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Chinese embassy issues apology for comparing Israel's travel ban to Holocaust amid Wuhan virus outbreak


Sputnik
Mon, 03 Feb 2020 16:03 UTC
hong kong facemasks market coronavirus
© Associated Press / Achmad IbrahimPeople visit the open market wearing face masks in hopes to prevent contracting the spreading coronavirus in Hong Kong
Last week, Israel took measures to prevent the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus to the country, by toughening border restrictions, halting flights from the People's Republic, and banning entry from China for everyone except Israeli nationals.

The Chinese Embassy in Israel has apologised for its ambassador's earlier remarks about Israel's travel restrictions from China, when acting envoy Dai Yuming said the country's travel ban reminded him of the Holocaust during World War II.

I feel bad and sad. Because it actually recalled [for] me, the old days, the old stories, that happened in World War II, the Holocaust", the ambassador said during a press conference in Tel Aviv on Sunday, as quoted by The Times of Israel.

Comment: Closing borders until there is progress in treating/preventing further spread of what seems to be shaping up as an epidemic is the responsible thing for a government to do. At the same time, China should be supported as much as possible in countering the threat to its population. Simply raising the castle gates does no good for the world at large.

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Magnify

Split hearings: The Assange extradition case drags on

Binoy Kampmark
Off-Guardian
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 14:13 UTC
Assange
© NA
It is being increasingly larded with heavy twists and turns, a form of state oppression in slow motion, but the Julian Assange extradition case now looks like it may well move into the middle of the year, dragged out, ironically enough, by the prosecution.

Curiously, this is a point that both the prosecutors, fronted by the US imperium, and the WikiLeaks defence team, seem to have found some inadvertent agreement with. This is the biggest case of its kind, and will determine, for an era, how journalism and the publication of nationally classified information is treated. Neither wish to misstep in this regard.

Comment: The US in their desire to punish Assange and stem the tide of exposure and leaks related to its immoral and illegal acts continues to move the goal posts when it comes to policy related to protections afforded to journalists.

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Gold Bar

How much is Tulsi Gabbard's reputation worth?

TheDarkMan
The Duran
Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:01 UTC
tulsi gabbard CNN
Tulsi Gabbard's defamation action against Hillary Clinton, which was filed last month, has provoked a mixed reaction. Die hard Clinton supporters and the very few who don't like the Congresswoman from Hawaii regard her filing the suit with contempt. Everyone else believes it is justified.

We can for the moment ignore the quantum claimed, although Tulsi certainly looked like a million dollars when clad in that white suit she walked into the arena where she would demolish the Presidential aspirations of the odious Kamala Harris in spectacular fashion. The big question is, can she win this action? Unless it is settled before trial in her favour, the answer is probably no, for two reasons.

The first is that, although dating to 1964, New York Times v Sullivan, still apparently the leading case for this type of defamation claim, severely restricts its scope for public figures. The second reason is by no means obvious. This is that while there is such a creature as a libel-proof plaintiff, Hillary Clinton has made herself a virtually libel-proof defendant. This needs some explanation.

Comment: It's likely the Gabbard's lawsuit against Clinton wasn't launched to actually win. It was likely more to stand up to the defamation, send a message and attempt to do some damage control against Hillary's smear. With those goals in mind, it has probably already been at least somewhat successful.

See also:

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Bizarro Earth

"Strange move": Tehran no longer sharing evidence from Ukraine plane crash after audio leak - official


Sputnik
Mon, 03 Feb 2020 08:53 UTC
IRan plane crash
© Sputnik / Iranian Red Crescent Society
Experts from an Iranian commission investigating the 8 January downing of Ukrainian Flight 752 left Ukraine on 24 January, according to local media reports.

"The technical investigation team of the Ukrainian aircraft crash, in a strange move, published the secret audio file of the communications of a pilot of a plane that was flying at the same time as the Ukrainian plane. This action by the Ukrainians has led us to not sharing any more evidence with them", Hassan Rezaifar, the director in charge of accident investigations at Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation said as quoted by the Mehr news agency.

He added that this dialogue was linked to a test conversation of a local airline that was flying at the same time as the Ukrainian flight.

Razai said that Ukraine's actions might impact future cooperation between Kiev and Tehran.

Comment: Who benefits by increasing mistrust between Ukraine and Iran, and possibly scuppering this investigation?

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War Whore

Iraq-raping neocon upset that people keep bringing up the Iraq thing

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Thu, 30 Jan 2020 10:52 UTC
max boot wife unregistered FARA foreign agent
Military historian and neocon Max Boot remains a contributor to Washington Post Opinion and retains a position at the Council on Foreign Relations, despite the FARA allegations against his wife.
There's so much going on in US politics right now that it's hard to know what to write about. With all the shouting about the election, impeachment, Trump's bogus Palestine "deal" and so many other important political issues competing for airtime with Kobe Bryant's death and coronavirus fear porn, it feels like we're already at white noise information saturation, and it's not even February yet. Things are going to get a whole lot noisier next month when the Democratic presidential primaries (and all the establishment manipulations that will necessarily accompany them) get underway, and Julian Assange's extradition trial begins.

One of the many interesting developments that I can pluck out of this cacophony to earn my keep here has been the hysterical response to Bernie Sanders' polling bump from the Bush-era neoconservatives who've been rehabilitated by a weird new alliance with the Democratic Party in the age of Trump. In just the last few days we've seen a deluge of smear pieces against Sanders published in mainstream news outlets by virulent "never-Trump" neocons Bret "Bedbug" Stephens, David "Axis of Evil" Frum, Jennifer "John McCain is too dovish" Rubin, and Max "The Case for American Empire" Boot.

Which has turned out to be a good thing so far, for two reasons. Firstly it has ripped off the mask of woke progressivism that these neoconservative war whores slapped on their faces three years ago to promote mass murder within the Democratic establishment's astroturf "Resistance" to Trump. Secondly it has educated an entire new generation of young voters about the evils of the Iraq invasion, and who helped facilitate it.


Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Palestinians should 'tell us where they want to draw the lines' but illegal Israeli settlements will stay - Kushner


RT
Mon, 03 Feb 2020 10:56 UTC
palestinian demonstrator
© REUTERS/Mohamad TorokmanA demonstrator carries a model of a map with the colors of the Palestinian flag reading "Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Palestine" during a protest against the U.S. President Donald Trump's peace plan in the West Bank January 31, 2020.
US President Donald Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner has said that Palestinians are welcome to suggest changes to borders in the proposed peace plan. However, the existing Israeli settlements are not going anywhere, he added.

"What the Palestinian leadership should do is they should engage [with Trump's peace plan]. If there are things they want to change, if they don't like where we drew the lines, [they should] come and tell us where they want to draw the lines," Kushner told Egyptian journalist Amr Adib in an interview on the El-Hekaya news show on Saturday.


Comment: You'd think he would've taken that into account before writing this sorry excuse for a 'peace plan'. Kushner apparently read something like two dozen books on the Israel-Palestine conflict in order to get the necessary background for the plan. Well, it appears he must have read about two dozen books written by hardcore Zionists and rabbis, because if he knew anything about the actual history of the region, he would've known this 'deal' was a total non-starter. He should have just framed it for what it really is: the "give Israel what it wants and screw Palestine" plan.

For a great commentary on the plan, see Craig Murray's take here: Trump's 'Deal of the Millennium' Shows The "Two State" Solution Was Always a Lie


He stressed that Palestinians should accept the proposed plan as groundwork for further talks if they want to be "realistic."

At the same time, Kushner - one of the chief architects of Trump's peace plan and the president's son-in-law - reiterated that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law and were called by the UN Security Council "a major obstacle" to lasting peace, will remain in place.

One of the objectives of the plan is to "give Israel the land that they're never going to leave anyway," Kushner said.


Comment: At least he acknowledges - tacitly - that Israel is a criminal nation. And you can't expect criminals to act with a shred of human decency. It's also good to know that Israel is above the law. What counts for the rest of us doesn't count for them. We suppose that's one of the perks of being God's 'chosen' nation.

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Mr. Potato

Oops. Des Moines Register abruptly cancels release of Dem poll ahead of Iowa caucuses - Buttigieg left off list

Vincent Barone
New York Post
Sun, 02 Feb 2020 22:38 UTC
Pete Buttigieg campaign Iowa
© Associated PressDemocratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event Saturday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
A glitch affecting a single computer monitor is responsible for the sudden canceling of the CNN/Des Moines Register poll — the pivotal ranking of Iowa's Democratic presidential candidates that had been set to drop Saturday night just two days before the state's caucuses.

The highly anticipated ranking, set to be released at 9 p.m., was spiked at the last minute after the error was discovered by the campaign of candidate Pete Buttigieg, according to a source familiar with how the poll was conducted and produced.

Pollsters found that the computer monitor — one of the "many dozens" used for live telephone surveys — was set with a font size that was too large, the source said.

Comment: RT comments on the wild speculation that followed CNN's axing the poll results:
The decision to cancel publication of the final Iowa poll before the Democratic caucuses has led to incendiary accusations that organizers had no legitimate reason to pull the survey and simply wanted to suppress its results.

A methodological error has been cited as the reason why the highly-anticipated final poll, originally scheduled to be released on the eve of Iowa's Democratic caucuses, would not be made public.

The paper's decision to withhold the survey's results sent social media into a frenzy. Supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders — who led the last Iowa Poll, published on January 10, by three points — theorized that the Register and its polling partners were trying to suppress Sanders' growing lead in the state.



The surge of conspiracies puzzled journalists covering the election, who pointed out that it would be odd to try and sabotage Sanders by omitting Buttigieg's name.


Others noted that polls are designed to factor in possible errors or variables that could affect results, and that it seemed "crazy" to pull the entire survey, as opposed to simply making necessary computational adjustments.
Human error? Maybe. But it's another gaffe to add to CNN's long list.

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Russian Flag

Kremlin points out that Trump's 'deal of the century' contradicts UN's 250+ resolutions censuring Israel


RT
Sun, 02 Feb 2020 21:59 UTC
Israeli Arabs protest trump peace deal
© REUTERS/Ammar AwadIsraeli Arabs take part in a protest against Trump's Middle East peace plan in northern Israel, February 1, 2020
Moscow doubts the viability of the new peace plan for the Middle East recently unveiled by Donald Trump, as it is incompatible with UN decisions on the matter and does not sit well with the Arab world.

"It's plain enough that some of this plan's provisions do not fully correspond to the relevant resolutions by the UN Security Council," presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Rossiya-1 channel.

His remarks appear to be the Kremlin's first official response to the US proposal.

Comment:

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Sherlock

Who was behind US air force E-11A communications aircraft crash in Afghanistan?


South Front
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 12:00 UTC
US Air Force E-11A
On January 27, an E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft of the US Air Force crashed in the Taliban-controlled Deh Yak district of Ghazni province, 150 kilometers from the Afghan capital.

When the incident took place, the crashed plane was initially described as a passenger plane with up to 83 people on board. However, after Taliban-affiliated media accounts released videos from the crash site, the passenger plane version was debunked and the Pentagon confirmed that the incident happened with a US military aircraft.

The crashed E-11A (tail number 11-9358) was one of just four Bombardier Global Express Business jet aircraft purchased by the U.S. Air Force and equipped with the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN).

Comment: See also: Pentagon identifies 2 airmen killed in Afghan crash, denies hostile action, residents doubt Taliban involvement

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Quenelle - Golden

Syrian Army makes significant gains against foreign Islamists in Idlib province: Sit-rep January 27-31, 2020


South Front
Sun, 02 Feb 2020 19:24 UTC
syrian offensive idlib
© SouthFront
The last week of January turned badly for Idlib militants. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda), the Turkish-backed National Front for Liberation and their allies appeared to be unable to contain the offensive of the Syrian Army, lost several key areas and suffered notable casualties.

On January 27, units of the Syrian Army, led by the Tiger Forces, breached the defense of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led forces in southeastern Idlib and by the evening of January 28, they liberated the key town of Maarat al-Numan on the M5 highway. Meanwhile, the 4th Armoured Division and Iranian-backed militias launched an advance in southwestern Aleppo. On January 29, they liberated the town of Khan Tuman, also located on the M5 highway, and a number of smaller villages near Aleppo city.


Comment: While the world is focused on the 'deal of the century', the impeachment sham, and the potential pandemic in China, Syria has been steadily retaking its territory from the Al Qaeda terrorists. Unfortunately, as Turkey is recognizing the writing on the wall with respect to territorial ambitions in Syria, it is now redeploying its head-chopping proxies to up the chaos in Libya.

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