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The US effort to warn mariners about working with Iran comes as it looks for novel ways to pressure Tehran after imposing a raft of harsh sanctions during the past year.Yahoo! News reports:
The US official said Washington intended to start focusing even more on enforcement and would offer inducements to urge captains and crew to co-operate, while also threatening to revoke their US visas, which would prevent them from entering US waters, if they did not co-operate. "We are trying to dry up their labour pool to move illicit oil," said the official.
US authorities said that Kumar, 43, took over as captain in Gibraltar. After he apparently did not respond to the US offer, the Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions both on the ship and on Kumar himself, freezing any assets he may have in the United States and criminalizing any US financial transactions with him.
"In the last 30 years, I appeared innumerable times in the American media and met thousands of American leaders. I developed a certain ability to influence public opinion, and that is the most important thing: the ability to sway public opinion in the United States against the regime in Iran."
The bill, tabled by Labour's Hilary Benn and supported by the likes of Ken Clarke and Churchill's grandson, Nicholas Soames, who have been expelled from the Conservative Party, was passed by 327 votes to 299 in the House of Commons after the third and final reading on Wednesday night. It's a hammer blow to Johnson.
Johnson responded to the defeat by saying there is now "only one way forward" and "there must now be an election on Tuesday 15 of October."
However, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his party will back an election only after a 'no-deal' is completely ruled out.
The new law calls for the prime minister to obtain an extension to Article 50 from the EU that runs to "11pm on 31 January 2020."
Clarke, Soames were among a number of Tory MPs who were sacked from the party after they defied Johnson to vote for the new legislation at first reading on Tuesday night.
Johnson who will table a motion for an early election later on Wednesday, with voting scheduled for around 10.30pm BST. The Prime minister is hoping to secure an election for October 15.
The prospects for Brexit happening now look "quite bleak" without a general election, veteran political journalist Neil Clark told RT. "Ruling out 'no-deal' effectively means ruling out Brexit as there's no incentive for the EU to offer a better deal."
Comment: Whether secular - or religious - it's clear that the thrust of Israel's major political forces are aimed at pepetuating the status quo of Palestinian subjugation, territorial expansion and wars of aggression in the Middle East. Just pick your flavor of genocidal and suicidal madness.
To gain greater insight into the virulent and toxic mindset that plagues so many Israelis and Jews around the world, listen to this interview with Israel Shahak, the author of Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years.