Saudi Arabia training tribal ground force in Yemen – report
RT | April 30, 2015
In order to break the stalemate in the ongoing conflict in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has reportedly started training hundreds of Yemeni tribesmen to fight the Houthis on the ground, while Riyadh continues its bombardment campaign.
“You cannot win a war against the Houthis from the air – you need to send ground forces in, but now there’s a program to train tribal fighters on the border,” a Doha-based military source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
According to another Yemeni official source, some 300 fighters have already managed to return to Yemen after getting Saudi training. They were allegedly sent to the Sirwah district in the central Marib province to battle Houthis in the area. According to the source the newly trained unit managed to push the Houthis back.
Saudi Arabia’s coalition spokesman failed to either confirm or deny the reports.
“We always confirm that we are helping the resistance and the popular groups, the loyal army … but we cannot go into details on where, how, how much,”Brigadier Ahmed Asseri said.
The training received by the Yemeni tribesmen in Saudi Arabia allegedly includes light weapons and tactical advice knowledge. According to another Reuters source, the Kingdom plans to boost deployment of such units to fight the Houthis resistance.
Rhiayad is reportedly gathering all tribal leaders loyal to the ousted president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia, to unite their tribal forces against those of the Houthis.
“Saudi Arabia wants to unite tribal leaders in this meeting but the feeling is that there’s not much hope for that,” a Yemeni source in Riyadh told Reuters. Apparently the tribal delegations seem more concerned battling the jihadi elements in Yemen in addition to the Houthi opposition.
“The Saudis have decided that they are going to intensify the unstable situation by providing arms to an oppositional group, a group that has been traditionally oppositional to the Houthis,” Ajamu Baraka, Middle East expert told RT.
On the ground in Yemen, the Shiite Houthi fighting force and army units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh are in control of central and southern areas.
The fighting is ongoing on a number of major fronts. In Aden, the Houthis are engaging tribesmen who are supported by Saudi-led air forces. In Yemen’s third largest city, Taiz, Houthis are fighting the Sunni Islamist fighters. The Houthis and their allies have been also fighting both Islamists and local tribesman in Marib and in Shabwa provinces.
The forces in Yemen which Saudi Arabia is arming can turn jihadi, Baraka says, as they have some “traditional, Whabis, Islamic leanings,” which is the “main ideological, Islamic foundation for Al Qaeda.”
“The only force that is gaining as a consequence of this conflict is in fact Al-Qaeda,” he went on to stress.
Meanwhile, the airstrikes continued throughout the country on Wednesday, targeting Houthi forces in Aden, Saada, Hajja, Taiz, Ibb and Bayda.
This will make the world sorry it put a CIA death squad in charge of Chernobyl
By Niqnaq | April 29, 2015
Yatsenyuk inspects forest fire in the exclusion zone. After visiting the zone, the Head of Government told journalists at the airport:
The situation is under control. Fire stations are from Chernobyl at a distance of about 20 km. Our State emergency service actively works to cut off the spread of fire. The localization of the fire involved three aircraft, one helicopter and a significant amount of equipment. There sent forces, including the Ministry of internal Affairs. This fire is the largest since 1992. But we cope, perform, and we will actively inform.
Answering a question about the situation with background radiation Arseniy Yatsenyuk said:
I was informed that the situation is normal; there are no changes in the background radiation level.
———–
The fire encompasses the plutonium burial areas. According to State Emergency Service (GSChS) the fire blazes already near the village. It is 13 km from the station. People are close to panic. The Deputy Director on scientific work of the Museum of Chernobyl, Anna Royal, said:
The fire had already moved in close to Chernobyl, the radioactive waste burial site. There is one of the most polluted places. Nearby the burial of radioactive waste. Plutonium is one of the most dangerous elements that infects the haematopoietic system of a person. As long as nobody touches it, this element is not dangerous. But if in the street the wind and the fire, plutonium particles can rise a meter and be transported over long distances.
Meanwhile, as reported by the interior Minister Arsen Avakov, to extinguish the fire involved the national guard. In Kiev, there are rumors that some deputies of the Verkhovna Rada and members of the government have taken their families out of town.
Some states have hijacked NPT in favor of Israel: Researcher
Press TV – April 28, 2015
Press TV has conducted an interview with Soraya Sepahpour Ulrich, an independent researcher and writer, in Irvine, to get her take on the stance of Iran and other countries over the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Mohammad Javad Zarif’s spokes of fairness and equity when it comes to the implementation of the NPT, has that been like that ever since this treaty came into effect?
Sepahpour: Regrettably, not at all and under the international law there ought to be no discrimination whatsoever. In fact, scholars have argued that the only time that discrimination if he wants to be called that is acceptable in international law is to elevate the status of a state to be on par with the rest. But right now as we said the international law has been hijacked and we see that powerful states are doling out favors to those that are pariah states, especially Israel in the region, and in fact, rewarding them for violating international law, while again themselves violating international law by not rendering assistance to those who are signatories to this treaty.
Press TV: How imperative is this for this NPT treaty to remain relevant to be able to bring Israel’s nukes under its control or supervision and also compel nations like the United States to clamp down on their own arsenals?
Sepahpour: I think if the former director general of the IAEA Mr. ElBaradei had listened to Mr. Zarif and perhaps he has, he would have applauded him. In 2004, Dr. ElBaradei, in fact, said that we need to talk seriously to Israel about its nuclear weapons whether it wants to admit to having them or not. And in fact, he called on a Middle East free of nuclear weapons. So, Mr. Zarif is right on the point in calling out, Israel is not a signatory to the NPT, is being rewarded for having nuclear weapons. And as far as the other states are not abiding by the NPT, again I’d like to quote Mohamed ElBaradei, he was the IAEA chief for three terms and he was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize together with the IAEA, and he said of nuclear powers, it is like them having it, “dangling a cigarette in their mouth while telling others not to smoke”. You can not violate international law and expect others to comply. This will create total chaos, disorder and it is a threat not just to the Middle East but to the entire world.
Press TV: When you speak of international law, so let’s not forget Iran is a signatory to the NPT and yet it has faced multiple sanctions regarding its peaceful nuclear energy program. That in itself is another violation, would not you agree?
Sepahpour: It is absolutely a violation. The whole purpose of the IAEA, when it was established in 1957 as a body of the United Nations, was to enable peaceful nations, those there were party, there was no treaty at that time, but to spread nuclear technologies, peaceful use around the world and NPT which was presented in 1968 for signature, in fact the whole spirit of the NPT was not only to render assistance in peaceful nuclear technology to the signatories but to ultimately eliminate all nuclear weapons, total disarmament and stop proliferation none of that has happened, in fact, Iran is a victim of policies here. There are nations that would want to use this law, this international treaty as a tool to dole out favors to the nations to that their working with and to those that are demanding their rights under the international law. So, it is very hypocritical, it is very dangerous and I think that this was a good occasion for the world to listen to a representative of 120 nations. And I just want to add that Iran has asked in numerous occasions for there to be total nuclear disarmament in the Middle East and even in 2009 the Arab League had said they could no longer tolerate Israel’s nuclear weapons without it is being subjected to… become a part of the NPT and have its nuclear facilities inspected. So, the vast majority of the world understands what is going on and what needs to happen. It is for more powerful nations that have hijacked the NPT that are keeping it as hostage to come on-board and be law abiding.
Israel main impediment to universality of NPT: Zarif
Press TV – April 27, 2015
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Israel is the main impediment to the universality of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the single violator of the accord.
“Unfortunately, Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons and its refusal to engage with the international community has become the greatest impediment to the universality of this treaty,” Zarif told Press TV correspondent in New York upon the arrival of Iran’s delegation of nuclear negotiators in the city to attend the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the NPT.
Israel is widely believed to be the sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East with up to 400 undeclared nuclear warheads. Tel Aviv has rejected global calls to join the NPT and does not allow international inspectors to observe its controversial nuclear program.
“Israel is the single most violator of this international regime (NPT) which is the requirement of the international community,” Zarif stressed.
The top Iranian diplomat further underlined the need for the establishment of a nukes-free zone in the Middle East.
“Since [the] 1970s, the General Assembly of the United Nations has been calling for the establishment of a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East, he said.
He underlined that the call for such a nuclear-free zone is not something new.
“In 1995, when the NPT was renewed, there was a declaration on the need for the universality of the NPT as well as the need for the establishment of the nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East. This request, or requirement and demand of the international community and member states of the NPT was again repeated in 2010 in the last review conference,” Zarif said.
“One of the most important issues in the NPT review process is to look into ways and means of bringing about universality and bring about the Israeli compliance with NPT,” he added.
He also elaborated on the function of the NPT, stressing that the treaty “rests on three pillars: nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”
He also said that the issue of Israeli compliance with the NPT will top the agenda in the 2015 Review Conference.
Zarif further noted that he will probably have a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the sidelines of the event during which the will discuss the issues surrounding negotiations on Iran’ nuclear program. The meeting will be the first time since the groundbreaking talks on Iran’s nuclear program in the Swiss city of Lausanne earlier in the month.
The top Iranian diplomat said he will also hold separate meetings with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and some foreign ministers of the P5+1– the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany, engaged in talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
Zarif also said that he will make a speech on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement countries as Iran is the movement’s current chair. The countries of the Non-Aligned Movement represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations members and contain 55 percent of the world population.
He further stressed that he will also sit for talks with foreign ministers of the countries in the region to discuss the ongoing crisis in Syria, Iraq, and especially in Yemen.
The NPT review conference, slated to be held from April 27 to May 22 at the UN headquarters, will address issues such as nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, safeguards measures and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
F-35 deal to destroy US leverage on Israel: Commentator
Press TV – April 24, 2015
Press TV has conducted an interview with Peter Rushton, a historian and political commentator from London, and Lawrence J. Korb, a former US Assistant Secretary of Defense in Washington, to discuss Washington’s delivery of new F-35 fighter jets to Israel.
Rushton says the delivery of fighter jets truly shows that the policies of US President Barack Obama are totally in line with those of his predecessor, George W. Bush, adding the most worrying fact is that the White House continues its military deals with Tel Aviv despite the regime’s longstanding aggressive policies.
The analyst slammed the recent military deal with Israel, which is the sole possessor of nuclear arms in the Middle East, saying such an accord strips Washington of any means of leverage that could enable the US to contain Tel Aviv’s warmongering policies.
Meanwhile, Korb believes the US is selling the equipment to Israel only to bolster the regime’s deterrence power in the face of dangers in the region.
Slain Ukraine Politician Led the Picketing of US Embassy in Kiev a Day Before Killed
Russia Insider | April 20, 2015
A day before he was murdered on April 15th Oleg Kalashnikov had organized the protest at the US Embassy in Kiev on April 14th.
Oleg Tsarov, his collegue from the former Party of Regions and a fellow dissident Ukraine politician wrote on his Facebook:
I BLAME THE US FOR THE DEATH OF MY FRIEND
Another one of my friends, Oleg Kalashnikov, was killed. I’m very sorry. We were friends. I knew his family. Repeatedly I tried to convince him to leave Kiev. In response, he told me that if everyone leaves, then who will fight.
I constantly tell my friends, remaining in Ukraine, that the organization of protests is futile. This power does not argue with its opponents, it eliminates them. Many of my friends were arrested, some disappeared, others were killed.
Oleg was one of the organizers of the last protest at the U.S. Embassy: people gathered and stood in silence outside the Embassy. Oleg didn’t leave, did not give up. He died. He was killed.
The latest (April 14th) demonstration at the US Kiev Embassy:
Number of Ukraine internally displaced persons tops 1.2 million: UN
Press TV – April 20, 2015
The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine has exceeded 1.2 million, the United Nations says as the crisis in the country’s eastern parts enters its second year.
Back in February, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that five million Ukrainians, including some 1.7 million children, have been affected by the ongoing crisis in the country’s eastern provinces.
The two mainly Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Russia forces and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations in April last year to crush pro-Russia protests there.
The UN said recently that at least 6,116 people have been killed and 15,474 wounded since the beginning of the tumult in Ukraine last April.
Warning that the actual number of casualties could be significantly higher, the UN further expressed concerns that the repeated violation of a shaky ceasefire aimed at ending the conflict would further worsen the human rights situation in the country’ restive parts.
Ukraine’s warring sides reached the truce deal, dubbed Minsk II, at a summit attended by the leaders of Russia, France, and Germany in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk in February. Since then, both parties have, on numerous occasions, accused each other of breaking the ceasefire.
Man Dies Seven Days After Beating by Baltimore Police, Who Still Won’t Say Why They Arrested and Beat Him
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | April 19, 2015
Freddie Gray, the 27-year-old man who was whisked away last week by Baltimore police and thrown into the back of a police van, only to later show up in a coma at a hospital, died earlier today.
But Baltimore police have yet to explain why they arrested him in the first place or how he ended up with a broken back.
Had it not been for witnesses video recording several officers dragging him into the van as he screamed in pain, he may have disappeared entirely without a trace.
But today, seven days after Gray was seen conscious and coherent as he was being dragged into the van, police are saying they cannot comment until a “proper and thorough investigation is undertaken.”
In other words, they are waiting to see if any other video surfaces before they create their narrative which will no doubt accuse Gray of being “belligerent” and “combative,” a man showing superhuman strength as he fought off four brave officers, who were only looking out for his safety, and wanted nothing more than to go home to their families that night.
Never mind the fact that perhaps Gray wanted to do the same before he was confronted by police on April 12 for unknown reasons.
The Baltimore Sun reports that Gray was walking down a street when four bicycle police officers tried to detain him, prompting him to run, causing them to run after him.
At least two videos surfaced, but they begin recording after he was detained when he is already screaming in pain. It appears as if they had already broke his back because he doesn’t appear to be able to move his legs as they are dragging him into the van.
Once the doors of the van were closed, one can only imagine what took place because by the time he was transported to the hospital, he was unresponsive.
Gray is the 348th person killed by police since January 1, 2015, according to Killed by Police, an average of more than three people a day. Meanwhile, six cops have been killed by gunfire in the line of duty during that same time, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.
Uprooted & evicted: World Bank-funded projects force millions off their land
RT | April 17, 2015
World Bank ventures in less developed countries are hurting the people the organization has sworn to protect, with almost four million people across the globe left homeless, forcefully evicted and relocated as a result of World Bank-funded projects.
A probe by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which examined World Bank’s records in 14 countries, discovered that some 3.4 million of the “most vulnerable people” were forced off their land in the last decade.
The World Bank “has regularly failed to live up to its own policies for protecting people harmed by projects it finances,” ICIJ states as one of its key findings.
The World Bank as well as the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which distributes the funds, have invested $455 billion in nearly 7,200 projects between 2004 and 2013 in the developing world, ICIJ says. More than 400 were confirmed to have caused the permanent displacement of local communities, while another 550 may have made locals homeless.
“An ICIJ analysis found that between 20 and 30 percent of all projects the bank funded from 2004 to 2013 were deemed likely to cause resettlement,” report’s summary reads.
The World Bank finances thousands of projects ranging from major oil pipelines and dams to small schools and clinics. In some countries the organization reportedly closed its eyes to numerous human rights violations. The ICIJ investigation was surprised to discover that in some instances, the World Bank continued to fund projects in “undemocratic” states even after evidence of abuses such as rape and torture emerged.
For instance in Ethiopia, former officials told journalists that the state used millions of dollars from health and education projects to fund a violent campaign of mass evictions of local populations. Yet despite numerous complaints from human rights groups and the indigenous Anuak population, the World Bank disputed claims that their money has been misused or misappropriated.
Kenyan forest conservation project using World Bank cash is claimed to be another example where funds were used to chase locals out of their ancestral homes.
The 11-month-long ICIJ investigation revealed that most of forced resettlement cases appear to take place in Asia and Africa. In Asia almost 3 million people were either left homeless or resettled, while in Africa that number stands at over 400,000.
The organization’s investment in China resulted in the resettlement of at least 1 million people, the investigation said.
In Vietnam alone some 1.2 million people were displaced during the construction of dams and power plants by the organization.
“Research has shown that millions of people have lost their livelihood and have been pushed into conditions of poverty because of large hydro-electric dams,” environmental and human rights activist and director of Right and Ecology, Annie Bird, told RT. “It is an investment which has not resulted in furthering the mandate of the World Bank, which is eliminating poverty.”
The full list of affected countries also include Albania, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Honduras, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Kosovo, Nigeria, Peru, Serbia, South Sudan and Uganda.
From 2009 to 2013, the study found, World Bank Group lenders “pumped $50 billion into projects graded highest risk for their “irreversible or unprecedented’” social or environmental impact. That numbers, the authors estimate, is twice as much as the previous five-year span.
ICIJ informed World Bank of their discoveries in March, warning of “systemic gaps”.
“We took a hard look at ourselves on resettlement and what we found caused me deep concern,” Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank’s president, said in a statement at the time. “One is that we haven’t done a good enough job in overseeing projects involving resettlement.”
The organization also compiled a five page “action plan” that it said would improve its programs.
“We must and will do better,” said David Theis, a World Bank spokesman, in response to the reporting team’s questions.
As the largest contributor to the Wold Bank, the US government is largely to blame for the organization’s shortcomings, Bird believes.
“The Bank could take measures to find alternatives for people who are losing their livelihoods to large infrastructure projects, it has just never been prioritized,” she says. “I think a lot of responsibility for that lies with the member nations, particularly with the United States government which has the largest share and voting power in the World Bank and therefore sets an important part of the Bank’s lending agenda.”
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Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
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