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Radar

China helps Pakistani missile program with advanced tracking system


RT
Thu, 22 Mar 2018 16:16 UTC
China helps Pakistani missile program
© Faisal Mahmood / Reuters
China has reportedly provided Pakistan with a highly advanced optical tracking system, which will be a boon to its missile program. The move is an apparent poke in the eye of India, which is becoming China's main regional rival.

The delivery of the system was reported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in a statement, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Thursday. It was a rare occasion for Beijing to publicly confirm the export of sensitive military equipment that may stir controversy in other nations. The deal, the statement said, was the first of its kind supplied by China to a foreign buyer.

The system, which was installed by Chinese specialists at an unnamed Pakistani military testing range, is a valuable tool for testing missile technology. It has four high-resolution high-speed cameras equipped with powerful optics, a laser ranger, and an automatic control system allowing it to track a target of interest. The cameras were installed in different locations and are synchronized with atomic clocks so that footage captured by them could be timed precisely against each other.

Comment: See Also:

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Bullseye

Russian ambassador Yavokenko: 'Highly likely' UK had Novichok nerve agent to be able to identify it so quickly

Tom Embury-Dennis
Independent
Thu, 22 Mar 2018 20:44 UTC
Alexander Yavokenko Russian ambassador


Alexander Yakovenko says Salisbury events 'so complicated' it would take someone like Hercule Poirot to solve

Britain had stores of the Novichok nerve agent before the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal, the Russian ambassador to London has claimed.

In an extraordinary and lengthy press conference, Alexander Yakovenko said the accounts around the events in Salisbury were so complicated it would take someone like fictional detective Hercule Poirot to solve the crime.

Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia are in a critical condition after collapsing on a bench on 4 March. Britain accuses Russia of attempted murder but Russia denies involvement and says Britain has no evidence.


Comment: Of course the Brits have Novichok:

Boris Johnson admits British Government has stocks of nerve agent used to poison Skripal
ZN: You argue that the source of this nerve agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did you manage to find it out so quickly? Does Britain possess samples of it?

Boris Johnson: Let me be clear with you ... When I look at the evidence, I mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory ...

ZN: So they have the samples ...

Boris Johnson: "They do. And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, "Are you sure?" And he said there's no doubt. We have very little alternative but to take the action that we have taken..."


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Megaphone

'We know they are liars, they keep lying': US Empire's propaganda war on Ghouta crescendos

Eva Bartlett
RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 22:40 UTC
ghouta civilians
© SputnikCivilians in the liberated village of Kafr Batna in Eastern Ghouta
We are currently witnessing truly remarkable developments in Syria, as the country's army and allies liberate more districts of Eastern Ghouta. Almost 80,000 people have been evacuated, with more still streaming out.

The late February Syrian-Russian opening of humanitarian corridors out of Eastern Ghouta marked the beginning of the end in the tragedy that is Ghouta's occupation by terrorists including Jaysh Al-Islam, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (Al-Qaeda), Ahrar Al-Sham, and Faylaq Al-Rahman.

Syrian and Russian reporters on the ground have recorded countless testimonies of fleeing civilians. One such subtitled video shows women and children speaking of terrorists starving them - depriving them of food, beating and shooting at them, trapping them in cellars, and holding them hostage.

Footage taken by Syrian journalist Wassim Issa included a woman sobbing that her children were still inside. But also, as with many of these videos surfacing with each new batch of evacuated, she praised the army, saying "May God protect you, you have liberated us from them. They took my house against my will and made me homeless."
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Take 2

Truth is the first casualty in war - especially in cold war

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 18:15 UTC
Putin Corbyn BBC
I don't know why everyone's so hard on Putin these days. I mean, the Russian president is so kind and considerate that he waited until ex-spy Sergei Skripal had been strategically irrelevant for many years before poisoning him, and did so in a way that both failed to kill the target and strongly indicated that Russia was responsible for the attack. While other nations use highly trained killers to assassinate critical targets and make it look like a suicide, the Kremlin had the decency to use an attack that was simultaneously both ineffectual and the forensic equivalent of issuing a press release on RT saying "Yeah we totally poisoned that guy" for no conceivable benefit to itself.

You can't buy that kind of charity from other western regime change targets. This is why Australians don't like Brits; they're such ungrateful whingers.

The furor over the alleged Skripal poisoning has fit snugly into the pattern we've come to expect in the western empire's continual campaign to psyop the public into believing that escalations with a nuclear superpower are in their best interests. We're seeing the typical lack of evidence for the accusation, the typical one-sided reporting from all mass media outlets collaborating to weave the illusion of unanimous agreement about the accusation, and the typical escalation in cold war tensions as diplomats are thrown out, communications cut off, and European Union collaboration sought for tougher action against the Russian Federation.


Comment: Liars indeed, currently going to ridiculous extremes:

Boris Johnson Compares Russia Hosting Football World Cup With Nazi Germany Hosting 1936 Olympics

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Bullseye

McCain gets slammed on Twitter for condemning Trump's congratulatory message to Putin


Sputnik
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 13:32 UTC
John McCain
© AP Photo/ Rick Rycroft
US Senator John McCain has lambasted Donald Trump over his phone conversation with Vladimir Putin, in which the US president congratulated his Russian counterpart following his election win.

81-year-old Senator John McCain said that "an American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections."

"And by doing so with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election to determine their country's future," McCain added.

However, Twitter users were quick to react to McCain's verbal attack against Trump, with some urging the senator "to lean respect" and consider resigning.

Comment: Get over yourself McCain. It's standard procedure. Here's couple of more tweets:





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Biohazard

After new Novichok revelations, it's time for UK to come clean: They're lying


Moon of Alabama
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 20:02 UTC
theresa may skripal
A week ago we asked if 'Novichok' poisons are real. The answer is now in: It is 'yes' and 'no'. Several Russian scientist now say that they once researched and developed lethal poisons but they assert that other countries can and have copied these. 'Novichok', they say, is a just western propaganda invention. They see the British accusations as a cynical plot against Russia. The people who push the 'Novichok' accusations have political and commercial interests.

zakharova
Maria Zakharova, spokeswomen of the Russian Foreign Ministry: "'Novichok' has never been used
in the USSR or in Russia as something related to the chemical weapon research"
The British Prime Minister Theresa May insinuated that the British-Russian double agent Sergej Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who collapsed on March 4 on a public bench in Salisbury, were affected by a 'Russian' nerve agent:
It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. It is part of a group of nerve agents known as Novichok.
Theresa May's claims are highly questionable.

A highly potent nerve agent would hurt anyone who comes in contact with it. But the BBC reported that a doctor who administered first aid to the collapsed Yulia Skripal for 30 minutes was not affected at all. Another doctor, Steven Davies who heads the emergence room of the Salisbury District Hospital, wrote in a letter the London Times:
"... no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only been ever been three patients with significant poisoning."

Comment: Not only were several not affected by the alleged poison; the police officer has now been released from hospital
Policeman Nick Bailey has been discharged from hospital after being exposed to the same military-grade nerve agent used in the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury earlier this month.

The Detective Sergeant had been treated at the Salisbury District Hospital since the attack took place on March 4. The Wiltshire police officer was initially in a critical condition, but was able to sit up within days and talk to his family and nursing staff.

Earlier on Thursday a judge gave the green light for doctors to take blood samples of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia so they can be tested by chemical weapons experts. He added it is unknown whether the duo will "regain mental capacity."
...
The court heard the mental capacity of the duo may be compromised to "an unknown and unascertained" degree, and that is it is not possible to know the extent to which they will recover.
...
It comes as it emerged that a second police officer investigating the Salisbury nerve agent attack was treated in hospital over suspected poisoning. He is said to have come into contact with an object that possibly had "secondary contamination". The PC reported minor symptoms such as skin irritation.

A source told the Daily Mail: "He is receiving treatment at Salisbury General Hospital as an outpatient as his symptoms are not serious enough to warrant him being kept in."

Comment: The Russian Foreign Ministry's official statement on the case is well worth reading. Here's an extract:
We would like to ascertain the following issues.

Where, how, and by whom were the samples collected from Sergei and Yulia Skripal? How was it all documented? Who can certify that the data is credible? Was the chain of custody up to all the OPCW requirements when evidence was collected?

Which methods (spectral analysis and others) were used by the British side to identify, within such a remarkably short period of time, the type of the substance used ("Novichok" according to the western classification)? As far as we know, to do that, they must have had a standard sample of such agent at their disposal.

And how do these hasty actions correlate with Scotland Yard's official statements that "the investigation is highly likely to take weeks or even months" to arrive at conclusions?

What information and medical effects led to a hasty decision to administer antidotes to the aggrieved Skripals and the British policeman? Could that hastiness lead to grave complications and further deterioration of their health status?

Which antidotes exactly were administered? What tests had been conducted to make the decision to use these drugs?

How can the delayed action of the nerve agent be explained, given that it is a fast-acting substance by nature? The victims were allegedly poisoned in a pizzeria (in a car, at the airport, at home, according to other accounts). So what really happened? How come they were found in some unidentified time on a bench in the street?

We need an explanation why it is Russia who was accused on the 'Skripal case' without any grounds whatsoever, while works to develop the agent codenamed "Novichok" in the West had been carried out by the United Kingdom, the USA, Sweden and the Czech Republic. There are more than 200 open sources publications in the NATO countries, highlighting the results that those countries achieved in the development of new toxic agents of this type.
Moscow has turned the tables on the UK with their own "heads I win tails you lose" option of impossible choices:
Logic suggests two possible variants. Either the British authorities are unable to ensure protection against such terrorist attacks on their territory, or they were directly or indirectly involved in the preparation of this attack on a Russian citizen. There is no other alternative.
Checkmate.

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Dollar

Special Counsel Mueller invested in hedge funds linked to Russia and Soros

Jacob Wohl
The Washington Reporter
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 00:00 UTC
MuellerKrembucks
© The Washington Reporter
Robert Mueller's complex financial entanglements include investments linked to George Soros and Russia. During Mueller's tenure at the FBI, high profile cases of financial wrongdoing within hedge funds that he invested in were ignored by federal law enforcement.

An Offended America investigation has revealed that Robert Mueller's holdings in a fund of funds expose him to Russian investments and to hedge funds tied to George Soros. Mueller's exclusive hedge funds were not open to the general public, but rather wealthy private accredited investors. The minimum investment in several of the funds is $10 Million.

Mueller's Russian Financial Interests

Mueller has been an investor in Mellon Optima L/S Strategy Fund, LLC for many years, according to his financial disclosures. That fund consists of holdings of other hedge funds in a structure commonly referred to as a "fund of funds".

Comment: With this litany of questionable actions on the part of Mueller that include conflict of interests and financial gain, dealings with Russian interests and bypassing FBI investigative protocol due to personal attachments, gives larger odds to Mueller sabotaging the investigation to protect his own interests than holding a true course that brings about a just finding. Certainly there were others to choose from. So why him?

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Attention

15 years post Iraq invasion, torture has a new address

William Rivers Pitt
Truthout
Sat, 17 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Waterboarding
© Still from the Stuff of Life"I would bring back waterboarding, and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding." -Donald Trump, 02/16/2016
Fifteen years ago this week, George W. Bush and his pack of unprosecuted murderers transformed the city of Baghdad into a bowl of fire, "Shock & Awe," in what was a massive war crime right there on live television. I call it a war crime justly: It was an act based entirely on lies founded in greed and lust for power, for which not one person has been called to account.

Millions of human beings have been butchered, maimed, displaced and undone in those 15 years since the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. The war there has actually been going on in one form or another for 27 years now. Yet no one is held accountable even as we slog, year after year, through the drifting ashes of aftermath.

We simply don't talk about it.

We are allowed, within the narrow confines of permissible debate, to rub our collective woes together and wonder how so much could go so wrong so fast. The physical shock of September 11 doesn't explain it, but the manner in which that day was used against us certainly fills in the blank spaces. They used it to start a war that has now become several wars, and a few people you'll never meet continue to swim in the profits.

Comment: See also:

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Nuke

Israeli military admits it carried out 2007 raid on Syrian nuclear reactor


ITV
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 05:11 UTC
Syrian nuke reactor site
© PANuclear reactor site destroyed by Israel at Deir el-Zour region, Syria.
The Israeli military has confirmed it carried out the 2007 airstrike in Syria that destroyed what was believed to be a nuclear reactor, lifting the veil of secrecy over one of its most daring and mysterious operations in recent memory. Although Israel was widely believed to have been behind the airstrike on September 6, it has never before commented publicly on it.

In a lengthy release, the military revealed that eight F-15 fighter jets carried out the top-secret airstrikes against the facility in the Deir el-Zour region, 450 kilometres (about 300 miles) northwest of Damascus, destroying a site that had been in development for years and was scheduled to go into operation at the end of that year.

Israel's involvement has been one of its most closely held secrets, and it was not immediately clear why the country decided to go public now.

The military would not comment on its reasoning, but the move could be related to the upcoming memoir of former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who ordered the strike and has hinted about it for years, or it could be meant as a warning to arch-enemy Iran, which is active in Syria.

Israel and Syria have always been bitter enemies. Throughout Syria's seven-year civil war, Israel has carried out well over 100 airstrikes, most believed to have been aimed at suspected weapons shipments destined for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group. Both Iran and Hezbollah are allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Comment: Israel does the deed and years later comes up with an excuse it deems palatable to justify actions of covert aggression and target-specific destruction against a neighboring country. There is no way to know the course of history had these destructive episodes not occurred.

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Snakes in Suits

CNN: Trump, Kelly furious over leak that Trump was not to congratulate Putin

Morgan Gstalter
The Hill
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 10:16 UTC
TrumpKelly
© Chicago TribuneConfidential briefing details breached to the media.
President Trump and his chief of staff John Kelly are furious that details of the president's national security briefing materials telling him not to congratulate Russian President Vladimir Putin were leaked to the press, according to a CNN report Wednesday.

Trump was reportedly "fuming" on Tuesday night after The Washington Post reported that Trump's national security advisers specifically instructed him not to congratulate Putin on his electoral victory. The Post reported that the materials read "DO NOT CONGRATULATE."

Only a small group of staffers would have access to those briefing materials and would have known what his advisers would suggest before the phone call to Putin on Tuesday morning, CNN reported.

The network, citing an unnamed source, reported that the president was asking allies and outside advisers who they thought was responsible for the leak.

The source told CNN that the incident has again given air to Trump's long-held belief that members of his administration are actively working against him.

A White House official told the network that Kelly is furious that a confidential presidential briefing was made public just hours after the president's phone call with Putin. Kelly reportedly plans to address the leak on Wednesday as aides work to figure out how the information became public. Other White House staffers are irritated by the most recent leak as well. "This is unacceptable," one White House official told CNN.

Comment: Betrayal by those Trump has to trust - this is another incident that points to inside sabotage.
See also: Russia leak prompts questions concerning staff undermining Trump

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