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UK arms forces minister: RAF is servicing Saudi jets bombing civilians in Yemen

Stop killing yemeni
© Reuters/Khaled Abdullah Ali Al Mahdi
Girls demonstrate against the Saudi-led coalition outside the UN's offices in Sana'a, Yemen.
Britain is providing "engineering support" for UK-supplied aircraft operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force, responsible for killing innocent people in Yemen, a British government minister has revealed.

Armed Forces Minister Mark Lancaster was responding to a question in parliament from Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, on military personnel seconded to BAE Systems in Saudi Arabia, when he admitted that the RAF have provided engineering and "generic training" to the Saudi Air Force involved in the bombing of Yemen.
"RAF personnel on secondment to BAE Systems in Saudi Arabia have provided routine engineering support for UK-supplied aircraft operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF), including aircraft engaged in military operations in Yemen."
Lancaster insisted UK personnel were not involved in the loading of weapons for operational sorties, in response to Russell-Moyle's claim that the "British support keeps Saudi's air war going."


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Snakes in Suits

India, Pakistan threaten missile exchange, US, China and UAE intervene

Indiaborder security
© REUTERS/Mukesh Gupta
India's Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers patrol along the fenced border with Pakistan in Ranbir Singh Pura sector near Jammu February 26, 2019.
The sparring between India and Pakistan last month threatened to spiral out of control and only interventions by U.S. officials, including National Security Advisor John Bolton, headed off a bigger conflict, five sources familiar with the events said.

At one stage, India threatened to fire at least six missiles at Pakistan, and Islamabad said it would respond with its own missile strikes "three times over", according to Western diplomats and government sources in New Delhi, Islamabad and Washington.

The way in which tensions suddenly worsened and threatened to trigger a war between the nuclear-armed nations shows how the Kashmir region, which both claim and is at the core of their enmity, remains one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints.

The exchanges did not get beyond threats, and there was no suggestion that the missiles involved were anything more than conventional weapons, but they created consternation in official circles in Washington, Beijing and London.

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Arrow Down

US media: DoD mulls keeping 1K troops in Syria while Pentagon denies the report

US troops
© AFP 2018/Ahmad al-Rubay
A hundred US troops arrive in Northeastern Syria
The US military are planning to keep nearly 1,000 troops in Syria, the US-based media reported on Sunday, citing US officials.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Washington plans to continue supporting Kurdish forces in Syria despite the threats from Ankara to launch a military operation against the Kurds in northern Syria. Sources told the media outlet that these plans require to keep nearly half of the current US military contingent in the country.

However, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford denied the accuracy of the media report.


According to the Pentagon, "there has been no change to the plan announced in February" and the US continues to implement the president's order to pull out US forces from Syria.


Star of David

Bennett's New Right launches election campaign aimed to defeat High Court, Hamas

Ayelet Shaked/Naftali Bennett
© Flash90
The New Right party co-leaders Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett hold a press conference in Tel Aviv on March 17, 2019.
The New Right Party led by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked launched a new campaign Sunday ahead of the upcoming election, vowing to defeat both the Hamas terror group and the High Court of Justice.

"My mission and that of Ayelet Shaked is clear: to release the IDF from the High Court of Justice so that the IDF can defeat Hamas," Bennett said at a press conference at Tel Aviv's Beit Sokolov. In his remarks, Bennett referenced the Sunday morning terror shootings at a pair of junctions in the northern West Bank, in which an Israeli man was killed and two others were wounded.

"Specifically on days like today when it's as difficult as ever to admit it, I will: when soldiers see a terrorist they think five times before they open fire on him because they fear they will be tried in court," the New Right leader charged.

Following the attack, initial reports indicated that Israelis troops at the Ariel Junction had failed to fire at the assailant after he assaulted a soldier and snatched the soldier's rifle, then fired at several passing vehicles before driving away with one of them.

The education minister and New Right co-leader asserted, "The time has come to honestly state that the High Court of Justice is tying the hands of IDF soldiers who are trying to defeat terror."

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Arrow Down

UN is toothless on the issue of sanctions, leaves Venezuela vulnerable to instability

MaduroTrumpGuaido
© unknown
Venezuela President Maduro • US President Trump • Juan Guaido
According to 21WIRE editor Patrick Henningsen, the fact that Juan Guaido is allowed to roam free even after openly plotting a military coup and stealing Venezuelan state assets with the help of Washington - will actually help the Maduro government in its public relations battle in the short-term. But how long can Caracas tolerate the open sedition being coordinated by Washington? How long can Venezuela withstand the economic pressure being place on it?

Washington's self-proclaimed "interim president" of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, claims that Venezuela's recent expulsion of the German ambassador Daniel Kreiner, is a 'threat against Germany,' and that Venezuela lives under a "dictatorship" - and yet when Guaido, an operative working on behalf of the US government, eventually returned to Caracas - he was not arrested by the Maduro government which belies claims made by Guaido and the Trump Administration.

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Network

Russia's Crimea to become part of China's new Silk Road, despite Western sanctions

crimea bridge
© Reuters / Pavel Rebrov
Road-and-rail bridge connecting Russian mainland with the Crimean peninsula
Private businesses in China are interested in involving Russia's Crimea in the implementation of projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing's development & investment project in 152 countries on five continents.

That's according to the head of the association of Chinese compatriots on the peninsula, Ge Zhili. "Our organization is bolstering cooperation ties, exchanges and friendly contacts with the Crimean society," he said at an event dedicated to the fifth anniversary of Crimea's reunification with Russia, which was held in the Russian Embassy in Beijing on Monday.

The official explained that the association he leads wants "to help people understand what Crimea is, establish reliable relations with the peninsula, and implement joint private projects under the Belt and Road Initiative."

Comment: Ukraine's absence from the project speaks volumes about the damning impact the US-backed coup has had on the potential prosperity of the country:


Green Light

Putin launches 2 new power stations in Crimea on anniversary of reunification with Russia

putin power station crimea
Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched new power stations in Crimea as the region marks the fifth anniversary of reunification with Russia. The facilities will boost the peninsula's energy independence.

The Russian president came to the Balaklava power station, developed by Russian state-run conglomerate Rostec, in the city of Sevastopol on Monday to see the station start work at full capacity.

Putin also observed the opening of another facility in Simferopol and a substation in the Taman area, located across the Kerch Strait, via a video conference.


Comment: The improvement in Crimea is stark when compared with how dire life for most Ukrainians has become:


SOTT Logo Radio

NewsReal #30: Christchurch Massacre - Don't Fall For The Manipulation

NewsReal terror shooting christchurch
Whenever a horrific terror attack or mass shooting occurs, it is of course proper to mourn or at least acknowledge the victims and their loved ones. The 50 innocent people killed at two mosques in Christchurch under a hail of bullets last Friday deserve the respectful treatment they have been afforded in supportive media coverage since then, both in New Zealand and internationally.

What is entirely missing, however, from all media accounts, is a proper accounting of what took place in the city of Christchurch that afternoon. Eyewitness statements and police reports of multiple armed men, arrested suspects, and defused bombs at diverse locations in the city have simply been 'dropped' from media coverage, replaced with a narrative focusing on one sole actor, Australian Brenton Tarrant.

The sadistic psychopath who filmed his part in the events is undoubtedly a perpetrator, but was he the sole perpetrator?

In this NewsReal, Joe and Niall discuss the bloody events in Christchurch and point to some of the evidence that indicates Tarrant was not acting alone. They also discuss why it's important to consider this and similar events in the context of organized criminal conspiracies: the fractious fallout inflames and reinforces divisions in society globally.

If this is the intention not just of the 'lone gunman', but of his powerful backers, then it behooves us to know when we are being manipulated...


Running Time: 01:42:04

Download: MP3 - 93.4 MB


Bad Guys

Attempt to prosecute Assad at ICC is aimed at undermining Syrian peace process

anti assad demonstration ICC offices
© REUTERS/Michael Kooren
A man wearing a mask of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad demonstrates against Assad in front of the ICC offices in The Hague
The announcement that "a group of Syrian refugees and their London lawyers" have found "a neat legal trick" to press for an indictment against Syrian President Bashar Assad by the International Criminal Court demonstrates, yet again, the dangerous corruption of international justice, against which I have been warning for over a decade.

The Syrian war is nearly over, thanks to the military successes of the Syrian army and its Russian and Iranian allies. Exhaustion on both sides has probably helped. Diplomatic overtures have started to re-integrate Syria into the international system, starting at the regional level: the United Arab Emirates have re-opened their embassy in Damascus; the Sudanese president, Assad's near namesake, Omar Al-Bashir, has visited Syria, as have senior Egyptian officials; Syrian officials have attended pan-Arab summits; even Israel is maintaining its dialogue with Russia over Syria. In short, the situation is being slowly normalised as Syria herself embarks on the painful search for internal peace.

Handcuffs

US Supreme Court to rule on identity fraud committed by illegal immigrants

social security theft
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider letting states prosecute undocumented immigrants for identity theft if they use someone else's Social Security number to apply for a job, agreeing to take up what could be a polarizing fight.

Heeding calls from Kansas and the Trump administration, the justices said they'll decide whether the Kansas Supreme Court was right to say that only the federal government has the power under U.S. immigration law to press those types of prosecutions.

A victory for Kansas would give states a new tool for battling illegal immigration, letting them be more aggressive on an issue handled primarily at the federal level. The court will hear the case during the nine-month termthat starts in October.

Kansas says the dispute is more about identity theft than illegal immigration. The state is trying to reinstate the convictions of three men who got restaurant jobs using another person's Social Security number.