DAMASCUS, SYRIA — The United States military has rejected offers to resolve the growing humanitarian crisis in the Rukban refugee camp in Syria, which sits inside a 55 km zone occupied by the U.S. along the Syria-Jordan border. The U.S. has also refused to let any of the estimated 40,000 refugees — the majority of which are women and children — leave the camp voluntarily, even though children are dying in droves from lack of food, adequate shelter and medical care. The U.S. has also not provided humanitarian aid to the camp even though a U.S. military base is located just 20 km (12.4 miles) away.
The growing desperation inside the Rukban camp has received sparse media coverage, likely because of the U.S.’ control over the area in which the camp is located. The U.S. has been accused of refusing to let civilians leave the area — even though nearly all have expressed a desire to either return to Syrian government-held territory or seek refuge in neighboring countries such as Turkey — because the camp’s presence helps to justify the U.S.’ illegal occupation of the area.
Though the U.S. has long justified its presence in al-Tanf as necessary to defeat Daesh (ISIS), the U.S. government has also acknowledged that al-Tanf’s true strategic importance lies in U.S. efforts to “contain” Iran by blocking a connection from Iran to Syria through Iraq. Al-Tanf lies near the area where the borders of Syria, Iraq and Jordan meet. Thus, in the U.S.’ game of brinkmanship with Iran, Rukban’s estimated 40,000 inhabitants have become pawns whose basic needs are ignored by their occupiers.
U.S. shows no interest in meeting
On Tuesday, delegations from Russia, Syria, the UN, and the Rukban refugee camp met to discuss the fate of the camp’s inhabitants after a UN survey found that 95 percent of the camp’s inhabitants wanted to leave the camp, while 83 percent wanted to return to their hometowns in areas of Syria now under Syrian government control.
However, the U.S. military and State Department officials in nearby Jordan rejected an invitation to Tuesday’s meeting. The U.S. military also prohibited a Syrian-Russian delegation from entering the Rukban camp on Tuesday. The delegation had sought to assess conditions in the camp, which have become increasingly desperate according to reports from a variety of outlets, including U.S. government-funded outlets like Voice of America.
The U.S.’ refusal to attend the meeting or allow the delegation passage comes less than a month after the U.S. military blocked the entry of evacuation buses overseen by Russian and Syrian forces that would have allowed refugees to leave the camp.
The buses would have entered through the “humanitarian corridors” that were recently opened on the Syrian-controlled side of the U.S.-occupied enclave. While camp inhabitants can, in theory, leave the camp through the corridors on foot, the barren area’s remoteness makes such evacuations unfeasible without vehicle transport. Although some families have left this way, the lack of record keeping within the camp has made it impossible to know how many have tried leaving this way since the corridors were opened last month.
An often overlooked problem that has prevented them from leaving is that U.S.-backed and U.S.-trained “moderate rebel” groups have been known to block camp inhabitants from leaving, demanding large payments in U.S. dollars to leave the area. The U.S. military took control of Al-Tanf alongside “moderate” rebel forces in 2014 after wresting the area from Daesh. Many of those opposition groups have since been revealed to have ties and sympathies to terrorist groups, including Daesh.
The U.S. has not given a reason for its rejection of Tuesday’s meeting and had previously said that its rejection of the evacuation buses was based on its view that the buses did not meet the U.S.’ “protection standards.”
Horrific conditions and a U.S. shrug
While the U.S. has blocked refugees from leaving on Russian-Syrian buses under U.S. “protection,” it has done little to abet the suffering of the tens of thousands of civilians in Rukban, even though the area is under complete U.S. military control and a U.S. military base is just a few miles away. Indeed, the extent of U.S. “aid” to the Rukban camp has been medical training of the handful of nurses in the camp, who work in conditions they describe as being like “the Stone Age” owing to the chronic lack of basic medications and doctors.
While medical care is decidedly lacking, the most pressing problem is the access to food, as starvation has become a real threat for those living in Rukban. Last October the opposition-aligned news service, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), reported that the Rukban camp had been without food or essential supplies for months. Only two aid deliveries, managed jointly by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the UN, were able to enter the camp.
One of those shipments, however, almost didn’t happen after the UN delayed the aid “for logistical and security reasons.” While the UN did not specify which “security reasons” had prompted the delay, it was apparently not the Syrian government, as the UN also said in the same statement that the convoy had received approval from Damascus. This suggests that the “security” concerns were related to U.S.-backed militants in the U.S.-controlled area surrounding al-Tanf. Notably, Russian and Syrian sources have claimed that these same militants often “plunder” the aid intended for the camp’s inhabitants for themselves.
Since then, the situation inside the camp has continued to deteriorate. Indeed, things have gotten so desperate that, in January, a mother attempted to set herself and her three children on fire after she couldn’t find food for three straight days and preferred to give her children a quick death rather than watch them starve. Others in the camp rescued the family, though the mother and her infant were seriously injured. Recently aid from the UN and SARC arrived in early February, the first aid shipment in over three months.
The lack of food combined with the lack of medical care has been responsible for scores of deaths in the camp — the majority of which are of children under the age of two, who often die from malnutrition and preventable diseases. Others have died from freezing weather owing to a lack of adequate shelter, with eight children dying in January for that very reason. Satellite images taken of the camp in early March showed the recent creation of a mass grave containing an estimated 300 bodies adjacent to the camp.
Despite the desperate conditions less than 13 miles from its military base, the U.S. has declined to send food, doctors, medical supplies or other forms of aid to Rukban’s inhabitants, while also preventing them from leaving. However, the U.S. has been providing militant groups in the same area with military and logistical support.
Rukban provides a pretext
In addition to presiding over the squalid and starvation conditions in the Rukban camp, the U.S. has also given militant groups present in the area it controls — including Daesh terrorists who have “embedded” themselves in the camp on the U.S.’ watch — free rein to terrorize the camp’s refugees. These militant groups not only control the flow of food and aid in the camp but terrorize its most vulnerable inhabitants, forcing women and children into sex slavery and engaging in human trafficking. All of this is taking place in a “deconfliction zone” controlled by the U.S. military.
These extremist groups, including Daesh, are well-armed, according to Jordanian Brigadier General Sami Kafawin, who told NBC News in 2017 that these groups “have whole weapons systems … small arms, RPGs, anti-aircraft.”
The official reason for the U.S. base in al-Tanf has long been counterterrorism operations that ostensibly target Daesh. However, very few attacks against the terror group have been launched from this base and a UN report released last August found that Daesh had been given “breathing space” in U.S.-occupied areas of Syria, including al-Tanf. The U.S. has stated that it uses the al-Tanf base to train Syrian opposition fighters who then control the area around the base, including Rukban.
Unidentified Syrian rebels surround a piece of US weaponry during training by an American special forces member in Tanf. Photo | Hammurabi’s Justice News
With the U.S. now having claimed that Daesh has been completely defeated in Syria, the official justification for its illegal occupation of Syrian territory is wearing thin. With that justification now on shaky ground, the U.S. is increasingly having to acknowledge its main motive for its presence in al-Tanf — containing Iran and keeping Syria divided.
Indeed, a recent Reuters article notes that the U.S.-controlled area around al-Tanf that includes the Rukban camp “is designed to shield U.S. troops at the Tanf garrison and maintain for Washington a strategic foothold in an area close to a crucial supply route for Iranian weapons entering Syria from Iraq.” This was confirmed by General Joseph Votel late last year when he told NBC News that the U.S. base in al-Tanf was key in countering “the sway of Iran” in Syria.
This followed statements made last July by National Security Advisor John Bolton that U.S. troops would remain in Syria “as long as the Iranian menace continues throughout the Middle East.” This policy of Iran containment has clearly guided U.S. policy in Syria of late, with at least 1,000 U.S. troops set to stay in Syria illegally despite Daesh’s defeat and President Donald Trump’s recent calls for a troop withdrawal.
The U.S. has been accused of using the civilians trapped in Rukban as a “shield” for its continued operations in Syria aimed at containing Iran’s regional influence. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier this month that “the fact that people are not allowed to leave [the camp] and are held hostage makes one suggest that the U.S. needs this camp to continue justifying its illegitimate presence there.” There appear to be few other explanations for the U.S.’ refusal to let camp inhabitants leave the area.
The hypocrisy of U.S. “humanitarian concerns”
The situation in the Rukban camp reveals the dark reality behind the U.S.’ occupation of Syrian territory in Al-Tanf and elsewhere. In order to pursue its policy of Iran “containment” and a divided and partitioned Syria, the U.S. is willing to imprison some 40,000 people — many of them children — in a concentration camp where international aid is blocked and where food is so scarce that mothers are setting themselves and their children on fire so they can avoid slowly starving to death.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a concentration camp is defined as “a place where large numbers of people are kept as prisoners in extremely bad conditions, especially for political reasons.” It is undeniable that the Rukban camp fits this definition to the letter.
That the U.S. justifies its aggressive policies around the world — from Syria to Venezuela and elsewhere — as being motivated by “humanitarian concerns” — when a refugee camp under the U.S.’ complete control in Syria is facing starvation conditions and its inhabitants are being forcefully kept confined in the camp by the U.S. military despite their expressed desire to leave — is an obscene Orwellian twist. All this to “contain” Iranian influence in the Middle East.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
March 28, 2019
Posted by aletho |
False Flag Terrorism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Da’esh, Human rights, Syria, United States |
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Former Ukrainian intelligence officer Vasily Prozorov’s testimony will likely be dismissed by Western governments supporting Kiev, but there is plenty of evidence to back his claims.
KIEV, UKRAINE — A former top official in Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), who recently fled the country, has given explosive testimony regarding the involvement of the Ukrainian government in the 2014 downing of the MH-17 passenger plane. The incident, which killed all 283 passengers and 15 flight crew members on board, had been blamed on Russia by Ukraine’s government, the United States and much of Western media.
In addition, the former official, Vasily Prozorov, told a group of international reporters that Ukraine’s controversial Azov Battalion, known for its Neo-Nazi ideology and symbolism, ran and maintained secret prisons in contested areas of Eastern Ukraine where there is fighting between pro-government forces and pro-Russian separatists. Prozorov, who has sought asylum in Russia, also accused the United States and the United Kingdom of training an SBU division that returned to Ukraine to conduct terrorist attacks in the Donbass region, which has been the site of a civil war since the overthrow of Ukraine’s government in 2014 in a U.S.-backed coup.
Prozorov’s identity was kept secret until the press conference began, in breaking with standard protocol. Prozorov then introduced himself, stating that he had been employed by the SBU from 1999 to 2018, but — after the U.S.-backed coup in 2014 — had contacted Russian intelligence and began working undercover in the central office of the SBU. He does not describe himself as a defector, as he stated that his allegiance remains with the Ukrainian people while the allegiance of those who came to power with U.S. assistance in 2014 has long been suspect.
Prozorov then noted that, soon after the coup and before the civil war between Western and Eastern Ukraine had begun, the SBU — at Kiev’s behest — had begun to plan combat operations in the East and that the government had requested that plans be made that would result in mass civilian deaths among ethnic Russian populations, who were to be labeled as “accomplices to terrorists.”
The former SBU officer also detailed how the post-coup SBU had established secret prisons where prominent dissidents of the U.S.-backed government were interrogated, tortured and even killed. One of those prisons, located at an airstrip in Mariupol, was nicknamed “the Library” and Prozorov compared it to a “concentration camp” and showed images of severely beaten detainees he claimed had been imprisoned at the site. The former SBU officer also stated that SBU’s decisions, in regards to the black-site prisons and other areas, were often “led” by foreign advisers from the United States and the United Kingdom. The SBU’s use of torture in Ukraine’s civil war has been well-documented even though the SBU blocked UN efforts to probe its extent.
In addition, Prozorov asserted that the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, a militia that was incorporated into Ukraine’s Interior Ministry as a component of the country’s National Guard, also operates its own prisons in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zones in Eastern Ukraine. The Azov Battalion receives funding from the government of Ukraine as well as from the U.S. government and has also received weapons from the Israeli government.
Insights into the MH-17 downing
Prozorov’s most shocking statements were related to the 2014 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, or MH-17, which was promptly blamed on Russia by the post-coup Ukrainian government, the United States and much of the Western world. Prozorov stated, noting first that it was his personal opinion based on his experiences, that the Ukrainian government had been an “accomplice to the Malaysian MH-17 flight disaster.”
He continued, stating:
The amazingly prompt reaction of the Ukrainian leadership was the first thing that made me feel suspicious. My unequivocal opinion was President Pyotr Poroshenko and his press-service had prior knowledge of the affair. Secondly, hostilities had been underway for several months by then, but the airspace over the area was not closed.”
He also noted that his efforts to learn more about the circumstances of the disaster within the SBU from a senior officer were met with the following reply: “Don’t poke your nose into this business, if you don’t wish to have problems.” However, Prozorov noted that “some information has leaked out in the end, though.”
He then concluded:
On the basis of my own analysis I can speculate who was an accomplice in the crime and who was involved in concealing evidence. In my opinion, there were two men involved – the current deputy chief of the Ukrainian presidential staff Valery Kondratyuk and chief of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s intelligence directorate, Vasyl Burba.”
Valery Kondratyuk, left and Vasily Burba, right
Prozorov’s full conference can be watched here (in Russian). A summary with English subtitles can be watched here.
Claims well-supported by independent reporting
Though some may be quick to dismiss Prozorov’s testimony as “Russian propaganda,” many of his claims fit with independent reporting on the Ukrainian conflict. For instance, in regard to Prozorov’s claim of “black site” prisons, the SBU denied the UN access in 2016 to many detention centers in Mariupol — where Prozorov says “the Library” prison is located — and Kramatorsk. The SBU claimed that it blocked the UN inspectors access in order to protect “government secrets.” The UN had first tried to access the areas after several human-rights groups had found credible evidence of torture taking place at facilities in the area.
Prozorov’s claims that the post-coup SBU had made plans to murder ethnic Russians in the Donbass are also supported by publicly available evidence. For instance, when the civil war began, the Kiev-based government stated its intention to specifically target civilians in order “to clean the cities.” In 2016, then-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who has been called “Washington’s man in Ukraine,” called pro-Russian civilians in the region “subhumans.” In an interview aired by the U.S.-funded, pro-government Ukrainian news channel Hromadske TV, a Ukrainian journalist aligned with the government asserted that the contested region was home to 1.5 million people “who are superfluous” and “must be exterminated.” With such sentiments having been openly stated by prominent politicians and journalists aligned with the current government in Kiev, Prozorov’s assertions seem hardly unreasonable.
US Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Robert Ashley, right, meets with Vasyl Burba, Chief of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. Photo | Defence Intelligence of Ukraine
In regard to Ukraine’s alleged role in the downing of MH-17, it is worth noting that past reports by late American investigative journalist Robert Parry described in detail how the “independent” MH-17 investigation was almost completely dependent on information from Ukraine’s SBU in piecing together the event. According to Parry:
[This control by the SBU, combined with its past obstruction of the UN torture probe],suggests that the SBU also would steer the JIT away from any evidence that might implicate a unit of the Ukrainian military in the shoot-down, a situation that would be regarded as a state secret which could severely undermine international support for the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev. Among the SBU’s official duties is the protection of Ukrainian government secrets.”
In addition, one of Parry’s sources maintained that the CIA had, like Prozorov, found evidence that Ukraine’s government had indeed been “an accomplice” to the MH-17 incident:
A source who was briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts told me that the CIA’s conclusion pointed toward a rogue Ukrainian operation involving a hard-line oligarch with the possible motive of shooting down Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official plane returning from South America that day, with similar markings as MH-17. The source said a Ukrainian warplane ascertained that the plane was not Putin’s but the attack went ahead anyway, with the assumption that the tragedy would be blamed on the pro-Russian rebels or on Russia directly.”
Another reason Prozorov’s testimony should not be outright dismissed as propaganda is the fact that he pushed back on previous Russian media reports involving U.S. infiltration of the SBU. When asked by a reporter if he could confirm reports that foreign military officials, including Americans, occupied their own floor at SBU headquarters, Prozorov adamantly denied those claims, stating that after 2005 there were CIA officials present in SBU headquarters but that the practice had been discontinued. He stated that U.S. intelligence officials regularly visited SBU headquarters after the 2014 coup but were not based in the building.
Thus, while Prozorov’s testimony will likely be dismissed by mainstream Western media outlets and Western governments that support Kiev, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that many of his claims — including his most shocking — deserve careful consideration, not outright dismissal. Indeed, were Prozorov a defector from a country currently at odds with the U.S. — be it Russia, Venezuela or Iran — it is highly likely that mainstream media would repeat and his promote his claims regardless of their veracity. However, because he has sought asylum in Russia, his recent statements are unlikely to gain international traction merely because of where he is now located, in spite of the evidence supporting many of those statements.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism
March 27, 2019
Posted by aletho |
False Flag Terrorism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Ukraine |
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Predictably, the UN’s first remarks about Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip focused more on a single rocket reaching north of Tel Aviv than the Zionist state’s ongoing colonial violence against Palestinian civilians and its destruction of what remains of the enclave. Likewise, the Palestinian people themselves will be of no concern to the international body unless there is a rising death toll and images of severely wounded people splashed across social media.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, we are told, is “gravely concerned” and, again predictably, has asked for maximum restraint from “both sides”. However, his “concern” was framed thus: “Today’s firing of a rocket from Gaza towards Israel is a serious and unacceptable violation.”
Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, echoed the statement from Guterres in a tweet which deplored the firing of a rocket as “absolutely unacceptable”. So far, Mladenov has not updated his concerns to describe the shelling of Gaza by Israel in the same terms, despite its bombs inflicting infinitely more damage. The EU has followed suit, emphasising its “fundamental commitment to the security of Israel.” The lives and property of Palestinians mean nothing to such people.
Even as a ceasefire was purportedly reached, Israel continued targeting the densely-populated enclave and the Gaza border was declared to be a closed military zone. It is more than likely that international institutions are waiting for further violations before they order pointless inquiries and studies, and issue conclusions and recommendations, all the while forcing Palestinians into diplomatic irrelevance by allowing Israel to exacerbate the humanitarian situation which has conveniently erased the political obligation to end colonisation.
Since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Israel has targeted Gaza repeatedly to the point that it has now normalised air strikes and the international community has accommodated its violence and rights violations by refusing to respond and react accordingly. Both Israel and international institutions, however, need a point of reference to justify such impunity. A rocket, despite its relative insignificance, when compared with Israeli air strikes and shelling, is enough to prompt official statements that start off with concern and end with declaring the priority of Israel’s security over Palestinian lives.
An unnamed diplomatic source referred to by Israel National News has dismissed the possibility of a large-scale operation and described the reinforcements along Gaza’s nominal border as “deterrents”. Air strikes, however, are set to continue.
In line with the current General Election frenzy in Israel, several ministers and candidates, including former Israel Defence Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, have requested further action. Gantz described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who also holds the defence portfolio — as having “lost his grip on security”, while Economy Minister Eli Cohen called for targeted assassinations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders. All this in retaliation for a rocket, as Israel would have the rest of the world believe.
As an aggressive occupier, though, Israel cannot define its actions as “retaliation” and “self-defence”. It is an instigator and has committed war crimes ever since its creation on Palestinian land in 1948.
Why, we must ask, are the UN and the EU intent on removing the distinction between possible war crimes and security when it comes to Israel? Both are trying to frame their political intent as a response to the rocket which landed north of Tel Aviv, yet the UN and the EU have clearly planned strategically for the moments when they can declare their allegiance and support for Israel without having to maintain an illusion of concern for human rights. Yet another opportunity for them to reveal their overt support for the colonial-occupation state arrived on Monday.
March 26, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | European Union, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, United Nations, Zionism |
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On 20 March, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet made a statement about Venezuela. Unfortunately, her statement contained factual inaccuracies and failed to take into full account the deadly impact sanctions are having on the country.
Her words should also be contrasted with UN special rapporteur Alfred De Zayas who visited Venezuela. De Zayas said that the sanctions are “economic warfare.”
Factually incorrect
But Bachelet’s statement about US sanctions failed to echo De Zayas’ damning analysis:
Although this pervasive and devastating economic and social crisis began before the imposition of the first economic sanctions in 2017, I am concerned that the recent sanctions on financial transfers related to the sale of Venezuelan oil within the United States may contribute to aggravating the economic crisis, with possible repercussions on people’s basic rights and wellbeing.
Firstly, economic sanctions were first imposed in March 2015 by the Obama administration, not in 2017. Obama declared a fraudulent “national emergency” that claimed Venezuela was an “extraordinary threat” to the United States. Obama sold the sanctions as being “targeted” by making it illegal to deal with high ranking Venezuelan government officials. As US economist Mark Weisbrot pointed out, there is no way to “target” such officials without making investors afraid to deal with the entire government.
Donald Trump extended Obama’s “national emergency” to dramatically intensify the sanctions in August 2017. In the first year after Trump’s sanctions were imposed, they cost Venezuela’s government at least $6bn in oil revenues. Venezuela was importing $2bn per year in medicines while the economy was still growing.
Bachelet in denial about deadly sanctions
Trump’s sanctions are therefore killing people. But Bachelet failed to denounce them – only expressing “concern” that the most “recent” escalation of US sanctions “may” aggravate the crisis.
It’s therefore hypocritical of Bachelet to deny the impact of Trump’s sanctions while criticizing Nicolas Maduro’s government for failing to “fully acknowledge” the scale of Venezuela’s crisis.
Bachelet’s statement alluded to the argument, commonly used by US apologists, that the economic crisis preceded the sanctions. But US support for an insurrectionary opposition – going back all the way to 2002 – was a big factor in causing the crisis. Although it does not excuse the blunders that were made by the Venezuelan government, it is important to recognize and remember this.
Where is Bachelet’s “dissent”?
Bachelet also failed to condemn repeated threats against Venezuela’s government that have been made by US officials. Threats are illegal under Article 2 of the UN Charter. Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton has openly “joked” about Maduro being sent to a US-run torture camp in Cuba. Again, Bachelet’s hypocrisy is striking. She professed concern about dissent in Venezuela while it is threatened and sabotaged by a superpower.
The world’s most dangerous criminals have nothing to fear from Bachelet and similar “human rights defenders”. De Zayas, on the other hand, refused to pull any punches in his criticism. In an interview with the Independent, he stated:
“Sanctions kill,” he told The Independent, adding that they fall most heavily on the poorest people in society, demonstrably cause death through food and medicine shortages, lead to violations of human rights and are aimed at coercing economic change in a “sister democracy”.
Some of Bachelet’s critique of Venezuela’s record is valid. But by not “fully acknowledging” the role that US sanctions and threats play in the crisis, her credibility is undermined.
March 26, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Economics, War Crimes | United States, Venezuela |
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A senior U.S. government official has told Indian media that private local refiners had stopped importing crude oil from Venezuela, noting the cooperation of Indian companies in this respect.
“My understanding is that Indian private companies, who were importing Venezuelan oil, have stopped,” the official, whose name was not disclosed, said as quoted by Business Standard. He added “The Indians have been cooperative in communicating to the private companies.”
India is one of the largest importers of Venezuelan crude, but it has been concerned about sanction violations as Washington’s pressure on Caracas increases, with the Trump administration asking importers to stop taking in Venezuelan oil in a bid to cut off the Maduro government’s access to oil money.
India has been a priority target in this push to reduce Venezuelan exports. Earlier this month, the U.S. envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams told Reuters in an interview, “We say you should not be helping this regime. You should be on the side of the Venezuelan people,” commenting on talks with New Delhi on the topic.
Yet in February, Reuters reported the Indian government had advised at least one company buying Venezuelan oil to avoid paying for the commodity through the U.S. banking system, but not to stop buying Venezuelan oil altogether.
The company in question, which has remained unnamed, “expressed concern that there could be a problem in payments to PDVSA, so we have advised them to move away from the U.S. banking and institutional mechanism,” Reuters quoted an Indian government source as saying at the time.
Earlier this week, media reported on a statement from Azerbaijan’s energy ministry that quoted Venezuela’s oil minister as saying the country had suspended shipments of crude to India. The statement added that Manuel Quevedo had said Venezuela was looking for new markets to keep the oil flowing.
March 25, 2019
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes | India, United States, Venezuela |
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Carried out under a false pretext and in disregard of the UN, the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 paved the way for similar US-led operations in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere and over a million were killed, an analyst has told RT.
NATO’s attack 20 years ago, which was launched “without declaring war and without any permission from the UN Security Council, was a transformative act which has changed the world ever since,” Marko Gasic, commenter on international affairs, said.
“This formula… that you don’t need UN Security Council authorization was then implemented at the expense of Iraq and Libya and elsewhere. So far, the decision to bomb Yugoslavia has led to over a million casualties worldwide; and rising.”
Back in 1999, the US and its allies launched airstrikes in what was then Yugoslavia, after blaming Belgrade for “excessive and disproportionate use of force” in a conflict with an ethnic Albanian insurgency in Kosovo.
NATO warplanes carried out 900 sorties during the brutal 78-day bombing campaign, which officially claimed at least 758 civilian lives. But Serbian sources insist the actual death toll was twice as high.
NATO had used depleted uranium in its air strikes on Yugoslavia. Despite the studies showing that children born there after the bombing are prone to cancer, “very little” has been or is being done to hold the bloc accountable, Gasic said.
The Yugoslav authorities tried suing NATO, but its “response was to create a ‘Color Revolution’ (in 2000) there and bring its own puppets to power… who abandoned the lawsuit.”
“The world community really needs to take NATO to task. And If Serbia is too weak to do it, we need other countries to take an interest. If they don’t defend Serbia – it’ll be their borders next that NATO will be coming for,” the analyst warned.
March 24, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | NATO, United States |
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The administration of the US President, Donald Trump, is currently using severe economic sanctions in an unsuccessful, and illegal, attempt to pressurize Tehran into dismantling its rocket program, and weaken its regional influence. The present US leadership is not trying to hide its implacable opposition to any form of political contacts, trade or cultural links between Iran and its neighbors. Washington reacted in an almost hysterical manner to the very successful recent visit to Iraq by Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian President, which was entirely devoted to talks on trade and investment. The volume of trade between the two countries currently amounts to $12 billion a year, and there is every reason to believe this will increase to $20 billion, which would be very welcome for Tehran, given the severity of the US sanctions.
And although the harsh sanctions are aimed at restricting Tehran’s relations with other countries in the region, and despite the fact that Washington is taking great pains to impose so-called secondary sanctions on countries which trade with Iran, the latest statistics show that things are actually moving in the opposite direction: Tehran, blocked off from international markets, is starting to focus on its close neighbors. The recent fall in the value of the riyal means that Iranian goods and services are now much more competitive. As a result, Iraq has been able to overtake China as Iran’s main export market for all goods except for oil.
According to IRNA, the Iranian news agency, as a result of Hassan Rouhani’s successful visit to Iraq the two countries signed 22 agreements on trade and cooperation in industrial projects. The agreements are aimed at increasing trade between Iran and Iraq. The new agreements cover such matters as the development of cooperation between border provinces of both countries, the reduction of trade tariffs, and the simplification of the visa regime for citizens of the two countries. The Iraqi Minister of trade, Mohammad Hashim al-Ani, has announced that under the new agreements a number of infrastructure construction projects are to be launched, and working groups and committees are to be set up to discuss further cooperation between the two countries in a range of different areas.
Arabic media outlets have reported that Iraq and Iran have agreed to set up a barter system, in which manufactured goods from Iraq will be exchanged for Iranian gas and electricity. In this way Baghdad hopes to continue importing energy and fuel from Iran, in exchange for Iraqi products. Economists consider that supplying energy to Baghdad, which does not have enough energy resources to meet its needs, will not only help the country to build new factories but also provide the population with cheap electricity, especially in the summer, when the temperature frequently exceeds 50 degrees and air conditioning is essential.
The Iranian premier’s visit to Iraq, in which the two countries limited themselves to discussing trade and investment-related matters, was greeted positively by the international community, with the notable exception of the USA and the Trump Administration. The facts show that the USA is dedicated to a policy of unleashing conflicts and sowing enmity between countries. This was clearly demonstrated by the recent hostilities between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. An example of this is the many inflammatory comments and groundless predictions by the US “free” media, which filled the country’s newspapers and TV with fake news reports from Kashmir.
But, notwithstanding the unfortunate events in Kashmir, the US administration, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in particular, has not forgotten about Iran. Speaking in the CERAWeek conference, the US Secretary of State, who is far more comfortable with the language of threats than that of diplomacy, declared that if Iran did not behave “like a normal nation” the sanctions regime would last for a long time. It is completely natural that the USA, which has set itself up as an international policeman, should use its own conduct as a standard for other countries.
So it is worth looking at the way that the USA, a “normal country”, behaves. It bombed the helpless population of the German city of Dresden, dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where no Japanese troops were based, sprayed Vietnam intensively with chemical weapons (defoliants), carpet bombed North Korea (1950-1953) and destroyed the states of Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. That is the conduct of the USA, a “normal” country. And it advises other countries to behave in the same way.
It is not surprising that the so-called “White Helmets”, an organization protected by the US, follows its example, by initiating chemical attacks in Syria. And what about the International Court of Justice, and other international organizations whose staff are paid high salaries in order to bring the perpetrators of such provocations to justice: where are they looking?
The Secretary of State has, once again, outdone himself: he has ordered a total ban on exports of Iranian oil: “We have every intention of driving Iranian oil exports to zero”. If we take into account the fact that oil is the country’s main export and that the basic needs of the whole population depend on the proceeds from this trade, then Mike Pompeo’s declarations sound rather like the joyful shrieks of a cannibal as he gloats over his helpless victim.
The choice of Mike Pompeo as US Secretary of State, in effect the country’s Foreign Minister, has been greeted with criticism, ridicule and contempt by countries around the world. Many have compared him, unfavorably, with Sergey Lavrov, the Russian diplomat and Foreign Minister, who deals very well with the wide range of global problems that Russia finds itself faced with. One might ask: how can a former unsuccessful spy who was tasked with overthrowing the international order possibly operate on the same level as him? That is why, lacking support from diplomats and himself feeling nothing but contempt for that profession, he decided to “transfer” many of his former henchmen to the diplomatic service.
These one-time spies are attempting, in everything they do, to justify the high level of trust that their guru has placed in them, but they lack the slightest experience of diplomacy, and, hopelessly out of their depth, are doing their country far more harm than good. It is hard to see how else we are to understand the recent incident in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, in which a US diplomat – that, at least, was his job title – tried to bring a bomb through customs in his luggage. The Russian Foreign Ministry has stated directly that it saw the incident as a provocation. As the TASS news agency reported, citing Russian diplomatic staff, “given the heightened attention the USA itself has paid to security on aircraft since the 9/11 attacks, he simply could not be unaware that a bomb in a bag is very serious. That means he was aware of taking such a step.” Obviously a real diplomat would never carry out a provocation of that sort without clear “instructions” from above – that goes without saying. Many global media outlets speculated, rather boldly, that the diplomat was, in a very underhand way, trying to “test Sheremetyevo airport’s security system”.
Looking back over the energetic but fruitless, and in fact extremely dangerous actions of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, we would wish to advise the US President to take more care with his choice of staff, especially at such a senior position. Because absolutely everything he does in his post – a post for which he is completely unqualified – harms his own country and he makes himself a laughing stock for people all over the world when he comes out with his latest “pearls of wisdom” concerning Iran, Russia or any other country. At this point it is worth remembering the words of the great Mark Twain (a writer who may well, we suspect, be unknown to the Secretary of State) in his superb book, Letters from the Earth. Specifically, Letter Eight, in which Twain has nothing good to say about people such as Mike Pompeo.
March 24, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Economics, War Crimes | Middle East, Sanctions against Iran, United States |
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The U.S.-Israel Directed Energy Cooperation Act would deepen Israel’s access to grotesque weapons of war that have been developed by the US military but have also been banned for use by American troops
WASHINGTON — Last Thursday, Reps. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) introduced the “U.S.-Israel Directed Energy Cooperation Act,” which would authorize “the Department of Defense to carry out bilateral cooperation with Israel to develop directed energy capabilities,” according to a press release.
Directed energy weapons include laser weapons and particle beams; they are highly destructive but embraced by militaries for their “infinite magazines” and “incredible speed and range.”
More specifically, the bill — which is identical to a bill of the same name that Lieu and Stefanik introduced last year but failed to pass — would allow the Pentagon “to carry out research, development, test, and evaluation activities, on a joint basis with Israel, to establish directed energy capabilities that address threats to the United States, deployed forces of the United States, or Israel, and for other purposes.”
Arguably more troubling is the fact that this bill would deepen Israel’s access to grotesque weapons of war that have been developed by the U.S. military but have also been banned for use by American troops. For instance, in the late 1990s, the U.S. and Israel collaborated on the “Nautilus” program that created lasers that cause permanent blindness in those targeted by literally “melting the eyeball.”
Though the “Nautilus” lasers were banned for use by the U.S. under the Clinton administration because they could cause permanent blindness, they were nevertheless shared with Israel’s government. A spokesman for U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command, John Cunningham, at the time told the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs that the decision to share the technology with Israel had not been made by the command — which was the lead agency overseeing the program — and instead stated that “We are taking our orders from the Secretary of Defense [William Perry] and President Clinton.”
The “Nautilus” lasers were later shelved for use as missile defense by Israel in 2006, despite the U.S. and Israel having spent $300 million, owing to the “prohibitive cost” of their operation. However, Israel has continued to use the highly experimental technology to develop a new system it claimed was on the “verge of completion” this past December.
In light of this current bill, it is important to revisit the “Nautilus” example, as it clearly shows that the U.S. government, in past “collaborative” efforts, has provided experimental, hi-tech weapons to Israel even when they are so controversial, potent and deadly that the U.S.’ own military is banned from using them. This point is even more troubling when one considers that Israel regularly tests its experimental and newly developed weapons on Palestinians, including civilians, who live in the blockaded Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
U.S. to subsidize Israeli arsenal
While it has been touted as a means of “jointly” researching directed energy weapons, the text of the bill reveals that it would be used to funnel U.S. taxpayer funds to subsidize Israeli directed energy weapon research in Israel.
For instance, the bill states: “The Secretary of Defense is authorized to provide maintenance and sustainment support to Israel for the directed energy capabilities research, development, test, and evaluation activities authorized.” It then states that Israel’s financial contribution to said research would not necessarily need to be equal to the U.S.’ contribution, but merely “an amount that otherwise meets the best efforts of Israel, as mutually agreed to by the United States and Israel.”
Furthermore, the “memorandum of agreement” between the two countries states that the bill would require “the United States Government to receive semiannual reports on expenditure of funds, if any, by the Government of Israel, including a description of what the funds have been used for, when funds were expended, and an identification of entities that expended the funds.” This passage strongly suggests that the research will take place in Israel under Israeli government supervision.
The bill is part of a recent congressional effort to mandate close cooperation between the Israeli and U.S. governments in sensitive technology, despite Israel’s history of using such collaboration to steal state secrets. For instance, a widely overlooked provision of the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018 — which was nearly passed but ultimately blocked last year in the Senate by Rand Paul (R-KY) — would have mandated that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) work closely with the Israel Space Agency (ISA) “to identify and cooperatively pursue peaceful space exploration and science initiatives in areas of mutual interest.”
The provision was included despite the fact that an Israeli postdoctoral student, Amir Gat, at Caltech had illegally transmitted to Israel classified information on NASA technology. Gat is now employed by an Israeli state-run research institution.
Considering the source(s)
This current bill appears not to provide any direct benefit to the United States and, instead, promises to be a way of subsidizing hi-tech weapons research of an allied government that regularly commits war crimes. Though Rep. Lieu has claimed that the legislation is an “opportunity” for the U.S. and would “save lives,” it seems that the $31,850 Lieu received from the pro-Israel lobby just last year may have swayed his opinion.
Yet, in contrast, the bill’s other sponsor, Rep. Stefanik, has not received such largesse from the Israel lobby. Instead, Stefanik is connected with and used to work for the country’s most notorious and zealously pro-Israel neoconservatives, when she served as communications director for the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). FPI was founded in 2009 by neoconservatives Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol as the successor to the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which had fallen into disrepute for its role in promoting — and some argue helping to plan — the Iraq War. Yet, Stefanik’s association with neoconservatives goes beyond her association with FPI, as neocon National Security Adviser John Bolton endorsed her re-election campaign bid in 2017.
Given the lack of benefit for the U.S. — and Israel’s history of war crimes and testing its newly developed weapons on disenfranchised Palestinians in blockaded Gaza or the occupied West Bank — this bill is a perfect example of yet another “Israel first” bill now making its way through the U.S. Congress.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
March 23, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, United States, West Bank, Zionism |
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At a high-level meeting in Rome this week, it seems that Russia reiterated a grave warning to the US – Moscow will not tolerate American military intervention to topple the Venezuelan government with whom it is allied.
Meanwhile, back in Washington DC, President Donald Trump was again bragging that the military option was still on the table, in his press conference with Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro. Trump is bluffing or not yet up to speed with being apprised of Russia’s red line.
The meeting in the Italian capital between US “special envoy” on Venezuelan affairs Elliot Abrams and Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov had an air of urgency in its arrangement. The US State Department announced the tête-à-tête only three days beforehand. The two officials also reportedly held their two-hour discussions in a Rome hotel, a venue indicating ad hoc arrangement.
Abrams is no ordinary diplomat. He is a regime-change specialist with a criminal record for sponsoring terrorist operations, specifically the infamous Iran-Contra affair to destabilize Nicaragua during the 1980s. His appointment by President Trump to the “Venezuela file” only underscores the serious intent in Washington for regime change in Caracas. Whether it gets away with that intent is another matter.
Moscow’s interlocutor, Sergei Ryabkov, is known to not mince his words, having earlier castigated Washington for seeking global military domination. He calls a spade a spade, and presumably a criminal a criminal.
The encounter in Rome this week was described as “frank” and “serious” – which is diplomatic code for a blazing exchange. The timing comes at a high-stakes moment, after Venezuela having been thrown into chaos last week from civilian power blackouts that many observers, including the Kremlin, blame on American cyber sabotage. The power grid outage followed a failed attempt by Washington to stage a provocation with the Venezuelan military over humanitarian aid deliveries last month from neighboring Colombia.
The fact that Washington’s efforts to overthrow the elected President Nicolas Maduro have so far floundered, might suggest that the Americans are intensifying their campaign to destabilize the country, with the objective of installing US-backed opposition figure Juan Guaido. He declared himself “acting president” in January with Washington’s imprimatur.
Given that the nationwide power blackouts seem to have failed in fomenting a revolt by the civilian population or the military against Maduro, the next option tempting Washington could be the military one.
It seems significant that Washington has recently evacuated its last remaining diplomats from the South American country. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commented on the evacuation by saying that having US personnel on the ground “was limiting” Washington’s scope for action. Also, American Airlines reportedly cancelled all its services to Venezuela in the past week. Again, suggesting that the US was considering a military intervention, either directly with its troops or covertly by weaponizing local proxies. The latter certainly falls under Abrams’ purview.
After the Rome meeting, Ryabkov said bluntly: “We assume that Washington treats our priorities seriously, our approach and warnings.”
One of those warnings delivered by Ryabkov is understood to have been that no American military intervention in Venezuela will be tolerated by Moscow.
For his part, Abrams sounded as if he had emerged from the meeting after having been given a severe reprimand. “No, we did not come to a meeting of minds, but I think the talks were positive in the sense that both sides emerged with a better understanding of the other’s views,” he told reporters.
“A better understanding of the other’s views,” means that the American side was given a red line to back off.
The arrogance of the Americans is staggering. Abrams seems, according to US reporting, to have flown to Rome with the expectation of working out with Ryabkov a “transition” or “compromise” on who gets the “title of president” of Venezuela.
That’s what he no doubt meant when he said after the meeting “there was not a meeting of minds”, but rather he got “a better understanding” of Russia’s position.
Washington’s gambit is a replay of Syria. During the eight-year war in that country, the US continually proffered the demand of a “political transition” which at the end would see President Bashar al Assad standing down. By contrast, Russia’s unflinching position on Syria has always been that it’s not up to any external power to decide Syria’s politics. It is a sovereign matter for the Syrian people to determine independently.
Nearly three years after Russia intervened militarily in Syria to salvage the Arab country from a US-backed covert war for regime change, the American side has manifestly given up on its erstwhile imperious demands for “political transition”. The principle of Syrian sovereignty has prevailed, in large part because of Russia’s trenchant defense of its Arab ally.
Likewise, Washington, in its incorrigible arrogance, is getting another lesson from Russia – this time in its own presumed “back yard” of Latin America.
It’s not a question of Russia being inveigled by Washington’s regime-change schemers about who should be president of Venezuela and “how we can manage a transition”. Moscow has reiterated countless times that the legitimate president of Venezuela is Nicolas Maduro whom the people voted for last year by an overwhelming majority in a free and fair election – albeit boycotted by the US-orchestrated opposition.
The framework Washington is attempting to set up of choosing between their desired “interim president” and incumbent Maduro is an entirely spurious one. It is not even worthy to be discussed because it is a gross violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty. Who is Washington to even dare try to impose its false choice?
On Venezuela, Russia is having to remind the criminal American rulers – again – about international law and respect for national sovereignty, as Moscow earlier did with regard to Syria.
And in case Washington gets into a huff and tries the military option, Moscow this week told regime-change henchman Abrams that that’s a red line. If Washington has any sense of rationality left, it will know from its Syria fiasco that Russia has Venezuela’s back covered.
Political force is out. Military force is out. Respect international law and Venezuela’s sovereignty. That’s Russia’s eminently reasonable ultimatum to Washington.
Now, the desperate Americans could still try more sabotage, cyber or financial. But their options are limited, contrary to what Trump thinks.
How the days of American imperialist swagger are numbered. There was a time when it could rampage all over Latin America. Not any more, evidently. Thanks in part to Russia’s global standing and military power.
March 23, 2019
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes | Latin America, United States, Venezuela |
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The United Nations Human Rights Council has voted to adopt a report accusing Israel of War Crimes committed against civilians during Gaza demonstrations.
The report was adopted with 23 votes in favor, 8 against and 15 abstentions. Despite the statements of UK foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, the UK abstained from voting against the adoption of the report.
The UN report investigated the killings of 189 demonstrators, including 35 children, in Gaza, between the 30th of March and the 31st of December, 2018. The report concluded that Israel had committed serious violations of international law.
The report was instantly denounced as “biased” and “anti-Semitic” by Israel and its closest allies, according to Days of Palestine.
However, despite the slanderous comments against the UN by Israel, the report may now be taken to the International Criminal Court. The report calls for international arrest warrants to be handed out to the Israeli soldiers responsible, as well as individual sanctions to be applied to those guilty, for the illegal use of lethal force against unarmed demonstrators.
March 22, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Israel, Palestine, United Nations, Zionism |
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Jeremy Hunt, the British foreign secretary, has revealed that the UK will oppose the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) permanent agenda item on human rights abuses in Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Writing in the Jewish Chronicle, Hunt insisted that Britain will vote against all texts contained within the Item 7 resolution at the UNHRC’s meeting this Friday, because “elevating this dispute above all others cannot be sensible.” The item has been a permanent fixture on the UNHRC’s agenda, and debated at every session, since June 2007.
Item 7
- Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories
- Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.
- Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people
Hunt opposes the UN’s focus on Israel’s human rights conduct in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories, because it suggests “that one side alone holds a monopoly of fault.” He claims that a dedicated agenda for one nation “obstructs” the prospect of any long-lasting peace in the Middle East.
Ahead of Friday’s vote, the 47-member council discussed seven reports concerning alleged human rights violations by Israel.
In February, a UN human rights inquiry found that the Israeli military may have committed war crimes when 189 Palestinians were killed and 6,100 wounded during Gaza protests.
Palestinian demonstrators “did not pose an imminent threat of death or serious injury to others when they were shot, nor were they directly participating in hostilities,” according to the panel’s report, citing confidential information about those responsible for the killings.
The commission said every use of live fire during the protests was unlawful, while also calling on Palestinians to cease the use of incendiary kites and balloons.
See also:
Mainstream media on Gaza: Israelis get killed, but Palestinians merely ‘die’
March 21, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
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Britain is providing “engineering support” for UK-supplied aircraft operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force, responsible for killing innocent people in Yemen, a British government minister has revealed.
Armed Forces Minister Mark Lancaster was responding to a question in parliament from Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, on military personnel seconded to BAE Systems in Saudi Arabia, when he admitted that the RAF have provided engineering and “generic training” to the Saudi Air Force involved in the bombing of Yemen.
“RAF personnel on secondment to BAE Systems in Saudi Arabia have provided routine engineering support for UK-supplied aircraft operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF), including aircraft engaged in military operations in Yemen.”
Lancaster insisted UK personnel were not involved in the loading of weapons for operational sorties, in response to Russell-Moyle’s claim that the “British support keeps Saudi’s air war going.”
Andrew Smith of Campaign Against the Arms Trade has branded the revelation “shocking but not surprising,” arguing that UK military personnel “should not be servicing Saudi jets or supporting the Saudi armed forces.”
It’s not just the UK that has been widely criticised for being party to the Saudi-led coalition’s bombardment of Yemen.
In December, the US Pentagon revealed that they were having to claw back $331 million of taxpayer-subsidized money gifted to Saudi Arabia and the UAE over a three-year period, when it ‘accidentally’ refueled their aircraft for free during their war on Yemen.
In November, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry accused the UK government of having “blood on its hands” after admitting that the RAF had trained over a hundred Saudi pilots in the past ten years.
Coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have relentlessly bombed Yemen since 2015 in an effort to oust the Houthi rebels controlling the capital city of Sanaa.
They have reportedly targeted hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, leading to a massive cholera outbreak, and upwards of 60,000 people are believed to have died in the conflict since 2016 – with a further 85,000 estimated dead from famine and malnutrition.
Half of Yemen’s population relies on food aid to survive, placing them in immediate danger of starving to death after coalition forces blockaded the port city of Hodeidah last year.
March 18, 2019
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | Saudi Arabia, UK, United States, Yemen |
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