Puppet Masters

US 'will probably fail' in complete cutoff of Iranian oil exports - but that could be good news for Trump

Sam Meredith
CNBC
Wed, 03 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC

© Ali Mohammadi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
A support vessel flying an Iranian national flag sails alongside oil tanker ‘Devon’ preparing to transport crude oil to export markets in Bandar Abbas, Iran, on Friday, March 23, 2018.

The U.S. is overwhelmingly likely to fail in its attempt to completely halt Iran's oil exports, analysts told CNBC, with President Donald Trump eager to avoid rising gasoline prices ahead of presidential elections next year.

As the first anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and several world powers approaches, energy market participants are waiting to see whether the Trump administration will extend sanctions waivers on eight countries importing Iranian oil.

Trump has until May 2 to decide whether to issue new waivers to eight governments - China, India, Japan, Turkey, Italy, Greece, South Korea and Taiwan - that were allowed in November to keep buying Iranian oil without facing penalties.

"The U.S. will probably fail to reduce Iranian exports to zero, despite renewed talk from the White House about letting all oil import waivers expire in early May," analysts at Eurasia Group said in a research note published Tuesday.

Given OPEC and non-OPEC production cuts and conditions in Venezuela, "the oil market probably cannot absorb the loss of 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude without a significant effect on domestic gasoline prices - a red line for U.S. President Donald Trump," they added.

Comment: More on oil wavers from VOA, 4/2/2019:

Three of the eight countries to which Washington granted waivers to import Iranian oil have now cut their shipments from Iran to zero, a U.S. special representative said on Tuesday.

"In November, we granted eight oil waivers to avoid a spike in the price of oil. I can confirm today three of those importers are now at zero," Brian Hook, the envoy on Iran, told reporters. Hook did not identify the three countries.

We can presume, from the above article, those countries are Greece, Italy and Taiwan.

A senior Trump administration official told reporters on Monday that the U.S. government was considering additional sanctions against Iran that would target areas of its economy that have not been hit before.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido is stripped of immunity by Venezuela's Constituent Assembly

RT
Wed, 03 Apr 2019 00:31 UTC

Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly has backed a Supreme Court request to strip Juan Guaido of his immunity, paving the way for possible legal proceedings against the US-backed opposition leader calling for regime change.

The decision to revoke Guaido's immunity - which he has held as the head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly - came a day after Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) urged the ANC lawmakers to take action against the self-proclaimed 'interim' president, as he stands accused of inciting violence and engaging in an illicit financial activity.

"Justice is necessary for the guarantee of peace," the president of the assembly Diosdado Cabello stressed, adding that ANC approves the top court's request "so that there is justice in our country."

The unanimous decision now paves the way for legal proceedings against the 35-year-old politician. "Sometimes the law takes time, but let's not despair," Cabello said, referring to the criminal investigations against Guaido currently being conducted by the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Supreme Court of Justice.

Comment: See also:

Papadopoulos, Russiagate's 'patient zero', hopes Mueller probe will expose deep state conspiracy

RT
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 23:42 UTC

With the Mueller investigation over and the Russiagate DOA, George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign energy adviser, told RT he hopes the truth about the alleged deep state conspiracy will soon come out.

Lamenting the "disinformation" encircling the Trump campaign and Russia over the past three years, Papadopoulos explains that the only reasons the Trump team ever wanted to work with Russia were to stabilize Syria and Ukraine - and "to assure that Russia and China do not align in this devastating geopolitical alliance which will probably have many unpredictable consequences for the US in Europe and in Asia."

But they never even got a chance to make any Russian connections, Papadopoulos says, adding that he was contacted by Israeli, Australian, and American intelligence - all of whom were interested in his "high-level connections in the Middle East" - but no Russians.

"It goes to the core of how corrupt the Mueller investigation really was, into supposed Russian interference when no one on the Trump campaign and the transition team was even dealing with Russians. I've never met a Russian...official in my entire life, and somehow I find myself in the middle of a fake Russian conspiracy!"

UK: G4S privatized prison taken back under gov control due to appalling conditions and riots

Lizzie Dearden
Independent
Wed, 03 Apr 2019 09:04 UTC

A privatised prison marred by riots, drugs, suicides, violence and "appalling" conditions has been taken back under permanent government control.

The Ministry of Justice cancelled G4S's contract to run HMP Birmingham, months after seizing temporary charge of the jail following an "urgent notification".

Officials denied the unprecedented move was a "public versus private sector issue", but critics claimed years of warnings over outsourcing prisons had been vindicated.

Mark Fairhurst, chairman of the Professional Trades Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers (POA), said: "The obsession this Tory government has to outsource and privatise public sector work must cease.

Comment: This is just one of many attempts to privatize or outsource public services by the UK government that has abjectly failed:

Firms connected to Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, were paid $3.8M by Soros-backed group

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Mon, 01 Apr 2019 09:40 UTC

A nonprofit group partially funded by billionaire activist George Soros paid firms tied to Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele more than $3.8 million in 2017 to provide research and analysis to "government entities," according to IRS filings.

The payments made by The Democracy Integrity Project are more than three times what the DNC and the Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS and Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign to investigate Donald Trump's possible ties to Russia.

Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Clinton campaign, paid $1 million to Fusion GPS in 2016 to investigate Trump. Fusion GPS in turn paid Steele, a former MI6 officer, nearly $170,000 for a project that resulted in the infamous Steele dossier.

Steele's report, which alleged a "well-coordinated conspiracy" between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of the special counsel's findings in the 22-month Russia probe.

Daniel J. Jones, a former staffer to California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, founded TDIP on Jan. 31, 2017, seemingly to resume Democrats' investigation of Trump's possible links to Russia.

Longtime Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigns after weeks of mass protests

Aljazeera
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC

© Mohamed Messara/EPA.jpg
Bouteflika comes out from a polling booth before casting his vote at a polling station in Algiers, Algeria, 29 November 2012.

Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has resigned with immediate effect, according to state media, ceding power in the face of massive street protests against his 20-year rule.

The ailing, 82-year-old leader announced he was stepping down in a letter published by APS news agency on Tuesday, just hours after the army chief demanded immediate action to remove him from office.

Bouteflika said in the letter to the president of the Constitutional Council:

"My intention ... is to contribute to calming down the souls and minds of the citizens so that they can collectively take Algeria to the better future they aspire to. I have made this decision to avoid and prevent the arguments which distort, unfortunately, the current situation, and avoid its turning into serious skirmishes, to ensure the protection of persons and property."

The announcement prompted celebrations in Algeria's capital, Algiers, with hundreds of people singing songs and waving flags in front of the city's central post office.

"This is a victory for my country," said 25-year-old Kamel, who only gave his first name. "We now want the rest of the old guard to leave, we also want the corrupt businessmen to be judged. We have won one political battle, not yet the war."

Top Army general to Congress: Russia is an 'existential threat' to the US

RT
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 17:59 UTC

A nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the US makes Russia the "only current existential threat" to Washington, US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley told lawmakers.

"Because of Russian nuclear capabilities they are the only country on Earth that is capable to destroy the United States," Milley said on Tuesday, testifying at a budget hearing before the House Armed Services Committee. However, having that capability does not mean Russia is currently planning to use it, he added.

Moscow is likely to "threaten our interests for the next 20 years as they attempt to regain control of historic spheres of influence and shape European economic and security structures in their favor," according to the top Army general. Russia will seek to undermine NATO and challenge the US in "all regions of the world," Milley insisted.

Arguing for the Army's portion of the Pentagon's $780 billion budget request for 2020, Milley also said that "near-peer competitors" such as China and Russia are "aggressively pursuing modernization programs" to erode US military dominance.

Erdogan, Turkish intel worked "hand in glove" with ISIS in Syria, claims former emir

Nafeez Ahmed
Insurge Intelligence
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 17:44 UTC

In an explosive interview, a former ISIS commander has claimed that the terror group cooperated directly with Turkish state intelligence agencies for years on areas of "common interest".

The source said that senior Turkish government officials had numerous meetings with ISIS representatives to coordinate activities and that this also involved providing support and safe harbour to foreign fighters in the country. President Erdogan "was working hand in glove with ISIS" according to the US government counter-terrorism consultants who interviewed the ex-ISIS official.

The relationship raises questions about Turkey's role as a NATO ally in the Syria conflict.

The source, who served as an ISIS emir for three years, Abu Mansour al Maghrebi, was interviewed by Professor Anne Speckhard, director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and a long-time US government counter-terrorism consultant for NATO, the CIA, FBI, State Department and Pentagon, as well as by Dr Ardian Shajkovci, the ICSVE's director of research.

Although not all of al-Maghrebi's claims can be verified, most of them are corroborated by the claims of other whistleblowers and former ISIS personnel as previously reported by INSURGE.

Lock her up! Lindsey Graham suggests Bill Barr may reopen Hillary investigation

Collin Rugg
I Love My Freedom
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 17:43 UTC

In an interview given on Sunday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham asserted that Attorney General William Barr was not happy about how the Hillary Clinton investigation was handled. He also mentioned that he is hoping that eventually, "there's a special counsel appointed to look at DOJ corruption and political bias."

"Nobody in the Clinton e-mail investigation went to jail for lying about the process, because there was no process," Graham said in an interview on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo. "And I know Bill Barr pretty well, and he's pretty upset about the way all this was handled. I don't know if he's going to have a special prosecutor to look at the probability of criminal misbehavior. I'm going to look at what happened from an oversight role, but I hope there's a special counsel appointed to look at DOJ corruption and political bias, because Mueller did his job against Trump. Nobody's really looked at the Clinton campaign, the FISA warrant abuse or the counterintelligence investigation, criminality yet - and somebody should."

Brexit: Wales minister Nigel Adams quits over talks with Corbyn

BBC
Wed, 03 Apr 2019 17:42 UTC

Nigel Adams had been at the Wales Office for only five months

A junior Wales Office minister has quit over the prime minister's decision to turn to Jeremy Corbyn to try to get a Brexit deal through Parliament.

Nigel Adams said the decision was a "grave error" and the UK would now "end up in a customs union" with the EU.

Mr Adams, who was also a government whip, said he believed the UK would have coped with a "managed no-deal".

He became the fourth Wales minister to have the job within 12 months when he took up the role last November.

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tekdude

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Puppet Masters

US 'will probably fail' in complete cutoff of Iranian oil exports - but that could be good news for Trump

Opposition leader Juan Guaido is stripped of immunity by Venezuela's Constituent Assembly

Papadopoulos, Russiagate's 'patient zero', hopes Mueller probe will expose deep state conspiracy

UK: G4S privatized prison taken back under gov control due to appalling conditions and riots

Firms connected to Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, were paid $3.8M by Soros-backed group

Longtime Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigns after weeks of mass protests

Top Army general to Congress: Russia is an 'existential threat' to the US

Erdogan, Turkish intel worked "hand in glove" with ISIS in Syria, claims former emir

Lock her up! Lindsey Graham suggests Bill Barr may reopen Hillary investigation

Brexit: Wales minister Nigel Adams quits over talks with Corbyn

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