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Ex-Iraqi PM issues a warning of 'strong response' if Israel is proven to be behind recent airstrikes


Sputnik
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 01:23 UTC
Nouri al-Maliki
© AP/Khalid Mohammed
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is warning of a "strong response" if it is proven that Israel was behind a recent series of strikes targeting training camps and arms depots.

In statements issued by his office on Friday, he also said that if Israel continues to target Iraq, the country "will transform into a battle arena that drags in multiple countries, including Iran."

Al-Maliki, who was Iraqi prime minister for eight years and now heads a Shiite bloc in parliament, made his comments hours after US officials told the New York Times that Israel was responsible for the bombing on July 19 strike on a military base north of Baghdad. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

One of the officials said Israeli strike was launched from inside Iraq, though he did not provide further details. He said it destroyed a cache of guided missiles with a range of 200 kilometres (125 miles). The attacked base was affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, according to the official.

Comment: See also:

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Pharoah

It's Great to be a King!

James Corbett
Corbett Report
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 19:28 UTC
Thai king Rama X
© Corbett Report
Did you catch the video that made the rounds recently showing Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn (reigning title: Phrabat Somdet Phra Vajira Klao Chao Yu Hua, but we'll just call him by the simpler title Rama X) promoting his girlfriend to "Royal Noble Consort"? You know, the video where Major-General Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi lay completely prostrate at the monarch's feet, gratefully accepting royal baubles and trinkets from her master like an obedient dog?

No no no, not the video from this past May where he promoted his top bodyguard to be his new queen in a ceremony that involved her lying completely prostrate at the monarch's feet, gratefully accepting royal baubles and trinkets from her master like an obedient dog. That's an entirely different video!

But either way, I think we can all agree that King Rama X is a super cool dude and that it's a great thing that he and his fourth wife and his official mistress are the rulers of Thailand. Long live the King!

Oh, and by the way, apropos of nothing in particular — just as an aside, really — did you know that it's illegal to insult the King of Thailand? I mean, it's not just frowned upon, but actually literally illegal? Well, it is!

That's right, according to Section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code, "Whoever, defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to fifteen years."
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Magnify

It's past time to expose intelligence asset Stefan Halper's election interference

Brian Cates
The Epoch Times
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 18:24 UTC
michael Flynn Sydney Powell
© Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images
Michael Flynn and his lawyer Sidney Powell leave the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington on June 24, 2019.
Shortly after Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn joined the presidential campaign of Donald Trump in February 2016, someone began contacting reporters to spin a tale about having seen Flynn being courted by a female Russian spy.

This person alleged to several media reporters that he suspected Flynn had been successfully compromised by the Putin government.

Svetlana Lokhova, a lecturer and author at Cambridge who specializes in Soviet intelligence studies, ended up being dragged against her will into one of the biggest political scandals of all time.

The person responsible for dragging Lokhova into the middle of this scandal is professor Stefan Halper, once a fellow academic at Cambridge, now retired.

Comment: What better signature of being an intelligence asset than being unperturbed at destroying an innocent bystander's life in pursuit of one's own goals? More on the excrable Mr. Halper:

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NPC

Tusk doesn't want Russia back in G7, wants to invite Ukraine instead


RT
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 18:37 UTC
tusk
© Reuters/ Christian Hartmann
Ahead of the meeting of the world's leading G7 countries, Donald Trump floated the idea of incorporating Russia back into the group. But European Council president Donald Tusk had a different thought - Ukraine as a guest.

Never a fan of Moscow, Tusk criticized Trump's support for reinstating Russia into the club - he'd pragmatically said that having Russia in would be useful - since the greatest number of items discussed at G7 meetings actually involve Russia.

"One year ago, in Canada, President Trump suggested reinviting Russia to G7, stating openly that Crimea's annexation by Russia was partially justified. And that we should accept this fact. Under no condition can we agree with this logic," snapped Tusk. Instead, he promised to convince his partners to invite Ukraine as a guest to the next G7 meeting, stressing that would be a "better" option. Tusk guaranteed that that country's new President, Volodymyr Zelensky, would be "very interested" in such an invitation.


Comment: Trump was right. Plain and simple.


Tusk's logic was based on the fact that Russia does not 'deserve' politically to be readmitted to the Group of Seven, also because of the incident in the Azov Sea, when three Ukrainian Navy ships violated Russian territorial waters and provoked an hours-long standoff.


Comment: Tusk could use a little reflection time. Maybe this will help:



How this made Kiev more suitable to be invited to the club of leading economies, even as a guest, Tusk did not explain. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2018 Ukraine was ranked as Europe's poorest country and took 162nd position among 227 world nations in terms of GDP per capita.
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Russian Flag

Moscow vows reciprocal response after US test of previously banned missile. Here's what it could be


RT
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 18:32 UTC
Iskander
© RIA Novosti / Sergey Pivovarov; Sergey Orlov
Iskander missile launchers on the move and during military drills
Russia says it won't sit idle after the US tested a missile that was banned by the INF. As a response, Moscow has an ace up its sleeves and it won't need to enter into a Cold War-style arms race, military analysts have told RT.

No longer bound by the milestone Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) - which the US unilaterally scrapped - Washington recently tested a ground-launched version of its Tomahawk cruise missile.

On Friday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said he is not up for an all-out arms race, but ordered the military to evaluate and find reciprocal answers. So, what is Russia likely to have in store to counter the emerging threat?

Viktor Murakhovsky, a military analyst and retired army officer, reminds us that there was an array of weapons whose capabilities were deliberately curtailed to meet the requirements of the INF treaty, which banned missiles with ranges of 500-1,000km (short to medium-range) and 1,000-5,500km (intermediate range).

"[Russia's] existing Iskander system, which has been in use with the rocket brigades of our Ground Troops, had a range limitation [under the treaty]," he told RT. Its range "was artificially reduced to under 500km - to 480km, to be precise - and now, when the shackles are gone, nothing prevents our weapons designers from reviving their technological groundwork."
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Rocket

North Korea conducts 7th missile launch since July, Trump's response: "He likes testing missiles"

Hunter Lovell
Washington Examiner
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 18:21 UTC
kim trump
© Reuters / Kevin Lamarque
President Trump struck an upbeat, yet cautious tone about Kim Jong Un after North Korea's latest missile launch early Saturday morning local time.

"Kim Jong Un has been pretty straight with me, I think, and we're going to see what's going on, we're going to see what's happening," Trump said to reporters in Washington, D.C., before boarding Air Force One for the G-7 summit in France Friday night.

"He likes testing missiles, but we never restricted short-range missiles. We'll see what happens," he added.

Trump's remarks came just hours after North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast into the Sea of Japan, the seventh such missile testing since Trump and Kim met in the Demilitarized Zone last month for discussions about restarting negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington.

Kim had expressed frustration that the U.S. continued to conduct joint military exercises with South Korea, which North Korea described as a "rehearsal for war." The countries ended their military drills this week, but North Korea continued to fire ballistic missiles into the sea, which South Korean officials said caused "grave concern."
kim korea missiles

'Did you see that thing go?!'

Comment: Trump doesn't get the credit he deserves for being pretty damn funny. "He likes testing missiles." How do you respond to that? And whereas super-hawks (and Trump when he's in pre-deal-making mode) would moan and cry about the supreme evil of Kim's giant missiles, Trump deflates the hysteria with four words. Now, if only he would do something about implementing the U.S.'s side of the deal he worked out with Kim...

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Георгиевская ленточка

Russian ambassador closes out turbulent term in UK


RT
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 18:16 UTC
Alexander Yakovenko russia ambassador UK
© Reuters / Henry Nicholls / File
Alexander Yakovenko holds a press conference in 2018
Russia's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Alexander Yakovenko, has returned to Moscow after his term ended. He had striven to maintain normal diplomatic relations with the UK through Salisbury and other crises.

The Russian Embassy in London announced the diplomat's departure on Saturday, and said Minister-Counsellor Ivan Volodin will act as chargé d'affaires in the meantime.

Yakovenko took his post in London in 2011, when relations between the Kremlin and Downing Street were relatively stable. Two years beforehand, Foreign Secretary David Miliband had visited Moscow and described the relationship as one of "respectful disagreement."

Comment: Alexander Yakovenko deserves sainthood for steering Russia-UK relations through all the nonsense the West has thrown at Moscow. Let's hope his next assignment is less taxing and more rewarding. He deserves it.

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Hourglass

Gabbard presidential campaign joins voices raising concerns over DNC rigging debate-qualifying criteria


RT
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 18:06 UTC
gabbard debate
© Paul Sancya / Associated Press
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard speaks in Detroit on July 31, 2019 during the second of two Democratic presidential primary debates hosted by CNN.
Tulsi Gabbard's presidential campaign has called on the DNC to ensure fairness by updating its approved debate-qualifying polls, raising concerns about a lack of transparency and the consistency of the required criteria.

In order to qualify for the next round of Democratic presidential debates in September, the Democratic National Committee's rules require all candidates to have 130,000 unique donors and to have reached 2 percent in four approved polls. Representative Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has surpassed 2 percent in 26 national and state polls - including two polls by the biggest newspapers in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina - but only two of these are DNC-certified. Strangely, the DNC has not released the criteria it used to select the sixteen polling organizations they have certified.

"Without these exclusions, Gabbard would have already qualified," her campaign says. Gabbard's team also point out that there have only been four certified polls released since the second round of Democratic debates, whereas there were 14 released after the first debate.

Comment:

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Propaganda

The Epoch Times hits back at NBC Facebook stories

Stephen Gregory
The Epoch Times
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 17:44 UTC
The epoch times newspapers
© The Epoch Times
We were surprised to learn from media reports that Facebook has blocked The Epoch Times ability to advertise for print-subscriptions. This appears to be a response to NBC News' reporting on us.

Despite a vast "dark money" political conspiracy alleged in NBC News reporting, the reality is much simpler.

The Epoch Times has been running a very popular digital marketing campaign for our print-newspaper subscriptions. In the video advertisements, we discuss The Epoch Times' editorial and feature content and encourage people to subscribe to our print newspaper.

Facebook has specific rules for advertising that require everyone — including publishers like The Epoch Times — to label content as political advertising if it touches on social issues or politics, something some news content naturally does. Many other media run advertising campaigns for their content and products in the same category on Facebook.
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Pirates

In the US, crime does pay: CNN hires disgraced ex-FBI director Andrew McCabe


RT
Sat, 24 Aug 2019 17:55 UTC
Andrew McCabe
© Reuters/Eric Thayer/File
Fired FBI official Andrew McCabe, coming soon to CNN
What does one get for leaking to the media, lying to federal investigators about it, and allegedly participating in a plot to derail an American election? If you answered jail time, too bad. The correct answer is a job at CNN.

That is at least the case for Andrew McCabe, the former acting FBI director and one of the people deeply involved in the 'Trump-Russia' investigation before it was taken over by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. CNN announced on Friday it was hiring McCabe as a contributor.

Just a day earlier, however, the network was in full meltdown over former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders getting hired by Fox News, and her predecessor Sean Spicer appearing on Dancing With the Stars - arguing that both were liars who did not deserve gainful employment.

Comment: Perfect match: Leakin', lyin', fired former G-man Andy McCabe hired by CNN

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