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Light Sabers

'Medical terrorism': Zarif blames US sanctions for widening coronavirus outbreak that killed 145 in Iran, including top officials


RT
Sun, 08 Mar 2020 01:58 UTC
medical team
© WANA via ReutersMembers of the medical team spray disinfectant in Mashhad, Iran
As authorities struggle to contain the outbreak that infected nearly 6,000 in Iran so far, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has acused US President Donald Trump of deliberately exacerbating the crisis with mounting economic pressure.

At least 145 people died across Iran by Saturday, while the number of officially confirmed infections jumping by over a thousand in just one day to 5,823 people, including several top officials. In yet another high-profile case, Fatemeh Rahbar, a newly-elected member of the Iranian Parliament, died of coronavirus on Friday - just a day after Hossein Sheikholeslam, adviser to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, had perished.

"[President Donald Trump] is maliciously tightening US' illegal sanctions with aim of draining Iran's resources needed in the fight against #COVID19 — while our citizens are dying from it," Zarif tweeted on Saturday.
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Arrow Down

Lebanon defaults on its $1.2bn Eurobond debt, PM says corruption 'has eaten the state'


RT
Sat, 07 Mar 2020 23:43 UTC
Lebanese PM Hassan Diab
© REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File PhotoLebanese PM Hassan Diab
Lebanon's PM Hassan Diab has announced his country is unable to pay the $1.2 billion Eurobond due on March 9 and will default for the first time. This comes amid a government crisis and currency plummeting by 40 percent.

The move to not pay the outstanding debt and to launch upcoming negotiations with creditors was made unanimously at a cabinet meeting before Diab made the announcement on Saturday.

This decision marks the country's first ever default on its sovereign debt.

Diab says it is impossible to pay creditors at a time when his own country faces so many struggles.
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Eye 2

Al Nusra terrorists deploy to front line In Donbass

Joaquin Flores
Fort Russ News
Fri, 06 Mar 2020 21:37 UTC
al nusra
al nusra hastag on Twitter
Reinforcements from the ranks of terrorist groups in the Middle East arrived at the Kiev militants on the front line with the Lugansk People's Republic, according to the Office of the People's Police of the LPR.

"Due to the low staffing of units of the armed forces of Ukraine and the unsatisfactory level of combat training of personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ukrainian leadership continues to attract Islamic mercenaries from the countries of the Middle East to the punitive operation zone in the Donbass," said Ivan Filiponenko, press officer of the UNM.

The defense department of the Republic announced the information received by the intelligence: in the area of ​​n. Muratovo arrived two trucks with ammunition.
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Snakes in Suits

Joe Biden in 2020 duplicates Hillary Clinton in 2016

Eric Zuesse
The Saker
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 21:12 UTC
biden and hillary
Hillary Clinton, of course, received the Democratic Party nomination in 2016 and was widely expected to beat Trump but she lost to him (though she won California by 4,269,978 in the popular vote, and so beat Trump by 2,864,974 in the nationwide popular vote, while she lost all other states by 1,405,002 votes, and so she would have been California's President if she had won, but the rest of the nation wouldn't have been happy).

Among the top reasons why Democrats in primaries and caucuses voted for Clinton was that they thought she would have a higher likelihood of beating the Republican nominee than Sanders did. This was the impression that the Democratic National Committee spread, and the Party's voters believed in it. However, by the time when Election Day rolled around, the passion that Republicans felt for their nominee, Trump, was much stronger than was the passion that Democrats felt for their nominee, Clinton. During the Democratic primaries, polls were showing that the Democrats who were voting for Sanders to become their Party's nominee were far more passionate in their support of him than was the case regarding the Democrats who were voting for Clinton to become the Democratic nominee. And nobody questions that Trump was the passion-candidate in the Republican Party's primaries and caucuses.
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Putin

Putin-Erdogan deal sugar-coats the Turks' surrender

Scott Ritter
RT
Fri, 06 Mar 2020 10:23 UTC
Putin Erdogan Lavrov Cavusoglu
© Getty Images/Turkish Presidency/Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Anadolu AgencyR to L: President of Russia Vladimir Putin • President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan • Russian FM Sergey Lavrov • Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu
This week's meeting between Presidents Putin and Erdogan in Moscow was cast as preventing a war between Russia and Turkey in Syria. War, however, was never on the horizon. Putin called Erdogan's bluff, and the Turk folded.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, accompanied by their respective senior national security advisers, met in Moscow on March 5. The purpose of this emergency summit was to negotiate the terms of a ceasefire that would bring an end to heavy fighting in Syria's Idlib province that threatened to draw their two nations into direct military conflict. After more than six hours of meeting, a new agreement, packaged as an "additional protocol" to the "Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the De-escalation Area as of September 17, 2018" (better known as the "Sochi Agreement"), was agreed to by both parties.
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Star of David

Draining the intelligence community swamp? Trump's new hires will all be Israel's

Philip Giraldi
Information Clearing House
Tue, 03 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
RGrenell
© APInterim Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell
The appointment of U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell as interim Director of National Intelligence (DNI), a position that he will apparently hold simultaneously with the ambassadorship, has been criticized from all sides due to his inexperience, history of bad judgement and partisanship. The White House is now claiming that he will be replaced by Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe after the interim appointment is over, though sources in Washington suggest that Ratcliffe might have some problems in being approved by Congress.

But such criticism, including my own, has somewhat missed the point, which is that what we are already seeing is a purge orchestrated by Grenell of federal employees in the White House and national security apparatus who are holdovers from the Obama Administration and who are therefore considered to be unreliable. That is why Grenell will continue to be ambassador as well as DNI as it is envisioned that his wrecking ball will have completed its task within six months and he will be able to return to Berlin, in spite of the fact that he is despised in Germany and many officials there even refuse to meet with him, which characteristically doesn't appear to bother the White House at all.

Comment: Most Americans receive information in bits and dribbles. It is only in the context of personal research or articles such as this, that a broader picture comes into focus. Americans do not control the USA. Israel's infiltration and influence has long been in place and getting stronger.

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X

US 'blocks' UNSC from supporting the Russian-Turkish ceasefire in Syria's Idlib province


RT
Fri, 06 Mar 2020 18:49 UTC
Syrian army guys
© SANA/handout via ReutersSyrian army soldiers in southern Idlib province, Syria
US opposition reportedly blocked the UN Security Council from backing the agreement between Russia and Turkey for a ceasefire in Syria's Idlib province. US diplomats earlier sought to back Turkey's incursion in the area.

Friday's meeting was requested by Russia, after President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan hammered out a ceasefire after a six-hour meeting in Moscow the day before.

However, "one of the parties" blocked the Security Council statement that would have expressed support for the agreement, Russian envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said.

Though Nebenzya refrained from naming the culprit, both AFP and TASS reported that it was the US that vetoed the statement, citing diplomatic sources on East River.

Comment: While the partnership of Turkey and Russia is not convincingly strong, in comparison the user-liaison of Turkey and the US is pathetic. Russia is respected for keeping its word and advises accordingly. Neither Turkey, nor the US can say the same.

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X

Trump rejects Graham's push for DACA amnesty

Neil Munro
Breitbart
Fri, 06 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
TrumpGraham
© Drew Angerer/GettyUS President Donald Trump • Senator Lindsey Graham
President Donald Trump and a group of GOP senators quickly rejected a DACA amnesty deal pushed by Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday afternoon - but left the door open to future negotiations.

They will now wait until after the Supreme Court decides on the legality of Barack Obama's work permit giveaway to 800,000 younger illegals, says multiple media reports.

The quick amnesty pitch by Graham (R-SC) was rejected when GOP Senators urged Trump to wait until the court releases its decision, due by June. The court's decision may give Trump more leverage as he tries to get an immigration reform deal from Democrats, a GOP source told Breitbart News.
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Rocket

Moscow: Nuclear conflict now is considered 'a political option' for Washington


RT
Fri, 06 Mar 2020 11:39 UTC
US missile
© Getty Images/USAF 148An unarmed Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
The US is expanding its nuclear capability with new types of low-yield weapons, and Moscow believes US strategists now consider launching a nuclear strike as a viable option in a conflict.

The US has made adjustments to its nuclear posture and has been introducing low-yield nuclear warheads to its arsenal, including those that can be launched from submarines. Russia sees such developments with great concern, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova told journalists on Friday.

The developments make Moscow believe that the American leadership "has made a decision to consider a nuclear conflict as a viable political option and are creating the potential necessary for it."

She rejected US justification of the upgrade by pointing the finger at Russia, and called on Washington to adhere to nuclear non-proliferation and reduction goals, saying that the path of "unrestricted growth of military strength," which it was pursuing, was "a road to a dead end".
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Padlock

Ghani refuses to free Taliban prisoners, as required in the US peace deal, without an 'executive guarantee'


RT
Sat, 07 Mar 2020 09:35 UTC
Ghani
© Reuters/ParwizAfghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani speaks in Jalalabad
The proposed release of 5,000 jailed Taliban fighters, required under their peace deal with the US, can happen only if the Afghan government gets a guarantee that they will not 'return to violence,' President Ashraf Ghani said.

"The people's request is that there should be an executive guarantee so that these people will not return to violence once they are released," the Afghan leader told parliament on Saturday, adding that a "transparent mechanism" has to be established to enact that part of the Taliban-US deal.

Under the agreement signed by the US and the Taliban in Qatar last Saturday, as many as 5,000 members of the militant movement currently held in Afghan prisons would be released by March 10. This would pave the way to intra-Afghan talks on the future of the country.

Ghani, who is to be inaugurated on Monday for his second term as Afghanistan's president, said earlier that his government was bound to no commitment to free the prisoners.

Comment: Is this a compromise Ghani will have to make? Neither he nor his government took part in the negotiations, nor had input into the agreement.

See also:

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