a superpower and is ruled by an utterly incompetent government. To hide the shame and disgrace, Pompeo has plunged into a blame game.

On Sunday, Pompeo said: “There is enormous evidence that that’s where this began,” later adding: “I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.” Pompeo appeared confused. Only last Thursday, he was on record as saying in a radio interview, “We don’t know if it (the virus) came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We don’t know if it emanated from the wet market or yet some other place. We don’t know those answers.”

This revisionist thesis of the “Wuhan virus” becomes necessary as it emerged by the weekend that the death toll in the US would go up at least by another fifty percent. Pompeo is having to contend with an unprecedented diplomatic disaster on the world arena, as the US stands exposed as a bumbling giant with feet of clay. The world community will rightly wonder how a country that cannot adequately protect its citizens can be a provider of security for other countries.

What Pompeo refuses to acknowledge is that countries in the so-called “Orient” such as Iran could so successfully handle the Covid-19 crisis — with composure, grit and an earthy wisdom — that shows up the US as a decadent power. The countries in Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia are handling the situation so much better with so few resources, while the US is grovelling on the ground, lamenting its misfortune and indulging in blame games.

In a virtual “town hall” meeting on Fox News on Sunday night, President Donald Trump admitted that the coronavirus has proved more devastating than he had expected and the death toll from the ravaging pandemic might reach as high as 100,000 in the US. He pleaded during the two-hour broadcast that although he was warned about the coronavirus in his regular intelligence briefing on Jan. 23, the information was characterised as if “it was not a big deal” and had not been presented in an alarming way that demanded immediate action.

From what Trump said, Covid-19 poses a riddle to his administration. It killed nearly 70,000 Americans so far, but in Iraq, the body count is fewer than 100; in Malaysia also around 100; in Bangladesh 182.

Or, take the body count in countries that are in close proximity to China: Taiwan – 6; Kazakhstan – 27; Kyrgyzstan -10;  Laos – 0; Cambodia-0; Myanmar-6; Nepal-0; Thailand-54. The metropolis of New York has been devastated while teeming Asian cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata have so far been largely spared.

Would Pompeo have an answer? He is peeved that Beijing has not allowed western scientists to enter Wuhan and conduct research. But that privilege wasn’t extended to Vietnam, either. Maybe, Vietnam can teach the US something here that could have profound implications for how countries respond to the virus.  

Vietnam, which shares a border with China and is about 1,200 miles from where the outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, has reported 245 confirmed cases with 95 recoveries and no fatalities. Yes — zero fatalities.

Vietnam reported 245 confirmed cases of Covid-19, no fatalities.

Clearly, Pompeo got it right but for the wrong reasons — this probably has got everything to do with the Chinese Communist Party.

A Vietnamese commentary comes out with a definitive explanation: “The Communist Party of Vietnam has strengthened its anti-pandemic measures by implementing nationwide social distancing rules, such as banning outside gatherings of more than two people while keeping a distance of 6.5 feet, and temporary shutdowns of “non-essential” businesses, including restaurants, entertainment centres and tourist sites…

“Unlike the U.S. capitalist class and the Trump administration, the Vietnamese government took early measures to combat the current coronavirus epidemic. Officials began preparing strategies to combat the outbreak immediately after the first cases emerged in China.”

“On February 1, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed Decision No.173.QD-TTG, categorising the virus as a Class A contagious disease “that can transmit very rapidly and spread widely with high mortality rates.” This declaration of a national emergency came after the sixth case of coronavirus in the country was reported. In contrast, the Trump administration only declared a national emergency over the global pandemic on March 13, when there were at least 1,920 confirmed cases across 46 states.”

Read a blog featured by World Bank, Containing the coronavirus (COVID-19): Lessons from Vietnam. Life is such that sometimes, even horrific tragedies can have straightforward explanations. The capricious virus knew it, but not Pompeo.

 

May 4, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Russia-China entente deepens in the shadow of the pandemic

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | May 2, 2020

The Russian-Chinese entente emerged as one of the most significant templates of international politics in the recent period since the hugely consequential developments in Ukraine in 2014 that led to western sanctions against Moscow, which in turn galvanised the latter’s ‘pivot to Asia’.

Of late, this entente, which falls short of a formal alliance, assumes prominence, given the shift under way in regional and global alignments triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. The world economy faces recession and the US is threatened by a crisis unmatched since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits is soaring past 30 million.

The decline of the US as a global power is accelerating. But the US refuses to come to terms with this geopolitical reality and is determined to perpetuate its domination of the global arena, no matter what it takes. China and Russia have been cast in the ‘enemy’ image. In the short term at least, tensions will rise — in the US-China relations, in particular.

It was reported last week that the US is deploying missile defence systems near Russia’s borders with the potential to deliver a surprise nuclear strike. A Tass report quoted the First Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Department Lt. Gen.Viktor Poznikhir as saying that the US has developed a concept of pre-launch interception and planned to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles of Russia, China and other countries while they are still in launchers.

Suffice to say, it is in the common interests of Russia and China that in their growing confrontation with the US, they stand by each other and support each other. There is every indication that US imperialism will assume an even more violent and oppressive character in the prevailing world situation.

The Russia-China entente is driven by their leaderships. Within the period of a month in March-April, there have been two telephone conversations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss the pandemic and its ramifications as well as the imperative need to jointly face the ensuing challenges.

The Chinese readouts (here and here) underscored that Putin was critical of the “provocation and stigmatisation by some country” (read the US) and the “attempt by some to smear China on the question of the origin of the virus.” Putin affirmed that since the start of COVID-19, Russia and China have “stood in unity and extended mutual support, which is a testament to the strategic nature and high quality” of their relationship.

The mutual support Russia and China are extending to each other creates space for both to effectively push back at the US. Earlier this week on April 29, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman endorsed the concerns expressed by Moscow from time to time in recent years over the presence of Pentagon’s labs in the countries of the former Soviet Union for weaponising diseases. Moscow has cited a specific lab near Tbilisi in Georgia, even claiming intelligence regarding visits by senior Pentagon officials to the centre recently. 

The Russians claim that there are 11 such labs in Ukraine developed by the Pentagon. They say when Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014, they found out that in one such lab in Simferopol, which was apparently a hub for collecting materials and sending them to Europe, 104 pools of ectoparasites, 46 samples of internal organs of rodents and 105 samples of human blood serum were found ready for despatch.

Moscow alleges that these labs conduct study on dangerous diseases, targeting specific ethnic groups, and include projects that are banned within the US itself. On April 29, at a media briefing in Beijing, the Chinese spokesman said,

“We noted the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson’s remarks and related reports. The US established multiple biological laboratories in former USSR countries but kept its mouth shut regarding the labs’ functions, purposes and safety, causing deep concerns from local people and surrounding countries. As we know, some local people strongly demand the labs be closed. We hope the US will act in a responsible manner, heed the concerns from the international community, attach importance to local people’s health and safety, and take concrete measures to eliminate the doubts.”

As the legal successor of the Soviet Union, Russia inherited its status as a party to the Geneva Protocol and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1992. China too had acceded to the BWC in 1984. All Asian countries are signatories to the BWC. Interestingly, so is the US, which had ratified the protocol in 1975.

Now, the US Government has not officially accused China of intentionally developing the COVID-19 as a biological weapon, while Trump keeps talking in innuendos. According to the assessment of the US intelligence, the virus was not man-made or genetically modified. But Trump claims he has seen evidence suggesting the novel coronavirus originated in a virology lab in Wuhan — although he couldn’t provide any evidence to support that claim.

China has reacted strongly to Trump’s jabs while Russia has been supportive of the Chinese stance. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently spoke derisively about the talk in some European countries demanding compensation from Beijing for “failing to timely inform the world community” — and by Trump himself saying similar US claims would be “much bigger than hundreds of billions US dollars.”

Indeed, this may become serious stuff if Trump chooses to pursue a punitive strategy towards China. The Washington Post wrote on Thursday, “In private, Trump and aides have discussed stripping China of its ‘sovereign immunity,’ aiming to enable the U.S. government or victims to sue China for damages.”

For the present, Russia agrees with the Chinese perception that the Trump administration is ratcheting up the rhetoric over Covid-19 to draw public attention away from its incompetence in countering the pandemic. But Russian support becomes crucial for Beijing if push comes to shove with Trump in the coming months.

Up until now, neither Russia nor China has sought each other’s help while negotiating bilateral relations with the US. There is a paradigm shift taking place here, which becomes a leap of faith for both China and Russia as well as a qualitatively new phase in their entente, which has so far been focused on regional and global issues of common concern.

May 1, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Covid-19 was already ‘silently circulating’ in France before virus arrived from China & Italy – study

RT | April 29, 2020

The outbreak of the coronavirus in France has little to do with cases imported from China or Italy, as another strain of the disease of unknown origin had already been infecting people in the country, research claims.

The virologists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris have sequenced the genomes from samples taken from 97 French and three Algerian coronavirus patients between January 24 and March 24.

What they found is that the dominant types of Covid-19 viral strains in France differed from those that arrived from China or Italy, and belonged to another group, or ‘clade.’

The earliest sample in the French clade dated from February 19 and came from an infected person who hadn’t traveled abroad recently and had no contacts with possible carriers of the disease.

“We can infer that the virus was silently circulating in France in February” prior to the wave of Covid-19 cases in the country, the virologists said in a paper, published on bioRxiv website but not yet peer-reviewed.

The origins of this third strain were unknown to the scientists. They also pointed out that their sampling was insufficient to reliably establish the time of its introduction in France.

The first coronavirus-related fatality was registered in the country in mid-February, with 129,859 people confirmed as infected and 23,660 dying from complications related to the highly contagious disease since then.

April 29, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Cuomo says one Covid-19 patient is like ‘fire through dry grass’, demands care homes take them anyway

RT | April 28, 2020

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has acknowledged that a single Covid-19 patient in a nursing home could rip through the facility like “fire through dry grass.” His order that facilities treat all infected patients remains, however.

Admitting that nursing homes are “congregate facilit[ies] of vulnerable people,” Cuomo admitted during a press conference on Tuesday that if just a single infected person – whether a doctor, nurse, janitor, or “one anything” – walked into one of the state’s hard-hit elder care facilities, “it is fire through dry grass in that nursing home.”

“It is frightening. And if you have a loved one in a nursing home, yes, it is frightening,” Cuomo shuddered.

Over 3,500 nursing home patients have died since the coronavirus epidemic took root in New York. The highly-infectious virus is known to be particularly devastating among the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions and has killed over 10,000 in elder-care facilities across the US.

However, Cuomo has refused to address or alter the executive order he issued late last month, forbidding care home operators from testing patients prior to their readmission to their facilities. No patient “determined medically stable” upon discharge from an acute care hospital may undergo testing for Covid-19 as a prerequisite for entry into a care home, never mind the judgment of staff.

The New York governor has defended his order despite protests from the facilities, even as staffers insist they don’t have adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) to deal with coronavirus patients and that the risk of infection threatens the fragile health of their existing charges.

“It’s not our job” to provide nursing homes with PPE, the governor said last week. He insisted that “we have given them thousands and thousands of PPE” and calling it the “primary responsibility” of nursing homes to outfit themselves with the equipment needed to fight the epidemic.

During his nine years as governor, Cuomo has slashed state healthcare budgets to the bone, and a recent controversial Medicare cut foisted hundreds of millions of dollars of costs from the state onto local governments.

A similar requirement that nursing homes take Covid-19 patients in California was walked back after protest. While Cuomo has insisted on the no-testing requirement as a way to ease pressure on supposedly overloaded local hospitals, other facilities meant to ease that pressure – from the hospital ship USNS Comfort docked on the west side of Manhattan to the temporary hospital set up in Manhattan’s Javits Convention Center – have gone largely unused, as the city’s hospitals have proven sufficient to absorb the surge in hospitalizations.

Burdened by the order to take in recovering coronavirus patients, some of the state’s nursing homes have unwittingly become breeding grounds for the virus. NBC profiled one facility in Long Island where the epidemic exploded from a single case to 24 deaths in just a month. Only three of the dead were transfer patients, and one wasn’t even a patient but a staffer, the outlet reported.

April 28, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

New US Health Spokesman Says Rothschild Family ‘Craves Control’, Blames Soros Over Virus

Sputnik – April 24, 2020

Last week, Michael Caputo, who worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was appointed by POTUS as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The newly nominated spokesman for US the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Michael Caputo, has blamed George Soros and the Rothschild family for trying to exploit the coronavirus pandemic in order to promote their own agendas, according to CNN which managed to uncover more than 1,000 Caputo tweets he deleted before entering office.

In a now-scrapped tweet on 15 March, Caputo, who is infamous for his remarks on social media, responded to self-proclaimed China analyst Jack Prosobiec, who speculated on Twitter why billionaire investor and philanthropist Soros allegedly adheres to his favourite political causes rather anti-COVID-19 efforts.

“Are you kidding? Soros’s political agenda REQUIRES a pandemic”, Caputo claimed, in what was followed by another tweet, in which he posted a Soros photo captioned “The real virus behind everything”, also adding skulls and crossbones.

In a separate tweet last month, Сaputo slammed economist David Rothschild as “an inbred elitist sphincter whose family craves control”, adding, “that’s one reason why he constantly lies about President Trump”.

The economist, thought to be not related to the Rothschild gamily, is known for his fierce criticism of Trump who David Rothschild claims is seeking “to murder” people in a bid to stay in power.

Trump nominated Caputo as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the HHS on 12 April, a decision that was reportedly in part due to POTUS’ frustration over the way department secretary, Alex Azar was dealing with communications during the COVID-19 crisis.

CNN, in turn, reported that ahead of entering office, Caputo had deleted more than 1,300 tweets and retweets on his Twitter page from late February to early April, including those pertaining to the coronavirus. CNN managed to unearth the tweet by using the Internet Archive’s “The Wayback Machine”.

April 24, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Russia dismisses as ‘baseless’ US claims on IRGC satellite launch

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
Press TV – April 23, 2020

Russia has dismissed as “baseless” claims by the United States that the recent launch of Iran’s first-ever military satellite by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) violates a United Nations Security Council resolution endorsing the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

On Wednesday, the IRGC Aerospace Force launched the Nour (Light) satellite via the Qassed (Carrier) carrier, a move US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was quick to condemn as a violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231.

“This would not be the first time that a nation that has flagrantly breached the norms of international law and violated UNSC resolution 2231 is trying to deflect international condemnation by baselessly accusing Iran of noncompliance with the requirements of the Security Council,” Russia’s Sputnik news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying at a briefing on Thursday.

She noted that neither the resolution nor the 2015 Iran nuclear deal restrict Iran’s right to explore space to peaceful ends.

She added that Iran has made it clear that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons, unlike the US, which has over the past months unveiled several plans to expand its nuclear arsenal.

“There are no, there have never been, and hopefully there will never be nuclear weapons in Iran. Iran, adhering to the resolution, does not develop, test or use ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, unlike the United States, which surprises the world every single day with news about plans to develop their nuclear missile capabilities,” she said.

The remarks came after Pompeo said Iran needed “to be held accountable” for the launch, claiming that the move violated UNSC Resolution 2231.

This is while the resolution in question calls on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

The Nour-1 is Iran’s first multi-purpose satellite with application in the defense industry, among other areas. It is also the first Iranian satellite with an expected operational life of more than a year in Earth’s orbit.

April 23, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

First Covid-19 deaths in US occurred WEEKS EARLIER than previously thought

RT | April 22, 2020

People in the US were dying of the novel coronavirus weeks before authorities officially reported the first death linked to the disease, new data published in Santa Clara County, California reveals.

Autopsies performed on two people who died at home on February 6 and February 17 show that their tissues were infected with Covid-19, Santa Clara health authorities said in a statement, adding that another previously unreported death associated with the coronavirus had occurred on March 6.

The first coronavirus-linked death in America was originally believed to have occurred on February 29. At that time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that a man in his 50s had died in Washington state.

The California cases were not previously associated with the epidemic as these victims died at a time when “only individuals with a known travel history and who sought medical care for specific symptoms” were being tested, the statement said.

The news suggests that the virus may have been circulating in the US earlier than previously thought. Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith said the fact that several people were apparently infected “right around the beginning of February and late January” – and that two of them had passed away – meant “the virus has been around for a while.”

According to Mercury News, both of the fatal cases are believed to have originated in the community and were not associated with foreign travel. This also means that community transmission in America had started well before the first such case was officially reported on February 26.

The US has seen more than 800,000 confirmed coronavirus cases to date. More than 45,000 Americans died of Covid-19.

April 22, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Report says Iran may have replicated Israeli missile downed in Syria

Press TV – April 20, 2020

A Russian aviation news outlet says Iran may have replicated an Israeli missile that was shot down in Syria, citing a video of the test of a new Iranian anti-tank missile.

Avia.Pro reported that the new missile seems to resemble one of the Israeli projectiles that were downed by the Russian electronic warfare system during an attack on Syria,.

The report added that the downed missile was later successfully removed from the country by “Iranian intelligence service”, and was studied and completely copied.

The news outlet shared a video that showed the accuracy of the Iranian copy of the Israeli “Spike” missile in hitting its target.

Avia.Pro quoted experts as saying that Iran may use Israeli missiles against Tel Aviv itself in the near future.

Iranian authorities have repeatedly said that the country’s missile program has not been established for non-conventional purposes and is only meant as part of the country’s deterrence capability.

Iran holds the very first ranking in the field of missile technology among the Middle Eastern countries, according to a commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

“Today, we rank first in the missile technology at the regional level and are placed among the few global powers in this regard,” Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Aerospace Division of the IRGC, said last August.

In June, Major General Hossein Salami, the chief commander of the IRGC, said Iran had managed to change the balance of power in its favor by harnessing the technology required for manufacturing ballistic missiles.

Salami said the Islamic Republic acquired the know-how 12 years ago while trying to prepare its defenses against the United States’ aircraft carriers.

April 20, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Coronavirus Testing Delayed Due to Contamination in CDC Labs – Reports

Sputnik – April 19, 2020

The production of coronavirus test kits by the CDC was delayed for nearly a month, as the laboratories developing the kits had violated manufacturing practices that led to contamination of one of the three testing components, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

The problems with the tests were allegedly found in January at 24 of the 26 public health labs that had received test kits from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), media reported, citing unnamed sources.

The violation reportedly occurred after chemical mixtures were assembled into the kits in the same lab space where synthetic coronavirus material had been handled earlier.

The CDC efforts “were not sufficient in this circumstance” and the agency has “implemented enhanced quality control to address the issue”, the CDC said, as quoted in the article.

According to a New York Times report, citing the officials of the national Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the faulty testing kits were created at two of the three CDC laboratories in Atlanta.

“CDC did not manufacture its test consistent with its own protocol”, Stephanie Caccomo, spokesperson for the FDA, said in Saturday’s statement to the paper.

The Department of Health and Human Services is now investigating the production and dissemination of the test kits.

The US has so far confirmed more than 690,000 cases of COVID-19, including at least 35,400 fatalities, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

April 19, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

South Korea blocks test kits for Iran on Saudi-funded TV’s request

Press TV – April 19, 2020

Iran says South Korea has rejected a SWIFT payment request by Tehran for purchase of coronavirus testing kits over the US sanctions.

Iran’s Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour late Saturday released a document that shows a Saudi-funded TV had asked a Korean bank to reject the request.

“As a result, the Korean bank rejected Iran’s request and the kits were not delivered to Iran,” he said.

According to the document, London-based Iran International television channel falsely claimed that the SWIFT request had been made by a software company which sought to export non-medical goods to Iran.

Jahanpour released a second document which shows South Korea’s Mico BioMed, which develops and sells medical kits, had in fact presented the SWIFT request to the bank.

“The SWIFT request related [to Iran’s purchase of test kits] has been rejected by the Korean bank under the pretext of sanctions,” he said.

“This shows claims of medicine and medical equipment not being subject to sanctions are lies. The bank has officially stated that the purchase is not possible due to the sanctions,” Jahanpour added.

Belgium-based SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is used to transmit payments and letters of credit.

The US government has intensified its sanctions on Iran despite international calls on Washington to suspend them to allow the Islamic Republic to secure necessary medicine and equipment in the midst of the coronavirus fight.

Washington claims the sanctions do not target medicine for Iran, but they make it all but impossible for importers to obtain letters of credit or conduct international transfers of funds through banks.

Last week, Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York dismissed the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA) which the Europeans belatedly announced with much fanfare to have made operational in coordination with the US to barter medicine and food with Iran.

The mission said the United States has forced SHTA to pursue a very tight and tough procedure, making it practically very difficult for companies to trade with Iran.

“Additionally, almost impossible or cumbersome nature of transferring Iran’s reserves blocked outside the country to the designated Swiss bank, not only does not allow the SHTA to function properly now but may actually render it redundant in a matter of few months,” it said.

According to the mission, several companies that supply the medical equipment required to fight the coronavirus have recently stopped shipping to Iran because the current US sanctions regime makes the shipping of such items to Iran almost impossible.

Washington has imposed new sanctions in the midst of the coronavirus, targeting trade with Iran, even as President Donald Trump has claimed that the US was ready to help with the outbreak if Tehran asked for it.

The Islamic Republic has rejected the offer as hypocritical while the US is refusing to lift the sanctions and even intensifying them. Officials have said Washington’s demand that Tehran make a direct plea for the removal of sanctions shows the United States seeks “nothing short of surrender”.

Iran’s UN mission said last week the only message the US is sending with intensifying its sanctions amid the coronavirus is that companies must avoid doing any business with Iran, even if their work is humanitarian in nature.

Meanwhile, certain sections of mainstream media act as a virtual arm of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) which is responsible for administering the US sanctions regime.

They have been on a witch hunt to identify Iran’s financial institutions and report them to the US government for possible sanctions.

Iran International, launched in May 2017, is a regular megaphone for separatists and terrorist groups operating against Iran. It is best known for airing disparaging reports about Iran and trying to stoke unrest in the country.

In October 2018, The Guardian cited a source close to the Saudi government as saying that Iran International had received an estimated $250 million from the Saudi royal court for its launch.

April 19, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Iraqi parliament demands Baghdad’s procurement of Russia’s S-400 missile system

Press TV – April 18, 2020

The Iraqi parliament’s security and defense committee has submitted an in-depth study to the country’s caretaker prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, requesting the procurement of the Russian-built long-range, surface-to-air S-400 missile defense system.

“The committee has presented a comprehensive study to the prime minister, demanding approval for the purchase of the advanced S-400 air defense system. The issue has already been discussed with relevant figures at the General Command of Armed Forces, and now awaits the premier’s agreement,” Badr al-Ziyadi, a member of the committee, told Arabic-language al-Sabaah newspaper.

He emphasized that the purchase of the S-400 missile system, with the aim of boosting the country’s defense capabilities, will be finalized once the next Iraqi government is formed and it ratifies procurement of the system.

“The approval to acquire such a sophisticated system requires large financial allocations and a political decision in order to diversify the sources to get the weapons as we cannot just rely on the Western camp, but rather need to incline towards the Eastern camp as well,” Ziyadi pointed out.

The Iraqi lawmaker went on to say that his parliamentary committee “will support the next Iraqi government’s decisions in this regard, and will present relevant proposals and pieces of advice to it.”

Back on March 18, Ziayadi said US and Israeli arms firms were putting pressure on the Baghdad government not to discuss the purchase of sophisticated military equipment with other states, and sign arms contracts with them.

“There are companies and traders pushing to prevent Iraq from concluding contracts to purchase weapons from developed countries,” he told Arabic-language al-Maalomah news agency in an exclusive interview at the time.

The same Iraqi parliamentarian said on January 20 that the Baghdad government was planning to send delegations to Russia, China and Ukraine to hold negotiations over the acquisition of advanced air defense missile systems to protect its territory from any possible act of aggression.

“The delegations intend to visit countries like Russia, China and Ukraine to negotiate the purchase of modern systems to protect Iraq’s airspace,” he told al-Sabaah daily then.

The lawmaker added, “The Iraqi parliament is right now forming a joint executive and legislative delegation to visit developed countries and sign contracts on procuring advanced weapons.”

The United States has already warned Iraq of the consequences of extending military cooperation with Russia, and striking deals to purchase advanced weaponry, particularly S-400 missile systems.

Former US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on February 22, 2018 that Washington has contacted many countries, including Iraq, to explain the significance of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), and possible consequences that would arise in the wake of defense agreements with Moscow.

On August 2, 2017, US President Donald Trump signed into law the CAATSA that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

April 18, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran’s defense ministry makes mass delivery of new drones to army

Press TV – April 18, 2020

Iran’s defense ministry has made mass delivery of new combat and surveillance drones, including a jet-powered multipurpose UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to Army’s Air force and Air Defense Force.

The event took place during an official ceremony at the Iran Aviation Industries Organization (IAIO) in Isfahan with the presence of Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami and other senior military officials, a day after Iran’s Army Day.

Speaking during the ceremony, Hatami said that the multipurpose jet-powered UAV could travel at speeds of 900 kph and conduct operations at an altitude of 12 kilometers.

He added that the drone can fly for up to 180 minutes and have a range of 1000 kilometers.

Mass delivery of Ababil 3 and Karar drones

During the ceremony, a large contingent of Ababil 3 and Karar drones was also delivered to the Air force.

Speaking about the Ababil-3 drone, Hatami said that the drone is a medium-range surveillance craft capable of conducting airstrikes within a 150 kilometer radius.

He also said that the Karar drone is a strategic combat drone which can deliver payloads comparable to manned aircraft.

He added that the drone has pin-point attack capability and can be used in suicide attacks.

Iran has taken great strides seeking to attain self-sufficiency in producing essential military equipment and defense systems in the face of decades-long US sanctions and arms embargoes on the country.

Earlier this month, Iran announced that it is planning to produce a 6,000 ton destroyer later this year.

According to a statement by Iran’s Navy commander last week, Iran is also considering the development of nuclear-powered submarines.

April 18, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

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