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UN Secretary-General Guterres can't verify that drones in the attack on Saudi oil facilities were Iranian


Sputnik
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 04:58 UTC
Guterres
© AP/Khalil Senosi.jpg
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres
The United States along with Saudi Arabia has blamed Tehran for the attacks, despite the Yemeni Houthi rebels claiming responsibility for the drone strikes on 14 September.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Tuesday that the United Nations is "unable to independently corroborate" whether drones used in the September attack on Saudi oil facilities "are of Iranian origin," Reuters reported.

On 14 September, two combat drones attacked two major state-owned oil processing facilities run by Saudi Aramco in Abqaiq and Khurais, suspending the production of some 5.7 million barrels of oil per day.

Although the Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for the strikes, Washington and Riyadh blamed them on Tehran.

Following the airstrikes, the US issued deploying additional forces and military equipment to Saudi Arabia to "help restore deterrence against Iranian aggression", as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote on his Twitter earlier in October.

Comment: See also:

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Propaganda

Jeremy Corbyn is the most smeared politician in British history

Ollie McAninch
The London Economic
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 20:14 UTC
corbyn media smears
© The London Economic
In the UK, one politician has been subject to the longest continuous smear campaign in UK history, and we are all influenced by the continual negative and false headlines about Jeremy Corbyn.

Pressing Problems

The media serves an important if not vital function in a democratic society. But, what if the bulk of the mainstream press becomes controlled by a handful of foreign-based billionaires?

Anyone can see the obvious perils of a state-controlled media, but the dangers of the extreme opposite scenario are not widely understood.

In the UK and the US, we are justified to mock countries like Russia for their consumption of a state-owned media and propaganda, but we need to acknowledge that we have serious problems of our own at the other end of the spectrum.

In the last thirty years, the bulk of the UK and US media has become controlled by just a handful of corporate billionaires. Between them, they control the lion's share of mass-media. Highly biased, normally with a strong political sway, and largely unregulated.
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Briefcase

US, Canada and Mexico sign agreement - again - to replace NAFTA

Sharay Angulo, Andrea Shalal
Reuters
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 20:29 UTC
USMCA signing
Top officials from Canada, Mexico and the United States signed a fresh overhaul of a quarter-century-old trade pact on Tuesday that aims to improve enforcement of worker rights and hold down prices for biologic drugs by eliminating a patent provision.

The signing ceremony in Mexico City launched what may be the final approval effort for U.S. President Donald Trump's three-year quest to revamp the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a deal he has blamed for the loss of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

The event at the National Palace was attended by Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and U.S. White House adviser Jared Kushner.

The result of a rare show of bipartisan and cross-border cooperation in the Trump era of global trade conflicts, the deal was inked the same day as he became the fourth U.S. president in history to face formal impeachment.

"They approved it today of all days," Trump told reporters at the White House, calling it the "silver lining" of impeachment.

The pact quickly got bogged down in more party division, however, as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would likely wait for a vote on the deal until after the impeachment trial - likely kicking ratification into next year. Friction also emerged over how intrusive foreign enforcement of labor rules would be in Mexico.

Comment: Bruce Heyman, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada from 2014 to 2017, told Yahoo Finance:
"It's one of those rare circumstances we've seen now for the last few years, where you have a win-win-win," Heyman said on Yahoo Finance's On the Move. "You have a win for not only the administration, but also Congress. You have a win for American workers, farmers, and the environment. You have a win for Canada and Mexico. And so altogether, I think that this should be a day to celebrate our trading relationship."

He added that while his preference was that the aborted Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would have served as the replacement to NAFTA, the new deal will have a similar effect.

"Lo and behold, the president said the TPP was bad and NAFTA was bad," Heyman said. "But what did we get? 65% to 70% of the exact language in this new USMCA is TPP. They lifted it right out of TPP. The rest is pretty much the structure of NAFTA with the exception of these auto provisions that were put in."


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Handcuffs

Pakistani militant accused of Mumbai attacks faces terror-financing charges - again


RFE/RL
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 20:14 UTC
hafiz saeed
© AFP
Hafiz Saeed (center) speaks to the media outside a court in Lahore in November 2017.
A Pakistani court has indicted Islamist militant Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of deadly 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, on terrorism-financing charges, a government prosecutor and a security official said on December 11.

Muhammad Tahir, an official of the Counter-Terrorism Department of the Punjab police, told RFE/RL that Saeed appeared before the court in Lahore, eastern Pakistan, under strict security.

The charges were read as Saeed was present in the court, prosecutor Abdur Rauf Watto said.

Saeed is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or the Army of the Pure, a militant group blamed by the United States and India for the Mumbai siege in which 160 people, including Americans, were killed.

Washington has long pressured Pakistan to try Saeed, who is designated a terrorist by the United States and the United Nations.

Saeed's lawyer, Imran Gill, said his client pleaded not guilty.

Comment: More on Saeed: Then there's these to consider, from the SOTT archives:

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Light Saber

Lavrov: Check secret Obama cables, which US REFUSED to release for the real story about 2016 'Russian election meddling', and other remarks


RT
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:38 UTC
lavrov trump oval office white house
© Twitter / @realDonaldTrump
'OMG, two Russians in the White House!' Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Donald Trump
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he did not discuss 'election meddling' with his US hosts, but that Moscow is willing to publish communications with the Obama administration showing that nothing happened in 2016.

After meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department, Lavrov also sat down with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. The White House readout of their meeting said that Trump had "warned against any Russian attempts to interfere in United States elections."

Comment: Lavrov had some humorous, but tart words for the hysterical MSM and Adam Schiff in particular, who found it ominous that one state official would be meeting another state official:
Answering a question by RT about that on Tuesday evening, Lavrov called Schiff's position "absurd."

"There was no press at our meeting, American or Russian. If Schiff can describe the ministerial-level contacts normal to any country and my meeting with the president in such a way, then I believe that they will soon accuse our diplomats, just as they have our athletes, of doping and call for criminal punishment," Lavrov told reporters.

One US reporter sought to trap Lavrov with a trick question, asking if Trump gave him any classified information again - in reference to the May 2017 meeting when the US president was accused of doing so.

"I can only find that out based on what you report," Lavrov replied, nonplussed. "We talked about what I openly and literally told you. If you find some secrets there, feel free to make that sensational."

Asked by another reporter about the timing of his visit to Washington - just as the House announced impeachment and the Senate debated another proposal to sanction Russia, the foreign minister shrugged it off, saying that US lawmakers seem to discuss these things every day, so today seemed as good as any.
Lavrov also took some members of Congress to task for blocking the improvement of Russia-US relations:
Lavrov spent Tuesday in meetings with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department and Trump at the Oval Office. At a press conference later in the day, he was asked if Russia saw Trump as a reliable partner.

While Trump sincerely understands the benefits of good relations with Russia for both countries, Lavrov said, "Congress, in my opinion, is doing everything to destroy our relations," continuing the policies of the Obama administration.

He was referring specifically to the proposed new sanctions in the Senate, and the attempt to amend the must-pass NDAA military funding bill with measures against two Russian-built natural gas pipelines in Europe.
Yet despite the best efforts of politicians, the reality-based bottom line continues to prevail:
"Regardless of the sanctions - which obviously hurt everyone - the trade between our two countries has grown during the Trump presidency from $20 billion, to which it was reduced under President Obama, to $27 billion this year," Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, told reporters in Washington, DC on Tuesday, after meeting with US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.


"This is an increase of almost one third, and means new jobs in both countries and an increase in the profits of producers. I think that if we give additional incentives to such cooperation, the results will be even more mutually beneficial," Lavrov added.

While the Russian diplomat framed the trade numbers as an argument against the US blockade, Pompeo reiterated his government's commitment to keeping it in place. Asked what the conditions for lifting the sanctions would be, the secretary of state declined to answer, adding only that the Trump administration regarded the sanctions as "appropriate given US policy, US law and risks that are presented."
Actually Moscow would be just fine with the sanctions continuing. They have spurred a momentous renewal in Russian self-sufficiency.

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X

Former Austrian FM Karin Kneissl: 'The West has violated international law numerous times'


RT
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 07:36 UTC
An anti-NATO demonstration is seen in Belgrade, Serbia
© AFP / Alexa Stankovic
An anti-NATO demonstration is seen in Belgrade, Serbia
The West and the EU, which have violated international law numerous times, must decide whether the same rules exist for all before preaching them to others, former Austrian FM Karin Kneissl said.

A re-evaluation of its approach towards international law - and the double standards it practices regarding it - is long overdue for the West, Kneissl told RT Deutsch. While the West is quick to condemn any 'violations' wherever it feels necessary, it turns a blind eye to its own - like the 2003 invasion of Iraq or the Kosovo war.
There were many times when international law was violated, if I may say so, on the part of the EU, on the part of the West.
She believes the Crimea issue, which is a major obstacle on the path of mending Russia-EU ties, is one example of the West's selective approach to international law. The West was quick to condemn the reunification of the peninsula with Russia, branding it an 'annexation' and preaching high morals - while ignoring its own moves regarding Kosovo. Moscow maintains that all due procedure was in place, and the people of Crimea decided to rejoin Russia during the 2014 referendum, while firmly refusing to discuss its territorial integrity with anybody.

Comment: The political voices of sanity and rationality seem all too few and far between these days. We cheer a little when we hear one rise above the din, however seldom that is.

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Yoda

Gabbard: Congress must investigate why America was lied to about Afghanistan for all these years


RT
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:34 UTC
soldier funeral
© REUTERS / Carlo Allegri
Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard pledged to seek a congressional inquiry into the Afghanistan war after a damning report said US officials have been lying about what has been happening there since the US occupation began.

Gabbard, a military veteran who runs for the Democratic nomination on an anti-war platform, said there has to be "accountability for the lying" and the lives and taxpayer money lost in the longest military operation in the US history.

"The cost of this war and regime change wars and the nation-building that follows is immeasurable in many ways but it's measurable in the ways that have been detailed in that Washington Post report," she told Hill.TV on Tuesday.

Comment: For more on the WaPo report, see:

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Toys

'It's either sanctions or impeachment': Lavrov in trolling mode when asked about timing of his visit to US


RT
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:30 UTC
lavrov
© AFP / Andrew Caballero-Reynolds
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied there was anything odd about the 'timing' of his trip to Washington on a day that impeachment articles against Donald Trump were announced and the Senate debated new Russia sanctions.

Asked about the "timing" by a suspicious reporter following his Oval Office meeting with Trump on Tuesday, Lavrov joked that it was almost impossible to arrive in Washington at a non-controversial time, since something dramatic is always happening.

"It seems to me that, regardless of the day you choose to visit Washington, it will surely coincide with either sanctions or impeachment or something else," he told journalists.
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Vader

Cheney warns US against Middle East pullout as even Washington Post digs up proof his War on Terror was 'UNWINNABLE'

Helen Buyniski
RT
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:14 UTC
Arlington National Cemetery
© Reuters / Joshua Roberts
Arlington National Cemetery
Ultra-hawk former vice president Dick Cheney has reprised his role as head cheerleader for the never-ending war he kicked off nearly 20 years ago. But has the prodigious conflict dragged on too long even for the war-happy MSM?

Cheney warned a rapt Dubai audience that "American disengagement" from the Middle East would play right into the hands of Iran and Russia, serving up "power voids" on a silver platter to any US rival willing to take the initiative. "Russia is always on standby to fill power voids," he insisted on Monday, framing the Trump administration's move to wind down its military presence in northeastern Syria as a national embarrassment sure to set the stage for a resurgence of the Evil Empire coupled with a nuclear Iran.

Citing "some deeply malign forces at work in the broader Middle East, as well as disturbing influences from outside," Cheney warned an audience that included Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum that "inaction can carry even greater risk than action."
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Dollars

Globalism pays: Obamas buy $12 million vacation home in Martha's Vineyard


New York Post
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 16:47 UTC
Obama house Martha's Vineyard
Former President Barack Obama and family are the new owners of an $11.75 million Martha's Vineyard estate — purchased from Boston Celtics owner Wycliffe Grousbeck and his ex-wife, according to a new report.

The former first family shelled out the megabucks this week for the sprawling, 6,892-square-foot abode that sits on 29.3 secluded acres facing the Edgartown Great Pond, the Vineyard Gazette reported.

The luxury digs include seven bedrooms, eight and a half baths and several stone fireplaces — as well as a two-car garage, a detached barn and a pool, according to the Gazette.
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