© Reuters
Surface-to-surface ballistic missile
Pakistan on Thursday announced training launch of Shaheen-II surface-to-surface ballistic missile,
capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear war-heads up to 1,500 km.
"The training launch was aimed at ensuring (the) operational readiness of (the) Army Strategic Forces Command. (The) Shaheen-II missile is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear war-heads up to a range of 1,500 km," the Pakistan military's media wing Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.
The test came a day after India conducted second test of air-launch version of Brahmos supersonic cruise missile.
It described Shaheen-II as a "highly capable missile, which fully meets Pakistan's strategic needs towards maintenance of desired deterrence stability in the region". The launch had its impact point in the Arabian Sea, Dawn newspaper reported citing ISPR.
The launch was witnessed by the Director General of the Strategic Plans Division, Commander Army Strategic Forces Command Lt. Gen. Qazi Muhammad Ikram Ahmad and senior officers from the Army Strategic Forces Command, scientists and engineers of the strategic organisations.
President Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Imran Khan extended their congratulations to scientists upon their achievement, the statement said.
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr arrives for a closed-door interview with investigators from the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on Capitol Hill on Oct. 19, 2018.
Nellie Ohr, wife of former U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General
Bruce Ohr and an analyst working for the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, deleted messages about Russian influence operations from her husband's government email account, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch.
"Thanks! I'm deleting these emails now," Nellie Ohr told her husband in an April 20, 2016, email at the end of a thread of exchanges between the Ohrs, Bruce's Department of Justice (DOJ) assistant Lisa Holtyn, and Stefen Bress, a first secretary at the German Embassy in Washington.
The subject line of the emails was "Analyst Russian Organized Crime - April 2016," in which Bress offered to provide two Russia analysts for an "analytical exchange" discussion with Ohr, Holtyn, and other unnamed DOJ officials of multiple topics, including the "Impact of Russian influence operations in Europe ('PsyOps/InfoWar')."
Comment: Bruce and Nellie Ohr have been able so far to avoid the lurid coverage of, say, Strzok and Page, or even James Comey. But there is a deep, messy story to tell. Let's hope AG Barr airs it all.
RTFri, 24 May 2019 12:31 UTC
© Global Look Press / Sergii Kharchenko
The Motherland Monument in Kiev is decorated with a braid of giant artificial poppies around the head
Ukraine is rated as one of the poorest countries in Europe and Central Asia
when it comes to GDP per capita, according to the country's key creditor, the World Bank.
The agency placed the nation
on the same level as Moldova, Armenia and Georgia, saying that it would take Ukraine more than 50 years to reach the income levels of today's Poland.
Economic growth in Ukraine has turned to the pace of recovery since the crisis the nation passed through in 2014-2015, the World Bank
said. However, rates of growth reportedly remain low with wages failing to reach income standards of the neighboring states.
Comment: Thanks to US interference and Ukrainian corruption, the future for Ukraine has never been bleaker. Although the recent election of President Zelensky who campaigned on a platform to end the war in the region may be a signal that many in Ukraine are beginning to see the error in their ways:
From joker to peacemaker? Zelensky needs to follow his words with actions to end Ukraine's conflict
One curious point made by the World Bank is to 'open up agricultural land', because, along with IMF, they're
infamous for their brutal privatization schemes. Dmitry Orlov
notes:
If the Ukrainians continue to surrender unconditionally while placating themselves with pipe dreams of EU/NATO membership, the country will depopulate, the land will be sold off to Western agribusiness, and it will become a sort of agricultural no man's land guarded by NATO troops. But that sort of smooth transition may be hard for the EU and the Americans to orchestrate.
See also:
Press Trust of India
India TimesFri, 24 May 2019 15:46 UTC
© Bloomberg
Washington To reduce Iran's crude oil export to zero, the US ended on May 2 waivers that had allowed the top buyers of Iranian oil, including India, to continue their imports for six months.
India has stopped importing oil from Iran after American waivers granted to eight buyers expired early this month, New Delhi's envoy here has said, becoming the latest country to comply with the US sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme.
The US reimposed sanctions on Iran in November after pulling out of a 2015 nuclear accord between Tehran and six world powers. To reduce Iran's crude oil export to zero, the US ended on May 2 waivers that had allowed the top buyers of Iranian oil, including India, to continue their imports for six months.
Indian Ambassador to the US Harsh Vardhan Shringla said India has stopped importing oil from Iran after the United States refused to extend exemption from sanctions earlier this month.
Rob Lever
YahooThu, 23 May 2019 12:34 UTC
© AFP Photo/FRED DUFOUR
Chinese tech giant Huawei is seeking its own mobile operating system and processors in the face of a US ban
President Donald Trump on Thursday for the first time linked a dispute over telecom giant Huawei, which he views as a threat to American security, with a deal to resolve the US-China trade war.
"Huawei is something that is very dangerous," Trump told reporters at the White House. "You look at what they've done from a security standpoint, a military standpoint. Very dangerous."
That notwithstanding, Trump said there is a "good possibility" Washington will reach an agreement with Beijing to end the escalating trade conflict, and that "it's possible that Huawei would be included in a trade deal."
Comment: It seems the only real losers in all of this are US businesses:
Frederik Pleitgen
CNNFri, 24 May 2019 12:33 UTC
© AP Photo / Jean-Francois Badias
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has lashed out at "stupid nationalists" on the eve of European elections in which euroskeptic politicians are expected to make gains in the European Parliament.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday,
the outgoing president said he was only too aware of the threat that nationalist politicians pose to European solidarity, which Juncker called the "main objective of the EU."
Some polls project that populists may become the most powerful group in the parliament following this week's elections in all 28 EU nations, resulting in a lasting impact on the future of the bloc and the continent at large.
"These populist, nationalists, stupid nationalists, they are in love with their own countries," Juncker told CNN in his Brussels office.
Comment: See also:
More of Juncker's less than admirable moments:
And check out SOTT radio's:
© Global Look Press / ZUMAPRESS.com / Kazi Salahuddin
Activists in Dhaka, Bangladesh, protest in support of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, April 23, 2019
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader, has been indicted on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for his role in obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, the Justice Department announced on Thursday - a novel case that raises profound First Amendment issues.
The new charges were part of an expanded indictment obtained by the Trump administration that significantly raised the stakes of the legal case against Mr. Assange, who is already fighting extradition proceedings in London based on
an earlier hacking-related count brought by federal prosecutors in Northern Virginia.
The charges are the latest twist in a career in which Mr. Assange has morphed from a crusader for radical transparency to fugitive from a Swedish sexual assault investigation, to tool of Russia's election interference, to criminal defendant in the United States.
Comment: RT
details how the trial of Assange is intended to deter journalists from reporting on US crimes against humanity:
That's only a pretext, and the far-reaching goal is to browbeat journalists and publishers like Assange into thinking twice before covering various US government abuses, Zeese believes.
"They want to frighten media into not covering US activity around the world. The US is often involved in activity that could be characterized as war crimes, certainly, atrocity, and certainly, corruption of our transnational corporations. That was all kinds of things WikiLeaks was reporting," the American lawyer and political activist told RT.
Having originally been intended to punish "actual" war-time traitors, the Espionage Act has now become a weapon in the Trump administration's "war on media." The release of the indictment sparked a widespread backlash from the journalistic community - something that Zeese believes has been long overdue.
US media outlets are starting to realize they are under threat as well, having spent years trying to sink WikiLeaks, which they saw as a powerful competitor.
"Assange was democratizing the media, he was broadening the people who could report. People inside governments, inside corporations could leak classified documents anonymously and that had become news. That took away the power of the corporate media."
That being said, the US media are likely to side with the political establishment to remain in the authorities' good graces, said David Swanson, American anti-war activist and radio host.
© REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
People hold signs during a protest outside Southwark Crown Court where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be sentenced, in London, Britain, May 1, 2019.
'Dubious on many levels'
If the US government had solid evidence Assange actually endangered the people mentioned in the WikiLeaks files, it would have come up during the trial of former US Private and whistleblower Chelsea Manning, said Patrick Henningsen, journalist and Founder of 21stCenturyWire.com.
"If they had anything it would have been on the table in 2010"
"The government had multiple opportunities to present evidence that somehow the sources and methods were compromised or that the agents in the field were put in danger and at no point did they come forward with any evidence to back up this assertion. Instead, they came up with theoretical scenarios of what could have happened," Henningsen said, describing the attempts of the US prosecution to "re-engineer" a case "dubious on many levels."
The risks to the lives of government contractors the US is describing "are vastly overstated," Arvin Vohra, former vice-chairman of the Libertarian National Committee and a 2020 presidential candidate, agreed.
Assange's main crime is that he "embarrassed the US government" and "revealed its dirty secrets," Vohra told RT, something Manning and Edward Snowden are "guilty" of as well.
Vohra believes Washington's ultimate goal is to demoralize would-be leakers once and for all.
"They are trying to scare the next Assange, the next Snowden, the next Chelsea Manning."
"All they are doing is showing that Julian Assange is a great American hero, and they are showing nothing bad about Assange but causing American people to continue to lose trust and faith in the US federal government."
There is one US senator who is
speaking out against the abuse of the Espionage act:
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has become a rare voice among the US politicians to denounce the new US indictment of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange as an encroachment on First Amendment rights.
"This is not about Julian Assange. This is about the use of the Espionage Act to charge a recipient and publisher of classified information. I am extremely concerned about the precedent this may set and potential dangers to the work of journalists and the First Amendment," Wyden said.
Wyden is known as a long-time advocate of privacy and civil liberties in the US legislature. He championed legislation forcing the US government to obtain a warrant before spying on Americans outside the US in 2008 and pushed for a congressional investigation into allegations of abuse and torture of prisoners by the CIA during the Bush administration.
Wyden's take on Assange's work is in stark contrast with that of the Department of Justice, which maintains that Assange "is no journalist." Numerous members of the journalistic community have vented their outrage at the indictment, describing it as an "unprecedented assault" on the First Amendment.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has echoed the sentiment, denouncing the charges against the Australian as a "threat to all journalists everywhere."
While media, civil rights organizations and prominent whistleblowers like Edward Snowden have been sounding the alarm over the new worrying development in Assange's case, politicians in Washington, with the rare exception, seem to be ignoring the buzz.
US President Donald Trump, who used to praise WikiLeaks when it released damaging emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign before the 2016 election, has not commented on the issue, being seemingly preoccupied with his spiraling feud with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, likewise, has not said a word on Assange. Her colleagues on the Capitol Hill seem to be following the trend so far.
And
more on how Assange is being set up so he will not receive a fair trial:
There is little hope for Julian Assange to be given a fair trial in the hands of the US justice system, former CIA analyst and whistleblower John Kiriakou, whose case was handled by the same District Court in Virginia, told RT.
Kiriakou, who blew the whistle on the government-sanctioned torture program in 2007 and was sentenced to 30 months after pleading guilty to leaking the name of an officer involved in waterboarding, told RT that there is high chance Assange might spend the rest of his life in jail.
The US Department of Justice rolled out 17 new charges against Assange under the Espionage Act, a WWI-era document that was aimed at prosecuting spies during war time. Assange became the first journalist or publisher to ever be charged under the century-old law and now faces up to 170 years in prison.
According to Kiriakou, Assange should not count on the court's impartiality in his case: "They are going to try to make an example of Julian. He's been charged in the Eastern District of Virginia. His judge was also my judge and ex-Snowden's judge and [CIA whistleblower] Jeffry Sterling's judge who reserves every national security case for herself."
"She is a hanging judge. She will not give him a fair trial. It's impossible for Julian to receive a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia."
Speaking from his own experience with the same district court, Kiriakou argued that it "gonna try to give him as many years as they can," which means a "sentence of 30-40 years" if served concurrently.
The only avenue worth taking a shot on is to protest the constitutionality of the Espionage Act, notorious for its vague language, to the US Supreme Court, Kiriakou said.
"He'll have immediate standing to appeal on the basis that the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague," he said. "The Supreme Court has never ruled on this issue. That may be the way to go."
For shame, Trump:
See also:
The OPCW has opened the door to ridicule, when the simple truth would have been enough
Gas mask, check. Gas canister looking as if it fell through a ceiling from considerable height, check. Selfie, check. Bingo! ASSAD CHEMICAL WEAPONS ATTACK!
We like to take the Big Boys on trust. No longer do we believe in our meretricious little leaders with their easy lies and twitters: the Trumps and Mays and now all the nationalists of Europe. We certainly don't put any credit in Arab dictators.
But when, despite all its bureaucracy and corruption, the UN tells us that the world faces climate change, we largely believe what it says. If the International Red Cross warns us of a humanitarian catastrophe in Africa, we tend to take their word for it. And when the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) - which represents 193 member states throughout the world - reports on chlorine attacks in Syria, we assume we are hearing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Until now. For in the last few days, there has emerged disturbing evidence that in its final report on the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime in the city of Douma last year,
the OPCW deliberately concealed from both the public and the press the existence of a dissenting 15-page assessment of two cylinders which had supposedly contained molecular chlorine - perhaps the most damning evidence against the Assad regime in the entire report.
The OPCW officially maintains that these canisters were probably dropped by an aircraft - probably a helicopter, presumably Syrian - over Douma on 7 April 2018.
But the dissenting assessment, which the OPCW made no reference to in its published conclusions, finds there is a "higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft".
Theresa May has confirmed that
she will resign as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 June in order for a leadership election to take place this summer.
Following a widespread revolt over her 'new Brexit deal', the Prime Minister has finally caved to growing calls from her MPs to step down. Her decision follows a meeting with Sir Graham Brady, the leader of backbench Tories, in Downing Street this morning.
Mrs May said that the process of electing her successor would begin the week after she finally stepped down as Conservative leader. She said she had informed the Queen that she would continue to serve as Prime Minister until that process was complete.
In an emotional statement on the steps of Downing Street, she said she had "done my best" to get her Withdrawal Agreement Bill through Parliament but acknowledged she had failed to do so.
Comment: Here's her full statement:
Despite the tears, few in the UK feel sorry for her.
She may feel contrition for 'failing to deliver Brexit', but the real mission since she took over from Cameron three years ago has been - first and foremost - to reinstate parliament as the arbiter of whether or not the UK leaves the EU. In that respect, she has been successful. The 'dictatorship of the parliamentariat' has been preserved, and for now the entrenched political class remains relevant...
Meanwhile, real issues that urgently require government intervention are piling up in the UK:
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has, of course, seized the opportunity to again call for a general election:
After three years of fecklessness by the entire political class over Brexit, Corbyn's chances of returning the Labour Party to power have likely also taken a hit. Why would people - a substantial majority of whom seem to support Brexit - vote Labour when that party offers no real alternative to the Conservative strategy of keeping the UK in the EU?
Nigel Farage has weighed in:
You'll never believe who the UK media is proposing as May's successor...
And where is BoJo at this crucial time? In Switzerland,
promising bankers that:
"We will leave the EU on October 31, deal or no deal. The way to get a good deal is to prepare for a no deal."
...which is EXACTLY what the Tories were saying about the March 31st deadline.
European leaders
suspect, correctly, that May's resignation forms part of the UK permanent govt's strategy for managing Brexit while holding onto power. All the Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov had to say about it was:
"Regrettably, I cannot recall offhand any landmarks that might somehow illustrate a contribution to the development of bilateral relations between Russia and Britain. It is rather the other way round."
Indeed, apart from 'not-Brexit', what else will May be recorded in history for... the 'not-nerve agent' Skripal Saga?
© FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images
People walk past a McDonald's fast food restaurant in Beijing on Jan. 9, 2017.
The announcement immediately triggered a public outcry, when a netizen posted in on the internet.
Chinese state-run media have begun ramping up anti-American propaganda, as the U.S.-China trade dispute recently escalated with tit-for-tat tariff increases. The company's memo came to light shortly after the hawkish state-run newspaper
Global Times in a May 13 editorial called on the Chinese public to "fight a people's war" with the United States.
Comment: Bruce and Nellie Ohr have been able so far to avoid the lurid coverage of, say, Strzok and Page, or even James Comey. But there is a deep, messy story to tell. Let's hope AG Barr airs it all.