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Iran's Rouhani makes historic visit to Iraq to 'bypass unjust US sanctions'

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 12 Mar 2019 16:53 UTC
Rouhani Salih
Iraq's President Barham Salih and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
What Iran is billing as President Hassan Rouhani's first "historic" and landmark visit to Iraq, both the United States and Israel are seeing as a provocative move to solidify Iran's influence over Baghdad.

Just prior to arriving in Iraq Monday, Rouhani said on state television that his country is determined to "strengthen its brotherly ties" with neighboring Iraq. It's expected that the the three-day visit will result in a wide range of economic deals in fields such as energy, transport, and agriculture; however, as Israel's Haaretz writes based on a Reuters report:
The visit is a strong message to the United States and its regional allies that Iran still dominates Baghdad, a key arena for rising tension between Washington and Tehran.
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Bad Guys

US is playing both India & Pakistan, in more ways than one

Darius Shahtahmasebi
RT
Tue, 12 Mar 2019 16:36 UTC
USA Pakistan India
© Jung Yeon-je/Pool via REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/Jason Lee
As India and Pakistan iron out a few significant differences after a near brush with each other's militaries, the US has been quietly enacting a trade war strategy against India, a key ally of Washington.

The India-Pakistan conflict has revealed an incredibly ugly side of the Middle East's regional geopolitics. What I mean is, if you thought it was ugly before, it just got a whole lot uglier.

For example, it now transpires that Israel has had a specific stake in the India-Pakistan conflict, as Israeli-made bombs dropped on Pakistani villages during the recent bombardment. Apparently, Israel is a key weapons supplier to the Indian army, supplying a billion dollars of arms each year. If it weren't for veteran journalist Robert Fisk, the Israel-India deal would most likely have been kept in the dark from the mainstream eye for some time to come.
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Pirates

Rouhani urges Pakistan to take decisive action against proxy terrorists


PressTV
Sat, 09 Mar 2019 23:25 UTC
Imran Khan Rouhani
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (R) and Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urges Pakistan to take firm action in dealing with terrorists acting against the Islamic Republic.

In a phone conversation with Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday, the Iranian president said that Tehran and Islamabad should not allow "a bunch of terrorists," who are tools in the hands of other countries, to affect their decades-long cordial ties.

He said the Iranian and Pakistani nations enjoyed "exemplary and historical" relations, calling on senior officials of the two countries to help promote bilateral ties.

"We should not allow any third party to impact Iran-Pakistan relations through their measures," Rouhani said.
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MIB

Trump's simple trick to getting budget past Democrats? Label everything 'confronting Russia'


RT
Tue, 12 Mar 2019 13:51 UTC
Trump's 2020 budget proposal
© Reuters / Kevin LamarquePresident Donald Trump's 2020 budget proposal, March 11, 2019
US President Donald Trump may have found a way to get Democrats in the House to approve all of the State Department funding in his proposed $4.7 trillion budget for 2020: by labeling all sorts of things as "countering Russia."

The budget request, published on Monday, says its State Department funding is "$12.3 billion or 23-percent decrease from the 2019 estimate." Yet the same document also says the US government will allocate $661 million to "counter Russian malign influence" in Europe and Eurasia - nearly double the numbers for fiscal year 2019.

A closer look at some of the numbers contained in the document suggests both of those numbers are subject to accounting logic and fuzzy math. Rebranding some of the programs as "countering Russia" seems mostly intended to get approval from Russiagate-obsessed Democrats who currently control the House of Representatives and, therefore, the purse.
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Stock Up

Best of the Web: Italy is linking up with China's Eurasian megaproject, and there's nothing Washington can do to stop it

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Sun, 10 Mar 2019 13:24 UTC
All roads seem to lead to Rome as Italy expresses its love for China's Belt and Road Initiative
colosseum
© AFPChinese tourists just can’t get enough of Venice, Florence, Rome – and shopping in Milan.
President Xi Jinping is due to arrive in Italy for an official visit on March 22. The top theme of discussion will be the New Silk Road, or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

A day earlier, in Brussels, the EU is to debate a common strategy related to Chinese investments in Europe.


Comment: This, no doubt, was scheduled in response to the bilateral Italy-China summit.


A substantial part of the EU is already linked de facto with BRI. That includes Greece, Portugal, 11 EU nations belonging to the 16+1 group of China plus Central and Eastern Europe and, for all practical purposes, Italy.
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Snakes in Suits

Trump regime's electricity war in Venezuela more serious than first believed

Stephen Lendman
stephenlendman.org
Mon, 11 Mar 2019 13:00 UTC
venezuela dam
On Thursday, Venezuela's Guri dam hydroelectric power plant was cyberattacked at 5:00 PM during the late afternoon rush hour to cause maximum disruption.

Up to 80% of the country was affected, damage done more severe than initially thought. Weeks or months of planning likely preceded what happened - US dark forces almost certainly behind it, considerable expertise needed to pull it off.

On Friday, another cyberattack occurred, followed by a third one on Saturday, affecting parts of the country where power was restored, further complicating resolution of the problem, Maduro saying:

After power was restored to about 70% of the country, "we received another attack, of a cybernetic nature, at midday...that disturbed the reconnection process and knocked out everything that had been achieved until noon," adding:

Comment: According to RT 2 perpetrators of Venezuelan power grid 'sabotage' captured:
Authorities reportedly apprehended the two "material" perpetrators of the vandalism in the midst of interfering with the dam's communications systems on Monday, averting a serious catastrophe, and have turned them over to the courts. They are now looking for the "intellectual authors" of the sabotage, and Maduro has blamed the US for the sustained technological attack on Venezuela's electrical system, which began last week.
This cyber warfare on Iran and now Venezuela make the West's accusations of possible cyber attacks all the more prescient - as usual they were projecting their own nefarious plans on others.

See also: And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: US Regime Change Operation in Venezuela - This Time It's Legit?





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Hammer

2 perpetrators of Venezuelan power grid 'sabotage' captured, according to authorities


RT
Tue, 12 Mar 2019 10:37 UTC
burnt electrical substation
© Reuters / Carlos JassoA resident looks at a burnt electrical substation after a massive blackout in Caracas, Venezuela
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said two would-be saboteurs have been caught "in flagrante delicto" trying to take down the communications system of the Guri hydroelectric dam. Investigation into who sent them is underway.

Authorities reportedly apprehended the two "material" perpetrators of the vandalism in the midst of interfering with the dam's communications systems on Monday, averting a serious catastrophe, and have turned them over to the courts. They are now looking for the "intellectual authors" of the sabotage, and Maduro has blamed the US for the sustained technological attack on Venezuela's electrical system, which began last week.

After a failure at the Guri dam left much of the country in the dark on Thursday night, authorities worked round the clock to fix the problem, managing to restore nearly 70 percent of the electrical system before a cyberattack knocked it out again on Saturday afternoon, Maduro said, adding that one of the generators had been working perfectly and could only have been sabotaged by an infiltrator. The Guri hydroelectric plant produces 80 percent of Venezuela's power.

Comment: See also:

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Quenelle

Afghan diplomat slams Erik Prince, says Afghanis 'don't need missionaries of death'


MENAFN
Tue, 12 Mar 2019 10:19 UTC
Erik Prince
Blackwater founder Erik Prince
Erik Prince, the founder and former CEO of Blackwater, has a plan to privatise the war in Afghanistan, but he faced harsh criticism from an Afghan diplomat who was audience at the Oxford Union in London.

Countering Erike Prince's proposal on privatization on war in Afghanistan through mercenaries of death, Naveed Noormal an Afghan diplomat said the world must know that this is for us (Afghans) to decide our future.

'How do you justify that you the mercenaries of death will ever want the war to concluded given you make money out of it,' the youngest Afghan diplomat said, while hard for Prince to answer it.
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Star of David

Psy-Group: Meet the ex-Mossad agents harassing US students & BDS activists

Kristian Davis Bailey
Electronic Intifada
Tue, 12 Mar 2019 10:20 UTC
Boycott Divest Sanction BDS Palestine protest
© Joe CatronCongress is failing to protect US citizens from espionage and threats aimed at intimidating supporters of Palestinian rights.
In September 2017, Palestine Legal attorneys received nearly 30 emails from students, teachers and even librarians who were justifiably concerned about an anonymous message they had received.

The emails contained threats from outlawbds.com that recipients had been "marked" and "identified as a BDS promoter" and had a "limited window of opportunity to cease and desist or face the consequences of your actions in legal proceedings."

The origin of the attack was a mystery.

Thanks to February exposés in The New Yorker, however, we now know the origin - Psy-Group, a defunct Israeli private intelligence firm.
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Pirates

Sore losers: US sanctions against Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline "under consideration"


RT
Mon, 11 Mar 2019 22:16 UTC
gas pipeline
© Reuters / Axel Schmidt
The US may slap sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will supply Russian gas to Germany via the Baltic Sea, US energy secretary Rick Perry confirmed. The project has driven a wedge between Washington and Berlin.

Asked by reporters on Monday if sanctions were possible, Perry said this was "still under consideration" and that Nord Stream 2 is a "political pipeline" that Washington does not support.

The Trump administration has been pushing Germany to abandon the project in favor of buying more expensive US liquefied natural gas (LNG) and says it is worried about Europe becoming too "dependent" on Russian energy.

Comment: The US can 'lash out' all it likes, Russian gas is cheaper and much more reliable making it the obvious choice for Europe. And the next step is the Turkish Stream, how vast a swathe of Europe does the US think it can sanction before it no longer has anyone to do business with? Also check out SOTT radio's:

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