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Pakistan urges talks with India after accusations of involvement with suicide bombing, asks UN to mediate


RFE/RL
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 15:01 UTC
Indian Army
© Reuters
Indian Army soldiers arrive near the site of a gunbattle between suspected militants and Indian security forces in Kashmir's Pulwama district on February 18.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that his country had nothing to do with a suicide bombing that killed dozens of Indian soldiers in Kashmir and called for talks as the only way to ease tensions.

India has blamed Islamabad for the February 14 suicide bombing that killed more than 40 members of India's security forces, and warned of a "jaw-breaking response."

Khan said on February 19 that India had "leveled allegations against Pakistan without any evidence" and his government was ready to cooperate with New Delhi in investigating the attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

"If you have actionable evidence about involvement of any Pakistani, share it with us. I assure you that we will take action," Khan said.

Comment: That's a reasonable response from Khan, and one hopes the future will be much brighter for Pakistan and its relationship with other nations under his leadership: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: What's The Problem With Nationalism?

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Arrow Up

Washington & Baghdad agree withdrawal of troops from Syria via Iraq by 1st April


Sputnik
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 16:14 UTC
5th Special Forces
© CC0 / Staff Sgt. Jacob Connor / 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
US President Donald Trump announced his intention to pull out American forces from Syria in mid-December, explaining the move by citing the apparent defeat of the Daesh* terrorist group. However, no exact timeframe was set for the withdrawal.

Baghdad and Washington have reached an agreement allowing US troops to be withdrawn from Syria via Iraqi territory, Chief of Staff and Adviser to the Iraqi prime minister Abdulkarim Hashim Mostafa told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"They (the troops) will pass through Iraqi territory. Of course, there is an agreement between Iraq and the US, our friend and ally, that they will leave Syria soon and they will go through Iraqi territory with the permission of the Iraqi authorities," he added.

Comment: Interesting date to choose. One hopes nothing else happens that 'necessitates' US presence in the region:

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Star of David

The Neocon revival: Didn't really think they'd go away, did you?

Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
Mon, 18 Feb 2019 16:40 UTC
neocons

The Neocon warmongers
The upending of the political landscape by the Trump revolution has affected every political grouping and rearranged our politics in ways that are still revealing themselves. His populist America First views on foreign policy and international trade have split the GOP, opened up growing divisions among the Democrats, and even disrupted the ideological certitude of the libertarians.

There is one ideological group whose entire trajectory and partisan political allegiance has done a complete turnaround, and that is the neoconservatives.

Originating as a split from the Trotskyite movement, these extreme leftists moved from one end of the political spectrum, over the course of several years, to the other. Motivated by their hatred of Stalin and their abandonment of the old Communist Party, the neocons - as they came to be known - became the most vocally anti-Soviet faction and advocate of a military confrontation with Russia. Few in numbers but strategically placed, they constituted the staff of Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson and agitated constantly for increased military spending. While still ostensibly men of the left, they gradually abandoned the characteristic tics and attitudes of that tribe and focused on what they really cared about: foreign policy, and their obsession with destroying their old enemy, the Soviet Union.

They wormed their way into the Reagan administration and started taking over the major institutions of the conservative movement. When the Soviet Union began to fall apart, they declared it wasn't happening, that the whole thing was a trap and that Reagan was a fool or a traitor (possibly both) for negotiating with Gorbachev.
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No Entry

Maffick Media CEO, Host Slam Facebook's Unprovoked 'Censorship' After CNN Runs Hit-piece: 'End of Free Speech'


RT
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 16:26 UTC
censorship free speech
© Getty Images
Facebook blocking several pages operated by Maffick Media is nothing short of outright censorship, the company's CEO Anissa Naouai said, after a US-funded think tank pointed them out to CNN for a 'hit-piece'.

The actions of the social media giant, which suspended the accounts of In the Now, Soapbox, Back Then and Waste-Ed last Friday without providing any explanation or even contacting the company that ran the pages, is nothing but a simple attempt to get rid of dissenting voices critical of Washington's policies, Naouai told RT.
"It is blatant censorship. What else can you call it?"
Unexplained ban

The ban came literally out of the blue even though Maffick did not violate any existing Facebook regulations. "There is no rule that you have to post anything about your funding or personal funding. No one does it, not any of the US-sponsored outlets," Naouai said. However, that was apparently the stated reason for the blocking as a Facebook spokesperson said the social media giant wanted the pages to become more transparent by disclosing their funding and "Russian affiliations."

Comment: Facebook has made its partisanship and its fealty clear: The silver lining in all this is that people are smart to it now, and are learning to reverse whatever the authorities say in order to get the right answer. If they say it's black, it's actually white; if they say it's down, it's actually up; and so on.

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Cowboy Hat

4 ways India is putting its own interests before Washington's


RT
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 16:44 UTC
Iranian oil, Indian rupee, Russian weapons
© AFP / NARINDER NANU; Global Look Press / Christian Ohde; Getty Images North America / AFP / DARREN MCCOLLESTER; Sputnik / Alexey Danichev
India appears to be defying every foreign policy goal relentlessly pursued by the US, stubbornly striking deals with nations Washington is trying to isolate from global trade.

Russia, Iran and now Venezuela - all among the top targets of Washington's aggressive rhetoric and sanctions - are also among the nations India has been refusing to turn its back on. The country's growing economy needs energy and its military needs hardware, and it is not allowing lucrative deals slip away to appease the superpower on the other side of the world.

Venezuelan oil

The government in Venezuela, Washington's most recent regime-change effort, has been squeezed tight by American sanctions. A country mostly dependent on oil revenues, has been hit hard as US-bound shipments were cut off.

India appears to be jumping in to pick up the slack, though: it became world number one buyer of Venezuelan crude in the first half of February, with imports up 66 percent.
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Quenelle

'I believe Putin': Trump dismissed US intelligence community's advice on North Korea threat, says fmr. FBI Director McCabe

Kate Lyons
The Guardian
Sun, 17 Feb 2019 16:25 UTC
Putin Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a joint press conference following their summit talks at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki on July 16.
A former FBI acting director has alleged Donald Trump dismissed advice from his own security agencies on the threat posed by North Korea's missiles, saying "I don't care. I believe Putin."

Andrew McCabe made the claims in an interview with 60 Minutes, in which he discussed his tenure at the FBI after James Comey was fired by the president in 2017.

McCabe said Trump made the comments in a meeting about the weapons capability of North Korea. McCabe was not in the meeting with Trump and said his FBI colleague told him about it later.

"The president launched into several unrelated diatribes. One of those was commenting on the recent missile launches by the government of North Korea. And, essentially, the president said he did not believe that the North Koreans had the capability to hit us here with ballistic missiles in the United States. And he did not believe that because President Putin had told him they did not. President Putin had told him that the North Koreans don't actually have those missiles," said McCabe.

"Intelligence officials in the briefing responded that that was not consistent with any of the intelligence our government possesses," said McCabe in the interview. "To which the president replied, 'I don't care. I believe Putin.'"


Comment: Trump understands what the vast majority of regular people understand: that Putin is a much more trustworthy source of information than Deep State intelligence officials who are beholden to the War Party and communicate with the president solely to steer him in the direction they want him to go.

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Network

Internet 'part of Western establishment now': London ex-mayor on Facebook blocking RT-linked pages


RT
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 16:24 UTC
internet webpage
© Reuters / Mal Langsdon
Amid a new media Cold War, the US and its allies are increasingly treating the internet as a tool to suppress any dissenting voices, former mayor of London Ken Livingstone said after Facebook blocked several RT-linked pages.

The world has been plunged in another Cold War, one increasingly waged in the media field with the target being people's minds, Livingstone told RT in the wake of Facebook blocking several accounts with millions of followers after CNN and a US-funded think tank accused them of being "linked to Kremlin" via Ruptly, RT's subsidiary video news agency.
The internet is a part of the western establishment now.
Livingstone noted "complete double standards" of this struggle against those who oppose the narrative of Washington and its allies. Almost every single state has its own government-funded media, such as the BBC in the UK, he noted. "In most countries, the staff working at the state media is supportive of that country and its government," he said. Yet it only seems to be a problem when the narrative runs against the US policies.
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Megaphone

Merkel blames 'outside influence' for kids' climate change protest... but could it just be a protest?


RT
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 16:13 UTC
German students protest
© REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
FILE PHOTO: Students from all over Germany protest in front of the venue for a Coal Commission session in Berlin, Germany, January 25, 2019.
Talking almost in one breath about Russia, "hybrid warfare" and widespread environmental protests among schoolchildren across Europe is not bizarre paranoia, but a deliberate tactic, RT has been told.

Centrist forces in Europe as well as in the US "have been trying to deflect attention to Russia whenever there are key issues that are coming up on the streets and in their communities," British peace campaigner and academic George Barda told RT.

Comment: Merkel: Children protesting climate change influenced from "outside"

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Megaphone

'I'm Committing Professional Suicide': CBS Star Reporter Admits 'Mostly Liberal' Journalists are Now 'Political Activists'

Robert Kraychick
Breitbart
Mon, 18 Feb 2019 21:44 UTC
Lara Logan
© Chris Hondros/Getty
Lara Logan
Lara Logan, foreign correspondent for CBS's 60 Minutes, said Breitbart News offers "the other side" of news media relative to what she described as a mostly left-wing and partisan Democrat news landscape in the U.S. and abroad.

She offered her remarks in an interview published last Friday with the Mike Drop podcast, hosted by retired Navy SEAL Mike Ritland.

Ritland characterized U.S. news media as "absurdly left-leaning" and supportive of Democrats, further describing the status quo of American news media's left-wing and partisan Democrat biases as a "huge fucking problem" and "disaster for this country."

Logan concurred, "I agree with that. That's true." She described U.S. and international news media as "mostly liberal," adding, "most" journalists are left.

"The media everywhere is mostly liberal, not just the U.S.," assessed Logan.
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USA

In for 2020: Bernie Sanders is running for President again

Bob Kinzel
VPR
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 11:58 UTC
Bernie Sanders
© Andrew Harnik / Associated Press
Sen. Bernie Sanders, pictured here on Jan. 30, has has confirmed to VPR that he is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. This marks Sanders' second presidential run.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has confirmed to VPR that he is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

His official announcement video was posted online Tuesday morning.

"I wanted to let the people of the state of Vermont know about this first," Sanders told VPR's Bob Kinzel. "And what I promise to do is, as I go around the country, is to take the values that all of us in Vermont are proud of - a belief in justice, in community, in grassroots politics, in town meetings - that's what I'm going to carry all over this country."

Comment: See also:

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