Russia Begins Operations in Syria: End Game for the US Empire?

[goyacobol]

As I follow these events and our reactions, I can't help but think of some of the psychological aspects that Andrew Lobaczewski talks about in Political Ponerology. The part before the "understanding" section sounds much like Gurdjieff's idea of "strategic enclosure". In the "understanding" section he points out that we shouldn't "pigeonhole" ideologies of other countries but look for the common "normal human nature" within them. I think Putin may be a good example of "normal human nature" vs pathocracy.

A psychologist working in such a country must develop special operational techniques unknown and even unfathomable to specialists practicing in the free world. They have the purpose of partially liberating the voice of instinct and feeling from this abnormal over-control, and of rediscovering the voice of nature’s wisdom within, but this must be done in such a way as to avoid exposing the patient to the unfortunate results of excessive freedom of reaction in the conditions under which he must live. A psychotherapist must operate carefully, with the help of allusions, because only rarely may he openly inform the patient of the system’s pathological nature. However, even under such conditions, we can achieve a greater experiential freedom, more appropriate thought processes, and better decision making capabilities. As a result of all this, the patient subsequently behaves with greater caution and feels much safer.

If Western radio stations, unhampered by the fears of psychologists on the other side, abandoned the simple counter propaganda in favor of a similar psychotherapeutic technique, they would contribute mightily to the future of countries still under pathocratic rule today. Toward the end of this book, I shall attempt to persuade the reader that psychological matters are as important to the future as grand politics or powerful weapons.

Understanding​

Comprehending those normal people, whether outstanding or average, fated to live under pathocratic rule, their human nature and their responses to this basically deviant reality, their dreams, their methods of comprehending such a reality (including all the difficulties along the road), and their need to adapt and become resistant (including the side-effects) is a sine qua non precondition for learning the behavior that would effectively assist them in their efforts to achieve a normal man’s system. It would be psychologically impossible for a politician in a free country to incorporate the practical knowledge such people acquired over many years of day to day experience. This knowledge cannot be transmitted; no journalistic or literary efforts will ever achieve anything in this area. However, an analogous science formulated in objective naturalistic language can be communicated in both directions. It can be assimilated by people who have no such specific experiences; it can also be back transmitted-transmitted over there where a great need for this science exists as do the minds which are already prepared to receive it. Such a science would actually act upon their battered personalities in much the same way as the best of medicines. Mere awareness that one was subject to the influence of a mental deviant is in and of itself a crucial part of treatment. Whoever wants to maintain the freedom of his country and of the world already threatened by this macrosocial pathological phenomenon, whoever would like to heal this sick planet of ours, should not only understand the nature of this great disease, but should also be conscious of potentially regenerative healing powers. Every country within the scope of this macrosocial phenomenon contains a large majority of normal people living and suffering there who will never accept pathocracy; their protest against it derives from the depths of their own souls and their human nature as conditioned by properties transmitted by means of biological heredity. The forms of this protest and the ideologies by which they would like to realize their natural wishes may nevertheless change. The ideology or societal structure via which they would like to regain their human right to live in a normal man’s system are, however, of secondary importance to these people. There are of course differences of opinion in this area, but they are not likely to lead to overly violent conflict among persons who see before them a goal worthy of sacrifice. Those whose attitudes are more penetrating and balanced see the original ideology as it was before its caricaturization by the ponerization process, as the most practical basis for effecting society’s aims. Certain modifications would endow this ideology with a more mature form more in keeping with the demands of present times; it could thereupon serve as the foundation for a process of evolution, or rather transformation, into a socio-economic system capable of adequate functioning. The author’s convictions are somewhat different. Grave difficulties could be caused by outside pressure aiming at the introduction of an economic system which has lost its historically conditioned roots in such a country. People who have long had to live in the strange world of this divergence are therefore hard to understand for someone who has fortunately avoided that fate. Let us refrain from imposing imaginings upon them which are only meaningful within the world of normal man’s governments; let us not pigeonhole them into any political doctrines which are often quite unlike the reality they are familiar with. Let us welcome them with feelings of human solidarity, reciprocal respect, and a greater trust in their normal human nature and their reason.

 

[angelburst29]

First major bad news on BRICS front since Putin's intervention in Syria. :( Brazil's congress gave needed 2/3 vote for impeachment of Dilma. What is surprising is they are going full naked in attacking larger democracies. Color revolutions to coups based on leaked data is new operating procedure?. Irony is people who voted for impeachment are the people who are more locked up in corruption than Dilma. That seems to not matter, as fickle people go along with wind of media euphoria.

As political turmoil engulfs Brazil after two-thirds of Brazilian lawmakers supported the impeachment of current President Dilma Rousseff, Sputnik spoke with several parliamentarians from opposite sides of the barricades.

Crisis in Brazil: Lawmakers Weigh Pros and Cons of Possible Impeachment
http://sputniknews.com/latam/20160418/1038198194/brazil-impeachment-for-against.html

Out of 513 lawmakers in the Brazilian parliament, 342 voted in favor of impeachment. Now the upper house of the parliament is expected to hold another vote to make a decision on the issue.

Below are the opinions of Brazilian parliamentarians, who both argue for and against the impeachment, and how they see the political crisis unfolding in their country.

Anti-Impeachment Voices "The result of the voting was a huge disappointment for me. I expected a more even political battle. However, this course of action was predictable as the so-called bandwagon effect took place. Undecided parliamentarians began to side with those in favor of a coup and began to join their camp. It's unfortunate that those defending President Rousseff were ignored, when they had to be given a word," parliamentarian Margarida Salomão told Sputnik.

"Obviously, the results are disappointing. We expected a closer fight, but corrupt opposition prevailed. But they only won the first battle. The second battle is just starting. We'll meet on April 18 and 19 in São Paulo. And the people of Brazil will be on the side of their President Dilma Rousseff, they will support her and won't allow a coup to take place," parliamentarian Maria Do Rosário said.

"This is the result of hybrid warfare waged against Brazil since last year and the work of foreign agents who seek to mobilize the Brazilian middle class to support the impeachment. In the near future, we can expect profound changes in fiscal policy and the part of legislation that regulates the offshore oil drilling. The objective of this work is to take Brazil out of the group of nations successfully fighting against the current global hegemony. From the point of view of progress, this is a huge defeat for the Brazilian people," explained Marcos Cordeiro Pires, professor of International Relations and Economics from the University of São Paulo.

Pro-Impeachment Voices "What happened tonight isn't the defeat of the Workers' Party of President Dilma Rousseff or former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. It's the victory of the Brazilian people. I always told my voters and fellow parliamentarians that if the people of Brazil took to the streets to demand change, we, as the members of the parliament, can't turn our backs to the voices on the streets. People can no longer tolerate when the country is ruled so horribly," parliamentarian Caio Narcio told Sputnik.

"Initially, the Senate was skeptical of the impeachment, but the social pressure of the last days for the removal of President Dilma Rousseff is gaining momentum and that's why it would be harder for the government to negotiate… For now it's possible to say that during the first stage, the government was unable to secure important votes and block the impeachment, and lost the support of important states," said Denilde Holzhacker, Professor at the Higher School of Advertising and Marketing in São Paulo.

Brazilian Public Divided The Brazilian public has also become divided into two camps — those who accuse the Rousseff government of being corrupt and ineffectively handling the country's economy.

Pro-government supporters meanwhile believe that the impeachment is a hidden coup attempt against the government. Despite being involved in a corruption scandal, pro-government protesters believe that Rousseff and her predecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, have helped to lift many Brazilians out of poverty over the past decade.

Over 60% of Brazilians do not believe that President Dilma Rousseff should be subject to impeachment proceedings, but a cadre of corrupt far right politicians armed with NSA surveillance documents continue to push for her ouster.

Impeachment or NSA-Led Coup? Alarming Efforts to Oust Brazil’s Rousseff
http://sputniknews.com/latam/20160414/1038035365/dilma-rousseff-impeachment-brazil-nsa.html

On Monday, a 65-member congressional committee in Brazil voted to advance impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, in relation to the "carwash" corruption investigation. Although President Rousseff is not herself implicated in illegal or corrupt activity, the impeachment is proceeding on the grounds of "a crime of responsibility," suggesting that she should have taken action to prevent corruption.

The congressional committee voted 38 to 27 in favor of impeachment, advancing the proceedings to a full vote of the lower house. If the lower house votes for impeachment by a two-thirds majority, the matter moves to a Senate vote to determine whether to advance a trial, with a simple majority sufficing.

If the Senate votes for an impeachment trial, Rousseff will be relieved of her duties for 180 days, pending trial. If the Senate, following the trial, returns a two-thirds vote for impeachment, President Rousseff would be permanently removed from office.

The investigation was sparked by information compiled from NSA surveillance of President Rousseff, members of the Brazilian government, and the major Brazilian oil company Petrobras. Within Brazil, and internationally, it has been questioned whether the proceedings are legitimate, or part of a concerted strategy by the United States to conduct a political coup.

Loud & Clear’s Brian Becker sat down with Brazilian political analyst Pepe Escobar to discuss the cause of the impeachment proceedings, and what to expect next.

A slow motion political coup? Yes, it is, that is the short answer," stated Escobar. "Kafka, the surrealist, could never come up with something like this political intrigue in Brazil. It says it all. The composition of this congressional committee shows it. Of the 38 who voted for impeachment, 35 are actually under investigation for corruption, and of the 27 who voted against impeachment, only 2 are under investigation for corruption."

Escobar worries what will transpire if the impeachment proceedings, whether or not legitimate, move forward. "If they manage to pass in the Congress floor, if they have the 2/3 majority to send it to the Senate — that would be the beginning of the end of the Dilma Rousseff government," said Escobar.

"It is a political vendetta. Especially by members of the center-right opposition and even members of the ruling coalition, and two major figures orchestrating this farce, in fact, are the Vice President of Brazil Michel Temer and the leader of the lower house Eduardo Cunha who, himself, is being investigated left and right for illegal accounts in Switzerland, and he came up in the Panama Papers as well," detailed Escobar.

"It is completely crazy," Escobar said, noting that over 60% of the Brazilian population, according to recent polls, do not believe that Rousseff should be impeached. Despite popular sentiment against impeachment, "if a full open vote at the Congress floor by mid-April is against Dilma by a 2/3 margin, then she’ll be sidelined for 180 days and, for all practical purposes, VP Michel Temer will be the President."

Will Dilma Rousseff be impeached? "This is not going to happen, based on the latest inside information, because there has been a groundswell of public opinion in Brazil," said Escobar. "The lower house vote will take place on a Sunday, which is strategic in Brazil because most people are watching football games, soccer games, on Sunday afternoon so they scheduled it when most people are relaxing with their families."

Escobar does not expect that the Sunday vote will distract the public. "In this case, about 90% of the population will be glued to the TV stations following it. They are going to name people who are behind the coup, the architects of the coup are fully identified – the vice president and the leader of the lower house. Public opinion has turned against the perpetrators of the coup and nobody is talking about the carwash investigation anymore," said Escobar.

What was the carwash investigation? "The real beginning is the NSA spying on Petrobras, the major Brazilian oil company, and members of the Brazilian government including President Dilma Rousseff, including her personal cell phone," explained Escobar. "This was the starting point for an obscure judge in one of Brazil’s southern states to start an investigation with information about Petrobras leaked or directed to him by the NSA leak."

The NSA leak, Escobar said, showed a criminal cell inside of Petrobras directing contracts to a construction company, with kickbacks leaking into political parties. Escobar argues that "this is something that happens in other countries, even in the United States, but it is just done in a much more sophisticated way than in Brazil. This happens everywhere in the developing world."

The problem with the investigation, in Escobar’s opinion, is not that corruption was discovered and whether or not it should be stamped out, but that the investigation is proceeding in a targeted manner.

"The focus of the carwash investigation is only on the Workers Party and, if it was a real investigation, they would target everybody, including the center right opposition, because this whole thing started years ago when the Workers Party was not even in power."

Are US and Western governments behind the impeachment efforts? "It is slightly more complicated than that," said Escobar. "There are elements of foreign manipulation, including Wall Street betting against the Dilma Rousseff government since she won her reelection in late 2014, and the fact that all of these center right interests are aligned with our American friends."

Another reason for this development, Escobar suggests, is a concerted effort by the West to turn back the tide of socialism and workers’ rights in South America, with similar developments occurring in recent years in Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

Escobar also observes that the US has a direct interest in the collapse of the BRICS alliance between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which threatens America’s economic hegemony. "If there was a fall of the Brazilian government it would result in an imploding of the BRICS alliance, which is a wide-open secret."

Escobar believes that the United States seeks the toppling of the Rousseff government and the Workers’ Party in Brazil, but the motives behind the investigation have a strong internal component, with former economic ruling elites wanting to reclaim power and distract attention from their corrupt activities.

The Brazilian Lower House of Parliament has voted to oust President Dilma Rousseff from power. 60% of parliamentarians – 314 persons, voted in favor of her impeachment. Previously, a special committee of the lower house, designed specifically to address the issue of Rousseff’s impeachment, made the same decision.

Brazilian deputies voted for the president's resignation
http://katehon.com/agenda/brazilian-deputies-voted-presidents-resignation

Officially, she is accused of being involved in schemes of corruption in "Petrobras", the state oil company. However, the real reasons for her attempted ousting is Brazil's independent foreign policy and the country's active role in BRICS.


For further study on Brazil:

Problems in Brazilian Geopolitics
http://katehon.com/1286-problems-in-brazilian-geopolitics.html

It isn't possible to get only a single interpretation of national power. The concept changes over time and according to the state in question. Part of what was paramount to have power projection a century ago loses actuality. The old factors remain relevant, but their usefulness gains a larger dimension when coupled with more sophisticated items. In order to raise a geopolitical power, there is no denying the importance of territorial size, nor of the natural resources. In this respect, Russia, China and Brazil have a privileged place.


Brazil's liberal right rehearsal of a coup d'état
http://katehon.com/article/brazils-liberal-right-rehearsal-coup-detat

Former opposition presidential candidate Aecio Neves (Party of Brazilian Social Democracy – PSDB) played the role of poster boy – and former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB), by its turn, reappeared in the political arena to urge Neves' supporters. Despite its party's name, Social-democrat Cardoso's administration was heavily influenced by neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus market fundamentalism. The campaign managed to push some PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) members off the fence (PMDB can be described as a big tent party which has no defined ideology) and to call demonstrations which, rather unexpectedly, managed to fill streets around the country and to generate apprehension. By mid-year we and many Brazilians were already seriously considering the possibility that the PT administration was going down and that something even worse than its sloppy “neo-developmentalism” (aligned with usury financism1) would take its place.

That impression was somewhat intensified last week when the Speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, accepted the opposition's motion to open impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff. The irony is that Eduardo Cunha himself is linked to a laundering scheme and faces ethic hearings over a secret Swiss bank account. Cunha's PMDB party is the party of the Rousseff's Vice-President Michel Temer, who has just sent Rousseff a personal letter accusing her of having no confidence in him or his party (the letter has been leaked to the press). If the media and general opinion is to be believed, the PT administration is over. Despite all such developments, we get the feeling that the story is far from over and to oust Rousseff will not be so simple.

The coup plot might be at a lose end and the clue to it is in the series of public statements against the overthrow of the President, coming from notorious representatives of Atlantist interests, from banks to media moguls2. Brazilian people, it is true, no longer have the will to defend PT's administration after its infamous austerity measures, and that opens the door to other actors – those very actors which in Western democracies are obviously very important, such as the beneficiaries of (PT's) austerity measures themselves, that is, the state creditors. Paradoxically, those very forces are the ones that may prevent an impeachment. The questions that arise then, and which we try to answer, are: why is it that globalist finance, already in an advantageous position under the PT administration, initially fed the rehearsal of this coup? What about the recent developments of this offensive? What are the possible strategies behind them? And, most important, what’s the appropriate position to be taken at this juncture by those who, like us, seek to make Brazil a really sovereign country?


Brazil's liberal right rehearsal of a coup d'état. Part II
http://katehon.com/article/brazils-liberal-right-rehearsal-coup-detat-part-ii

The Party of Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB) stars the politically slippery and unpredictable situation in which we find ourselves in Brazil. The acronym PMDB stands for the largest party in the country, which has been essential to the so-called "governability" (governing capacity cannot be taken for granted in Brazil): never having elected a President, that party is deeply rooted in the whole state apparatus; it influences every important decision and is famous for its opportunism (basically demanding government post for its many party members, godsons and protégées in exchange for political cooperation). Dilma Rousseff has thus been negotiating with PMDB constantly: it was favoured in the appointment of ministers, yet the party seems to be little interested in cooperating. No statement of support against the impeachment came so far, not even from Dilma Rousseff's Vice-President himself, Michel Temer, of whom Roussef said to expect "full loyalty". Quite the opposite, an embarrassing letter from him to the President was published in the news media, and Eliseu Padilha, a politician very close to Temer, has just resigned from his post of Minister of Civil Aviation. In October, the PMDB party also launched a document containing criticism of PT's economic policies and emphasising PMDB commitment to economic liberalism.

However, it would surprise no one if this large organization that is PMDB, so ideologically weak and containing so many conflicting interests, would simply split in this issue – which would make the coup plans simply not viable.

A recent survey revealed that only 45 percent of Germans are satisfied with the policy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Moreover, two-thirds of respondents oppose her decision to start an investigation into German satirist Böhmermann's case, German newspaper Die Zeit reported.

Lost Political Weight? Merkel's Ratings Down 11% After Erdogan Satire Probe
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160418/1038202408/lost-political-weight.html

Earlier, Turkish authorities sent the German government an official note in which they asked Berlin to prosecute German satirist Jan Böhmermann for mocking Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his poem, which he performed during a TV show on the German TV Channel ZDF.

The prosecution of the journalist could be started only with the special permission of the German government, which after long consideration was issued last week.

Following the decision, the popularity of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has fallen by 11 percent in mere days. According to a recent ARD survey, only 45 percent of respondents are satisfied with the policy of the country's leader, compared to 56 percent of supporters in early April.

The majority of Germans have criticized the decision of the federal government to start prosecution of the German satirist on charges of "insulting governmental institutions or representatives of another state".

According to a survey carried out by the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, 66 percent of the respondents oppose the prosecution, arguing that it would infringe on the press freedom in the country, while only 22 percent of those questioned view it as the right decision.

Many prominent German artists and journalists have expressed their solidarity with Böhmermann and called on the country's authorities to immediately stop the inquiry.

 

[angelburst29]

Five Rapid Results from Putin's Call-in Marathon
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/565961.html

For hapless officials across Russia, President Putin's annual call-in marathon is a wake-up call like no other.

This year, the president received more than 5 million questions, many asking for his assistance. The show lasted for 3 hours 40 minutes, with Putin answering 80 questions from across the nation.

After presenting their concerns to the great leader himself, Russians all over the country are now seeing their problems being solved.

Here is just a small selection of things that have already changed for ordinary Russian citizens, less than 24 hours after Putin's television phone-in with the nation.

Broken Roads in Omsk Officials in the Siberian city of Omsk have promised to repair 21 roads in the city after one resident complained to Putin during the show's very first call.

“Look at the condition of our roads: one hole after another. Our cars break down and wheels fall off. The government does not respond to our concerns and requests,” Omsk resident Yekaterina told the president via a video call, even showing him one of the pot-holed roads.

Omsk authorities have reacted before the program had even ended. Before three hours were out, one television presenter announced the roads would be mended by May 1.

Children's Camp for Yaroslavl Wonderkid One academically-gifted eight year-old from Yaroslavl, Ilya Rayevsky, complained to the president that he had not been accepted into the prestigious Artek summer camp due to his young age.

“This is obvious neglect,” said Putin. “It means that those who are organizing this camp were not wonderkids themselves, and we'll fix that.”

Yaroslavl officials stepped in to solve the problem, promising that the boy will attend Artek during the upcoming summer.

Ilya, who is already studying in the fifth grade and is fond of science, has been invited to Moscow's Skolkovo innovation foundation to share his ideas.

Criminal cases over unpaid wages in Sakhalin and North Ossetia Complaints from workers at several Russian businesses that their wages had been delayed sparked Putin's outrage- and quick responses from officials.

Russia's Investigative Committee in the Sakhalin region opened a criminal case into the director of the Ostrovnoy fish plant on Shikotan island minutes after the workers turned to the president to help them claim unpaid wages.

Workers told Putin that they found themselves in the position of slaves, that they hadn't received wages for several months, and that they didn't even have money to leave the island. They also said that an appeal to the prosecutor's office had brought no results.

The plant currently owes 53 of its workers 6.8 million rubles ($102,000) in unpaid work. On Friday, the company's director general, Alexei Popov, apologized to staff for the delays and reimbursed them with part of their owed wages. He explained that delays in were caused by a bad catch.

A criminal case has also been opened into BPS-Gidrostroy, a building company in Russia's republic of North Ossetia, following a phone-in complaint. BPS-Gidrostroy owes unpaid wages worth 63 million rubles ($947,000) to 750 of its employees.

Long-awaited wages for Chelyabinsk workers Another case involving delayed payments raised during Putin's call-in show had a happier ending.

Employees at the Uralavtopritsep factory in Chelyabinsk received their wages in full three hours after asking Putin for help.

Father of four Dmitry Dudkin told Putin that workers hadn't received wages for three months.

Although the President noted that the automotive sector had been badly affected by the crisis, he told the audience, “but to not pay wages- it shouldn't be like this.”

The Russian Investigative Committee branch in the Chelyabinsk region has also started the looking into the case.

The plant paid its employees a total of 13 million rubles ($195,000) in unpaid wages.

Plots of land for large families in the Stavropol region A mother from the town of Nevinnomyssk in the Stavropol region was given a plot of land from local authorities after she pleaded for Putin to help.

In her letter, Maria Solomatina said her family had been given a plot of land in the Stavropol region but had later lost it due to changes in regional law that reclassified large families like hers to be not 'in need.'

Solomatina’s appeal could make the life of other large families in the region easier too.

Governor of the Stavropol region, Vladimir Vladimirov, has announced that the local government will simplify the registration procedure for large families in order to improve their living conditions.

Syria's envoy to the United Nations says Israeli regime has been collaborating with the Takfiri Daesh terrorists and al-Qaeda linked militants in the occupied Golan Heights.

Syria says Israel collaborating with militants in Golan Heights
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/04/18/461386/Israel-Daesh-alNusra-Golan-Syria/

Bashar Ja'afari made the remarks during a press briefing after meeting the UN's special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, at peace talks in the Swiss city of Geneva on Monday.

The Syrian official also denounced as "provocative" an Israeli cabinet meeting recently held in the occupied region.

"It is an irresponsible provocation committed by Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of the Israeli occupation force," Ja'afari said, noting, "This Israeli provocation ... confirms without any doubt the cooperation between Israel and terrorists of Daesh and Nusra Front on the demarcation line between where the Golan is and UN troops are positioned."

Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu at the beginning of a cabinet meeting in the occupied territory on Sunday ruled out any possibility of returning the occupied Golan Heights to Syria, saying Israel will lay claim to it forever.

The Sunday meeting was held in defiance of international law that requires Israel to return Golan to Syria.

Israel’s returning of Golan to its rightful owner is part of a draft agreement being drawn up during peace talks currently under way in Geneva for the objective of ending the deadly five-year conflict in Syria.

In response to Netanyahu, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad stressed that Syria will do its best to take back the occupied Golan Heights from the Israeli regime.

“All options are on the table for getting back the occupied territory from Israel,” Mekdad said in an interview aired on the Lebanese television channel al-Mayadeen, adding, “We are prepared to do anything in order to return the Golan to the Syrian motherland, including using military force.”

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria after the 1967 six-day war, which created an armistice line under Israeli military control.

Israel has built tens of illegal settlements in the area ever since.

The occupied regime has also used the region to carry out a number of military operations against the Syrian government.

Damascus says Tel Aviv and its Western and regional allies are aiding the Takfiri militant groups operating inside Syria.

The Syrian army has seized huge quantities of Israeli-made weapons and advanced military equipment from the foreign-backed militants inside Syria on numerous occasions.

According to the documents from Israeli hospitals last year, Israel has spent millions of dollars for the treatment of terrorists injured in fighting with Syrian government forces.

Israel, Saudi Arabia co-plotting against Syria

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ja'afari also accused Saudi-backed opposition groups of co-plotting with Israel.

"It is no coincidence at all that this Israeli escalation was accompanied by irresponsible statements by members of the so-called Saudi delegation at talks here in Geneva," he said, referring to the Saudi-backed opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC).

The HNC has threatened to walk out of the current round of talks unless progress is made over demands for a political transition without Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

However, Syrian officials have rejected the “dream” of a transitional government without Assad, saying such ideas are nothing short of a “coup d’etat.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says there are no secret talks between Moscow and Washington over Syria.

No secret talks with US on Syria: Russia’s Lavrov
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/04/18/461394/Russia-Syria-Lavrov-Plan-B-alNusra-front-Daesh/

No secret negotiations are being conducted between Russia and the US," Lavrov said at a press conference on Monday, adding that a “normal regime of working consultation” is being conducted between the two sides as the “co-chairs of the International Syria Support Group and the co-chairs of the two target subgroups created in that group."

Lavrov noted that one subgroup “is on ceasefire and on the observance of its conditions and the second is on the solution of issues that prevent the delivery of humanitarian assistance in the entire territory of Syria.”

He added that “considerable” progress has been made on both tracks.

Russia has called for the closure of the Turkish-Syrian border to prevent the flow of Takfiri militants and weapons supplies into the Arab country.

Russia urges closure of Turkey-Syria border
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/04/15/460866/Russia-TurkeySyria-border-Churkin/

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said during a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on countering terrorism on Thursday that UNSC members should impose a complete trade embargo on Takfiri Daesh terrorists, al-Qeda’s Syria branch of al-Nusra front, and other militant groups operating across Syria.

He also referred to the smuggling of Syrian oil and ancient artifacts by militants and said concrete steps are needed to stop such trafficking.

The Russian official accused Turkey of “complacency or inaction” in allowing weapons and militants to cross into Syria via Turkish soil.

Churkin urged the Ankara government to invite, “on a voluntary basis,” international observers to visit its border with Syria. “If Turkey feels that it is doing everything necessary to curtail the flows of supplies to terrorists, this could be corroborated by independent monitors.”

Turkey’s UN Mission has rejected the remarks by Russian official as “baseless.”

Churkin had in a recent letter to the 15-member council pointed out that millions of dollars worth of industrial chemicals and explosives were smuggled across Turkey’s border to extremist groups in recent years.

In December last year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow and Washington had agreed that the Turkish border with Syria and Iraq must be closed as a key measure in fighting against the Daesh terrorist group.

The European Union is not only facing a series of difficult problems that needs to be solved in a quick and effective manner, but a more important existential question – what’s the whole point of the union?

Dazed and Confused: EU Lacks ‘Goals,’ Has No ‘Clear Mission’
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160418/1038211911/eu-lacks-mission-goals.html

As a very important referendum in Britain, which will decide whether the country will remain in the EU, is fast approaching in June, there is a need for EU leaders to explain the purpose and values of the EU to European citizens, political analyst Nikolay Pakhomov wrote for the National Interest.

To say the least, European citizens are confused by how the huge bureaucratic system of the EU works with its complex voting system and plans that only a few people understand.

Furthermore, according to one of its key treaties, the EU is supposed to promote peace and human rights both within the union and around the world.

But all of this written in the EU's treaty goes contrary to what the organization is currently doing in regards to Middle Eastern refugees.

Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) called the current situation with refugees "appalling."

In the past, the UNHCR has repeatedly called for effective, coordinated and collective action by EU leaders to find a properly managed solution to the refugee situation in Europe and even provided specific recommendations to the EU.

Despite this EU leaders chose to do their own thing and struck a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose human rights record is far from best.

The US will use Apache helicopters to support coalition operations in retaking the Iraqi city of Mosul as wel as provide a $415 million financial aid to Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Iraq.

US to Deploy Apache Helicopters to Help Retake Mosul - Pentagon
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160418/1038206928/apache-mosul-aid.html

US forces will use Apache helicopters in support of coalition operations to retake the northern Iraqi city of Mosul from Daesh, US Department of Defense press secretary Peter Cook said in a Twitter message on Monday.

"[US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter] announces authority to employ AH-64 Apache helicopters in support of operations to retake Mosul," Cook said.

Cook stressed that the deployment is part of measures intended to accelerate the defeat of the Islamic State "by, with and through" the Iraqi government.

​Moreover, Peter Cook said in a Twitter message that US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced that the United States would provide Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Iraq with up to $415 million in additional financial assistance to support the fight against Daesh.

"To accelerate momentum in [the counter]-ISIL fight, [Carter] says we will provide up to $415 million in financial assistance to Peshmerga fighters," Cook said.

Moscow hopes that the current political crisis in Brazil will be solved within the constitution and without foreign interference.

Moscow Hopes Brazil Crisis to Be Solved Without Outside Meddling
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160418/1038213116/crisis-president-brazil.html

Moscow hopes that the political situation in Brazil will be solved in the framework of the constitution and without foreign interference, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.

"Russia and Brazil have a strategic partnership and successful experience of long-term cooperation in various multilateral formats: the UN, G20, BRICS. We express hope that any problems that may arise in this politically difficult time for our partner will be solved within the constitutional legal framework, without outside interference," ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

 

[angelburst29]

Syria will do whatever it takes to take back the occupied Golan Heights from the Israeli regime, says a high-ranking official.

'All options,' even military ones, on table to push Israel out of Golan
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/04/17/461278/syria-golan-heights-mekdad-bibi/

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad made the announcement on Sunday, in response to remarks made earlier by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who claimed "the Golan Heights will remain in the hands of Israel forever," during the regime's first cabinet meeting in the occupied territory.

Noting that the occupied region belongs to Syria according to international law, Mekdad stressed that the Arab Syrian Golan Heights will be taken back from the Israelis.

“All options are on the table for getting back the occupied territory from Israel,” he said during an interview aired on the Lebanese television channel al-Mayadeen.


“We are prepared to do anything in order to return the Golan to the Syrian motherland, including using military force,” Mekdad asserted.

During the Sunday cabinet meeting, Netanyahu also demanded that the international community recognize Syria’s Golan as Israeli territory. He said, “Whatever happens on the other side of the border, the border itself will not move. Secondly, after 50 years it is time that the international community realized that the Golan will remain under Israeli sovereignty.”

Tel Aviv has portrayed the cabinet meeting as a symbolic gesture aimed at consolidating Israel's sovereignty in the occupied region despite international pressure.

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria after the 1967 six-day war and later occupied it in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.

The geopolitical stakes in the Middle East have just gotten higher by an order of magnitude.

Genies and Genocide: Syria, Israel, Russia and Much Oil
http://journal-neo.org/2015/10/26/genies-and-genocide-syria-israel-russia-and-much-oil-2/

Take a little-known Newark, New Jersey oil company, the contested Golan Heights between Syria and Israel, add a reported major oil discovery there just as Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria goes into high gear, shake it vigorously and we have a potential detonator for World War III.

Genie in a stinky bottle What do Dick Cheney, James Woolsey, Bill Richardson, Jacob Lord Rothschild, Rupert Murdock, Larry Summers and Michael Steinhardt have in common? They all are members of the Strategic Advisory Board of a Newark, New Jersey-based oil and gas group with the name, Genie Energy. It’s quite a collection of names.

Dick Cheney, before becoming George W. Bush’s “shadow president” in 2001, was CEO of the world’s largest oilfield services company, Halliburton, also reported to be a CIA-linked company tied to the Bush family cabal. James Woolsey, a neo-con former CIA Director under Bill Clinton, today sits as the chairman of the neo-con think-tank, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and is a member of the pro-Likud Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). He was a member of the infamous Project for a New American Century (PNAC), along with Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and a gaggle of neo-cons who later staffed the Bush-Cheney administration. After September 11, 2001 Woolsey referred to the Bush-Cheney War on Terror as “World War IV,” counting the Cold War as World War III. Bill Richardson is a former US Secretary of Energy. Rupert Murdock, owner of major US and UK media including the Wall Street Journal, is the major financier of the neo-conservative Weekly Standard of Bill Kristol, who founded the PNAC. Larry Summers was US Treasury Secretary and drafted the laws that deregulated US banks from the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, in effect opening the floodgates to the US financial crisis of 2007-2015. Michael Steinhardt the hedge fund speculator, is a philanthropic friend of Israel, of Marc Rich and a board member of Woolsey’s neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. And Jacob Lord Rothschild is a former business partner of convicted Russian oil oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Before his arrest Khodorkovsky secretly transferred his shares in Yukos Oil to Rothschild. Rothschild is a part-owner of Genie Energy which in 2013 was granted exclusive oil and gas exploration rights to a 153-square mile radius in the southern part of the Golan Heights by the Netanyahu government. In short, it’s quite an eye-popping board.

Golan Heights and international law The Israeli government gave the concession to Genie in the disputed Golan Heights in 2013 when the US-led destabilization of the Syrian Assad regime was in full force. Conveniently, Israel also began building fortifications at that time to seal off the illegally-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, knowing there was little Assad or Syria could do to stop it. In 2013, as Genie Energy began moving into Golan Heights, Israeli military engineers overhauled the forty-five mile border fence with Syria, replacing it with a steel barricade that includes barbed wire, touch sensors, motion detectors, infrared cameras, and ground radar, putting it on par with the Wall Israel has constructed in the West Bank.

Now, as Damascus fights for its life, apparently, Genie has discovered a huge oil field precisely there.

The Golan Heights, however, are illegally occupied by Israel. In 1981, Israel passed the Golan Heights Law, imposing Israeli “laws, jurisdiction and administration” to the Golan Heights. In response the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242 which declared Israel must withdraw from all lands occupied in the 1967 war with Syria, including the Golan Heights.

Again in 2008 a plenary session of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution 161–1 in favor of a motion on the Golan Heights that reaffirmed Security Council resolution 497, which was passed in 1981 after the Israeli de facto annexation, declaring the Golan Heights Law, “null and void and without international legal effect,” and called on Israel to desist from “changing the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure and legal status of the occupied Syrian Golan and, in particular, to desist from the establishment of settlements…from imposing Israeli citizenship and Israeli identity cards on the Syrian citizens in the occupied Syrian Golan and from its repressive measures against the population of the occupied Syrian Golan.” Israel was the only nation to vote against the resolution. As recently as June 2007 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent a secret communique to Syrian President Bashar Assad saying that Israel would concede the Golan Heights in exchange for a comprehensive peace agreement and the severing of Syria’s ties with Iran and militant groups in the region.

Genie claims huge discovery On October 8, into the second week of Russian airstrikes against ISIS and other so-called “moderate” terrorists at the request of the Assad government, Yuval Bartov, chief geologist from Genie Energy’s Israeli subsidiary, Afek Oil & Gas, told Israel’s Channel 2 TV that his company had found a major oil reservoir on the Golan Heights: “We’ve found an oil stratum 350 meters thick in the southern Golan Heights. On average worldwide, strata are 20 to 30 meters thick, and this is 10 times as large as that, so we are talking about significant quantities.”

This oil find has now made the Golan Heights a strategic “prize” that clearly has the Netanyahu government more determined than ever to sow chaos and disorder in Damascus and use that to de facto create an Israeli irreversible occupation of Golan and its oil. A minister in the Netanyahu coalition government, Naftali Bennett, Minister of Education and Minister of Diaspora Affairs and leader of the right-wing religious party, The Jewish Home, has made a proposal that Israel settle 100,000 new Israeli settlers across the Golan in five years. He argues that with Syria “disintegrating” after years of civil war, it’s hard to imagine a stable state to which the Golan Heights could be returned. Further a growing chorus in Tel Aviv is arguing that Netanyahu demand American recognition of Israel’s 1981 annexation of the Golan as an “appropriate salve to Israeli security concerns in the wake of the nuclear deal with Iran.”

Energy war has been a significant component of US, Israeli, Qatari, Turkish, and, until recently, Saudi, strategy against Syria’s Assad regime. Before the latest Golan Heights oil discovery, the focus on Assad pivoted on the huge regional natural gas resources of both Qatar and of Iran on opposite sides of the Persian Gulf, comprising the largest known gas discovery in the world to date.

In 2009 the government of Qatar, today home to the Muslim Brotherhood and a major funder of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, met with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.

Qatar proposed to Bashar that Syria join in an agreement to allow a transit gas pipeline from Qatar’s huge North Field in the Persian Gulf adjacent to Iran’s huge South Pars gas field. The Qatari pipeline would have gone through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey to supply European markets. Most crucially, it would bypass Russia. An Agence France-Presse report claimed Assad’s rationale was “to protect the interests of his Russian ally, which is Europe’s top supplier of natural gas.” In 2010 Assad instead joined talks with Iran and Iraq for an alternative $10 billion pipeline plan that would also potentially allow Iran to supply gas to Europe from its South Pars field in the Iranian waters of the Persian Gulf. The three countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding in July 2012 – just as Syria’s civil war was spreading to Damascus and Aleppo.

Now an apparent discovery of huge volumes of oil by a New Jersey oil company whose board includes Iraq war architect, Dick Cheney, neo-con ex-CIA head James Woolsey, and Jacob Lord Rothschild, business partner of one of Vladimir Putin’s most bitter critics, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, bring the stakes of the Russian intervention on behalf of Syria’s Assad against ISIS, Al Qaeda and other CIA-backed “moderate” terrorists” to a new geopolitical dimension. The US coup in Ukraine in 2014, and its financing and training of ISIS and other “moderate” terrorist gangs in Syria all have one prime target–Russia and her network of allies, a network, ironically, which Washington and Israeli policies are expanding almost by the hour.

Former child soldiers from Sierra Leone have been employed by a private British military company to provide security for American bases in Iraq as part of a 2,500-strong contingent hired for the job, a new Danish documentary has revealed.

UK private military firm hired ex-child soldiers from Sierra Leone for Iraq ops (Video)
https://www.rt.com/news/340013-former-child-soldiers-aegis-iraq/

According to investigation based on contract documents, UK’s Aegis Defense Services contracted by US Department of Defense employed some 2,500 mercenaries to provide security force for the Pentagon-administered Project and Contracting Office (PCO) in Iraq.

Part of the security force, according to a documentary, titled Børnesoldatens Nye Job (The Child Soldier’s New Job) included child soldiers from Sierra Leone who were paid only $16 a day.

The latest problem with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter? There might be something seriously wrong with the gold-plated aircraft’s brain.

The F-35’s Billion-Dollar Brain Fails an IQ Test (Photos - Video)
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/04/15/F-35-s-Billion-Dollar-Brain-Fails-IQ-Test

A Government Accountability Office report released Thursday raises concerns about the jet's $16.7 billion Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS). The software is essentially the brain that enables the fifth-generation warplane to operate, tracking everything from the amount of time the aircraft spends in the air to when the engine needs a tune-up.

The roughly $400 billion F-35 effort has had more than its share of software hiccups already, highlighted by recent findings that the aircraft’s billions of lines of computer code might be vulnerable to hacking.

If the bugs persist, it could have a cascading effect on the rest of the Defense Department’s timeline for the warplane, which is already years behind schedule. Serious problems with the logistics system could delay important program milestones, including the U.S. Air Force declaring its version of the jet ready for deployment later this year.

In its report, GAO identified two major problems with Lockheed Martin’s ALIS, the first being that the system itself may not be deployable.

The ALIS tool gets plugged into a jet, sending data to two 1,600-pound sever racks. Each F-35 squadron requires its own set of ALIS computers, making it difficult to operate since it “requires server connectivity and the necessary infrastructure to provide power to the system,” according to the new report.

Last year the Marine Corps, which often deploys to remote locations, declared its version of the F-35 ready for deployment “without conducting deployability tests of ALIS.”

A slimmer version of ALIS that can fit into moveable cases -- capable of being carried by two men and weigh approximately 200 pounds each -- was put into operation last summer. However the Pentagon “has not yet completed comprehensive deployability tests,” the GAO report states.

The second key issue is that there’s no alternative to ALIS if there’s a problem. That lack of redundancy is compounded by the fact that all ALIS data is fed into a “central point of entry” and then to an operating unit in Fort Worth, Texas.

“If either of these fail, it could take the entire F-35 fleet offline,” GAO warns.

The report also raised concerns about the system’s inability to communicate with the systems aboard older aircraft, and noted that ALIS users are worried about transferring data between classified and unclassified computer servers.

The watchdog office suggested the Pentagon develop a “holistic” plan to address myriad issues with ALIS to make sure biggest problems with it are taken care of before the F-35 enters full production in the early 2020s.



‘Only a matter of time’: First-ever drone collision with passenger plane reported in UK
https://www.rt.com/uk/339998-drone-collision-plane-heathrow/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

A British Airways aircraft carrying 132 passengers on board was just about to land at Heathrow airport when, according to the pilot, it collided with a drone. This could be the first-of-its-kind and fortunately nonfatal accident in the aviation history.


The two aerial vehicles reportedly came across one another over the Heathrow airport in London on Sunday, the Metropolitan police said citing the plane’s pilot. Flight BA727 was heading from Geneva, Switzerland to London with 132 passengers on board.

While dozens of near-misses involving planes and drones have occurred in the UK and across the globe, this time a collision was not spared, the police suspect. However, they are still to confirm whether a drone was to blame. No arrests have been yet made by the police.

The pilot told police that an object, which he believed was a drone, had hit the front of the airplane moments before landing. Despite the encounter, he managed to safely land the plane and avoid casualties.

Following the incident British Airways said the Airbus A320 “was fully examined by our engineers and it was cleared to operate its next flight” and promised to offer the police “every assistance with their investigation”.

The Civil Aviation Authority, which is responsible for British aviation safety, said that they are aware of the “possible incident with a drone” at Heathrow airport.

“Anyone operating a drone must do so responsibly and observe all relevant rules and regulations,” the spokesperson added saying it was “totally unacceptable to fly drones close to airports”.

Steve Landells, flight safety specialist at the British Airline Pilots Association blamed the alleged collision on amateurs who are not taking the risks seriously.

“Frankly it was only a matter of time before we had a drone strike given the huge numbers being flown around by amateurs who don’t understand the risks and the rules,” he said.

He stressed that “much more education of drone users and enforcement of the rules is needed,” in order to ensure the airspace safety.

Earlier this month the airlines’ pilots had called for an investigation to discover the consequences of a drone collision. The request came after the UK Airprox Board released a report saying 23 near-misses between drones and aircraft occurred within the period of six months last year in Britain of which 12 were given an ‘A’ rating meaning there was a “serious risk of collision.”

One such near-miss occurred in September 2015 when a drone narrowly passed the right hand side of a Boeing 777 after the aircraft had just taken off. The drone was only 25 meters away from the aircraft and was flying at the same hight, investigators said.

A few days later, another dangerous incident occurred when a drone was said to be flying only 20 feet (6 meters) above the aircraft and 25 yards (23 meters) to the plane’s left. The Airbus A319 had been about to land at Heathrow airport.

After the incident, Landells said the the collision may lead to rather serious consequences, including an engine failure.

“You end up with very high-velocity bits of metal going anywhere they like. That could be through fuel tanks, through hydraulic lines and even into the cabin,” he said.

Last month Landell also advocated that a probe be launched into the effects of drone-strikes on planes. While he said that the effects of birds coming across planes have been studied in detail, this kind of research was not enough to tell what would happen if a drone hit the plane instead, since “birds don’t have a big lump of lithium battery in them”.

From Drones to Bicycles ....

It’s a Speed Trap! — California Cops to Check Bicycle Speed with Radar and Ticket Fast Bikers
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/speed-trap-california-cops-check-bicycle-speed-radar-ticket-fast-bikers/


San Francisco, CA — As if threatening government force to extort money from drivers who exceed an arbitrary limit of speed on the highway is not bad enough, police in California will begin issuing tickets to speeding bicyclists as well.

Earlier this month, Marin County parks officials launched a new enforcement program to enforce an arbitrary speed limit on bicycles.

City officials refused to call it a “crackdown” on speeding bicyclists and instead opted for the Orwellian option of calling it an “educational” program.

“We want to get data, educate users and hopefully gain a useful tool,” said Max Korten, assistant director of county parks. “Through the Road and Trail Management Plan there are a number of proposals to open trail alignments to bikes that have caused safety concerns among some neighbors and preserve visitors about the speed of bikes on the trails,” he said. “It’s important that as we consider implementing some of these proposals; we have a tool to address this potential issue.”

 

[angelburst29]

US can't keep pace with Russian submarine deployments - top Navy official
https://www.rt.com/news/339806-us-navy-russian-submarines/

The US Navy is facing better and more numerous Russian submarines capable of taking out aircraft carrier groups. The service can’t ensure full awareness of Russian sub activity, CNN reported, citing American admiral.

"The submarines that we're seeing are much more stealthy," Adm. Mark Ferguson, commander of US Naval Forces in Europe, told the news channel. "We're seeing [the Russians] have more advanced weapons systems, missile systems that can attack land at long ranges, and we also see their operating proficiency is getting better as they range farther from home waters."

Russian deployments of attack and ballistic missile submarines are currently at levels unseen since the Cold War, he said. The US has 53 submarines in service and the number will drop to 41 by the late 2020s due to budget constraints, Ferguson added.

Even with the current numbers, the Pentagon can’t monitor all Russian subs, according to retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former NATO supreme allied commander.

"We cannot maintain 100 percent awareness of Russian sub activity today," he said. "Our attack subs are better, but not by much. Russian subs pose an existential threat to US carrier groups."

Ferguson acknowledged that Russia invested years and billions of dollars into upgrading its submarine fleet because it sees NATO as a threat to its security.

"NATO is viewed as an existential threat to Russia, and in the post-Cold War period, the expansion of NATO eastward closer to Russia and our military capability they view as a very visceral threat to Russia," he said.

The Russian submarine deployments are “focused on protecting the maritime flanks of Russia” and on “denying NATO the ability to operate” in areas such as the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.

For 20 years Russia has been complaining that NATO's eastward expansion poses a military threat. The US and the alliance have steadfastly denied this, attempting to justify the policy as one designed to ensure the security of Eastern European nations and dismissing Russia's concerns as unfounded.

Russian military aviation has been deployed to the Vologda region, after powerful snowmelt floods hit vast territories across the country.

Weapons for Peace: Watch Su-34s Bomb Ice Jam in Russia’s Flooded Region (Video)
http://sputniknews.com/russia/20160419/1038227505/su-34-floods-russia.html

Local authorities initiated efforts to destroy a 40-km ice jam on the Sukhona river near Veliky Ustyug, in the Vologda region. As Monday's demolition work didn't bring the expected result, bombing missions from the air are being implemented.

Several Russian Su-34 bomber aircraft launched airstrikes on the border area between the Archangelsk and Vologda regions. These modern multipurpose planes were most recently bombing Daesh positions in Syria.

The task isn't easy. The Vologda region is in the grip of the worst flooding in 20 years, and the consequences have required a special operation by the military and emergency response groups.

Locals have been watching and filming the "military operation" from a distance.

Questions have been raised about the UK’s multi-billion P-8 Poseidon spy plane deal after a US Navy expert on the aircraft’s capabilities was charged with espionage. It is feared he may have sold secrets to China or Taiwan.

Has a double agent compromised £3bn UK spy plane before it even enters service? (Videos)
https://www.rt.com/uk/340044-poseidon-plane-chinese-spy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

The P-8 Poseidon is supposed to replace Britain’s controversial Nimrod aircraft at a cost of up to £3.2 billion. It is already in service with the US military, flown by the Hawaii-based Special Projects Patrol Squadron, where Lt. Cmdr. Edward Chieh-Liang Lin was based.

While Lin appears to have served on the other of the unit’s two spy planes – the naval reconnaissance variant of EP-3E Aries II – the secretive black ops squadron also flies the Poseidon, bringing the alleged spy into close contact with a key strand of Britain’s future defense.

Lin has now been charged with espionage and using a prostitute. Although he is reported to have been arrested at least eight months ago, the case only emerged through a heavily redacted court document. The case has been designated a national security matter and deferred to the Navy’s highest command.

The UK has already committed to buying nine P-8s, which are designed to spot submarines and enemy ships and carry out mass surveillance by sucking up information through their powerful scanners. Deliveries of the aircraft are due to begin before 2020.

The Poseidon fleet will be based at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, where along with massive GCHQ-style data absorption power it will provide critical air defense to the UK’s vulnerable northern flank.

The UK will be purchasing the same version currently used by the US. In answer to a parliamentary question in December 2015, defense minister Phillip Dunne said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) intends to “bring the P-8A into service without significant modification to ensure the delivery of operational capability as soon as is practicable.”

Ironically Lin’s role was as a patrol officer on an aircraft charged with tracking Chinese activities, including in the increasingly tense South China Sea region.

A naturalized Taiwanese citizen, 39-year-old Lin was arrested trying to board a civilian flight to the Chinese mainland and has been in pre-trial detention for eight months.

He was, according to reports, an exemplary officer promoted from the ranks. Before he was commissioned he served as a trained nuclear specialist, later took up a role as a Navy liaison officer and even gave a speech at a citizenship ceremony on what it means to be an American.

UK weapons behemoth BAE Systems sold the country faulty artillery.

British Army Shooting Blanks Following Artillery Recall
http://sputniknews.com/military/20160419/1038228905/uk-britain-bae-artillery-faulty.html

On Monday, it was revealed that the British Army and Royal Marines suspended the use of its high-explosive 105 mm artillery ammunition due to defects.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) implemented a precautionary safety measure after discovering metal contamination. The defect risks shrapnel injury to soldiers using live explosive L31 rounds in the L118 Light Gun.

The Ministry of Defense released a statement on Monday saying,"“The safety of our Armed Forces is of paramount importance, and the manufacture and use of 105 mm live ammunition, which is used by a small number of British Army regiments, has been stopped while an isolated incident of metallic contamination is investigated. We are working with the supplier to understand when manufacture can safely restart."

The manufacturer of the rounds, UK-based BAE Systems, said that they are working with British officials to correct the defect but failed to provide a timeline as to when corrective action would be complete.

European defense officials are to discuss sending thousands of troops to Libya. The talks come as UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond pays an unannounced visit to Tripoli in a show of support for the country’s new UN-backed government.

UK in talks to deploy up to 1,000 troops to Libya as Hammond arrives in Tripoli (Video)
https://www.rt.com/uk/340064-libya-british-troops-hammond/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

The UK is in talks to deploy as many as 1,000 troops to the war-torn country amid concerns the newly installed unity government is failing to stem the rising tide of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and people smuggling.

Air Vice Marshal Edward Stringer, assistant chief of defense staff, is set to fly to Rome to discuss with Italian and French commanders the possibility of committing troops to the 6,000-strong Italian-led Libya International Assistance Mission.

Pressure on the UK government to disclose details of the extent of its involvement in Libya has been mounting after it emerged that a number of British special forces troops have already been operating in the country since January.

Speaking to RT last Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Crispin Blunt urged the government to make public its operations in Libya after accusing the Foreign Office of being “less than candid” about the matter.

Nor has the government spoken up about the 150-strong task group of Royal Marines stationed in the Mediterranean within striking distance of the North African state, though reports suggest the Special Purpose Task Group (SPTG) has been sent in preparation for heightened operations against illegal migration and people smuggling.

An ongoing territorial dispute in the South China Sea over a stretch that comprises more than 750 reefs, banks, and shoals known more generally as the Spratly Islands continues to heat up.

U.S. Preparing To Launch Submarine Drones Into Disputed Territory Of The South China Sea
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/04/u-s-preparing-to-launch-submarine-drones-into-disputed-territory-of-the-south-china-sea.html

Late 2015 saw a severe escalation when the United States announced that it would send warships directly into a zone which China lays claim to. The U.S. has continued to counter China’s claim to sovereign territory, which (officially) dates from 2009, with a series of military maneuvers that many believe could spiral dangerously out of control.

Perhaps emboldened by a lack of overt resistance, the U.S. subsequently upped the ante of its strike force by sending three nuclear-equipped B-2 Stealth Bombers this past March. As reported by The Free Thought Project, even that wasn’t enough, as the overall mission was backed by the largest exercise of its kind, just outside the contested territory:

The exercise, known as Ssang Yong, which means ‘Twin Dragons,’ consists of approximately 9,200 U.S. Marines and 3,100 U.S. Navy personnel who will work alongside 4,500 ROK Marine Corps, 3,000 ROK Navy, 100 Australian Army and 60 Royal New Zealand Army forces.

“The sheer number of personnel involved is extremely impressive,” said Capt. Ed Thompson, commander, Amphibious Squadron 11. “There are a lot of moving parts and things that need to align for a successful exercise. When they do, it is truly amazing to see how we operate together.”

Evidently, one additional “moving part” is now being considered: sea drones.

In recent months, we have heard more about the U.S. military – and its allies – turning attention to the sea as a compliment to its development of unmanned aircraft. Just last week, DARPA unveiled plans for a flotilla of 132-foot “Sea Hunter” drones that could roam the seas of the world within 5 years if all goes according to plan. It would be the latest advancement in what already exists under the Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS), which in effect creates robot swarms that can identify and intercept perceived threats.

Meanwhile, US allies will be engaging in Unmanned Warrior 2016, which occurs off the Scottish Coast in October, indicating that the sea very well could be the staging ground for a kickoff to a major conflict.

Also here:
Pentagon to Deploy Fleet of Underwater Robots in South China Sea
http://sputniknews.com/asia/20160418/1038219749/south-china-sea-robot-submarines.html

Back in 2014 Obama promised that as part of the US war against ISIS, there would be "no ground troops in Iraq."

Obama Sends More Troops To Iraq; Authorizes Use Of Apache Helicopters; Gives $415 Million To Local Army
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-18/obama-sends-more-troops-iraq-authorizes-use-apache-helicopters-gives-415-million-loc

Moments ago U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter gave the latest confirmation that Obama was not being exactly "honest", when during a visit to Baghdad in which he met U.S. commanders, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi, he announced that the US would send another 200 additional troops, raising the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 4,100.

This follows a report two weeks ago according to which the US would "greatly increase" the number of special forces deployed to Syria under the same pretext: to fight the same Islamic State, which only exists due to a CIA operation to destabilize and overthrow Assad's regime in Syria.

To be sure, the incremental deployment to Iraq is not exactly surprising: at the end of March, the Daily Beast reported that as many as 21 generals have been deployed (to a war the US denies fighting). This was our response on April 3: "Why so many generals to so few troops? Perhaps because, just like the Syrian "special forces" reinforcements, the U.S. troops are about to be deployed in Iraq as well where they will have more than enough generals to guide them."

Sure enough, this is precisely what happened.

However, it's not just troops: as Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook says in tweet, the DOD also announced the authority to employ AH-64 Apache helicopters in support of operations to retake the city of Mosul in Iraq. DOD also will provide additional advisers, more financial aid and firepower.

And then there is the money: "To accelerate momentum" in fight against Islamic State, Defense Sec Ashton Carter “says we will provide up to $415MM in financial assistance to Peshmerga fighters,” Cook says in a tweet.

And, once again, as we asked rhetorically in April 3, all this begs the question: "as the ongoing proxy war in the Middle East has been gradually pushed back from the front pages, are all these stealthy reinforcements indicative that something far bigger is about to be unleashed in the region."

This indeed appears to be the case: on Friday Reuters reported that Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani had flown to Moscow for talks with Russia's military and political leadership on Syria and deliveries of Russian missiles, sources said on Friday. Soleimani met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday, one source said.

That is hardly all he is doing in Moscow: as a reminder, Soleimani, the commander of foreign operations for Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, flew to Moscow in July last year to help Russia plan its military intervention in Syria and forge an Iranian-Russian alliance to support Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

We are confident he is doing the same now, and with the US deploying ever more troops to the region, it is only a matter of time before Russia once again reciprocates.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

Blast Rocks Central Kabul, Smoke Seen Near US Embassy - Reports

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160419/1038233441/kabul-blast-usa-embassy.html

An explosion and a plume of smoke has been reported in the Afghan capital. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said a number of people were killed and wounded.

An explosion thundered in the center of Kabul, Afghanistan, Reuters reported. The witnesses said that a thick plume of smoke could be seen rising from near the US embassy. Warning sirens also have been reported from the compound.

The US embassy and NATO headquarters said they were not affected by the explosion, the agency reported.

Ghani said the explosion targeted the offices of the country's main security agency. According to TOLOnews, the blast took place in the Pul-e-Mahmood Khan area of the city, where the Ministry of Defense is located.

According to local witnesses, gunshots were heard near the area after the explosion happened.

Kabul police are currently investigating what could have caused the explosion. Nobody has claimed responsibility as of yet.

​Afghanistan is experiencing political, social and security instability, as the Taliban Islamic movement and other radical extremist organizations such as Daesh militant group, prohibited in many countries, including the United States and Russia, continue staging attacks against civilian and state targets, seeking to establish the rule of Sharia law in the country.

Syria - "Rebel" Sponsors Order A New Round Of Defeat

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/04/syria-rebel-sponsors-order-a-new-round-of-defeat.html

The Obama administration has obviously decided to restart the war in Syria. Thousands of tons of new weapons have been purchased and delivered to the Jihadists including anti-air MANPADs of U.S. (full text) and Chinese origin. Half of the weapons the "rebel" mercenaries are given by their sponsors regularly end up in the hands of Al-Qaeda in Syria. We will not be surprised when a few weeks from now a civilian passenger plane will be hit and come down in Turkey or elsewhere.

Two week ago the foreign supported "rebels" already broke the ceasefire when they took part in a large al-Qaeda attack south of Aleppo city. Several "rebel" attacks took place against the Kurdish quarter in Aleppo city with over a hundred civilian death. Other attacks took place in north Latakia.

Today the "rebels" announced a full return to open war and more fronts were reopened including in north Hama where Uighur "Turkmen" Jihadis used two suicide bombers against the Syrian government positions.

The UN sponsored talks in Geneva went nowhere and the "rebel" side now suspended them to renew the fighting. Only three men of the Saudi controlled "rebel" negotiating team attended today. They still insist on the unconstitutional removal of the Syrian president before agreeing to any further talks about a unity government.

The Syrian army has suspended its ongoing offensive against the Islamic State. The plan was to march from the recently freed Palmyra to the Islamic State held Deir Ezzor in the east. The troops have now been recalled to protect the Syrian people from the renewed "rebel" attacks in west Syria. This may well fit the U.S. intentions in its phony war on ISIS.

There will soon be reports about local retreats of the Syrian army from this or that town or hill. Do not give them too much weight. Since the Russian intervention last year the Syrian troops have orders to retreat when under hard pressure. This to preserve manpower. As soon has the enemy occupies a position the artillery and air force will take care of them. Then, when the enemy attack has been blunted, the Syrian army and their allies on the ground will reoccupy the position and if possible launch counterattacks.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Suleiman visited Moscow last week. After his first visit last summer the Russian intervention was planned and executed. It brought the "rebels" to the border of total defeat. Their sponsors then agreed to a ceasefire and to hold talks in Geneva. Since the ceasefire announcement on February 27 the time was used by the U.S. to rearm and reposition the "rebel" force.

It seems that another round of the cycle is now necessary. Iran has deployed regular ground troops in Syria and these, even while not yet battle-tested, will have some effect. The Syrian air force has been reequipped and its older planes have been updated. Russian helicopters are active on the Syrian front and new short range (200 km) "Iskander" ballistic missiles were recently seen. The Russian air force can additionally engage with long range flights from Russia against fixed targets in Syria within hours. Russia cruise missile carrying ships are near the Syrian coast.

It is foolish to believe that MANPADs and TOW anti tank systems can decisively change the situation on the ground. I expect that a few week of heavy fighting will now follow after which the "rebels" will again be exhausted and again on the border of defeat.

Terrorists Continue to Cross Turkish Border to Syria

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950130000300

"Foreign-national terrorist, trained and supplied in Turkey, have entered the territories of Northern Aleppo in groups to join the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front," the sources said, adding, "The fresh terrorists have brought with them a large volume of ammunition and weapons."

Different sources have underlined on many occasions the role of Turkey and Saudi Arabia in infiltration of foreign terrorists and shipment of arms to terrorist-held lands in Syria.

The sources also have confirmed that al-Nusra Front has no good situation in Aleppo's battlefields.

On Sunday, the Syrian army continued pounding and destroying the military positions of the al-Nusra Takfiri terrorists in the Northern parts of the city of Aleppo.

The army units hit hard the Takfiri terrorists in al-Sheikh Lutfi, al-Sheikh Saeed and al-Shaqief in the Northern outskirts of Aleppo city and destroyed the al-Nusra Front terrorists' gathering centers and military positions in those areas.

The Al-Nusra Front terrorists sustained heavy casualties and losses in the Syrian army attacks in Northern Aleppo city.

The Takfiri terrorists' military equipment was also destroyed in the army attacks on their positions.

Militants "Dzhabhat en-Nusra" shelled neighborhoods in Aleppo

http://www.interfax.ru/world/504434

LIH militants attacked positions of the Syrian government forces in Damascus province

Terrorists in Syria continued shelling districts of Aleppo and attacked government forces in Damascus province, but this attempt failed, according to the newsletter of the Center for Reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria on Monday.

"Militants" Dzhabhat en-Nusra "(banned in Russia Organization) continued shelling districts of Sheikh Maksoud and Al Meysar Aleppo Double mortars shelled blocked terrorists town Fuaa in Idlib province.", - Stated in a bulletin posted on the Ministry of Defence of the page RF to Facebook.

In addition, according to the Center, "the formation of LIH (banned in the Russian organization -" IF ") attacked positions of government troops near the town of Khan al-Trarbach Damascus province, however, suffered losses in manpower and technology, retreated into the hills area Tullul El Huir ".

In addition, the Reconciliation Centre reports that in the liberated from LIH village of Al-Qaryatayn Syrian province of Homs maintenance crews repaired one building from the rubble cleared 60 meters of streets and restored 500 meters of power lines. Sappers defused seven bombs.

The Russian Center for Reconciliation held working meetings with representatives of the administrations of the three settlements of the provinces of Damascus and Quneitra. "Issues of recovery freed from illegal armed settlements and return to their residents," - said in a bulletin.

Syria: Jeish Al-Islam Leader Begs Terrorist Groups to Rush to Lattakia-Idlib Border

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950130001006

The Emir of Jeish al-Islam called on the leaders of at least nine terrorist groups of Ahrar al-Sham, Faylaq al-Sham, Ansar al-Sham, Sham al-Islam, Jeish al-Nasr, Jeish al-Eza'ah, Jeish al-Mujahidin, al-Firqa al-Shamaliyeh and al-Ferqa al-Owla Saheliyeh to forward more forces to Lattakia battlefronts to take part in a large-scale operation against the Syrian government forces.

Local sources announced that the coalition of these ten terrorist groups has launched a joint operation in Lattakia codenamed Rad al-Madhalem which has thus far been repelled by the strong defense of the pro-government forces.

A report said earlier today that a large number of reinforcements have been sent to the Northeastern battlefields of the coastal province of Lattakia to join the Syrian Armed Forces' impending operation in Idlib province, military sources said.

"At least 1,000 well-trained soldiers have arrived in Kabani front to join the Syrian government forces' imminent operation against the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and its allies to retake the strategic city of Jisr al-Shughour in the Southern part of Idlib province near border with Lattakia province," the sources said.

Combat operations against terrorists in Syria to continue — Russian diplomat

http://tass.ru/en/politics/870739

"All the speculations claiming the ceasefire is dead are absolutely misleading and groundless," the Russian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Alexei Borodavkin said

GENEVA, April 19. /TASS/. Speculations about the demise of ceasefire in Syria are questionable and ungrounded and the Syrian Army will continue struggle with terrorists with assistance from the Russian Aerospace Force, the Russian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Alexei Borodavkin told TASS on Monday.

"All the speculations claiming the ceasefire is dead are absolutely misleading and groundless," he said. "The people spreading them can't be trusted."

"The combat actions that the Syrian Armed Forces are conducting with assistance from the Russian Aerospace Force aim to suppress the terrorists from Jabhal al-Nousra and the Islamic State and they will continue," Borodavkin said. "Incidentally, that's precisely the objective specified by the UN Security Council's Resolution 2254.".

Extremists raise upper hand in delegation of Syrian opposition's negotiating committee

Decision of the Syrian opposition's High Negotiations Committee to suspend participation in the inter-Syrian talks in Geneva proves that extremists have raised the upper hand in its delegation, Borodavkin said.

"We regret the HNC delegation's decision to suspend its participation in the talks," he said. "It's an erroneous step on their part."

"The reasons the HNC cites to explain for its renunciation of the talks can't stand any criticism," Borodavkin said.

"Suspended participation in the talks only proves that, unfortunately, extremists have prevailed in its delegation," he went on. "In fact they didn't want any negotiations at all from the very beginning and they kept putting forward conditions and ultimatums."

"They hope for a continuation of the armed conflict in the country," Borodavkin said. "Unfortunately we can see quite clearly they draw on support from some of the regional countries."

The talks will continue

He said the talks would continue anyway, since there are the Moscow, Cairo, and Hmeimim delegations of the opposition apart from the ‘Riyadh group’. They maintain close political positions and make up the sector of the moderate Syrian opposition capable of signing agreements.

"It looks like these groups will set the tune to the negotiations - quite naturally, in combination with the opposite party to the talks, which is the Syrian government delegation."

"In this connection, I’d like to say the Damascus government representatives look very encouraging at these talks and the fact has been recognized both by the UN and by observers,"

Borodavkin said. "They did a good job in the run-up to the talks and now they are conducting them earnestly and in a bid to get fair results," Borodavkin said.

The High Negotiations Committee said on Monday it was suspending its participation in the inter-Syrian talks. It specified three conditions for its return to the conference table.

The conditions were the delivery of humanitarian aid to remote parts of the country, release of prisoners, and observance of ceasefire by the Syrian government.

Syrian opposition committee made erroneous decision

Syrian opposition’s High Negotiations Committee made an erroneous step as it decided to suspend participation in the inter-Syrian talks in Geneva and its move proves that extremists, who put stakes on the continuation in Syria, have prevailed in its ranks, Alexei Borodavkin said.

"We regret the HNC delegation's decision to suspend its participation in the talks," he said. "It's an erroneous step on their part."

"The reasons the HNC cites to explain for its renunciation of the talks can't stand any criticism," Borodavkin said.

"Suspended participation in the talks only proves that, unfortunately, extremists have prevailed in its delegation," he went on. "In fact they didn't want any negotiations at all from the very beginning and they kept putting forward conditions and ultimatums."

"They hope for a continuation of the armed conflict in the country," Borodavkin said. "Unfortunately we can see quite clearly they draw on support from some of the regional countries."

In connection with the grounds cited by the NHC for its decision to leave the talks - a deteriorating situation on the ground and difficulties with providing humanitarian aid - Borodavkin recalled that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a telephone conversation a mere three days ago that ceasefire was observed in general while Russia and the U.S. were doing everything in their power to build it up and bring all the armed opposition groupings into it.

"Big efforts in terms of reconciliation of the conflicting sides are made by the center for appeasing the parties to the conflict, which is located in Hmeimin," the ambassador said.

He pointed out the data suggesting more than sixty opposition groupings have joined the ceasefire plan to date with the aid from the Center.

Borodavkin also mentioned the situation around humanitarian aid deliveries, saying the five years of the civil war in Syria had brought immense suffering and deprivation to the Syrians.

"A radical solution to the problem will be possible only bloodletting in Syria stops and political settlement of the conflict is achieved," he said.

"Over the past several months, the Syrian government’s flexibility has made it possible to solve many humanitarian problems and convoys with relief supplies are heading to different towns and villages in Syria right now and that’s why the claims about a worsening humanitarian - something the HNC is doing - mean purported distortion of reality beyond recognition," Borodavkin said.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

End of Truce? Militants Declare New War in Breach of Syrian Ceasefire

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160419/1038235491/syria-militants-offensive.html

Several Syrian rebel groups unleashed a wide-scale offensive in northwestern and central Syria on Monday dealing a fresh blow to the ongoing peace talks between Damascus and the leaders of the moderate opposition, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.

In a statement issued on Monday the leaders of about a dozen armed factions, including the Saudi and Turkish-backed Jayshal-Islam and Jaysh al-Fateh, announced the formation of “a joint operation room” to coordinate new attacks on government forces.

The declaration came hours after Mohammed Alloush, the chief negotiator of Syrian opposition delegation in Geneva, called to ignore the months-long ceasefire and resume fight against the government forces.

Both the Syrian government and the opposition sides have accused one another of breaking the truce deal signed on February 27, which excluded the Daesh and al-Nusra Front terrorist groups that are operating in the east and north of the country.

The hard-won ceasefire began to unravel as fighting escalated near Syria's second largest city Aleppo this month, Fars News reported.

On Monday, militants launched a fierce attack against Syrian government forces in Latakia province and in Haman amid heavy government air strikes in Homs province in the south.

A Syrian military source confirmed intense fighting in the area.

"Today they attacked in the northern Latakia countryside in several areas, in violation of the cessation of hostilities agreement, and also in the northwestern Hama countryside," the military source said.

Bibi's False Debate: Israel Cannot Occupy Golan Heights Forever

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950130001479

In his words, “The Golan Heights will remain in the hands of Israel forever. Israel will never withdraw from the Golan Heights.”

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria after the 1967 six-day war and later occupied it in a move that has never been recognized by the international community. Israel has also built tens of illegal settlements in the area and even used it to carry out military operations against Syria.

Occupation Law clearly preserves, to the extent possible, the role of Syrians in governing their own country and facilitates the eventual transfer of all such authority back to the Syrian people. Moreover, sovereignty over the occupied territory does not pass to the occupying power. So it’s irrelevant for Netanyahu to argue that some 50,000 Israelis are living there and "thousands of families are supposed to join them in the coming years". It’s a false debate.

However, there are many reasons why Netanyahu says the occupation will last forever, including:

1-It is because of the failure of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that Israel is still able to steal land in broad daylight, with great impunity and no accountability. It is true that the UNSC has issued many resolutions against Tel Aviv. However, it is also true that all these resolutions have been vetoed by the United States. The result has only emboldened Tel Aviv to steal even more territory without fear of any punishment.

2-The international community always condemns the atrocities committed by Israel, such as attacks on civilians, the inhumane blockade of Gaza, destruction of Palestinian homes, the settlement construction in the West Bank, violation of the Islamic identity of Jerusalem Al-Quds, and the illegal seizure of Palestinian territories. The problem is that all these beautiful words have never been followed by action - even though the Israeli policies are in clear violation of all international principles, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention.

3-Since its creation after the Second World War, the Israeli army has been committing a host of crimes against humanity in occupied Palestine and throughout the Middle East. Despite all that, not even one Israeli soldier or commander has ever faced any charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague - in which Israel isn’t a member. Sure enough, it is Washington (also not an ICC member) that "admittedly' always stops any attempt at the UNSC or in The Hague to criminalize Israel’s endless war on Palestinians, not only because it will have serious political consequences for the Official Washington by the Israeli lobby — but because America’s military may well be next in the crosshairs.

4-What Israel is doing to Palestine and the rest of the region “in self-defense” and on the pretext of “War on Terror”, differs little from the US and NATO armies or those of regional allies. As long as the ICC refuses to deal with the complaints of US-NATO-Saudi war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen, there is little hope that it will ever decide to go after the Israeli cases.

5-The ICC’s power to act arises only in two relevant circumstances: First by a reference from the UNSC, which is sure to be blocked by the US, Britain, and France. Then there is the alternative basis for empowering the ICC prosecutor: Palestine has signed up to the ICC treaty and can require the prosecutor to investigate Israeli crimes. So far under pressure from the West, Palestinian leaders have been unable to do just that. And even if they do, nothing will be done. It wouldn’t happen of course.

It is against this backdrop that Netanyahu arrogantly says Israel will never withdraw from the Golan. Indeed, according to many human rights groups, Israel is breaching the Geneva conventions and failing to observe the minimum standards of humanity, all because the UNSC and the ICC offer no prospect of any accountability at all.

Under International Law, the UNSC and the ICC have obligations to place in the dock any political or military leader who has committed genocide, aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This includes those responsible for the direct or indirect transfer of an occupier’s population into an occupied territory.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

Russian Defense Ministry reports increased Jabhat al-Nusra activities in Syria

http://tass.ru/en/world/871104

Terrorists staged two offensives against the government forces over the past day

MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/. The Russian military reports increased activities of the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group in Syria, the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria said in its regular daily update posted on the Russian defense ministry’s Facebook account.

"The intensity of combat activities of the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group is reportedly increasing in northeastern territories of the province of Latakia. Terrorists staged two offensives against the government forces during the past day," the center said.

"After one of such attacks staged after an intense bombardment supported by tanks and armored vehicle, militants managed to seize the settlement of Herbet al-Arous. The militants’ attempt to seize the settlement of Salma has been rebuffed. Having sustained losses, the terrorists retreated to their initial positions," the center said.

"Positions of the Turkish army near the settlement of Metishli located in Turkey came under mortar shelling by militants from the village of Ain Shammas," the center said. "These provocative actions were meant to force Turkish servicemen open retaliation fire and ultimately break down the peace process in Syria."

Damascus’ district of Basatin Abu Jarash twice came under mortar shelling by militants.

A ceasefire regime brokered by Russia and the United States on February 22 officially came into effect in Syria at midnight Damascus time on February 27. This does not cover terrorist groups such as Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, both outlawed in Russia, and other groups recognized as terrorist by the United Nations Security Council.

An hour before the ceasefire came into force, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution in support cessation of hostilities in Syria. The document was initiated by Russia and the United States and won support from all the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council.

Saudi-backed HNC leaders leave Syria talks

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/04/19/461581/Syria-talks-HNC-opposition/

Top negotiators of Syria’s opposition group High Negotiations Committee (HNC) have quit ongoing peace talks with the government, one day after the Saudi-backed group halted its formal participation in the negotiations.

Riyad Hijab, HNC coordinator, said on Tuesday that he was leaving Geneva, Switzerland, repeating allegations that the Syrian government is violating a truce deal despite the talks.

"I will be travelling today along with some of my colleagues from the HNC. Some people left yesterday and today and they will keep leaving gradually until Friday," Hijab, who was speaking in Arabic, told journalists.

The Saudi-based negotiator said, however, that some delegates will remain in Geneva for technical discussions with UN staff and for workshops on humanitarian issues and detainees.

Hijab called for international observers to be sent into Syria and for ceasefire violators to be held to account. He repeated previous statements regarding the violation of truce by the Syrian government, saying Russia is also assisting Damascus in attacks on militant positions.

Syria’s chief envoy to the talks, Bashar Ja'afari, said there will be no problem for the talks if the HNC delegation leaves Geneva. Ja'afari said the HNC did not hold a monopoly among opposition groups.

"If they want to boycott, they can boycott. It's not a big problem for us because they are not the only representatives of the Syrian opposition,” said Ja'afari, adding that the arguments used by the HNC are not “convincing.”

“The other groups don't share the same assessment (of events on the ground) and this is why the talks will continue as smoothly as possible,” he said, accusing the HNC of repeatedly creating problems since the beginning of indirect talks on April 13.

Earlier in the day, Syrian army forces and allied Russian warplanes and helicopters carried out a series of counter-offensives against militants operating northwest of the country. Militant sources claimed dozens were killed in air strike carried out in the province of Idlib. The government offensive was apparently meant to avenge militant attacks on Latakia and Hama on Monday.

The surge of violence seems to have effectively abolished the ceasefire agreement which the United States and Russia engineered in late February in a bid to facilitate the talks.

Russia to do its best to prevent staking on force in Syria — Lavrov

http://tass.ru/en/politics/871088

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in his turn pointed out that Russia may contribute to a real transitional period in Syria

MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/. Russia will spare no effort to prevent staking on force in Syria as this is a path to the collapse of yet another state, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday after talks with his visiting French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault.

"We will do our best to prevent the military solution, staking on force from winning the upper hand. Because this is a path to ultimate chaos in the region, to the collapse of yet another state after what has been done to Iraq and Libya. Yemen, too, is far from being in its best shape," he said.

"We must call to responsibility those who cherish such plans," Lavrov stressed.

Lavrov also said that no ministerial meeting of Syria Support Group was planned for April 21.

"As for a meeting of the International Syria Support Group on April 21, this group is functioning in Geneva at the level of envoys and two task forces - on ceasefire and on humanitarian issues," he noted. "These groups meet every two days. I think the mass media mean such a meeting when they speak about a meeting on April 21. A ministerial meeting is beyond the agenda at this stage."

"We believe that the mechanism that was created and is working in Geneva is rather efficient and makes it possible to control the current situation, to solve arising problems swiftly," the Russian minister said. "Ministers will have to get involved when radical changes are needed in our common approaches, when the mandate approved by the United Nations Security Council needs adjustments."

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in his turn pointed out that Russia may contribute to a real transitional period in Syria.

"My concern is connected with implementation of the ceasefire regime. The situation remains very fragile," Ayrault said. "It’s necessary to do everything possible for the political process to be resumed."

"We should play our role. Russia has played a key role, made a very important step," he said.

"Russia has long-standing historic ties with Damascus," Ayrault said. "I think it may contribute to the building of a real transitional period, will help restore statehood in Syria."

Sergey Lavrov also noted that during the talks the sides "paid special attention to the political process that has been launched in Geneva." "We think it necessary to take efforts so that it gains really nationwide character, to have the government and the entire spectrum of the opposition sit down at one negotiating table to decide the future of their home country, which is envisaged by the United Nations Security Council resolution," Lavrov said.

"We also discussed the situation in Libya, in Iraq and other countries of the region," he said. "One common thing, I think, is that we agreed that it is necessary that foreign players must do their best to see to it that all the parties in each of these countries, in each of these situations made steps towards national reconciliation, national accord and consolidated efforts in the fight against terrorists and extremists."

The Russian minister also called to stop the attempts of the Syrian oppositional Riyadh group to frustrate intra-Syrian talks in Geneva.

"Pampered oppositionists begin to ‘call the tunes’," Lavrov said. "Western partners understand that they should not be hostages to capricious participants. The moves to frustrate talks and the return to the military scenario should be stopped in a tough manner."

Syria: Terrorists Retreat from more Positions Northeast of Lattakia Province

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950131001071

The Syrian government forces repelled the large-scale offensives of the terrorist groups and in a rapid counterattack forced them to pull their members back from the Heights of 1112 and 1154 and mountain of al-Zweiqat.

The terrorist groups suffered a heavy death toll in the army's counterattack.

Then, the army and its allies pushed North towards Kabani at Lattakia border with Idlib province and in a several hours non-stop battle took full control over the strategic hill of Kabani.

Reports said earlier today that a large number of the army's experienced forces, deployed in Homs province, have joined the Syrian soldiers to fight against the Takfiri terrorist groups across the mountainous regions of Lattakia province near the border with Turkey and Idlib province, sources said.

"The Syrian army's Desert Hawks Brigade, deployed in the battlefield of Homs province in Quaryatayn and Palmyra (Tadmur), has been dispatched to the Northern and Northeastern parts of Lattakia province to join the pro-government forces to cleanse the Aleppo-Lattakia highway and its nearby lands," the sources said.

Report: ISIL Kills Its Wounded Militants to Sell Body Organs

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950131001110

"Doctors were threatened to take out the body organs of a wounded ISIL militant," the Arabic-language al-Sabah newspaper quoted an unnamed source in the city of Mosul.

The Takfiri terrorists are suffering shortage of budget after their recent loss of territory in the Southern part of Mosul and for the same reason it is killing its own militants who have been injured in Southern Mosul to take out their body organs such as hearts and kidneys to sell them in the black market.

In a relevant development last month, media reports said that the ISIL terrorist group was using organ harvesting as a way to finance its operations and save the lives of injured members, media reports said on Tuesday.

The Spanish daily El Mondo reported that facing the increased number of wounded members in the Syrian army and popular forces' attacks, the ISIL is using the body organs of its captives for transplantation.

According to the report, the ISIL also forces the prisoners in Mosul jails to donate blood and postpones the execution of those sentenced to death to use their blood as much as possible.

The ISIL doesn’t merely use the organs of its captives and prisoners' bodies for transplantation to its members but it sells them to other countries as a lucrative business, it added.

Medical sources told El Mondo that the personnel in one of hospitals in Mosul have seen corpses of at least 183 people whose organs had been taken out of their bodies.

According to the report, the ISIL has set up a medical team in Mosul headed by a German physician which exports the body organs to Syria and the Iraqi Kurdistan region for transplantation to its members or selling.

Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations Mohamed Alhakim had made the same revelations last year, saying that the ISIL is trafficking human organs and has executed a dozen doctors for failing to go along with the program.

Alhakim based his claim on the discovery of dozens of bodies left in shallow mass graves near the city of Mosul, currently an ISIL stronghold. Surgical incisions, along with missing kidneys and other body parts lead to an inescapable conclusion. "We have bodies. Come and examine them. It is clear they are missing certain parts,” Alhakim revealed. He further described the carnage:

"When we discover mass graves, we look at the bodies. Some of those bodies are killed by bullets, some of them by knives. But when you find pieces of the back is missing and the kidneys is missing, you will wonder what it is."

 

[angelburst29]

I wonder what is at play here, with Obama and Biden voicing opposition to Netanyahu?

U.S.: Golan Heights Not Part of Israel, Despite Netanyahu’s Claims
http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/338936/us-golan-heights-not-part-of-israel-despite-netanyahus-claims/

The United States and Germany both criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that the Golan Heights “will forever remain part of Israeli sovereignty.”

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Monday that the Obama administration does not consider the Golan Heights to be part of Israel, despite Netanyahu’s assertion at a Cabinet meeting there Sunday, Haaretz reported .

“The U.S. position on the issue is unchanged,” Kirby said at a daily media briefing at the State Department in Washington. “This position was maintained by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Those territories are not part of Israel and the status of those territories should be determined through negotiations.”

Earlier in the day, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said, “It’s a basic principle of international law and the UN charter that no state can claim the right to annex another state’s territory just like that,” according to Haaretz.

The Arab League and Hezbollah also criticized Netanyahu’s statement about the Golan Heights.

Israel wrested control of the Golan from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967 and officially annexed it in 1981, a move never recognized by the international community.

Netanyahu’s declaration came following reports that a draft of a peace deal aimed at ending Syria’s 5-year-old civil war involves Israel relinquishing control of the area, where 21,000 Israeli citizens and 22,000 Druze Arabs live. The Druze there opted to retain Syrian citizenship rather than taking Israeli citizenship.

While giving up the Golan as part of a land-for-peace deal with Syria was widely discussed in the 1990s, few Israelis support the idea today.

Biden also laments lack of political will for peace talks from either Israelis or Palestinians

Benjamin Netanyahu moving Israel in 'wrong direction,' Joe Biden says
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/biden-israel-speech-netanyahu-1.3542155

Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged "overwhelming frustration" with Israel's government on Monday and said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration has led Israel in the wrong direction, in an unusually sharp rebuke of America's closest ally in the Middle East.

Biden, in a speech to the advocacy group J Street, offered a grim outlook for peace efforts, reflecting dim hopes for progress during the remainder of the Obama administration. Although he said Israelis and Palestinians shared blame for undermining trust and shirking responsibility, he was emphatic in his critique of Netanyahu's government, suggesting his approach raised "profound questions" about how Israel could remain both Jewish and democratic.

"I firmly believe that the actions that Israel's government has taken over the past several years — the steady and systematic expansion of settlements, the legalization of outposts, land seizures — they're moving us and more importantly they're moving Israel in the wrong direction," Biden said.

He said those policies were moving Israel toward a "one-state reality" — meaning a single state for Palestinians and Israelis in which eventually, Israeli Jews will no longer be the majority.

"That reality is dangerous," Biden added.

Biden, who met in March with both Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said he came away from that trip discouraged about prospects for peace anytime soon. Still, he said it was the U.S. obligation to guarantee Israel's security and to "push them as hard as we can" toward a two-state solution despite "our sometimes overwhelming frustration with the Israeli government."

"There is at the moment no political will that I observed from either Israelis or Palestinians to go forward with serious negotiations," Biden said. (Article continues.)

 

[sToRmR1dR]

Israel Actively “Cooperates” with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. Military Aid Channelled into Syria out of the Golan Heights

http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-actively-cooperates-with-the-islamic-state-and-al-qaeda-military-aid-channelled-into-syria-out-of-the-golan-heights/5520697

Syria’s chief negotiator at the Geneva peace talks Bashar Ja’afri accused Israel of “cooperating” with the Islamic State and Al Nusra, an affiliate of al-Qaeda in the Golan Heights

According to Ja’afari (quoted by RT):

“This Israeli provocation confirms without any doubt the cooperation between Israel and terrorists of Daesh (Isis) and Nusra Front on the demarcation line between where the Golan is and UN troops are positioned.

“It is no coincidence at all that this Israeli escalation was accompanied by irresponsible statements by members of the so-called Saudi delegation at talks here in Geneva,” Ja’afari added, referring to the main opposition group.

The statement of Syria’s envoy to the peace talks confirms something which is known and documented. Israel alongside Saudi Arabia and Turkey is a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

Israel does not deny that they have been supporting Al Qaeda out of the Golan Heights from the very outset of the war on Syria (March 2011). The occupied Golan Heights is being used as a military and logistics hub in support of Al Qaeda. Military aid and supplies are channeled into Syria through the occupied Golan Heights.

Prime minister Netanyahu confirmed in a semi-official statement that Israel is supporting Al Nusrah fighters out of the Golan Heights. The IDF top military brass acknowledged that “global jihad elements inside Syria” including foreign mercenaries are supported by Israel.

In 2014, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visited the IDF field hospital in the occupied Golan heights, which is being used to treat wounded Al Nusrah mercenaries. The Jerusalem Post acknowledged that the hospital is being used to support the jihadist insurgency. (JP, February 19, 2014)

While the IDF field hospital was established to support Al Qaeda in an operation coordinated by IDF Special Forces, Netanyahu casually accused Iran for “its support of terrorist groups around the world”. (JP, February 19, 2014)

Netanyahu toured the Golan Heights with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.

At a lookout point overlooking the Syrian border, OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan briefed Netanyahu on the presence of global jihad elements inside Syria, as well as on the work being done to fortify the Israeli-Syrian border fence. (Ibid)

...

Moreover, it is worth recalling that in 2011 at the outset of the war in Syria, NATO (with the support of Israel) became actively involved in the recruitment of Islamic fighters. Ironically, this was confirmed by the Israeli media. Reminiscent of the enlistment of the Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war, NATO headquarters in Brussels in liaison with the Turkish High command, according to Israeli intelligence sources, was involved in the enlisting of thousands of terrorists:

“Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Debkafile, August 31, 2011 emphasis added).

Crimes against Humanity: Israel Ambulance Paramedics Withhold Treatment to Wounded Palestinians

http://www.globalresearch.ca/crimes-against-humanity-israel-ambulance-paramedics-withhold-treatment-to-wounded-palestinians/5520791

Israeli ambulance crews adopt a policy of denying injured Palestinians treatment, say rights groups

There is mounting evidence that Israeli ambulance crews are withholding treatment from Palestinians injured during a wave of attacks over the past six months, according to rights groups.

Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, a medical watchdog group, found that wounded Palestinians had been left untreated for as long as two hours.

In some cases, it is believed medical teams failed to tend to the injuries of suspected attackers as revenge, in the expectation that they would die from their wounds.

In parallel, says the group, Israeli soldiers regularly deny Palestinian crews in the occupied territories access to injured Palestinians in violation of international agreements. Palestinian ambulances have been regularly fired on and paramedics attacked as they tried to reach the scene.

Physicians for Human Rights accused Israel’s leading medical bodies – the Israeli Medical Association, which lays down ethical codes, and Magen David Adom, which supervises ambulance services – of ignoring the evidence it has collected of such abuses.

“We have seen no serious response to our complaints, no investigations, not even an attempt to meet us. They don’t appear to want to give answers,” Mor Efrat, a researcher for the rights group, told Al-Jazeera.

Settler ambulance teams

Concern that some ambulance crews are adopting a policy of denying Palestinians treatment has been heightened by the increasing role of medical teams located in illegal Jewish settlements.

These paramedics appear to be openly flouting internationally established principles of neutrality that all medical staff are supposed to observe.

In December the leaders of United Hatzalah, a settler ambulance service implicated in several cases in which Palestinians have been refused treatment, visited a leading ultra-Orthodox rabbi, Chaim Kanievsky, to receive instructions on what to do with Palestinians injured during attacks.

According to a report on the settlers’ website Israel National News, Kanievsky told them that if the injured Palestinian “was in a life-threatening condition, they should leave him or her to die”. Other rabbis have made similar calls.

The issue of Israel’s treatment of injured Palestinians was thrust into the spotlight late last month when a soldier from the Israeli army’s medical corps was caught on video executing a badly injured Palestinian in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, aged 21, had been shot and wounded during a suspected knife attack on a checkpoint. Before the medical corps soldier, identified this week as Elor Azaria, executed him by firing a bullet into his head, al-Sharif was left bleeding on the ground for more than 10 minutes.

Both army medics and two civilian ambulance teams, one of them United Hatzalah, refused to treat him. After the video was publicised, Azaria was arrested.

On Monday, an Israeli military court charged the soldier with manslaughter and inappropriate military conduct. However, there has been an outpouring of support for him, from the Israeli public, politicians and rabbis.

Delaying treatment

Efrat, of Physicians for Human Rights, said the failure by both the Israeli Medical Association and Magen David Adom to speak out against abuses committed by Israeli medical staff created the climate that made possible the events in Hebron.

Leonid Eidelman, head of the Israeli Medical Association, told Al-Jazeera the criticisms were “unfair” and that his organisation had “stated clearly that no political or personal preferences should influence treatment” of wounded Palestinians.

The criticisms of ambulance crews follow a heated debate among Israel’s medical authorities about whether staff should abide by the Geneva Conventions, which require them to remain neutral at all times and prioritise treatment based solely on the severity of injuries.

ZAKA, an Israeli organisation of community medical volunteers, has backed members who refuse to treat Palestinians before Israeli Jews. By contrast, Eli Bein, the head of the Magen David Adom, has said he expects ambulance staff to follow international humanitarian law.

Nonetheless, Magen David Adom has justified the failure of its paramedics to treat al-Sharif in Hebron last month, claiming they were waiting for authorisation from the Israeli army.

Army commanders told the Haaretz newspaper the claim was unfounded and was being used as a “pretext for delaying treatment”.

The stance of the Israeli Medical Association has been equally ambivalent, according to critics.

In 2008 the Association adopted an ethical code – based on a Talmudic injunction that “Charity begins at home” – to treat Israelis before Palestinians. Under pressure from Physicians for Human Rights, the code was quietly revoked in December.

Doctors told the Times of Israel website that the Association was afraid of a political backlash if it publicised the change. “Whatever their official positions, these bodies are not speaking out clearly against violations of medical ethics. And they are certainly not taking any action,” Efrat said.

Palestinian crew attacked

In addition to last month’s incident in Hebron, Physicians for Human Rights have highlighted several other clear cases of medical violations.

One of the most disturbing relates to 19-year-old Muhannad Halabi, who was shot during an attack in the Old City of Jerusalem last October. Witnesses, including an Israeli medic, told the watchdog group that Halabi was left untreated for two hours before paramedics pronounced him dead.

Israeli soldiers fired stun grenades at a Palestinian crew that tried to reach him. A request from Physicians for Human Rights to Israel’s justice ministry to investigate the incident has gone unanswered.

In a second incident, a week later in the Old City, a video shows Palestinian paramedics being beaten and pushed away as they try to reach Basel Sidr, aged 19. Their medical equipment was also damaged. Witnesses said an Israeli ambulance crew looked on for 20 minutes before a medic approached Sidr to check his pulse and declare him dead.

In another video, paramedics are shown denying treatment to Sa’ad al-Atrash, who was shot at least six times last October by soldiers at a checkpoint in Hebron. Witnesses say he was left for half an hour lying in the street before being evacuated to hospital, where he died of his wounds.

There are strong suspicions that al-Atrash was shot by a trigger-happy soldier, in what Amnesty International called an “especially egregious” example of unlawful killing.

In another case, last November, 21-year-old Mohammed al-Shawbaki was left untreated by three Israeli ambulance crews for 30 minutes, while a Palestinian crew was blocked from approaching.

Efrat said they had also filed complaints to the Israeli police and army about 18 incidents in the past six months where Palestinian medical teams had been prevented from caring for the wounded. Only one investigation had been opened.

Pressure for action

Euro-Med Monitor, an international human rights group based in Geneva, has collected evidence of a further four cases where Israeli paramedics violated the Geneva Conventions by denying Palestinians treatment.

They include Ahmed Manasreh, a 13-year-old Palestinian accused of a stabbing attack in East Jerusalem last October. Videos show a Magen David Adom ambulance driving past Manasreh as he lay bleeding in the street, having earlier been run down by an Israeli vehicle.

Evidence of denial of treatment is likely to add to the pressure on two global organisations – the World Medical Association, and the International Committee of the Red Cross – to investigate the actions of their Israeli partner organisations.

A group of UK doctors launched a campaign earlier this year demanding that the World Medical Association expel the Israeli Medical Association for failing to act against Israeli doctors involved in the torture of Palestinians.

A number of reports by human rights groups suggest that, in violation of medical ethics, Israeli doctors are treating Palestinians who have been tortured in Israel’s prisons and interrogation centres. The documented abuses range from physical and sexual assaults.

A spokesman for the World Medical Association told Al-Jazeera it was not aware of the allegations and would be discussing them with the Israeli Medical Association.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Magen David Adom was an “independent” emergency service and any issues would be “addressed internally” by the movement.

Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician and physician, said there was overwhelming evidence that Israeli ambulance crews were “consistently and systematically” denying treatment to wounded Palestinians.

“Israel should be removed from the [International Committee of the] Red Cross for these violations until it is prepared to follow internationally accepted codes of conduct,” said Barghouti.

 

[angelburst29]

Live from Damascus: The Syrian Election Results
http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/04/18/live-from-damascus-the-syrian-election-results/

“Syria’s ruling Ba’ath Party and its allies have won the majority of the votes in the recent parliamentary elections in the country, official results show.

The Syrian electoral commission announced late Saturday that the National Unity coalition, comprising the ruling party and its allies, had won 200 of the 250 seats at the People’s Assembly (Majlis al-Sha’ab).” ~ Press TV

Tuesday’s Syrian election was a vote of confidence by the Syrian people in their government. 5,085,444 voters cast their ballots out of a possible 8,834,994 eligible voters.

The overall participation rate of 58% (virtually identical to Canada’s last federal election) exceeded the government’s expectations in most places but was low in others.

For example, it was over 80% in Homs but only 52% in Tartous. What might explain the uneven results is the history of the war. People who suffered the most from the war, for example in Homs, were probably more grateful for their liberation and more motivated to exercise their political rights than people in Tartous who saw no fighting at all (though they lost thousands upon thousands of sons and grandsons in the war).

Also significant was the fact that over 140,000 refugees returned across the Lebanese border in just one day in order to vote.

[...] It bears repeating that these parliamentary elections were defiantly called by the Syrian government as “an exercise in national sovereignty.”

The point was to show the world, especially those western and Gulf states, who have waged the five-year long war of aggression against Syria, that Syrians are united in the belief that Syrians, and only Syrians, will decide the fate of Syria.

It appears that the gamble paid off.

Russia's top diplomat called on the European Union to revive dialogue in all fields of cooperation.

Lavrov Urges EU to Revive Dialogue in All Areas
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160419/1038284306/russia-eu-dialogue.html

Moscow expects the European Union to resume a full-fledged dialogue in all areas, not just on the human rights issues, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

"Among many sectorial dialogues we have had with the European Union, there was a dialogue on human rights. The European Union has put an end to all dialogues, and said recently that ‘we are leaving everything else frozen, but let’s talk about human rights.’ This is not how it works, if we are going to resume relations, let us resume them in full scale," Lavrov told a press conference.

Relations between Russia and the West deteriorated in 2014 over Crimea's reunification with Russia and the crisis in eastern Ukraine. Brussels, Washington and their allies accused Moscow of fueling the crisis and imposed several rounds of sanctions as a punitive measure.

The Russian authorities have refuted the allegations, warning that the Western sanctions are counterproductive and undermine international stability.

In response to the restrictive measures, in August 2014, Russia announced a one-year food embargo on some products originating in states that imposed sanctions against it. The ban has since been extended for another year.

Europeans will soon have to start solving defense-related problems on their own, as the United States is becoming increasingly disappointed in NATO, according to US geopolitical analyst George Friedman.

Broken Dreams: EU's Hopes on NATO Partnership With US May Be Shattered
http://sputniknews.com/military/20160419/1038238025/us-eu-nato-partnership-military-budget.html

In his recent speech, US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump said Europe isn't paying its "fair share" of contributions to the NATO budget and he certainly wouldn't be sad to see the military alliance dissolved.

"The foundations of NATO have dissolved. Europe's financial commitment to NATO is not credible. The willingness of the US to operate within the constraints of NATO is long gone," Friedman said, according to Business Insider.

When NATO was first founded, it had a clear mission to defend Western Europe from the Soviet Union. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, the alleged danger for Europeans was no longer there. NATO, however, continued to exist, although it was clear the military alliance had lost its raison d'etat.

The relationship between the United States and Europe in terms of military defense changed a long time ago and "NATO is simply the old framework for that relationship, which was established after World War II," Friedman argued.

NATO has become even further obsolete after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty and creation of the European Union, the expert added.

Since then, lacking a clear and present military mission, NATO has taken up a variety of different tasks, getting involved not only in the issues of regional security, but also outside of Europe.

Friedman said the US government isn't happy with the fact that despite promises that each NATO member will devote 2 percent of its GDP to defense, Europeans aren't contributing. Meanwhile, the United States contributes 2.7 percent of its annual GDP to NATO.

This isn't a new issue and Trump isn't the only one who's pointed out this issue. Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders also said
the fact that Washington is paying most of NATO's bills isn't fair and countries, like Germany and Britain, should pick up the defense bill.

Instead of increasing their share, both Germany and Britain have actually been spending less on defense expenditures.

Now with big names, like Trump and Sanders pointing out this disparity in NATO's budget contribution, it's becoming a major issue.

As public opinion is changing in the United States, Europeans will have to decide what to do next with NATO. Friedman said that a clear and unified "strategic outlook is missing," which is needed to reinvigorate the military alliance. Otherwise, after almost 30 years, NATO might end up following the path of its original rival Warsaw Pact.

A top U.S. diplomat has expressed her "great sorrow" after a vehicle in her convoy struck and killed a young boy during an official visit to Cameroon.

Samantha Power's a U.S. Ambassador hits n kills a young boy in Africa
http://katehon.com/news/samantha-powers-us-ambassador-hits-n-kills-young-boy-africa

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was traveling to a refugee camp in northern Cameroon when the child was struck Monday, she said hours later in Maroua, capital of the country's Far North Region.

The 8-year-old boy crossed the road without looking near the city of Mokolo, Cameroon's Ministry of Defense said, citing local journalists traveling with the convoy.

The ambassador was not in the car that struck the boy, the ministry said.

The child received immediate care from an ambulance traveling with the group but died shortly afterward, Power said.

The diplomat said she and other U.S. and Cameroonian officials visited the boy's family following the accident to "offer our profound condolences and to express our grief and heartbreak over what the family is going through."

Power is traveling with U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Agency for International Development officials on a weeklong trip to Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria to underline American support for the campaign against Islamist terror group Boko Haram.

The U.S. Has Only Been At Peace For 21 Years Total Since Its Birth

America Has Been At War 93% of the Time – 222 Out of 239 Years – Since 1776
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/america-war-93-time-222-239-years-since-1776.html

(Back dated Feb. 20, 2015)

In 2011, Danios wrote:


Below, I have reproduced a year-by-year timeline of America’s wars, which reveals something quite interesting: since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence. In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.

To put this in perspective:

* Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.

* No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president. Instead, all U.S. presidents can technically be considered “war presidents.”

* The U.S. has never gone a decade without war.

* The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

* * *

Here is a graphic depiction of U.S. wars:

Year-by-year Timeline of America’s Major Wars (1776-2011) (Long List)

In most of these wars, the U.S. was on the offense. Danios admits that some of the wars were defensive. However, Danios also leaves out covert CIA operations and other acts which could be considered war.

Let’s update what’s happened since 2011:


2012 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen

2013 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen

2014 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen; Civil War in Ukraine

2015 – War on Terror in Somalia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen; Civil War in Ukraine

So we can add 4 more years of war. That means that for 222 out of 239 years – or 93% of the time – America has been at war. (We can quibble with the exact numbers, but the high percentage of time that America has been at war is clear and unmistakable.)

Indeed, most of the military operations launched since World War II have been launched by the U.S.

And American military spending dwarfs the rest of the world put together.

No wonder polls show that the world believes America is the number 1 threat to peace.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

I wonder what is at play here, with Obama and Biden voicing opposition to Netanyahu?

Benjamin Netanyahu moving Israel in 'wrong direction,' Joe Biden says
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/biden-israel-speech-netanyahu-1.3542155

Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged "overwhelming frustration" with Israel's government on Monday and said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration has led Israel in the wrong direction, in an unusually sharp rebuke of America's closest ally in the Middle East.

Israel settlement expansion counterproductive to peace: Merkel

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/04/20/461632/Merkel-Abbas-Israel-settlement-Palestine-peace/

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has slammed Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories as “counterproductive” to the so-called two-state solution.

In a joint press conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Berlin on Tuesday, Merkel also expressed concerns over the stalemate in the Middle East negotiations.

“I am critical of the settlement policy,” Merkel said, adding she had conveyed her concern to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I have expressed my mind critically to the Israeli Prime Minister many times that ... these settlement activities are counterproductive,” she said.

Abbas, for his part, stressed that Israel’s “housing development is the biggest problem for the attainment of freedom.”

He also met with German President Joachim Gauck and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier as part of his international tour to secure support for a UN vote to officially condemn the Israeli settlement policy.

Resolution freeze?

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, citing an unnamed senior Palestinian figure, said the Palestinian Authority was under pressure from France and other countries to freeze its effort.

The paper claimed that the Palestinian Authority was leaning toward freezing its effort to secure a United Nations Security Council draft resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The French government was pressing the authority to suspend the effort on the grounds that it would undermine French attempts to convene an international peace conference this summer, according to senior Israeli and Palestinian officials.

On Monday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that the two-state solution “seems more distant than it has for many decades.”

He cited continuing tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel’s illegal settlement activities and its demolitions of Palestinian homes.

Over half a million Israelis live in more than 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank including East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their future independent state, with East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under the international law. Tel Aviv has defied calls to stop the settlement expansions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In an unusually direct criticism of the Israeli regime, US Vice President Joe Biden said on Monday that he felt "overwhelming frustration" over Tel Aviv's continued settlements and land seizures.

Arab League to Hold Emergency Meeting Over Netanyahu’s Remarks

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160420/1038297568/arab-league-emergency-netanyahu.html

The Council of the Arab League will hold on Thursday an extraordinary meeting to discuss Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks about the Golan Heights, local media reported.

CAIRO (Sputnik) – The Council of the Arab League will hold on Thursday an extraordinary meeting at the level of permanent envoys to discuss Israeli Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu remarks about the Golan Heights, local media reported Tuesday, citing Kuwait's permanent representative at the organization.

On Sunday, Netanyahu held Israel's first Cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights, declaring the territory would remain permanently under the country's control.

"Kuwait has demanded to hold this meeting to discuss the challenges due to the dangerous statements regarding the occupied Arab-Syrian Golans. These statements are steps toward escalation and constitute a blatant violation of the principles of international law and international decisions," the Kuwaiti diplomat was quoted as saying by Egypt’s al-Ahram newspaper.

The meeting will be convened upon Kuwait and Bahrain’s request, the daily specified.

The Golan Heights, internationally recognized as Syrian territory, was seized by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. In 1981, the Israeli parliament voted to annex two-thirds of the region.

Syrian envoy to UN: European governments ‘facilitate passage of terrorists’ to Syria

http://tass.ru/en/world/871128

"Today we have a new phenomenon called European terrorism," Syria's UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari claims

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/. European governments contribute to the passage of terrorists to Syria and Iraq, Syria's UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari has said in an interview with Euronews TV channel.

"If these [European] states really wanted to stop the terrorists striking Syria and Iraq, they would have forbidden the flow of these terrorists from their countries," Jaafari said. "For every terrorist who has come to us, his government is responsible."

"Today we have a new phenomenon called European terrorism. They claimed before that there was Arab and Islamic terrorism. Today we are victims of European terrorism, emanating from Brussels, Paris, London, Spain, Germany, Italy," he said.

"It’s hard to believe that a terrorist who leaves Paris, London, Brussels, or Boston, or Australia and arrives in Syria without a visa, without a passport, through dozens of states and the Turkish-Syrian or Jordanian-Syrian border, has done so without intelligence services overseeing these operations," he added.

The diplomat said the threats of the British, French and Australian prime ministers to withdraw the nationality of terrorists returning to Europe mean that "these governments encourage the terrorists to stay in Syria and not to return to Europe."

After the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris in November French President Francois Hollande announced an initiative to amend the country’s constitution to strip French citizenship from the nationals convicted of terrorism. However, on March 30 the French president retreated from the plan to change the constitution.

 

[angelburst29]

‘Only a matter of time’: First-ever drone collision with passenger plane reported in UK
https://www.rt.com/uk/339998-drone-collision-plane-heathrow/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

A British Airways aircraft carrying 132 passengers on board was just about to land at Heathrow airport when, according to the pilot, it collided with a drone. This could be the first-of-its-kind and fortunately nonfatal accident in the aviation history.

Irony in the sky: Drones banned in London airspace during Obama visit (Video)
https://www.rt.com/uk/340240-obama-visit-drone-ban/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

US President Barack Obama is renowned for his extensive use of military drones in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere – but the unmanned planes will be banned in London and Windsor airspace during his official visit on Thursday.

The ban comes after a civilian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) hit a passenger plane at Heathrow Airport on Sunday.

UK authorities banned the use of drones in the capital while Obama meets members of the UK royal family and politicians.

A notice has been issued by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the National Air Traffic Service (NATS), the Press Association reports.

Conservative Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin declared flights will be limited “as part of the overarching security plan” for the visit.

The restriction bans drone use between Windsor and London on Friday, which is when the Obamas will lunch with the Queen for her birthday celebration.

Flights will also be prohibited between Stansted airport and London on Thursday evening – when the Obama family arrive – and on Sunday morning.

The temporary rules mean that aircraft cannot fly below 762 meters within the restricted areas unless they are using one of a number of London airfields or in the case of an emergency.


Drone buzzes Syrian Army advance on ISIS positions near Damascus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDT0vAqbaKA

Published on Apr 18, 2016

The Syrian Army operations against ISIS militants near the country’s capital Damascus is said to be successful first step. Footage provided by LifeNews crew shows tanks and troops pushing on ISIS positions.

Some countries in the region are trying to derail intra-Syria dialogue in Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday, pointing out that the international community realizes that the crisis in Syrian can only be solved politically.

Lavrov: Some players try to frustrate Syrian talks in Geneva
http://sana.sy/en/?p=75094

In a press conference with his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault in Moscow Tuesday, Lavrov added the focus has been on the political solution for Syria as special attention was paid to the political process that has been launched in Geneva.

“We think it necessary to take efforts so that it gains really nationwide character, to have the government and the entire spectrum of the opposition sit down at one negotiating table to decide the future of their home country, which is envisaged by
the United Nations Security Council resolution,” Lavrov said.

He criticized the demeanor of the “Riyadh opposition” group, saying they are being spoiled by foreign backers, such as Turkey, and describing them as being “capricious”.

“Western partners understand that they should not be hostages to capricious participants. The moves to frustrate talks and the return to the military scenario should be stopped in a tough manner,” he said, expressing hope that the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura practice pressure on “Riyadh opposition”.

The Russian Foreign Minister made it clear that his country insisted on labeling “Ahrar al-Sham” and “Jaish al-Islam” as terrorist organizations but some countries have refused that, pointing out that the cessation of hostilities agreement does not apply to ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist organizations in accordance with the Security Council and the International Syria Support Group (ISSG).

In order to address this issue seriously, a list of terrorist organizations should be set, including those trying to sabotage the cessation of hostilities.

“I am convinced that we will soon raise the question in the UN Security Council of including those sabotaging and undermining the truce, but trying to hide under new names, on the terrorist list, along with Islamic State [ISIS] and Jabhat al-Nusra,” he added.

“There is much evidence that Jabhat al-Nusra is mimicking and trying to disguise itself under new names, uniting with small groups not included in terrorist lists, hence, trying to escape retribution,” said Lavrov.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov announced on Tuesday that the US refuses to work to identify and sort terrorists in Aleppo.

Russian Foreign Ministry: US refuses to work to identify terrorists in Aleppo
http://sana.sy/en/?p=75032

He pointed out that the problem lies in that the US and its relevant structures are unwilling to actually work on distinguishing between the terrorists and the opposition in the areas where terrorist groups are operating.

He noted that “the US and Syrian opposition had used the situation in Aleppo to hinder the talks in Geneva, and instead of dealing seriously with the information that Russia provided about the violations of the cessation of hostilities, they presented politicized demands that threaten to abort the talks.”

He added that there is a plan to resolve the issues related to the violations of the cessation of hostilities agreement, adding that the violations have recently become less frequent.

The Russian diplomat said that Aleppo issue is being politicized to the fullest and so is the issue of humanitarian aid, noting that the Syrian government has allowed international humanitarian organizations to provide aid and opened the roads to a number of residential areas.

Russian analysts claim that Washington is using the “Russian threat” as an excuse to promote its weapons systems in the region

United States to beef up its missile defense systems in Europe
http://rbth.com/international/2016/04/19/united-states-to-beef-up-its-missile-defense-systems-in-europe_586125

The Pentagon has started taking steps to expand its missile defense systems in Europe. The move comes against the backdrop of years of mutual accusations between the U.S. and Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that envisages their gradual reduction.

“In light of Russia’s INF Treaty violation … we are developing and implementing a strategy to address Russian military actions that includes modifying and expanding air defense systems to deny Russia offensive capabilities,” said U.S. Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Brian P. McKeon, addressing the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 13.

According to Viktor Litovkin, a TASS news agency military observer and former member of the Russian Military-Industrial Commission, the United States’ actions are aimed at promoting and “imposing” its weapons systems on Europe.

“Washington keeps scaring the region with a Russian threat and promoting its weapons systems to [NATO] countries. This means money for the U.S. budget and additional levers for putting political pressure,” he said.

Litovkin went on to add that the Americans are planning to supply Europe with an equivalent of the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile system, the Patriot PAC-3.

“This system will complement the missile defense systems being deployed in Poland and Romania,” he said.

U.S. accusations The Pentagon claims that Moscow’s R-500 cruise missiles, supplied for the Iskander-M missile system, are capable of hitting targets at a distance of over 500 km (300 miles), which makes them fall under the restrictions envisaged in the INF Treaty.

It also says that the new RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile violates the INF Treaty as well because it can be used against targets within a range of 5,500 km (3,400 miles).

Moscow rejects these accusations, adding that it cannot give a detailed reply to them because Washington has not provided it with any documented evidence or communications on this issue.

“All they say is: ‘You had a missile test; you know what we mean.’ But this is not a very serious conversation,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference in June 2015.

The Russian Foreign Ministry insists that the country’s senior military and political leadership continue to be open to bilateral work on INF issues.

Yet Russia says it has not received any official communications from the U.S. on this matter and in late 2015 Washington announced that it may introduce new economic sanctions against Moscow over violations of the INF Treaty.

Moscow’s position Moscow is concerned that the U.S. anti-ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe will be transformed from a defensive into an offensive one, which automatically will bring it into breach of the INF Treaty, says Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy head of the Moscow-based Institute of Political and Military Analysis.

“U.S. missile systems can be upgraded to deploy cruise missiles in launch silos,” he explained. In particular, launch facilities for Standard SM-3 interceptor missiles can be used to launch Tomahawk strategic cruise missiles.

“Russia says that the INF Treaty also covers the target missiles being developed in the U.S. to test its missile defense systems. In effect, these are medium-range missiles just without warheads. However, the Americans do not accept that,” said Khramchikhin.

In the opinion of Russian experts, the INF Treaty should also cover U.S. combat drones since their technical and tactical characteristics are equivalent to those of land-based cruise missiles, which fall under the treaty.

Should the treaty be terminated? And yet, despite mutual disagreements, Moscow and Washington declare their commitment to further joint work on the INF Treaty.

“We are open to an honest, specific but not empty dialogue to remove any concerns,” Lavrov told journalists in June 2015. The White House also supports the idea of the need to preserve this treaty between the two countries.

The Executive Secretariat of the Network of Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity denounces the institutional coup attempt that is taking place in Brazil at this moment. The coup masters, led by the tandem of Temer-Cunha are plotting in total disregard of the 54 million Brazilians who voted a year and half ago to re-elect President Dilma Rousseff.

Brazil: No to the Institutional Coup!
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/brazil-no-to-the-institutional-coup/

The attempted coup in Brazil is a clear attack on the social policies that the Workers Party’s government have promoted for over fourteen years to remedy one of the most unequal countries in the world. The implementation of programs such as “Bolsa Familia,” and “Mi Casa, Mi Vida”, by the governments of Lula and Dilma improved and dignified the lives of millions of low-income Brazilians. The coup in progress is also an attack on Latin American integration (Mercosur-Unasur-CELAC) and the efforts of the governments of Dilma, and Lula to advance towards the construction of a multi-polar world, through BRICS.

The recent revelation by Reuters news agency that Paulo Leme, Chairman of Goldman Sachs in Brazil, would head the new economy if the overthrow of Dilma became a reality, shows the external pressure coming from abroad.

On a larger scale the coup’s aim is to weaken the impulse of other countries that are contributing to the setting of a new international order that is at the detriment of the supremacy of the United States and European Union.

For all these reasons and in direct relation to the conclusions of our Xll international meeting of the Network in Defense of Humanity, held just days ago in the City of Caracas, Venezuela, the Network reaffirms its commitment to respect the popular vote and the constitutional order. We also reiterate our solidarity with the Workers Party (PT), the Confederation of Workers (CUT) the Landless Worker’s Movement (MST), the great Brazilian social movements, and the historical leadership of Lula da Silva, and Dilma Rousseff.

 

[angelburst29]

Censorship as Defense Against Soft Power Aggression
http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/04/censorship-as-defense-against-soft.html

Sergey Chernyakhovsky: "Culture as a system of restrictions"

Chernyakhovsky, Sergei Feliksovich, doctor of political science, professor, acting member of the Russian Academy of political science.

Culture is not a field of exquisite pleasures. Culture is a system of restrictions. A civilized man differs from a savage not by detachment from life and immersion in the world of aesthetic pleasure – but knowing the difference between right and wrong, ownership and mastery of "taboo system". It would seem that the presence of "taboo" is an element of the world of primitive civilizations. This is partly true in the sense that civilization begins with the awareness of existence of restrictions.

That is a civilized and cultured man is not a man who claims the right to live without rules, but a man who knows that there are things that are not permissible: that is, allows the power of restrictions to take hold over him.

Hence, cultural policy, especially state cultural policy is not a sphere of servicing those who claim to be the creators of art. Although support of those who really create culture and art is a natural task of a state. In fact, it is the promotion of culture - education, striving for universal access to the world of culture; and immersion, that is - knowledge and immersion in a system of restrictions.

From the perspective of systematic political theory, culture is not facilitation of "leisure and entertainment", culture is the production of what is called "latent models", that is -preservation and affirmation of the norms and customs of your country, along with learning about the norms and customs of other countries. And public policy in this area is facilitation of such production. Not facilitation in terms of management, but in the sense of encouraging the production of those models of behavior and value norms that meet the challenges facing the state, strengthen the state and reproduce its values and identity.

This does not mean that the state only safeguards the customs, otherwise the promoted culture may not be able to sustain the values competition with other foreign cultures, will be unable to ensure adaptation in a changing world.

But the problem is that it must provide this adaptation in pursuit of goals of its growth, preserving its significance, heritage and identity.

In this respect the task of the state policy in the field of culture is education, acquainting "the masses" with global cultural achievements, but first of all, recognizing the importance of the native culture. Global culture must be seen from the perspective of achievements of domestic culture, adopting new models which help grow and strengthen it. The view that the task of state policy is not to interfere and not to disturb what arises by itself is wrong simply because nothing occurs and grows 'by itself'. Everything occurs under the influence of other models.

And these models may on one hand reflect certain practice of "ease of restrictions" to which there is always a certain gravitation - simply because the path of least resistance is always easier.

But the spread of such practice of 'softenting', the expansion of the 'permitted zone' just destroys what still has worth and power in the accumulated national culture.

Not washing hands before meals is always easier than to wash them. Not brushing your teeth is easier than brushing. To throw a tantrum is easier than to control yourself. And to splash paint on canvas, inviting the audience to enjoy the patterns is much easier than to study classical painting.

On the other hand, if we look at art and culture from the point of view of delivered pleasure some things are easier and appeal to a more 'primitive level'.

Striptease is easier to comprehend than classical ballet, street novel is easier than one by Balzac or Dostoyevsky. Pelevin is easier to comprehend than "Onegin".

And the third aspect in terms of what is called "Open society" and freedom of information: other entities and other states may promote the distribution in your country of "latent models" that are favorable to them, to instill in your country their own system of values, or to weaken the system of your motivations, your readiness to defend your country and value your culture.

That is - the field of culture of a state is not a field of entertainment and increasing comfort. And a ministry of culture of any country, especially under the current circumstances – Russia, is the Agency of Defense of the spiritual and intellectual national sovereignty.

That is - a political agency. The agency – which is fighting for the country and its sovereignty, possibly in the most difficult section.

And at the same time – a production agency. Because ensuring the production of latent models of behavior and life, it produces and reproduces the state. And its task is not "not to interfere with the artists". Its task is to promote the production and adoption of those models and those restrictions in the area of intellectual life, which strengthen the country and its citizens, and to prevent creation of those that may weaken it.

That is, in the end, the Ministry of Culture of any country is in even greater degree a "Ministry of Security" than the FSB.

In Russia, life values and cultural foundations of which underwent a brutal aggression at the end of the 1980's, it is the Ministry of Reconstruction and Preservation of memory and its historical identity.

Only its work conditions are harder than the KGB or the FSB. Because those who destroy the country in the sphere of values, plan and carry out intellectual and conceptual aggression against it, in most cases are not violating anything technically and legally. And formally, from a legal point of view - are immune.

Although it's worth it to ponder whether this state of affairs is right.

 

[angelburst29]

The call to the Kiyevsky railway station claiming a bomb was hidden in the building was made in 2:29 p.m. local time (11:29 GMT).

Kiyevsky Railway Station in Moscow Evacuated Over Bomb Threat
http://sputniknews.com/russia/20160420/1038329602/kiyevsky-railway-station-evacuation-moscow-bomb-threat.html

Nearly 600 passengers and employees of the Kiyevsky railway station in central Moscow were evacuated after an anonymous call about a bomb threat, a source in the emergency services told RIA Novosti Wednesday.

"Almost 600 people have already been evacuated from the building, the evacuation is continuing," the source said.

Bernie Ecclestone, chief executive of the Formula One Group, claimed that the Russian President Vladimir Putin should run Europe, but not from Brussels.

Formula One CEO offers Putin to run Europe
http://www.pravdareport.com/news/russia/politics/20-04-2016/134225-formula-0/

Speaking at Advertising Week Europe in London, a 85-year-old British businessman said that Putin "does what he says he's gonna do, he gets the job done. I mean people don't understand exactly what he wants to do ... He wants to put Russia back to what it was. "

Such an opinion is not a single one in the West. Latest ratings of the Russian President evidence his approval of 82% of the population. That is twofold any European leader has, Forbes says.

It is also noted that any other leader would sell his soul for these 82%. Journalist Mark Adomanis pointed out that whatever standards were used, Putin's popularity remained to be very high.

According to the expert, it's no surprise that Putin lost some points in his approval rating, given the fact that his people lost about 10% of their salaries, and the economy has been in recession for over a year.

Adomanis concluded that such results evidence that "the normal laws of politics do function, at least to some extent. The economy is smarting and the government is getting less popular, exactly as you would expect. All too often Putin's numbers are treated as some kind of totemic, unchanging constant, data that is cooked up in a lab somewhere and that bears little, if any, relation to underlying political reality".

He pointed out that such conclusions are unfounded. Thus, Putin's approval is not at all a result of the political strategists' acts.