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Quenelle

Hypocrites: Critics of UK tanker seizure should 'tell Britain the same thing' - Iran


Sputnik
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 21:35 UTC
boat tanker gun
© REUTERS / Iran, Mizan News Agency/WANA
On Monday, amid reports that the UK would be scaling up its presence in the Gulf with a nuclear sub and Royal Marines following Iran's seizure of a British-flagged tanker, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt confirmed that London was looking to put together a "European-led maritime protection mission" to ensure "safe passage" through the body of water.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' seizure of Britain's Stena Impero tanker on Friday was a perfectly "legal measure" aimed at ensuring regional security, government spokesman Ali Rabiei said on Monday, AFP has reported.

"To all the countries that are calling on Iran to release the tanker, we ask them to tell Britain the same thing," Rabiei said, recalling the July 4 incident in which UK Royal Marines boarded a Panamanian-flagged tanker laden with Iranian oil.

Comment: See also:


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Chess

China slams US for escalating South China Sea tensions & 'slandering' Chinese conduct


RT
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 10:01 UTC
South China Sea China navy submarine
© Reuters / China Stringer NetworkA nuclear-powered submarine of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy in the South China Sea, April 12, 2018.
Recent American criticisms of Chinese conduct in the South China Sea amount to "slander," the country's foreign ministry has said, insisting US interference only complicates the dispute over the highly-trafficked sealane.

The contested waters have long been a source of conflict for Beijing and its neighbors, particularly over rights to drill for the area's rich offshore gas and oil deposits. The United States has repeatedly called on China to abandon its claims to the territory and accuses the country of threatening the freedom of shipping in the area.

Following a flare-up of tension between China and Vietnam over the territory, the US State Department condemned what it called China's "repeated provocative actions" in a statement on Saturday, and called on Beijing to "cease its bullying behavior." The statement followed similar remarks on Friday by US National Security Advisor John Bolton.
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Bad Guys

UK begs EU for 'protection in Persian Gulf' as they escalate tensions with Iran


RT
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 10:01 UTC
England navy HMS Montrose
© Royal Navy via Reuters / Joel RouseRoyal Navy frigate HMS Montrose, currently in the Persian Gulf
The once-mighty sea power Britain has called for an "European-led maritime protection" mission in the Persian Gulf, after London and Tehran escalated tensions by seizing each other's oil tankers.

Speaking before the Parliament on Monday, UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called for a multinational fleet to "support safe passage of crew and cargo" in and out of the Gulf. He offered no details on how many ships and which countries would be involved, or how the mission would relate to Operation Sentinel, announced by US Central Command last week with the exact same objective.

Hunt's announcement followed Iran's seizure of a British-flagged oil tanker Stena Imperoin the Strait of Hormuz citing violation of maritime traffic rules, two weeks after UK forces confiscated a tanker carrying Iranian oil off Gibraltar.

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Snakes in Suits

Our ruling elites have no idea how much we want to see them all in prison jumpsuits

Charles Hugh Smith
of two minds
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
prison jumpsuits
Even the most distracted, fragmented tribe of the peasantry eventually notices that they're not in the top 1%, or the top 0.1%.

Let's posit that America will confront a Great Crisis in the next decade. This is the presumption of The Fourth Turning, a 4-generational cycle of 80 years that correlates rather neatly with the Great Crises of the past: 1781 (Revolutionary War, constitutional crisis); 1861 (Civil War) and 1941 (World War II, global war).

What will be the next Great Crisis? Some anticipate another great-power war, others foresee another civil war, still others reckon a military coup is likely, and some view a collapse of the economy and U.S. dollar as inevitable.

While anything's possible, I propose a novel crisis unlike any in the past, a Moral Crisis in which the people challenge the power of the nation's corrupt Ruling Elites: not just elected officials, but the technocrats of the Deep State, the vested interests pillaging the nation, the New Overlords of Big Tech, the financier New Nobility, the Corporate Media and the self-serving state/corporate technocrat Nomenklatura who do the dirty work of the Ruling Elites.

Divide-and-Conquer has been the absurdly easy strategy of the Ruling Elites to fragment and disempower the citizenry. It's child's play for the Ruling Elites to ceaselessly promote a baker's dozen of divisive issues via the corporate media, and then watch the resulting conflicts split the citizenry into fragmented camps which subdivide further with every new toxic injection.
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Stop

Ghislaine Maxwell suddenly torpedoes her oceanic non-profit in wake of scandal surrounding close associate Jeffrey Epstein

Áine Cain
Business Insider
Thu, 18 Jul 2019 10:42 UTC
Ghislaine Maxwell,
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein
Embattled socialite Ghislaine Maxwell seemingly sank her own oceanic conservancy group less than a week after her longtime associate Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell has been accused of acting as the convicted sexual predator's accomplice, recruiting underage girls and abusing them alongside Epstein — allegations that she publicly denied in 2015. The British native is the youngest child of late media mogul Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991 while cruising on the "Lady Ghislaine," a yacht named for his daughter. For years, she was also vocal in the press about her passion for oceanic conservancy.

Now her venture, the TerraMar Project, appears to have been swept off by the tide of scrutiny and criticism that sprung up in the wake of Epstein's arrest.

The nonprofit's stated intent, according to tax documents published on ProPublica and reviewed by Business Insider, was "to create a global ocean community to give a voice to the least protected, most ignored part of our planet — the high seas." Business Insider's emails to Maxwell's legal representatives were not returned.

Comment: Ghislaine Maxwell probably needs the time to devote to doing some damage control regrading her reputation vis a vis Jeffrey Epstein's trial. But more than this, she is likely trying to figure out how to stay out of jail if the stories about her procuring children and young women for Epstein's network are true. Lastly, since it seems likely that Maxwell's TerraMar Project was a cover for some other, less altruistic purposes, (since the organization has ties to the notoriously corrupt Clinton Global Initiative), Maxwell likely wants as little attention paid to that venture as possible.

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Penis Pump

Nice try, wrong missile: US botches propaganda video accusing Russia of INF violation


RT
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 20:14 UTC
cruise missile
© REUTERS/Maxim ShemetovRussian defense and foreign ministry officials brief reporters on the SSC-8/9M729 cruise missile system, Moscow, January 23, 2019.
The US mission to NATO sought to blame Russia for the expiration of an arms control treaty by posting a Twitter cartoon claiming Moscow had developed a forbidden missile - but didn't help its own argument by showing the wrong one.

In a surprisingly poor-quality video, narrated by a female AI voice, the US accused Russia of developing a missile that was banned under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and said there was still time for Moscow to "come back into full and verifiable compliance" before the deal expires on August 2.

Not only is this not true, but the missile system shown in the cartoon was the perfectly legal and completely different Iskander-M.

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Play

SOTT Focus: New MH17 Doc Reveals Evidence Tampering, Dutch Cover-up of Forged Recordings, Hidden Ukrainian Radar Records

John Helmer
Dances with Bears
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 16:47 UTC
mahathir
mh17 lies
A new documentary film by Max van der Werff, the leading independent investigator of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 disaster, has revealed breakthrough evidence of tampering and forging of prosecution materials; suppression of Ukrainian Air Force radar tapes; and lying by the Dutch, Ukrainian, US and Australian governments. An attempt by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to take possession of the black boxes of the downed aircraft is also revealed by a Malaysian National Security Council official for the first time.

The sources of the breakthrough are Malaysian — Prime Minister of Malaysia Mohamad Mahathir; Colonel Mohamad Sakri, the officer in charge of the MH17 investigation for the Prime Minister's Department and Malaysia's National Security Council following the crash on July 17, 2014; and a forensic analysis by Malaysia's OG IT Forensic Services of Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU) telephone tapes which Dutch prosecutors have announced as genuine.

The 298 casualties of MH17 included 192 Dutch; 44 Malaysians; 27 Australians; 15 Indonesians. The nationality counts vary because the airline manifest does not identify dual nationals of Australia, the UK, and the US.

The new film throws the full weight of the Malaysian Government, one of the five members of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), against the published findings and the recent indictment of Russian suspects reported by the Dutch officials in charge of the JIT; in addition to Malaysia and The Netherlands, the members of the JIT are Australia, Ukraine and Belgium. Malaysia's exclusion from the JIT at the outset, and Belgium's inclusion (4 Belgian nationals were listed on the MH17 passenger manifest), have never been explained.
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Binoculars

Japan's neighbors will closely observe PM Abe's policy after election

Tomoyuki Tachikawa, Dahee Kim
Kyodo News
Sat, 20 Jul 2019 18:00 UTC
Shinzo Abe
© UnknownJapanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
Japan's major neighbors are closely watching how the result of Sunday's upper house election will affect the regional situation, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is still believed to stick to what they regard as hawkish policies.

South Korea, whose ties with Japan have sharply deteriorated over wartime labor disputes and other issues, expects that Abe may shift his hardline stance against Seoul if his Liberal Democratic Party wins the election with the support of conservative voters.

But some South Korean pundits say Tokyo is unlikely to work to improve relations with Seoul even after the election, as Abe is not inclined to get along with President Moon Jae in, who has pursued leftwing liberal policies centering on social equality and egalitarianism.

China, meanwhile, has been eager to boost ties with Tokyo amid trade and security spats with the United States, but it is vigilant about the possibility that Abe will push ahead with amending Japan's pacifist Constitution if his LDP scores a landslide victory.

"Although Abe is certain to become Japan's longest-serving prime minister, he has failed to make major achievements. Territorial negotiations with Russia have been stalled and a Japan-North Korea summit has yet to be realized," a diplomat of an Asian nation said.

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Attention

'Anti-Trump' CNN presstitute defends Trump persecuting Assange

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Fri, 19 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Jim Acosta
© ABC NewsCNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta
In the endless brain fart cyclone that is the Trump era, CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta has made a name for himself posing as a martyr of the free press. While US mass media have made a theatrical WWE performance of Trump's occasional mean words toward Acosta under the banner of defending press freedoms, it has been pathetically sympathetic to this administration's attempt to actually prosecute an actual journalist, Julian Assange, under the Espionage Act.

It is about time, then, that someone highlighted the irony and hypocrisy of this ridiculous melodrama by confronting Acosta on these contradictions directly. Thanks to independent video journalist Matt Orfalea, we now have footage of one such necessary confrontation taking place.


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Handcuffs

Iran busts 17 spies linked to CIA; some will receive the death penalty


RT
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 07:16 UTC
Alleged CIA spies in Iran
© Twitter/Tasmin News AgencyAlleged CIA spies
Iranian secret services uncovered a 17-member spy ring working against the country, according to state-affiliated media. Some of the agents have been given capital punishment. All the suspects in question were arrested by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

They were working as private contractors "in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber areas... where they collected classified information," the report said.

Some of the suspected agents were allegedly recruited by CIA officers while applying for US visas. Others were approached on the sidelines of scientific events in European, African, and Asian countries. Tehran did not say when the spy ring was exposed, but announced the arrests were made throughout the last Iranian calendar year, which ended in March 2019.

It is reported that the suspects were equipped with top-notch communication gear which they used to hand over intelligence to their American handlers. It included, among other items, containers disguised as stones. Agents were trained to retrieve these from urban or mountainous areas using complex procedures. Using the containers, the CIA allegedly provided its spies with encrypted communications and fake IDs, local media reports, citing officials.

Washington brushed off the accusation, with Secretary of State - and former CIA Director - Mike Pompeo saying Iran has "history of lying." Later in the day, he told Fox News: "I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian assertion about actions that they've taken."

Comment: RT reports: Iranian media releases photos of 'captured spies'
Photos purporting to show several of the 17 alleged captured CIA-linked operatives have begun circulating in the Iranian media.

Iran announced that it had broken up an alleged CIA spy ring in June but officials have yet to clarify whether Monday's announcement is in fact linked. The CIA has yet to comment.

The arrests reportedly took place in March 2019 but have only been made public as of Monday, with photos purporting to show several of the arrestees shared online by state-affiliated media. The photos seem to be personal or family photos rather than images of people in detention.

In addition, an Iranian documentary which aired on state television on Monday purported to show a CIA officer recruiting an Iranian man while the pair were in the UAE.
RT: Trump: Iran's CIA spy claim is 'totally false'
US President Donald Trump has denied reports that over a dozen CIA operatives were captured in Iran, calling it 'just more lies and propaganda' on Tehran's part.

The allegation is a desperate measure by a "badly failing" government with a "dead" economy, Trump tweeted on Monday.

RT reports: Pompeo shrugs off Iran claim of CIA spy ring
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has dismissed Tehran's claim that it has captured 17 spies working for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), suggesting that the assertion is pure fabrication.


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