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Russian influence in UK is bad... except for the $11bn Russian investors have poured into the economy


RT
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:04 UTC
mega yacht
© Global Look Press
The mega yacht "Eclipse" belonging to the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in the port of Gibraltar, United Kingdom, 02 May 2016.
As British politicians and journalists continue to see Russia's nefarious hand around every corner and warn daily of the dangers of Russian influence in the UK, there is one thing about Russia that they still seem to like: money.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with a group of UK business leaders at the Kremlin on Wednesday to review British investments in Russia as well as Russian investments in Britain - and to discuss potential future cooperation.

Putin noted that accumulated British investments in the Russian economy amount to 23.8 percent, while Russian investors have poured more than $11 billion into the British economy. Curiously, Russian 'influence' of the financial variety is still more than welcome in Britain, despite tensions between the two countries.
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Info

Kazakhstan to remain Russia's key ally after Nazarbayev resigns as president, but stays in govt


RT
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 18:51 UTC
Vladimir Putin, Nursultan Nazarbayev

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev (L) at the Caspian Summit in Aktau, Kazakhstan in August 2018.
The resignation of long-time Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev on Tuesday was abrupt and unexpected for some. However, analysts say he's been preparing for this for years and have weighed in on the consequences for the region.

Nazarbayev, 78, has resigned after three decades in power. Before announcing it officially, he called Russian president Vladimir Putin, his closest foreign ally, to deliver the news.

The abrupt resignation raised many eyebrows; however, analysts say that it shouldn't have been much of a surprise.

Comment: See also: Kazakh president Nazarbayev resigns after almost 30 years in power

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Arrow Up

Ivanka Trump leads new campaign for good paying jobs, college education reform

Paul Bedard
Washington Examiner
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:21 UTC
Ivanka Trump
© Yuri Gripas | Reuters
Top presidential advisor, and first daughter, Ivanka Trump is leading the administration's latest bipartisan effort, this time to reform federal college education and job training, even for newly released prison inmates.

With other bipartisan victories already under her belt, Trump this week turned to improving the Higher Education Act to help more poor students and bolster efforts to steer Americans to trades where the jobs are, including apprenticeships.

"We need to modernize our higher education system to make it affordable, flexible, and outcome-oriented so all Americans, young and old, can learn the skills they need to secure and retain good-paying jobs," said Trump who heads the administration's workplace and jobs campaign.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans are working to reauthorize the Higher Education Act and the administration is eager to win bipartisan support for its changes presented by Trump on Monday.

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Star of David

New book claims Trump was initially reluctant to meet with Netanyahu, reveals alleged details of Kushner's 'deal of the century'


Sputnik
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:56 UTC
trump netanyahu
Vicky Ward's "Kushner Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump" entered the light of day only on Tuesday, but it's already made a splash.

When Donald Met Bibi

Investigative journalist Vicky Ward, who wrote a new tell-all book, Kushner Inc., has been effusive about US President Donald Trump's now-special relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that POTUS was initially "reluctant" to meet Bibi.

"He and Bibi had a history. Two alpha males. Trump had thought Bibi didn't treat him with respect", Ward cited Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, as saying.

The two wound up meeting in autumn 2016, when Netanyahu arrived in New York for the UN General Assembly and met with both Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The meeting, she penned, was considered a tremendous success, at least by Trump:

"Netanyahu and Trump each sat on a chair that looked like a throne. Netanyahu spoke for two hours and gave what Bannon called 'a Middle East master class'", Ward wrote.

Comment: See also:

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Russian Flag

Russian Defense Minister Shoigu meets with Assad in Damascus, blames West for hampering Syrian settlement


RT
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 17:44 UTC
shoigu assad
© Russian Defence Ministry / Vadim Savitsky / AFP
The progress in restoring normality in Syria is being hampered and downplayed in the West, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said, during talks with Bashar Assad, to whom he delivered a message from President Putin.

Shoigu and Assad met in Damascus on Tuesday to discuss the joint anti-terrorist efforts as well as issues around Russian humanitarian aid to Syria and the return of refugees, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The two countries have achieved "significant results" in tackling the international terrorist threat since Syria requested Russia's help in 2014, the minister said. "The main thing is that we have managed to preserve the Syrian state and create conditions for the people to return to peaceful life."

However, not everybody is pleased with such a situation, as "the Western states are trying to minimize all the positive developments in Syria and create new obstacles to the conclusion of the crisis." Assad in turn said that some countries only fought terrorism in their statements but in reality supported armed militants and are to blame for the large number of civilian casualties during the conflict.

Comment: Barring any further 'hampering', the offensive on al-Qaeda-occupied Idlib should be coming soon. No doubt that was one item on the agenda. But regardless of what comes, Shoigu is right: the Russian intervention has been a success. For the wider context, see: Analyzing the current vectors of Russian military strategy development.

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Bad Guys

US makes hypocritical claim that Iran is destabilizing region, risking arms race


RFE/RL
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 16:25 UTC
Yleem Poblete

U.S. arms control official Yleem Poblete says Iran's missile program is destabilizing the Middle East.
Iran's missile program is destabilizing the Middle East and raising the risk of a "regional arms race," a senior U.S. arms control official has said.

"Iran's missile program is a key contributor to increased tensions and destabilization in the region, increasing the risk of a regional arms race," Yleem Poblete, assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance, told the UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on March 20.

She added that "Iran must immediately cease activities related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, and halt the proliferation of missiles and missile technology to terror groups and other nonstate actors."

Comment: The United States just doesn't like that Iran is countering their own destabilizing efforts!

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Handcuffs

UN court increases Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic's sentence to life in jail for 'Srebrenica genocide'


RT
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:15 UTC
the hague
© Pool via REUTERS / Peter Dejong
A UN court has increased the sentence of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to life in prison over the mass killings in Srebrenica during the 1990s Bosnian wars.

Karadzic was earlier sentenced to a 40-year term - which likely amounted to a life sentence for the 73-year-old politician in practical terms - for the role he played in the violent breakdown of Yugoslavia. The Wednesday proceedings were held on an appeal by Karadzic, in which the prosecution insisted a life sentence was more appropriate for his crimes.

Karadzic had served as the Serb's leader in Bosnia during the civil war in the 1990s. He was earlier found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity against Bosniak and Croat civilians. These included the 1995 killings in Srebrenica, where thousands of boys and men were killed in what international courts say was genocide carried out by his troops. The court found him guilty on 10 out of 11 charges and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Comment: Previously:

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Eye 1

Big Tech + Big Brother: Privatized social credit score systems coming to US sooner than we think?

Helen Buyniski
RT
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 17:01 UTC
slaves to our devices
© Pexels / Stokpik
Donald Trump Jr. is sounding the alarm, warning that if we do not stop Big Tech from shadow banning conservatives we'll end up in the same boat as China and it'll be our own damn fault. One problem: We're already there.

The same day Trump published his warning - which despite the knee-jerk reactions brought on by his name actually mirrors the experience of most social media users who've ever expressed ideas counter to the mainstream - the Wall Street Journal suggested that insurers could be combing through customers' social media profiles to determine their risk to the company.

Just kidding - insurers have been combing through social media profiles for so long that New York is already regulating the use of this information to supplement more traditional actuarial data. Next time your premiums go up after sharing photos of you skydiving while wrestling with a bear, you'll know why.

"We're going through a period now where most life insurers are exploring using all types of data, not just data they get directly from the customer proactively, but other external sources of data - social media being a big one," McKinsey & Co. senior partner Ari Libarikian told the WSJ. Stripped of management-consultancy jargon - "proactively"? really? - he's talking about insurers as miniature privatized surveillance states, hostile data miners hoping to use your behavioral patterns against you.
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Chess

Oil profits grease Trump administration's move to recognize Israeli annexation of Golan

Finian Cunningham
RT
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 12:06 UTC
netanyahu lindsey graham
© REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman
Washington last week gave another sign that the Trump administration is moving towards declaring the Golan Heights to be Israeli sovereign territory. At the heart of the move are huge anticipated US-Israeli oil profits.

In an annual human rights report, the State Department referred to the Golan Heights as "Israeli-controlled," dropping the international norm of citing the contested area as "Israeli-occupied." The change in wording is significant.

The Golan Plateau is considered to be Syrian territory under international law, according to UN resolutions. Israel has occupied the strategically important area overlooking the Jordan Valley since the 1967 Six Day War. In 1981, Israel formally annexed the land, but the self-declared claim has never been recognized internationally.

Hence, the normative term "Israeli-occupied Golan" in UN terminology, not "Israeli-controlled."
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Attention

A perfect example of how Democratic loyalists fixate on narratives over facts

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 08:44 UTC
tulsi gabbard tweet
Last month I published an essay about the importance of understanding the difference between fact and narrative, and I just want to quickly highlight a perfect illustration of this importance in a controversy arising from a recent Tulsi Gabbard tweet. The tweet reads as follows:
"Short-sighted politicians & media pundits who've spent last 2 years accusing Trump as a Putin puppet have brought us the expensive new Cold War & arms race. How? Because Trump now does everything he can to prove he's not Putin's puppet - even if it brings us closer to nuclear war."
Now, all the facts say that Gabbard's claim that Trump has been bringing the world closer to nuclear war with Russia is indisputably true. It is perhaps possible to dispute the notion that Trump has escalated tensions with Russia to try and "prove he's not Putin's puppet"; maybe an argument could be made that he's simply reckless and violent or that he's particularly beholden to cold war profiteers, or that despite all his rhetoric he just really, really hates Russia for some reason. But it is absolutely not disputable that Trump has greatly escalated tensions with a nuclear superpower by implementing a Nuclear Posture Review with a much more aggressive stance against Russia, withdrawing from the INF treaty, bombing and illegally occupying Syria, arming Ukraine, staging a coup in Venezuela, and many, many other hawkish actions taken against the interests of the Russian Federation which his predecessor Obama never dared to take.


Comment: See also:

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