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Best of the Web: Robert Fico's failed assassination raises specter of Western plotting

Kit Klarenberg
The Grayzone
Sat, 01 Jun 2024 20:01 UTC
robert fico slovakia
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico
Slovak PM Robert Fico's independent stance earned him the wrath of NATO and the EU. Did a Western-directed plot to remove his troublesome government from office trigger his assassination attempt?

On May 15, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was almost murdered in broad daylight. While shaking hands with supporters during a public appearance, a gunman shot him twice in the abdomen and once in the shoulder. The attack left him fighting for his life while authorities raced for clues, and many observers at home and abroad puzzled about the would-be assassin's motives and whether foreign actors were in some way responsible for the attack. And despite the shooter's instantaneous arrest, those questions still linger weeks later.

Fico, a veteran Slovak political figure, was re-elected in September 2023 amid a wave of public resentment over the proxy war in Ukraine, pledging to end arms supplies to Kiev and anti-Russian sanctions. On the campaign trail, Western leaders, journalists and pundits aggressively stoked fears of the "pro-Putin," "populist" candidate returning to office. Ukraine's Western-backed "Center for Countering Disinformation" publicly accused him of spreading "infoterror" back in April 2022.
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Target

Best of the Web: Crossing the Rubicon: Biden allows Ukraine to hit some targets in Russia with US weapons


BBC
Fri, 31 May 2024 00:00 UTC

Comment: They're clearly certain that Russia won't escalate in kind... very certain...


howitzer
© ReutersThe US has provided Ukraine with weapons including Howitzers
US President Joe Biden has given Ukraine permission to use American-supplied weapons to strike targets in Russia, but only near the Kharkiv region, US officials say.

One official told BBC News his team had been directed to ensure Ukraine was able to use US weapons for "counter-fire purposes" to "hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them".

Russian forces have made gains in the Kharkiv region in recent weeks after a surprise offensive in the area, close to the border with Russia.

On Friday, Ukrainian officials said three people had been killed and 16 injured in Russian shelling of a residential building in a suburb of Kharkiv city.

The US official also told the BBC:
"Our policy with respect to prohibiting the use of Army Tactical Missile System [ATACMS] or long-range strikes inside of Russia has not changed."
When asked by CBS, the BBC's US partner, whether the new policy included attacking Russian aircraft, an official said:
"We've never told them [Ukraine] they can't shoot down a Russian airplane over Russian soil that's coming to attack them."
The White House and state department had no immediate comment.
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Star of David

Best of the Web: Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel's nine-year 'war' on the ICC exposed

Harry Davies, Bethan McKernan, Yuval Abraham and Meron Rapoport
The Guardian
Tue, 28 May 2024 22:58 UTC
netanyahu karim Khan ICC israel war crimes
© Guardian Design/GettyBenjamin Netanyahu (left) has taken a close interest in the intelligence operations against the ICC and its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, sources say.
When the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders, he issued a cryptic warning: "I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence the officials of this court must cease immediately."

Karim Khan did not provide specific details of attempts to interfere in the ICC's work, but he noted a clause in the court's foundational treaty that made any such interference a criminal offence. If the conduct continued, he added, "my office will not hesitate to act".

The prosecutor did not say who had attempted to intervene in the administration of justice, or how exactly they had done so.

Now, an investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call can reveal how Israel has run an almost decade-long secret "war" against the court. The country deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court's inquiries.
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Whistle

Best of the Web: Hezbollah strikes Israeli base near border causing heavy damage and IDF casualties, downs another Hermes drone


1lurer
Sat, 01 Jun 2024 15:45 UTC
hezbollah drone
Screenshot
An Israeli military unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down by Hezbollah over southern Lebanon on Saturday, hours after the terror group launched rockets with heavy warheads at an army base adjacent to the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, The Times of Israel reports.


Comment: It should be pretty clear by now that Israel's IDF are the terrorists - note below how Hezbollah attacks IDF targets, and Israel 'responds' with the further slaughter of civilians, including children.


The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that one of its drones was brought down by a surface-to-air missile while operating over southern Lebanon.


Comment: Why are Israel's drones operating over Lebanon? Why did Israel kill more children in its recent bombing of Syria? Israeli airstrike on residential building in Syria severs infant girl in half, injures 10 civilians


Hezbollah, in a statement, said it had intercepted a Hermes 900, a large surveillance and attack UAV used by the Israeli military in Lebanon, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and other fronts.

The IDF said the incident was being investigated.

Comment: PressTV provides further detail:
Earlier on Saturday, an Israeli drone targeted a motorcycle on a road in Majdel Selm village of the Marjeyoun district in southern Lebanon.

An Israeli tank also shelled the border town of Kfarkila, as Israeli interceptor missiles exploded over Mays al-Jabal.

Hezbollah meanwhile announced that it responded to the Majdal Selm attack by launching suicide drones at Israeli forces north of the Yiftah barracks, causing "certain casualties."

The Lebanese resistance movement also said it had attacked the Israeli al-Baghdadi outpost with missiles.

The Israeli regime launched its devastating hostilities in the Gaza Strip on October 7 after the territory's Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.

The Israeli military has also been carrying out attacks against the Lebanese territory since then, prompting retaliatory strikes from Hezbollah in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
Allegedly Israel has retaliated to Hezbollah's retaliation with the following:


And an earlier IDF strike on civilian infrastructure in Lebanon:


Meanwhile in the Red Sea: Yemeni missiles strike USS Eisenhower in response to US-UK airstrikes on country which killed children

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MIB

Best of the Web: Mystery fires and explosions across Europe may be 'Russian sabotage', Western leaders claim, despite having no evidence

Lisa O'Carroll
The Guardian
Fri, 31 May 2024 10:34 UTC
warsaw mall fire
© Dariusz Borowicz/Agencja Wyborcza.pl/ReutersDrone view of the Marywilska 44 shopping centre burning during a massive fire in Warsaw earlier this month. Security services say spate of fires and infrastructure attacks could be part of attempt by Russia to destabilise continent.
Security services around Europe are on alert to a potential new weapon of Russia's war - arson and sabotage - after a spate of mystery fires and attacks on infrastructure in the Baltics, Germany and the UK.

When a fire broke out in Ikea in Vilnius in Lithuania this month, few passed any remarks until the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, suggested it could have been the work of a foreign saboteur.


Comment: Ikea??


Investigators have already alleged potential Russian involvement in an arson attack in east London, an inferno that destroyed the largest shopping mall in Poland, a sabotage attempt in Bavaria in Germany and antisemitic graffiti in Paris.


Comment: What's perhaps most telling about the above list is that the most significant fires and explosions, that were likely sabotage, have been against the US and Europe's energy and food supplies.

Are these leaders avoiding commenting on those much more significant incidents and details because their own governments have brazenly attacked the food supply chain in their war on farming, and because it's widely understood they conspired to cover up the West's destruction of Nord Stream?

Do they perhaps realise that to draw attention to the obvious and compelling connection between their agendas and the sabotage incidents might actually implicate themselves? (August 2023) Huge fire erupts at grain silos at French Atlantic port, follows explosions of silos in Turkey, Brazil, in last 2 weeks


While there is no evidence that any of these incidents across the continent are coordinated, security services believe they could be part of an attempt by Moscow to destabilise the west, which has backed Ukraine.

Comment: Whilst all countries are involved in intelligence operations, if there was any solid evidence that Russia was involved in any of this sabotage, they would surely have provided it. What's particularly notable is the timing, because these incidents have been on the rise for a few years now; the incidents that they fail to highlight, such as those against food and energy supplies; as well as the fact that a significant number of these incidents have happened over in the US.

As documented on Wikipedia, Russia, too, has suffered a surge of at least 150 suspicious fires and explosions at various locations - including energy infrastructure, military installations and shopping malls - since the start of its SMO in Ukraine; are we to believe that Russia has been attacking itself?

When it comes to self-sabotage, the difference between the West and Russia is that the West is demonstrably and knowingly destroying their own economies, Russia is not. For some in the West, destroying the food and energy supply chain is ideological, that's not the case in Russia. Hence Russia wouldn't attack itself, but factions in the West just might. And with the additional benefit of being able to blame Russia.

Note that it's Western governments that are deindustrialising their economies, and food supply chains, in pursuit of their fanatical, and deadly, green agenda:

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Gavel

Best of the Web: US opposition leader Donald Trump convicted on made-up charges by regime loyalist judge after sham trial


RT
Thu, 30 May 2024 06:43 UTC
Former US President Donald Trump
© Justin Lane / Getty ImagesFormer US President Donald Trump arrives to Manhattan Criminal Court on May 30, 2024 in New York City.
The guilty verdict is the first in American history for a former president.

Former US president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump has been found guilty of falsifying business records to influence the 2016 election, in a case related to alleged 'hush money' payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, charged Trump last year with 34 counts of criminal behavior, alleging that the Republican politician sought "to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election."

The jury deliberated for two days and returned the verdict just before 5pm on Thursday: guilty on all counts, making Trump the first US president to ever be convicted of a felony.
"This was a rigged, disgraceful trial," Trump told reporters after the verdict was announced. "The real verdict will be on November 5, by the people. And we will keep fighting, and we'll fight till the end and we'll win."

Comment: The PTB will use every dirty trick to prevent Donald Trump from running for president because if he runs, he will probably win and the PTB will lose total control. Interesting times ahead.

See also:

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Vader

Best of the Web: The West is hell-bent on provoking Russia into a hot war

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik
Thu, 30 May 2024 16:33 UTC
russia soldiers training donbass
© Stanislav Krasilnikov/SputnikFILE: A Russian serviceman of the Central Military District fires a Kornet anti-tank guided missile from a launcher during a training in the Avdiivka sector of the front line amid Russia's military operation in Ukraine, Russia. Ukraine lost over 35,000 troops in May - Moscow Kiev has intensified attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure due to battlefield failures, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov has said.
The warning by President Putin could not be starker:
"In the event of the use of long-range weapons, the Russian Armed Forces will again have to make decisions about expanding the sanitary zone further (...) Do they want global conflict? It seemed they wanted to negotiate [with us], but we don't see much desire to do this."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov then came up with the appropriate metaphor to designate NATO's ramped-up military outbursts: not only NATO is raising the degree of escalation but delving into a warlike "ecstasy".
It does not get more serious than that. "They", as Putin alluded to, do seem to want "global conflict". That's at the heart of NATO's new suicidal "ecstasy" strategy.

For all their circumlocutions, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have effectively greenlighted Kiev using Western weapons for attacks deep inside the Russian Federation. The alleged debate, still ongoing, is just a "smokescreen" for the real objective: a pretext that could lead to WWIII.
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Russian Flag

Best of the Web: Fyodor Lukyanov: Putin is back for another six years, this is what his foreign policy will look like


RT
Wed, 29 May 2024 20:43 UTC
putin inauguration 2024
© Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via ReutersPutin arrives to applause at his inauguration for a fourth term as President of Russia, May 7, 2024
When he first took office, the Russian president was trying to integrate with the West, now the whole ball game has changed

The question of how Russia's foreign policy will be managed during President Vladimir Putin's new term seems redundant, if not irrelevant. The head of state is a man who has led the country in one form or another for almost a quarter of a century. He is known for his conservatism - not only in the ideological sense, but also in his aversion to sharp turns. Moreover, Russia is engaged in an intensive military campaign against an international coalition, and there is little point in making plans until it is over, and while its prospects are still unclear. The successful completion of this campaign remains a task of incomparable importance.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to reflect on this issue. Firstly, all of the terms of Vladimir Putin's presidency, while showing a continuity of approach, have been markedly different. Secondly, while the importance of achieving the goals of the military operation is undeniable, victory alone will not miraculously provide answers to all foreign policy challenges. Finally, the world system is changing rapidly for objective reasons, and Moscow will have to respond in any case.
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Star of David

Best of the Web: Mask off: Former Mossad spy chief 'threatened' ICC prosecutor over Israeli war crimes inquiry

Harry Davies
The Guardian
Tue, 28 May 2024 20:29 UTC
mossad israel threaten ICC judge cohen bensouda
© Guardian DesignCohen (right) was described as acting as Netanyahu’s ‘unofficial messenger’ in the operation against Bensouda (centre).
The former head of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.

Yossi Cohen's covert contacts with the ICC's then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.

That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda's successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country's conduct in its war in Gaza.
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Cult

Best of the Web: The next Maidan? US-EU assets pushing color revolution in Georgia

Kit Klarenberg
The Grayzone
Sun, 26 May 2024 19:12 UTC
pro eu protestors Tbilisi georgia color revolution ngos
Pro-EU protestors in Georgia
Over 25,000 NGOs are active in Georgia, and most rely on funding from Europe and the US. A new bill aiming to reign in Western meddling has sparked furious anti-government protests explicitly encouraged by Washington.

A dark political atmosphere is swirling over the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, and grows more ominous by the day. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has been told by an EU commissioner he will suffer the fate of Robert Fico, the Slovakian leader still fighting for his life after an assassination attempt by a Ukraine proxy war ultra. US lawmakers are moving to sanction members of the ruling Georgian Dream party, and in parliament on May 14, opposition MP Tako Charkviani threatened: "Believe me, there will be a color revolution in Georgia."

The cause of this tumult is a bill known as the "foreign influence transparency" law which would compel organizations to publicly disclose their foreign funding. For weeks, the streets of Tbilisi have been filled with tens of thousands of protesters who are demanding that authorities dump the law, which they believe will compromise Georgia's path to EU membership. Despite vehement condemnation from EU and US officials, the bill has now passed. The US has since threatened to impose visa restrictions on legislators who supported the legislation, and protesters show no sign of giving up.

Comment: To their credit, Georgian Dream has held fast and overridden the president's veto.



But the fight is only beginning:

NewsReal: Georgia Dream - Empire of Lies to Open Second Front Against Russia?

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