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Trump reportedly walking back on US pledge to invest $200mn in Syria recovery


RT
Sat, 31 Mar 2018 12:34 UTC
Syrian refugees at the Al Zaatari refugee camp
© Muhammad Hamed / Reuters
US President Donald Trump has reportedly pulled over $200 million in funds earmarked for Syria. It comes after he hinted that the US would no longer bother itself with Syrian problems upon achieving its military goals there.

Over $200 million in US assistance for the war-ravaged country, promised by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in February, may never reach the liberated areas of Syria that have been left in ruins by seven years of a lingering conflict, which saw the Russian-supported Syrian government force and the US-backed rebels battling Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Al-Qaeda affiliates.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing US officials, Trump ordered the State Department to freeze the allotment of the funds after he came across a news report on Tillerson's pledge of financial support for Syria.

In his opening remarks at the meeting of the US-led anti-IS international coalition in February, Tillerson announced that Washington would provide "an additional $200 million to further support critical stabilization and early recovery initiatives in liberated areas of Syria."
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Attention

Kuwait calls UN Security Council emergency meeting over deadly Israel-Palestine border clash


RT
Sat, 31 Mar 2018 12:25 UTC
Palestinians run from tear gas fired by Israeli troops
© Mohammed Salem / ReutersPalestinians run from tear gas fired by Israeli troops during clashes, during a tent city protest along the Israel border with Gaza, demanding the right to return to their homeland, east of Gaza City March 30.
The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting concerning 'Great Return' protest clashes along the Israeli-Palestine border. The UN chief has called for an investigation into the violence that reportedly killed 16 Palestinians.

In a statement issued in the wake of the UN Security Council emergency meeting, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that "his thoughts are with the families of the victims" that were killed or injured during the violent clashes at the Gaza border.

"The Secretary-General calls for an independent and transparent investigation into these incidents," the statement, issued by his office, reads.

The meeting was called by Kuwait, which, along with Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and other countries with predominantly Muslim population, voiced their anger over the way the Israeli army retaliated against mass unrest that erupted along the border with Gaza Strip on Friday.

Comment: For more on the situation: Israel suppresses unarmed protesters against siege of Gaza with chemical weapons and live gunfire from snipers: 16 Palestinians killed, thousands injured

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Propaganda

'NY Times' covers up Israel's killing of nonviolent protesters along the Gaza border

James North
Mondoweiss
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Gaza protesters tear gas 3-30-2018
Screenshot from the New York Times website
The NYTimes today continues its biased coverage of Israel/Palestine, with a shocking, one-sided report that tries to cover up how Israel has opened fire on the mass nonviolent Palestinian protest inside the Gaza border.

The dishonesty starts in the first sentence of the Times report, which contends that the protests "descended almost immediately into chaos and bloodshed," with "at least five Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers."

Note the cunning effort to use vagueness to hide the fact that Israel fired live ammunition ("descended. . . into bloodshed"), and "clashes" - insinuations that both sides are somehow responsible for the five deaths.

Comment: This little rogue nation can't do genocide for decades without the help of Western mainstream media propaganda. Western media is ready to support the firing of millions of dollars worth of missiles into Syria over the alleged chemical attack, but won't even report correctly when Israel uses these chemical weapons on innocent civilians, even if it has video evidence. See also:

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Biohazard

SOTT Focus: Embassy Expulsions: How Low Will The Western Order Go? Joe Quinn Speaks With Sputnik


Sott.net
Sat, 31 Mar 2018 10:52 UTC
joe quinn sputnik
The coordinated expulsion of Russian diplomats from over a dozen Western countries earlier this week is a new low in the New Cold War, but some fear that the bottom has yet to be reached.

Earlier reports made it evident that some sort of collective action was being planned in the West, but comparatively few could have imagined that it would lead to the largest-ever expulsion of foreign diplomats in American history, let alone during what is formally regarded as "peacetime". Even more insultingly, this was executed on the unproven pretext that Russia allegedly carried out a chemical weapons attack in the UK, after which its esteemed diplomats were accused of being "spies" and unceremoniously kicked out of their host countries.

As Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted, this was especially painful for Russians because it came right after the tragedy in Kemerevo while the entire country was still in mourning.
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No Entry

Best of the Web: Cold War continuum: The long history of US-Russian expulsion of diplomats

Robert Burns
thestar.com
Fri, 30 Dec 2016 11:36 UTC
russian diplomats expelled
© Joel Landau/Associated PressA bus carrying Soviet diplomats, who were ordered out of the US in 1986, being unloaded at Kennedy International Airport in New York.
The diplomatic history between the United States and Russia has been eventful in the last three decades.

U.S. relations with Moscow during and after the Cold War have been marred by diplomatic dust-ups ranging from espionage scandals to an Olympics boycott.

Current tensions, highlighted by President Barack Obama's decision to impose sanctions and expel 35 Russia diplomats, are exceptional because they stem from U.S. allegations of Russian cyber meddling in the presidential election and because they are playing out during a White House transition. They also coincide with a collapse of military-to-military relations and nervousness in Europe over Russia's annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine.


Comment: That would be Western nervousness over the democratic expression of the will of the Crimean people.


Some of the more significant episodes of the past three decades:

Comment: But they did leave, right?

How many years now has the US been in Afghanistan?...

And of course we see that boycotting or otherwise sabotaging Russian involvement in international sports and cultural events are also "from the Cold war manual of how to deal with Russian influence."

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Newspaper

Furious China ramps up support for Russia on Skripal, calls West's actions "outrageous"

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Sat, 31 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Global Times says West disregards due process, bullies Russia, no longer leads world community, threatens other nations.
Furious chinese dragon
Global Times - unofficial English language organ of China's ruling Communist Party - has published a scorching editorial savaging the West's bullying of Russia over the Skripal case.

The editorial notes the West's disregard of basic courtesies and of due process, and warns that other countries - including implicitly China - may one day find themselves in the same crosshairs for this sort of attack.

The editorial also reminds the Western powers that so far from representing "the world community" they represent only a small part of it.

The editorial is so trenchant and so strong - going so much further than any editorial I have seen in a Chinese newspaper supporting Russia in its conflict with the West, including two previous editorials which Global Times has itself published on the Skripal case - that I am going to set it out in full

Comment: "Common sense" is the last thing in Western leader's mind in creating false flags, peddling the politically motivated fake news, fanning the hysteria and utilizing it for blaming whomever they don't like to justify their agenda. See also:

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Star of David

SOTT Focus: Israel suppresses unarmed protesters against siege of Gaza with chemical weapons and live gunfire from snipers: 16 Palestinians killed, thousands injured

Loveday Morris & Hazem Balousha
MSN
Sat, 31 Mar 2018 03:30 UTC
tear gas protest gaza
© Mohamed Mosleh / Facebook
Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza marched to the edges of their 140-square-mile pen of territory Friday to face off against the Israeli military after calls for demonstrations. But the day turned to bloodshed as the Israeli military used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse the crowds, killing 15 people and injuring hundreds, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.

Spurred by poverty, unemployment and a growing sense of hopelessness, about 17,000 Palestinian demonstrators gathered along several points on the border fence with Israel, according to Israeli estimates. The Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and other Palestinian factions had called for a peaceful ''March of Return'' for Land Day, which marks the Israel government's expropriation of Arab-owned land in 1976. Trucks mounted with loudspeakers had urged Palestinians in recent days to attend demonstrations.


Comment: Along with the 16 people who were shot dead, it's estimated over 1500 people have been injured since these attacks started on the protesters.



Comment: Israel continues to respond to the most basic human rights demands of Palestinians with extremely violent and illegal measures that are wholly disproportionate to what the situations call for. Despite the international community's condemnation of Israel's constant human rights violations, the country continues to act with impunity - and with weapons provided to it by the British and American regimes.

See also:








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Arrow Down

Sad sack Killary suffers massive 90% cut in speaking fee

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 29 Mar 2018 21:36 UTC
Killary
© Aaron Bernstein/ReutersStill beating the dead horse...
After embarrassing herself and creating yet another obstacle for Congressional Democrats to overcome later this year during a disastrous trip to India earlier this month, Hillary Clinton is taking a massive 90% cut to her typical speaking fee for an engagement at one of New Jersey's most prestigious universities.

And no - it's not Princeton.

Clinton made her less-than-triumphant return to the Garden State on Thursday to deliver a talk about American democracy and her role in shaping the the American woman's place in political life, according to NJ.com.

Rutgers will pay Clinton $25,000 from one of its endowments - ensuring that no tuition money will be used for the payment.

Comment: While Killary charges $25k to talk about her role in spreading American imperial destruction, Snooki from Jersey Shore, who is practically a falling down drunk, got $30k from Rutgers to talk about partying. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

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Light Sabers

Mattis says US almost attacked Russians in Syria again but Moscow stepped in

Tom O'Connor
Newsweek
Wed, 28 Mar 2018 16:01 UTC
Syria strike tank
© U.S. Department of DefenseIn this still from footage released by the Defense Department, a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone, also known as Predator B, destroys a Russia-built T-72 tank in eastern Syria, on February 10. The U.S. said the strike was in self-defense as pro-Syrian government forces advanced on Pentagon-backed fighters on the ground.
Defense Secretary James Mattis revealed Tuesday that U.S. forces nearly bombed Russians fighting on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sometime in the past week, but a call with Moscow's own armed forces defused the situation.

Mattis said he believed Russian military officials when they said they were not giving orders to private Russian citizens battling the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and rebel groups as part of a coalition of pro-Syrian government militias. Following an incident last month, in which the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS killed a large number of these pro-Assad fighters, including Russians, Mattis said another clash was recently avoided after Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, contacted Russia's top military leader, Army General Valery Gerasimov, via a deconfliction hotline.

"There were other Russian elements like this moving across the deconfliction line, which is the river, as you know, into an area that we'd agreed with the Russians they could operate in, as they had allowed us to operate basically to the west of the river, up at Tabqa and around Raqqa. We'd agreed for them being slightly east of the river at Deir Ezzor," Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon.

Comment: Things are not looking good in Syria at all, in spite of Trump's reassuring words about leaving the country "very soon". Trump may believe that US forces will be going back home, but the fact is that he is not in charge - much less on military and foreign policy matters. We have seen this situation before: Trump promises one thing and the Pentagon carries on with business as usual, which is exporting chaos. And to think that all it takes is one 'unfortunate accident' between the US and Russia in Syria for the situation to spiral out of control.

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Yoda

How China can unite Eurasia and help avert the West's psychopathic war against it

The Saker
The Saker Blog
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Russian malign activity corrected
Click on image to enlarge!
"That tells you all you need to know about the difference between modern Britain and the government of Vladimir Putin. They make Novichok, we make light sabers. One a hideous weapon that is specifically intended for assassination. The other an implausible theatrical prop with a mysterious buzz. But which of those two weapons is really more effective in the world of today?". (Boris Johnson)
Let's begin this discussion with a few, basic questions.

Question one: does anybody sincerely believe that "Putin" (the collective name for the Russian Mordor) really attempted to kill a man which "Putin" himself had released in the past, who presented no interest for Russia whatsoever who, like Berezovsky, wanted to return back to Russia, and that to do the deed "Putin" used a binary nerve agent?

Question two: does anybody sincerely believe that the British have presented their "allies" (I will be polite here and use that euphemism) with incontrovertible or, at least, very strong evidence that "Putin" indeed did such a thing?

Question three: does anybody sincerely believe that the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats will somehow make Russia more compliant to western demands (for our purposes, it does not matter what demands we are talking about)?

Question four: does anybody sincerely believe that after this latest episode, the tensions will somehow abate or even diminish and that things will get better?

Question five: does anybody sincerely believe that the current sharp rise in tensions between the AngloZionist Empire (aka the "West") does not place the Empire and Russia on collision course which could result in war, probably/possibly nuclear war, maybe not deliberately, but as the result of an escalation of incidents?

Comment: It is a testament to truly how far gone the geopolitical situation is that authors like the Saker are racking their brains to offer possible solutions into the information sphere for averting all-out destruction and horrific mass death. The ideas profferred may not have the desired effect or results, but, at the very least, the author is supporting a creative principle of introducing constructive solutions and maintaining truth in a veritable sea of Big Lies.

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