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Former Rio de Janeiro governor Sergio Cabral admits he paid $2 million bribe to host 2016 Olympics


The New York Post
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:54 UTC
lulu da silva Sergio cabral argentina
© Reuters
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil (left) and Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral Reuters
The former governor of Rio de Janeiro state said in court testimony on Thursday that he paid $2 million to buy votes to ensure the sprawling Brazilian seaside city would be chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Sergio Cabral told a judge the money went to Lamine Diack, the former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and was used to buy as many as nine votes. It was not immediately possible to reach Diack or his legal team on Thursday night.

The head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and the main organizer of the bid, Arthur Nuzman, introduced a representative of Rio 2016 to Diack and asked him to make the payments ahead of the 2009 vote that saw Rio win out over Madrid, Chicago and Tokyo, Cabral told a federal judge.
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Briefcase

Has Trump turned an important corner in his term?

Tom Luongo
The Straegic Culture Foundation
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:38 UTC
Trump Kim korea summit
© Vietnam News Agency—Getty Images
A handout photo of U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their second summit meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel on February 27, 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Donald Trump's surprise visit to North Korea last week was impressive. It was a bold first step in repairing a foreign policy in tatters after more than a year of assaults by his neoconservative boobsie-twins Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Trump took Kim at his word who said after talks broke down thanks to Bolton and Pompeo in Hanoi that no dialogue would be possible if Bolton was involved.

So, Trump sent Bolton to Mongolia. Then he went to Korea and did the one thing he had to do to begin unraveling the mess he'd gotten himself into.
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Eye 1

Houthis fear Saudis can exploit UN-gathered biometrics 'in military fashion' in Yemen


RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:44 UTC
malnourished child
© AFP
A malnourished child in Yemen
A UN food agency is suspending work in Yemen after failing to seal a deal on biometrics from locals. The Houthi rebels fear that the data could be used by the Saudi-led coalition for war purposes, a campaigner told RT.

Nearly 10 million people are suffering from "extreme levels of hunger" in war-torn Yemen, according to the UN. But last month, the UN World Food Programme announced that it will suspend its activities in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, which is controlled by Houthi rebels.

The move comes after the agency failed to secure a deal with the Houthis to introduce a biometrics system it said would "prevent diversion" of food from starving people in the devastated country. The Houthis accused the agency of politicizing aid while doing the bidding of the Saudi-led coalition, whose members are among the chief funders of the food program.
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Vader

The Empire sanctions Cuban oil company in bid to weaken Maduro's hold in Venezuela

Scott Smith
Federal News Network
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 16:21 UTC
maduro and raul castro
© Picture alliance/dpa/E. De La Osa
Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and Cuba's Raul Castro in 2016
The United States hit Cuba's state-run oil shipping firm Cubametales with financial sanctions on Wednesday, saying it's a key player propping up Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro.

"Maduro is clinging to Cuba to stay in power, buying military and intelligence operatives in exchange for oil," U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

Treasury officials also lifted sanctions on PB Tankers' fleet of ships, praising the Italian firm for halting deliveries of Venezuelan oil to the island nation.

Comment: Cuba is now in a position to find out who its real friends are. Who will be willing to defy the US and continue to work with Cubametales and other Cuban companies?

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Cowboy Hat

US gov't asks federal court to throw out Huawei lawsuit

Chuck Mikolajczak
Reuters
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:17 UTC
huawei
The U.S. government filed a motion on Wednesday asking for the dismissal of a lawsuit by Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd that claimed the United States had acted illegally when it blacklisted Huawei's products.

Huawei sued the U.S. government in early March, in a complaint filed in federal court in Texas, saying that a law limiting its American business was unconstitutional.

The company has been a component of the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China that has hung over financial markets, with President Donald Trump recently agreeing to loosen restrictions on Huawei after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit.
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Chess

Iran's 'duty' to seize British tanker if UK fails to release captured ship - senior official at IRGC


RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:09 UTC
oil tanker
© REUTERS/Jon Nazca
Tehran should seize a British tanker if the UK does not release the oil supertanker captured by Royal Marines near Gibraltar, a senior official in Tehran has said.

On Thursday, British marines and Gibraltar police seized the Panama-flagged tanker off the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The vessel is owned by a Singaporean company.

Gibraltar's Chief Minister Fabian Picardo claimed that the ship was transporting crude oil to Syria "in violation" of the EU sanctions placed on Damascus. According to Madrid, which considers the waters off Gibraltar to be its own, the British captured the ship at the request of the US. Officials in Washington, meanwhile, welcomed the seizure of the vessel, saying that it was carrying Iranian oil.

Later in the day, Iran summoned the British ambassador and slammed the seizure of the vessel as "a destructive step" and "a form of piracy." Foreign Ministry's spokesperson, Abbas Mousavi argued that the sanctions against Syria are illegal under international law and Iran does not recognize them.
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Bullseye

Real threat of 'Russian disinformation' is US disinformation about it


RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 21:43 UTC
pinocchio
© REUTERS / Panarat Thepgumpanat
The narrative that Russia somehow subverted the US political system through hacking and trolling is ridiculous, journalist Aaron Mate told RT's Lee Camp. Its adoption by the US left is what poses an actual threat to America.

Mate is one of a handful of US journalists who were highly skeptical about the entire Russiagate affair. He talked to Lee Camp on Redacted Tonight about why the conspiracy theory received so much media attention in the US and what came out of it.

"One outgrowth of this theory is that Russian troll farm workers managed to sow chaos in American society with juvenile Facebook ads that nobody saw," he said. "Most of those ads were paid for after the election... And most of the ads had nothing to do with the election."
The fact that we even talk about them is just a joke. And it shows that the real threat of the Russian disinformation here is not the Russian social media disinformation itself. It's the American disinformation about Russian disinformation.
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USA

American Aggression? Never!

Tom Engelhardt
Tomdispatch.com
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 15:04 UTC
US military interventions
Headlined "U.S. Seeks Other Ways to Stop Iran Shy of War," the article was tucked away on page A9 of a recent New York Times. Still, it caught my attention. Here's the first paragraph:
"American intelligence and military officers are working on additional clandestine plans to counter Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf, pushed by the White House to develop new options that could help deter Tehran without escalating tensions into a full-out conventional war, according to current and former officials."
Note that "Iranian aggression." The rest of the piece, fairly typical of the tone of American media coverage of the ongoing Iran crisis, included sentences like this: "The C.I.A. has longstanding secret plans for responding to Iranian provocations." I'm sure I've read such things hundreds of times without ever really stopping to think much about them, but this time I did. And what struck me was this: rare is the moment in such mainstream news reports when Americans are the "provocative" ones (though the Iranians immediately accused the U.S. military of just that, a provocation, when it came to the U.S. drone its Revolutionary Guard recently shot down either over Iranian air space or the Strait of Hormuz). When it comes to Washington's never-ending war on terror, I think I can say with reasonable confidence that, in the past, the present, and the future, the one phrase you're not likely to find in such media coverage will be "American aggression."
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Arrow Up

Airlines no longer avoiding Iran airspace despite US ban


Press TV
Thu, 04 Jul 2019 12:33 UTC
Boeing 737
© AFP photo
This file photo taken on August 27, 2018 shows a Boeing 737 Next Gen of KLM while flying above Toulouse, southern France.
Iran's top aviation official says that major international airlines have been returning to skies south of the country after a brief hiatus caused by an Iran-US military escalation in the region.

Siavosh Amir Mokri, who heads Iran Airports and Air Navigation Company, said on Thursday that the number of flights using Iranian-controlled skies above the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman had increased over the past several days to reach its normal level of 840 flights a day.

The official said the increased use of the airspace came despite a notam (Notice to Airmen) issued by US Federal Aviation Administration on June 21 which banned flights from using skies above the region.

Comment: Evidently world aviation authorities aren't buying US fearmongering.

See also: Pepe Escobar: The un-submersible US-Iran stalemate

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Binoculars

Pepe Escobar: The un-submersible US-Iran stalemate

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 10:55 UTC
Orthodox Cathedral
© Alexei Danichev / Sputnik/ AFP
Orthodox priests and Russian sailors pay their respects at a service to remember 14 submariners who died on July 1, after a fire on a research sub from the Northern Fleet, in the Naval Cathedral in Kronshtadt.
Lost in the submarine uproar, the deadline set by Tehran for the EU-3 to support Iranian crude sales expires Sunday.

A thick veil of mystery surrounds the fire that broke out in a state of the art Russian submersible in the Barents Sea, leading to the death of 14 crew members poisoned by toxic fumes.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the submersible was conducting bathymetric measurements, as in examining and mapping deep sea conditions. The crew on board was composed of "unique naval specialists, high-class professionals, who conducted important research of the Earth's hydrosphere." Now the - so far unnamed - nuclear-powered vessel is at the Arctic port of Severomorsk, the main base of Russia's Northern Fleet.

A serious, comprehensive military investigation is in progress. According to the Kremlin, "the Supreme Commander-in-Chief has all the information, but this data cannot be made public, because this refers to the category of absolutely classified data."

Comment: See also:

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