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The EU finds no evidence that Kaspersky Lab software spies for Russia as claimed by US


RT
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 11:48 UTC
Kaspersky bldg.
© Sputnik/Kirill Kallinikov
A recently published document reveals the European Commission has no evidence that Kaspersky Lab software spies on users on behalf of the Russian government, despite the EU and US labeling it "malicious."

"The Commission is not in possession of any evidence regarding potential issues related to the use of Kaspersky Lab products," reads a letter from an EC representative to a Belgian member of parliament, dated last Friday.

The European Commission was responding to a request by Belgian MEP Gerolf Annemans who asked last month if it knows "of any reason other than certain press articles that justifies the labelling of Kaspersky as 'dangerous' or 'malicious'." Annemans also wanted to know if other programs and devices, other than those of Kaspersky, were also flagged as "malicious."

Reacting to the latest EU letter, Kaspersky said, "this is another evidence not to let the geopolitical agenda fool you with fake news."

Comment: See also:

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Bad Guys

German MEP calls for hardest Brexit divorce possible if Brits extradite Assange to US


RT
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 17:47 UTC
assange
© REUTERS / Ki Price
The UK should get its "stupid Brexit" right now and face the hardest divorce deal possible if it extradites Julian Assange to the US, which is keen to cover up Iraq War crimes, a German MEP said in an emotive speech.

The controversy over Julian Assange's arrest in London seems to have spilled over into the European Parliament this week. Martin Sonneborn, a long-time contributor to Spiegel and ZDF, used his time to tell "a couple of words to the Brits who are likely to remain in the EU until Halloween."
If you extradite Assange to the US, may you get your stupid Brexit right now, and may it be as hard as possible!
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Bad Guys

IDF general vows to 'remove threat' of Syrian S-300s if used against Israel


Sputnik
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 17:33 UTC
IDF soldiers
© AFP 2019 / Jaafar Ashtiyeh
A departing IDF commander has warned that Lebanon will pay the price for Hezbollah's potential cross-border attack in Israel and weighed in on the deliveries of Russian-made S-300 air defence systems to Syria.

When asked how the Russian S-300 missile defence batteries delivered to Syria could affect "Israel's freedom", the outgoing head of the IDF Northern Command, General Yoel Strick, told Ynet News that if the systems are used against Israeli jets, the country's forces would "remove the threat".

"We will introduce advanced weapons systems into the area but Israel has an excellent Air Force. I will not go into detail of our options, but if the Syrians employ Russian S-300s against our planes, and we take them out, it will be seen as a legitimate move on our part. I see that happening though I hope we don't get to that. But of our freedom of movement is threatened we will remove the threat. We know how to do that", he said.


Comment: Israel has largely lost it's victim status image over recent years. The general is probably overestimating Israel's capacity to fool people if he thinks everyone will see an attack as legitimate in a case where Syria is defending against an Israeli strike in the first place! Yes, the United States will go along with it, but it seems no longer the case that everyone will.

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Bomb

Indian PM Modi 'calls Pakistan's bluff', touts India's 'mother of nuclear bombs'


News18.com
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 17:10 UTC
NarendraModi
© Reuters/Kim Hong-JiIndia's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said he did not fall prey to Pakistan's nuclear blackmail, because India has the "mother of nuclear bombs".

Addressing a campaign rally at Surendranagar in Gujarat, Modi was referring to the surgical strikes and air strikes conducted by the country's forces inside Pakistan in response to terrorist attacks in Uri and Pulwama.

"Earlier, terrorists from Pakistan would come here and go back after conducting an attack. Pakistan would threaten us, saying it has the nuclear bomb and will press the button (if India retaliated).

"We have nuclear of nuclear bombs (the mother of nuclear bombs). I decided to tell them, do whatever you want to do (but we will retaliate)," the prime minister said.

"In the past, our people would weep, go around the world saying Pakistan did this, did that....It is now Pakistan's turn to weep.

"Didn't our jawans kill them by entering their houses? Shall we not kill them by entering their houses? Shall we not take revenge for our martyred soldiers?" he asked the large crowd which replied in the positive.

"Today is Mahavir Jayanti, the day to observe peace. But when shall we have peace? Will anyone listen to a weak man making an appeal for peace or to the warning of a strong man who can flex his mussels? Only the peace appeal of a strong man will be respected, not that of a weak person," Modi said.
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Stop

Russia hits Ukraine with export ban on oil and related products in response to sanctions - UPDATE


RT
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 16:25 UTC
oil tank train
© Reuters / Alexander Demianchuk
Russia has banned exports of oil and petroleum products among other goods to Ukraine, as well as blacklisting certain imports from the country in response to Kiev's sanctions against Moscow.

Apart from oil, the expanded restrictions on specific Ukrainian goods include engineering products, consumer goods, and metal products, worth almost US$250 million as of 2018, according to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

The full list of blacklisted imports was published on the government website on Thursday. The embargo, which comes into effect immediately, includes bulldozers, pipes and pipe laying vehicles and other items.

The document also says that the shipments of coal, gasoline and diesel fuel will be restricted starting from June 1. Supplying these will be possible only under special government orders.

The new sanctions also forbid some exports from Ukraine, including clothing, shoes, socks among other goods.

The measure comes in retaliation to Kiev's new sanctions against Moscow, announced on April 10. Ukraine targeted imports of glass containers, formalin, electric equipment for railway infrastructure, and other products from Russia.

Comment: Update (April 19): Ukrtatnafta, one of the leading Ukrainian oil refiners, says this could be catastrophic:
"Now that the suspension of such supplies becomes a reality, it can really lead to the collapse not only in the fuel market, but also in the Ukrainian economy and undermine the national security of the country," Ukrtatnafta said in a statement on Thursday. To stabilize the situation and provide the country with necessary oil products, the company has offered to boost processing the oil stock of the Caspian fields.

Commenting on concerns about the consequences of the embargo, Russian Senator Aleksey Pushkov noted that Kiev has long been willing to "tear apart everything" linked to Russia and purchase goods from its Western allies. He noted that Ukrainian authorities mistakenly thought that Russia wouldn't respond to its "provocations" and warned that its "sanctions reserve is not exhausted."
Maybe the Ukrainian leadership should have thought of that a bit earlier.

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Smiley

BuzzFeed looks for Mueller report 'hoaxes & spin,' gets served with its own conspiracy theories


RT
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 17:00 UTC
buzzfeed
© Reuters / Lucas Jackson
BuzzFeed says it's watching out for fake news and partisan spin surrounding Robert Mueller's 'Russiagate' report. Readers sent in prime examples - BuzzFeed's own 'scoops' on the Steele dossier and Michael Cohen.

BuzzFeed reporter Jane Lytvynenko tweeted to announce the news of the hunt almost immediately after the report's release on Thursday, encouraging readers to say something if they see something that would constitute "disinformation, hoaxes, conspiracies and hyperpartisan spin surrounding the Mueller report."

Indeed, BuzzFeed should know something about hyperpartisan conspiracies as, after all, it published the Steele dossier - a DNC-commissioned paper written by ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele - which included salacious allegations against US President Donald Trump and served to give a massive push to 'Russiagate' hysteria. Steele recently admitted, over two years after the report's damage had been done, he had used unverified sources from the internet in its creation.

It was also BuzzFeed that reported earlier this year that Trump directly instructed his attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his plans to build a Trump Tower property in Moscow. That 'scoop' was bad enough in that Mueller himself - who is not known as a Trump sympathizer to say the least - denied it.

Comment: See also:

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Broom

USAID to lay off 85% of local employees on projects in Palestine

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Fri, 19 Apr 2019 16:54 UTC
USAID
© Sputnik
In the latest blow dealt by the American government to the Palestinians, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was responsible for millions of dollars of aid projects in the occupied Palestinian territory, will be laying off some 85% of its local staff in the coming weeks.

A Thursday report from NPR citing U.S. government communications speculated that the Trump administration ordered the job cuts as part of the lead up to unveiling its peace plan, which is set to be released in the coming months.

USAID is expected to reduce its number of local staff from 100 employees to 14, NPR said, quoting an anonymous USAID worker who said they had "begun to take steps to reduce our staffing footprint."

NPR noted that the majority of the staff to be laid off are Palestinians from the occupied territories and Palestinian citizens of Israel, while a smaller number are Jewish Israelis.
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Newspaper

New Jeffrey Epstein accuser goes public, defamation lawsuit filed against Dershowitz

Julie K Brown
Miami Herald
Tue, 16 Apr 2019 14:12 UTC
Jeffrey Epstein
© Uma Sanghvi / The Palm Beach Post
A new victim has gone public in the Jeffrey Epstein case, filing a sworn affidavit in federal court in New York Tuesday, saying that she was sexually assaulted and her then-15-year-old sister molested by Epstein and his companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 1996.

Maria Farmer, then 26, claims that she was employed by Epstein, a multimillionaire financier who lived in a vast mansion on New York's Upper East Side, and that she frequently saw "school-age girls'' wearing uniforms come into the mansion and go upstairs. She was told that the girls were auditioning for modeling work, according to her affidavit.

Then an art student in New York, Farmer said she reported her assault to New York police and the FBI in 1996. FBI documents released April 1 make a reference to Farmer having been interviewed in 2006 or 2007. However, Farmer, now 49, said the FBI did not take any action against Epstein and Maxwell.

Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein is a free man, despite sexually abusing dozens of underage girls according to police and prosecutors. His victims have never had a voice, until now. BY EMILY MICHOT | JULIE K. BROWN
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Handcuffs

Ecuador judge orders Assange-connected ex-minister to be detained


Reuters
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 16:57 UTC
Ricardo Patino
© REUTERS/Guillermo GranjaEcuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino addresses a news conference about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Quito, Feb. 5, 2016.
A judge in Ecuador has ordered former foreign minister Ricardo Patino be held in pre-trial detention on a so-called instigation charge, the attorney general's office said on Thursday, but the ex-official's whereabouts are unknown.

The administration of President Lenin Moreno has said that Patino, who served as foreign minister under the previous government of President Rafael Correa, is connected to WikiLeaks.

Moreno stripped WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of his diplomatic asylum last week. Assange was given refuge in the London embassy in 2012 by Correa, but Moreno has accused WikiLeaks and Assange of violating his privacy by publishing private family photographs.

WikiLeaks has denied those allegations, arguing that Moreno was attempting to deflect attention from corruption allegations against him.

Patino, an economist who called on supporters to carry out "combative resistance" against Moreno in October 2018, fled the country by road on Wednesday, the attorney general's office said in a statement.
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MIB

Danger: US Intelligence is institutionally politicized in favor of the Democrats

Bill Gertz
Washington Free Beacon
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 15:40 UTC
John Brennan CIA
© Jim Watson/Agence France-Press/Getty ImagesDirector of Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan takes questions from reporters during a press conference at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, December 11, 2014.
The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have become bastions of political liberals and the pro-Democratic Party views of intelligence personnel have increased under President Donald Trump, according to a journal article by a former CIA analyst.

John Gentry, who spent 12 years as a CIA analyst, criticized former senior intelligence leaders, including CIA Director John Brenan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former deputy CIA director Michael Morell, along with former analyst Paul Pillar, for breaking decades-long prohibitions of publicly airing their liberal political views in attacking Trump.

The institutional bias outlined in a lengthy article in the quarterly International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence risks undermining the role of intelligence in support of government leaders charged with making policy decisions.

Comment: The liberal rot runs deep. It will take a generation to clear it out.

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