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Fri, 05 Nov 2021
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America to the rescue! US-led coalition transports Daesh terrorists from Syria's Hasakah out of harm's way

us led coalition
According to SANA's earlier reports, over 60 civilians were killed or injured in an airstrike carried out by the US-led coalition on the town of al-Sha'afa in eastern Deir ez-Zor.

The US-led coalition evacuated the other day a number of Daesh* terrorists by helicopter from the province of Hasakah to some unknown location, SANA reported.

"On November 10, the helicopters of the international coalition led by the US evacuated supposedly three militants out of As-Suwayda village in the north-eastern part of Hasakah province and headed in an unknown direction," the agency cited its sources as saying.

The coalition hasn't yet commented on the reports.

Head of the political division of the Syrian army, Gen. Hassan Akhmad Hassan earlier stated in an interview with Sputnik that the US and its allies support terrorists in Syria instead of fighting them, rather supervising them and issuing assignments. To prove the point, the general brought up reports of Daesh chiefs having been evacuated on more than one occasion to safe places by American aircraft and choppers.

Comment: No wonder the US DoD said it would take years to defeat Daesh - the US military keeps rescuing and re-locating the head-choppers!


Oil Well

Unexpected Iran waivers have Saudi's scrambling to stop oil price slide

oil pump
© Reuters / Todd Korol
Saudi Arabia is moving quickly to halt the slide in oil prices, telegraphing a production cut intended to erase some of the re-emerging supply surplus.

Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih said on Monday that the kingdom would slash oil exports by 500,000 bpd in December, a move that would go a long way to reversing the 1 million-barrel-per-day increase in output agreed to by OPEC+ in June.

It was only a few weeks ago that al-Falih was trying to reassure the market that Saudi Arabia had enough spare capacity in the event of an outage; now he is rushing to try to stop the slide in prices but paring back production.

The production cut would come just after crude oil officially entered bear market territory, falling 20 percent from its October peak.

Comment: Considering that Saudi Arabia's main income comes from oil, they must be desperate:


Snakes in Suits

Ever the globalist stooge, Macron trash talks 'America first'

Macron Trump
In a rebuke that bordered on a national insult Sunday, Emmanuel Macron sniped at Donald Trump's calling himself a nationalist.

"Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism; nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism," Macron said.

As for Trump's policy of "America first," Macron trashed such atavistic thinking in this new age: "By saying we put ourselves first and the others don't matter, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values."

Though he is being hailed as Europe's new anti-Trump leader who will stand up for transnationalism and globalism, Macron revealed his ignorance of America.

Trump's ideas are not ideological but rooted in our country's history.

Comment: See also:


Battery

Russia's Rosatom to construct 7th power unit at Chinese nuclear power plant

nuclear plan
© Tianwan NPP / atomstroyexport.ru
The construction of a new power unit at the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in China will begin in 2021, according to Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom. It's the biggest joint NPP project between the two nations.

"Together with the Chinese partners, we have already built four power units at this site and thus have paved the way for further projects," said Vladimir Savushkin from Rosatom's engineering division Atomstroyexport (ASE).

Savushkin told Strana Rosatom newspaper that "cooperation continues, now on the basis of Russia's newest 3+ generation technologies," adding that the deadlines are tight and "in 2021 we are to begin construction works at Tianwan-7."

Comment: Russia is at the forefront of harnessing nuclear power, and, with the energy needs of the planet only increasing, unless another similarly reliable energy source is discovered, it won't be going away anytime soon:


Pumpkin

Theresa May berates Moscow like a 'recalcitrant child', distracts from her own major political problems

Theresa May
The UK is ready to build a "different relationship" with Russia following the diplomatic rift over the Skripal poisoning - but only if Moscow confesses all its alleged sins and plays by London's rules, PM Theresa May has hinted.

The UK Prime Minister focused a large part of her annual speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London on fighting the perceived Russian threat, which she claims has proven to be "ever more real" recently. Despite the belligerent stance towards Moscow, May said that London seeks a "different relationship" with the Kremlin - if only it "desists from these attacks that undermine international treaties and international security."

"We hope that the Russian state chooses to take this path. If it does, we will respond in kind," May stated on Monday.


Comment: The list of issues that May has bungled, fumbled and made a total mess of in her role as Prime Minister are numerous. So much easier to deflect from her own failures - and play up to the anti-Russia war party - than face up to the real problems she should be addressing effectively:


Biohazard

Skripal poisoning mystery: Where was Detective Sergeant Nicholas Bailey poisoned?

Nicholas Bailey
I wrote back here that the Achilles Heel of the door handle theory is Detective Sergeant Nicholas Bailey. When his name was first mentioned publicly, on 8th March, it was widely reported that he had been one of the first responders at the bench in The Maltings. However, this was thrown into confusion the following day by none other than Lord Ian Blair, former Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police, who stated the following on Radio 4's Today Programme:
"There are some indications that the police officer who was injured had been to the house, whereas there was a doctor who looked after the patients in the open, who hasn't been affected at all. So there maybe some clues floating around in here.'"
As I pointed out in that piece, the phrase "some indications" was somewhat disingenuous, as The Metropolitan Police would have known by that time exactly where Mr Bailey had been. And in any case, there was no particular reason for Lord Blair to reveal this information.

The point I went on to make is that if it was known that he had been poisoned, which it was; if it was known that he'd been to the house, which it was; and if it was known that the poisoning didn't happen at The Maltings, which it was (at least according to investigators who ruled it out with surprising swiftness), then it MUST have been known that he was poisoned AT THE HOUSE. But if this was the case, why exactly was the house not locked down, with forensic scientists all over the house taking swabs? Why did it take nearly two weeks for that to happen?

Comment: And where exactly is Det. Sgt. Bailey? Hanging out with Sergei Skripal perhaps? Isn't it a bit odd that he hasn't been seen or heard from since he was released from the hospital?


Dig

Trudeau confirms Canadian intel listened to Khashoggi murder tapes

trudeau
© REUTERS / Chris Bolin
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed that Turkey has shared audio tapes with Canada related to the murder of Saudi opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi, thus becoming a first foreign leader to confirm the existence of the recordings.

Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the recordings were shared with France, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States, among others. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that he was not aware whether Turkey had actually shared the information and accused the Turkish leader of "playing political games."

"Canada's intelligence agencies have been working very closely on this issue with Turkish intelligence and Canada has been fully briefed on what Turkey had to share," Trudeau said at a press conference in Paris on Monday.

The Canadian prime minister confirmed that the intelligence had heard the tapes, but added that he "has not" heard the tapes himself.

"I had a conversation with Erdogan a couple of weeks ago, and here in Paris we had brief exchanges and I thanked him for his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation," Trudeau added.

Comment: According to Erdogan, the recordings "shocked" a Saudi intelligence officer when he heard them:
Speaking to reporters on his return from a trip with world leaders to Paris, France, the Turkish leader said the audio related to Khashoggi's murder perturbed a Saudi intelligence official who listened to it.

"The recordings are really appalling. Indeed when the Saudi intelligence officer listened to the recordings, he was so shocked he said: 'This one must have taken heroin, only someone who takes heroin would do this'," he added, Reuters reports.

Erdogan believes the murder occurred at the hands of top Saudi officials, although he said he does not think Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), for whom he has "limitless respect", could order such an atrocity.



Fire

Video shows IDF bus burst into flames after being hit by Gaza missile

idf bus
© Screenshots / hallal__ / Twitter
A video has surfaced online showing an Israeli military bus being hit with an anti-tank missile near the Gaza border. The attack happened during a rapid escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas.

The video, published Monday, begins with a long white bus parked behind the trees. Reportedly dozens of soldiers had just disembarked. Several figures can be seen standing behind the two white SUVs nearby.


The bus starts moving, and, once it gets out in the open, it is suddenly hit with what the IDF described as a guided anti-tank missile.

Comment: Israelis are notoriously thin-skinned about IDF casualties, not seeming to realize that is the cost of a military occupation. You can't have one without the other, even if they would like it to be like that. A very large portion of the Israeli population would prefer to be able to bomb Palestine and kill Palestinians with impunity. But as an occupation force, the IDF is a legitimate target under international law. If they don't like it that way, the Israelis will just have to begin acting like normal people, instead of self-entitled murderers.

See also:


Mr. Potato

Time to step away from the keyboard: Stanford prof McFaul scoffs at idea of checking sources before tweeting

McFaul
© Reuters / Maxim Shemetov
Michael McFaul speaks during a Russian Public Chamber round table event in Moscow April 4, 2013
Ex-envoy to Russia Michael McFaul has shrugged off criticism he received after being duped by a well-known parody account, arguing that checking sources on Twitter is often too time consuming. Sage words from a Stanford professor?

McFaul, along with Obama-era UN ambassador Samantha Power, pounced on an anti-Trump tweet posted by a parody account that poses as North Korea's "official news feed."

To his credit, McFaul deleted the offending tweet. But the celebrated Stanford scholar went one step further, issuing an extremely articulate and compelling defense for his oversight: Who even has time to check sources on Twitter?

Comment: McFaul's Twitter life mirrors his public life as he has stumbled from fail to fail. Why is anyone still listening to this clown?


Family

Washington's and NATO's criminal wars and government austerity policies at the heart of European & US migration turmoil

migrant woman child
© AFP / Jorge Guerrero
A migrant woman holds a baby upon her arrival aboard a coast guard boat at Malaga's harbour on September 23, 2018
Europe has certainly adopted more fortress-like controls against would-be refugees. A concomitant rise in anti-immigrant political parties has in turn fueled popular resentment towards EU institutions.

But the debate requires much more than "moral appeals."

A recent study entitled 'Building Walls' puts the growth of EU internal and external border barriers into stark perspective. In the 1990s, there were two border walls. Now the number has grown to a total of 17, with most of the structures built over the past three years.