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Russia-Saudi foundation will invest $2B in Russia in 2019


Sputnik
Sun, 02 Dec 2018 08:13 UTC
MBS/Putin
© AP/Natacha Pisarenko
Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed-bin-Salman • Russian President Vladimir Putin
Around $2 billion worth of funds from a Russian-Saudi foundation will be invested in Russia in 2019, the chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund, said Saturday.

"We plan to increase investment in Russia by the joint Russian-Saudi fund by an extra $2 billion next year," Kirill Dmitriev told reporters on the margins of the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires.

Dmitriev also noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al Saud the issue of stepping up Riyadh's investments in Russian projects during the bilateral meeting on the G20 sidelines on Saturday.

"During the meeting, the Saudi crown prince and President Putin discussed the issue of increasing Saudi Arabia's investments in Russian projects," Dmitriev told reporters on Saturday.

Comment: So, America's big buddy is investing in Russia...Hmmm!

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Star of David

UN demands Israel withdraw from occupied Golan Heights

Leith Aboufadel
AMN
Fri, 30 Nov 2018 00:00 UTC
Golan Heights Syrians
© SANA
For the second time this month, the United Nations held a vote on the Golan Heights region, which is currently occupied by Israel. The General Assembly held a vote on Friday reiterating the UN's demand that Israel withdraw from the Golan Heights.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the majority of the UN General Assembly agreed that Israel should withdraw from the Golan Heights and adhere to borders drawn up in Resolution 242.

The Assembly denounced Israel's non-compliance with Security Council Resolution 497, asserting that Israel's decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction, and administration over the Syrian Golan is null and void.

In a statement after the resolution was adopted, acting charge d'affaires of Syria's permanent delegation at the UN, Munzer Munzer, expressed his heartfelt gratitude to all the states that voted in favor of the resolution and the other resolutions listed under the "Palestinian Cause" and "Situation in the Middle East" articles.
About the Author:

Leith Aboufadel is Editor-in-Chief, specializing in Near Eastern Affairs and Economics.

Comment: How will the UN enforce its mandate?

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Attention

'A recipe for disaster': Divisions make united EU seat at UNSC nearly impossible


RT
Fri, 30 Nov 2018 10:55 UTC
French envoy Francois Delattre UNSC
© Reuters/Amr Alfiky
French envoy Francois Delattre in UN Security Council session.
France strongly rebuffed a German idea to share its powerful veto-wielding status at the UN Security Council (UNSC) with other EU nations. Deep rifts within the union render the proposal "a recipe for disaster," RT has been told.

The suggestion for France to transform its UNSC membership into a joint EU seat came from Germany's Finance Minister Olaf Scholz. "This will take some convincing in Paris," he said on Wednesday, "but it would be a bold and smart goal." In exchange for converting its UN Security Council seat into a collective EU seat, France will get to choose "the EU representative to the UN," the German official added.

Alongside the US, Russia, China and the UK, France is a permanent UNSC member nation with veto power.

It is not entirely clear how serious Olaf Scholz, who also serves as vice chancellor, was about his proposal, but his words caused a stir in the French media. The head of the left-wing La France Insoumise party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, said remodeling of the French seat was "unacceptable." Political strategist Charlotte Girard branded the idea coming from Berlin a "gross annexation" of France's UN status.

The French envoy to the US, Gerard Araud argued that it would be "politically impossible" to alter his nation's seat in favor of a wider EU representation. The Foreign Ministry followed up on Thursday, saying that the French diplomats are already working at the UN "in coordination" with the EU.

They noted, however, that Paris supports Germany getting its own permanent UNSC seat.

Comment: As only individual countries are seated, UNSC would have to vote and approve new rules to accommodate a seat for 'a collective' EU and that is unlikely to happen.

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Take 2

US nuclear subs in Russia's Arctic? Putin comments on surreal Hollywood flick: 'Highly unlikely'


RT
Sun, 02 Dec 2018 17:13 UTC
screencap hollywood submarine movie Russia
© YouTube / Lionsgate Movies
Screenshot "Hunter Killer"
No US submarine would ever be allowed near Russia's Arctic shores, Putin has stated, ridiculing the plot of a recent Hollywood movie in which an American sub captain rescues a Russian leader captured by military coup plotters.

Putin found the story line of Donovan Marsh's Hunter Killer blockbuster a "highly unlikely" scenario, to say the least, when, at the end of G20 press conference, he was suddenly asked what he thinks about the plot where an American Virginia-class submarine docks at a Russian Arctic base after rescuing a Russian President from captivity, preventing a military coup and averting World War III.

Comment: Hollywood fantasies are for purely domestic consumption, meant to keep the lie of US superiority going. 'Murrica!

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Biohazard

Dead as a doorhandle: Why the UK and BBC's explanation for the Skripal poisoning simply doesn't work

Rob Slane
The Blogmire
Sat, 01 Dec 2018 17:00 UTC
skripal house
One of the tell-tale signs that an action or actions are being covered up is that the explanations given for them keep shifting - basically because the ones previously given do not comport with reality. Yet with each new shift, more reality contortions are seen and more questions raised. Objective reality is a kicker, isn't it?

This is basically what the BBC Panorama programme - Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack: the Inside Story - did. Its account of Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey is a case in point. Let me once again state that I do not know what Mr Bailey's role was in the events of 4th March. What I do know with absolute certainty, however, is that the account he gave on the Panorama programme was completely at odds with many previous accounts we have heard from both the media and public officials of high rank. For instance:
  • The British Prime Minister, Theresa May, stated a few days after the incident that, "In particular, my thoughts are with DS Nick Bailey, one of the first responders, who remains in a serious condition in hospital." And the then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, stated of Mr Bailey that he was "one of the first responders on Sunday, acting selflessly to help others." It's all very odd, though, since according to Mr Bailey not only was he not a first responder, he wasn't even at the bench at the same time that the Skripals were said to be there.
  • According to media reports drawing on testimony from Mr Skripal's neighbours, police arrived at 47 Christie Miller Road at 5pm on 4th March. I assume that they entered the property, or at least tried, as I cannot imagine they just turned up to admire the curtains. Yet according to the Panorama programme, Mr Bailey was the first official to attempt to enter the house, and this was around midnight.
  • According to the BBC correspondent, Mark Urban, Mr Bailey approached the front door, but on finding it wouldn't open "went around to the back of the property, where he managed to gain entry." But according to the BBC Panorama account, Mr Bailey and a colleague entered the house via the front door. Which BBC are we to believe?
Now I know that we live in days when subjective truth is trying very hard to knock objective truth off its perch, but this won't do. A=A and A will never = non-A. If Mr Bailey was a hero first responder at the bench when the Skripals were there - as the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and other officials claimed - then he cannot not have been at the bench when the Skripals were there, can he? His being there as a first responder, and his not being there as a first responder cannot both be true, can they? Like I say, objective reality really is a kicker, and it's clear that someone's being economical with the actualité. And yet no one on that programme had the honour to explain why we'd been told something, and were now being told something completely incompatible.

Comment: See also:

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Calendar

Xi Jinping and Donald Trump agree to trade truce at G20

Zhou Xin
South China Morning Post
Sun, 02 Dec 2018 06:23 UTC
trump xi
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared to have reached a trade war truce on Saturday as they met across a dinner table at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

State-run China Daily and Chinese international broadcaster CGTN both said Trump and Xi agreed to not add additional tariffs "after January 1" - when Washington was set to raise the tariff rate on US$200 billion of Chinese imports from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.

Details of trade truce agreement, including what concessions China made, were not immediately available.

The White House did not immediately comment on the outcome of the meeting on the sidelines of the summit. Senior Trump adviser Larry Kudlow said the talks went "very well", but would not elaborate.

Comment: So there's still a month to go, and who knows if the US will stick to its word. But in the end, the US either gets with the program or gets left behind: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Trump Ditches Europe, Europe Bluffs, Russia and China Carry on With Eurasian Integration

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Cell Phone

CIA still gunning for MBS, reveal he sent 11 messages to head of Khashoggi hit team hours before and after murder

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 01 Dec 2018 16:53 UTC
mbs putin

No Trump.
It has been nearly two months to the day since Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul hoping to retrieve papers needed to marry his Turkish fiance - only to be killed and butchered by a 15-man Saudi murder squad. In the intervening weeks, the Saudis have suffered remarkably little blowback (considering that the uproar elicited by Khashoggi's murder nearly triggered a global diplomatic crisis): To date, the US and Canada have levied sanctions against a 17 Saudis suspected of participating or orchestrating Khashoggi's murder, and a handful of countries who don't sell arms to Saudi Arabia have said they will stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, both Canada and the US have balked at similar measures because they would inevitably kill jobs.

Clearly concerned about the flagging interest in holding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accountable for his suspected role in ordering the killing, the CIA has decided to pick up where Turkey left off.

Last week, somebody inside the agency leaked a preliminary report to the Washington Post detailing the agency's determination that MbS had ordered the killing. And on Saturday morning, the Wall Street Journal published the latest (illegal) intelligence agency leak when it reported on the contents of intercepts revealing that during the hours after and immediately before the killing, MbS had exchanged 11 messages with Saud al-Qahtani, a close aide to the prince who is believed to have supervised the murder squad.
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Rocket

Russian defense ministry releases video of short-range anti-ballistic missile launch


RT
Sun, 02 Dec 2018 16:45 UTC
russian abm launch
© Russian Defense Ministry
The Russian military has tested a short-range missile meant to defend Moscow from nuclear Armageddon. Video of the test launch conducted in Kazakhstan was published by the Defense Ministry.

The interceptor tested at the Sary-Shagan test range is apparently the replacement of the 53T6 anti-ballistic missiles, which serve as part of an ABM shield protecting the Russian capital. The video released by the ministry on Saturday shows a characteristic transport-launch container of the projectile being loaded from a transport vehicle to a launcher and placed inside a silo before launch.
russian abm
© Russian Defense Ministry

Comment: The only kind of reminder that Americans seem to understand. And even then, some are so hopelessly deluded that even knowledge of Russia's defense capabilities does nothing to dampen their belligerence.

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Star of David

Police recommend Netanyahu and wife face more bribery charges in telecom-media corruption investigation

Raoul Wootliff
Times of Israel
Sun, 02 Dec 2018 16:29 UTC
Netanyahu
© Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eats a doughnut, traditionally consumed during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah which starts Sunday night, as he attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office on December 2, 2018.
Case 4000 Investigators call for indictments in Bezeq corruption probe for PM and his wife, Bezeq owner and his wife; Netanyahu downplays significance, saying police's timing is transparent By Today, 11:12 am 5 )

In a bombshell announcement that could once again threaten the stability of the government, the Israel Police announced on Sunday that it was recommending bribery charges against both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, in the Bezeq corruption probe, known as Case 4000.

Investigators say that Benjamin Netanyahu advanced regulatory decisions benefiting Shaul Elovitch, the controlling shareholder in Bezeq, the country's largest telecommunications firm - despite opposition from the Communication Ministry's career officials - in exchange for positive coverage from Elovitch's Walla news site.

Comment: The history of the Netanyahu's is rife with corruption:
Benjamin Netanyahu

1997 An Israeli reporter alleged that Mr. Netanyahu, during his first term as prime minister, had inappropriately interfered with the appointment of an attorney general in order to reach a political deal. The police recommended prosecuting him on charges of fraud and breach of trust, but the country's attorney general, Elyakim Rubinstein, decided in April not to press charges, for lack of evidence.

2000 Mr. Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, were suspected of having charged the government for work done at their private residence. In March, the police said there was evidence of bribery, fraud and the theft of $100,000 worth of gifts to the state. The Jerusalem prosecutor, Moshe Lador, ordered the case closed, but it was later published that the state prosecutor at the time, Edna Arbel, had thought that the Netanyahus should be indicted with fraud.

2011 Mr. Netanyahu was accused by the state comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, of having the state and other entities pay his travel expenses and those of his wife and sons while in between terms as prime minister. (He left the position after 1999 and resumed it a decade later after stints as the country's finance minister and opposition leader.) Despite the comptroller's findings, the attorney general at the time, Yehuda Weinstein, determined in 2014 there were no criminal suspicions. The matter was brought up again before the current state comptroller, Joseph Shapira, who had gathered additional evidence. Mr. Weinstein's successor, Avichai Mandelblit, announced in 2017 that he was closing the case.

2018 After a yearlong graft inquiry, the police recommended late Tuesday that Mr. Netanyahu face prosecution on bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust charges. They said there was evidence he had accepted nearly $300,000 in gifts in exchange for official actions benefiting his patrons, and had back-room dealings with the publisher of a leading newspaper to ensure more favorable coverage.


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Eagle

US defense contractor accidentally posts public job offering for 'classified contingency operations' in Ukraine

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 01 Dec 2018 16:30 UTC
mission essential

From the Virginia-based defense contractor's website.
The geopolitical analysis site SouthFront has unearthed from the pages of LinkedIn an incredible public job offering by a US defense contractor which reveals potentially sensitive information. The job posting mentions "classified Contingency Operations" in Ukraine and was posted a mere 15 days ago - just prior to last Sunday's incident between the Russian and Ukrainian navies in the Kerch Strait.

Writes SouthFront, the US-based defense contractor company "Mission Essential" accidentally revealed a US military specialist deployment in the combat zones in Ukraine via a Job Advertisement on LinkedIn.

Crucially, it's yet further evidence which disproves the years-long claims by Washington that the United States is not directly involved militarily in the Ukraine conflict. The public posting suggests US special forces operations are indeed active and ongoing as tensions with Russia soar.

Comment: See also:

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