© Unknown
SOTT
SIGNS
OF THE
TIMES
OF THE
TIMES
Welcome to Sott.net
The World for People who Think
Puppet MastersS
The United States Government says that Syria's Government caused the U.N.-estimated "at least $250 billion" cost to restore Syria from the destruction that Syria's war produced, and so Syria's Government should pay those reconstruction costs.
That link is to a New York Times article, which explicitly blames Syrian "President Bashar al-Assad's ruthless triumph" - which was won against all of the jihadist groups (which the U.S. and its allies had brought into Syria to overthrow and replace Assad's Government) - for having caused the devastation in Syria; the U.S. and its allies say they aren't to blame for it, at all, by their having organized and armed and trained and manned that 6-year invasion of Syria; and, so (they say, and the NYT article implicitly assumes it to be true), if the invaders-occupiers of Syria might ultimately agree to pay some portion of these $250B+ reconstruction costs, then this would be sheer generosity by the U.S. and its allies - nothing that these governments are obligated to pay to the surviving residents in Syria.
© Neil Hall / ReutersWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador in London, Britain
Assange's passport was issued on December 21, Ecuadorian outlet El Universo reports, citing "reliable sources" and providing the civil registry number to check on the government website. The document number 1729926483, upon checking on the Internal Revenue Service, is indeed registered to one Julian Paul Assange.
© Joshua Roberts / Reuters
Trump's accusing Pakistan of "lies" and "deceit" and the charges that it has given the US nothing in lieu of the massive help it has received is not something that contradicts the reality but the problem is that it is far too late for the American leadership to catch hold of Pakistan now.
The way Islamabad has hit back at the Americans, despite the fact that its own leadership is in a state of fragility, reveals how much hollow Trump's roar has sounded. Trump can rip Pakistan another hundred times during his tenure but it won't mark any difference in the latter's stand for sure. Because not only times have changed, they have gone against the United States.
If the US indeed feels that Pakistan has only deceived it over the years, it should have taken action against Islamabad at least a decade and half ago, just in the wake of the 9/11. But its own policy failure in Afghanistan had kept it engaged with Pakistan despite the latter's double games.
Just as Washington had taken Islamabad's help to keep the erstwhile Soviets at bay in Afghanistan in the late 1970s and 1980s, it tried something similar to fight the extremist elements in Afghanistan post 9/11. But the US overlooked the fact that Pakistan had a far bigger stake in Afghanistan this time and it only grew more complex as India's role in Afghanistan grew.
Comment: Pakistan has already sent a firm response, backed up by actions: Pakistan 'suspends military & intel ties' with US after Trump's aid cuts. In fact, one reason for Trump's reversal may be those new friends Pakistan has picked up over the years: Pakistan and Afghanistan - Epicenters of Geopolitical Intrigue:
Now we come to the real reason behind the latest US-Pakistan feud: Pakistan's rapid move into China's orbit. Under CPEC - China-Pakistan Economic Corridor - China plans to spend $60 billion on various infrastructure projects in Pakistan. It has already built power plants and many highways; and an airport and a seaport in the city of Gwadar are under construction to transform the sleeping town into a vibrant trade hub. Pakistan also recently agreed to use Chinese Yuan instead of the U.S. dollar in bilateral trade.
Western 'globalists' find all these facts to be unsavory, but what crosses the red line is Pakistan providing China access to the Indian Ocean. You see, America planned to contain China by controlling South China Sea and the chokepoint - Malacca Straits - through which most Chinese imports and exports travel. In the case of a US-China conflict, the US can easily disrupt China's economy by blocking the sea route. In fact, just a few years ago, the US and Australia conducted military exercises that simulated blocking those straits.
© YouTube
The news comes from a report in The New York Times Monday, which purports that the barrage of attacks facing the firm, founded by former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson, and dossier author Christopher Steele has not stopped Fusion GPS from continuing its investigations.
Based on multiple people briefed on the research, TheTimes reports that Fusion is still looking into links between Trump and Russia. The specific line of inquiry, however, remains under wraps.
Comment: Yawn. In Newsweeks next issue we'll be hearing about how George Bush will be renewing calls to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
With a $1 trillion annual military budget why did it take the US six years to 'beat' a ragtag militia?
Before answering that question. What is the ISIS? Can the public overcome its chronic amnesia and think back to the sudden appearance of ISIS dressed in brand new black uniforms, gleaming white NIKE's and driving Toyota trucks? They seemed to appear out of nowhere in 2014. ISIS looked as if it were a mirage when it appeared, or more likely a CIA staged scene from Hollywood.
First, people who go into the White House to have a meeting with President Trump usually leave pleasantly surprised. They find that Trump is not the raving madman they expected from his tweetstorms or the media coverage. They generally say that he is affable, if repetitive. He runs a normal, good meeting and seems well-informed enough to get by.
Second, people who work in the Trump administration have wildly divergent views about their boss. Some think he is a deranged child, as Michael Wolff reported. But some think he is merely a distraction they can work around. Some think he is strange, but not impossible. Some genuinely admire Trump. Many filter out his crazy stuff and pretend it doesn't exist.
My impression is that the Trump administration is an unhappy place to work, because there is a lot of infighting and often no direction from the top. But this is not an administration full of people itching to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Third, the White House is getting more professional. Imagine if Trump didn't tweet. The craziness of the past weeks would be out of the way, and we'd see a White House that is briskly pursuing its goals: the shift in our Pakistan policy, the shift in our offshore drilling policy, the fruition of our ISIS policy, the nomination for judgeships and the formation of policies on infrastructure, DACA, North Korea and trade.
© Nazanin Tabatabaee Yazdi / TIMA / ReutersA display featuring missiles is seen at Baharestan Square in Tehran on September 27, 2017
"If the suspension (of sanctions) is not continued it's a violation of the [Iran nuclear deal] and the Islamic Republic of Iran will, of course, take the necessary actions," Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state TV, as quoted by Reuters.
Kamalvandi declined to elaborate on what those "necessary actions"might be, but said later in the same interview that "the capacity exists within the atomic energy agency to speed up nuclear work in various fields, particularly in the field of enrichment, which can be increased several times more than in the period before the nuclear agreement."
© Twitter
Eventually, colonised peoples bring to the fore a figure best suited to challenge the rotten values at the core of the society oppressing them. Ahed is well qualified for the task.
She was charged last week with assault and incitement after she slapped two heavily armed Israeli soldiers as they refused to leave the courtyard of her family home in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah. Her mother, Nariman, is in detention for filming the incident. The video quickly went viral.
Ahed lashed out shortly after soldiers nearby shot her 15-year-old cousin in the face, seriously injuring him.
© Reuters / AFP
A classic example of this happened yesterday in the Russiagate case when Senator Dianne Feinstein unilaterally published the transcript of the testimony of Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS given to the Senate Judiciary Committee on 22nd August 2017.
Fusion GPS is the political consultancy firm which acting on behalf of the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign commissioned from the ex British spy Christopher Steele the 'research' which became the Trump Dossier.
As it has become increasingly clear that the Trump Dossier is the primary evidence - indeed so far it is the only evidence - behind the allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and that information from it was used by the Justice Department and the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants on members of the Trump campaign from the FISA court, hard questions have increasingly been asked about it by the Republicans in the Senate and the House.
Recently the FBI has admitted that it has been unable to verify the collusion claims in the Trump Dossier, whilst Senators Grassley and Lindsey Graham have recently written a letter to the Justice Department asking for an investigation of Christopher Steele - the Trump Dossier's compiler - because of inconsistencies in his statements.
Comment: Simpson also admitted to essentially colluding with the MSM:
Question: Does part of Fusion GPS's business involve attempting to have media outlets publish articles that further the interests of your clients?An attorney for Simpson also claimed that someone had already been killed over the public release of the dossier.
Fusion GPS: Yeah, you could - I mean, generally speaking, we are - genereally we tend to respond to inquiries more than try to push things, but, you know, we work with the press frequently.
Question: And has Fusion GPS ever provided information to journalists in order to encourage them to publish articles or air stories that further your client's interests?
Fusion GPS: Yes.
Fox News reported:Trump blasted Feinstein and the whole investigation on Twitter:"He wants to be very careful to protect his sources," Josh Levy, an attorney for Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, said during an Aug. 22 Senate Judiciary Committee interview of his client. "Somebody's already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier and no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work."According to CNBC some initial highlights include Glenn Simpson talking about how the Trump Organization handles paying taxes.
Levy doesn't elaborate on who was killed. The website BuzzFeed first published the dossier online last January, airing its unverified allegations about President Trump's connections with Russia.It is important to note that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson was with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya just hours before the Trump Tower meeting AND saw her again shortly after.
- Fusion GPS did not secure full access to Trump's tax returns, Simpson said: "They were Trump properties and I believe we may have reviewed some public information about estate taxes and things like that. We didn't have access to his tax returns."
- Simpson said he only become aware of the infamous Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer when it was reported in the New York Times. "I was stunned."
- Fusion GPS concluded that Trump "exaggerated" his properties' worth in legal filings - but they did not indicate or show connections to Russia: "Not that I recall."
- Simpson had no "factual reason to believe" the Trump Tower meeting was a Russian attempt to make contact with the Trump campaign, but: "You know, as a sort of question of counterintelligence and just general investigation of Russian methods and that sort of thing, I think that's a reasonable interpretation."
Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller said, "It's been theorized that this is ex-KGB guy Oleg Erovkinin, who was chief of staff to Igor Sechin. But he was killed under suspicious circumstances on Dec. 26, 2016, before the dossier was published."
© AP Photo/Darko VojinovicEmir Kusturica
The West has been pursuing a policy of genocide against the Serbs for centuries, Serbian movie director Emir Kusturica said, during a speech he gave at a state awards ceremony in Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska, which is now part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"The West has been pursuing a policy of some kind of genocide against our people," he said at the ceremony held on the Republic Day. "The genocide began under Napoleon's rule, who had realized that Russia's influence on the banks of the Danube River would pose serious issues to all of Western Europe and affect his plans to conquer faraway Siberia. He gathered an army of 600,000 and went to Russia but he brought back only 30,000. Since Napoleon came on the scene and since the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, we have been suffering from attempts to separate us from our Slavic brother. This is the reason why it is so important to keep our idea of freedom alive by preserving our language, our church and particularly Republika Srpska, which is the westernmost region inhabited by the Serbian people," the world-famous filmmaker said.
Comment: Ecuador seeks third party to mediate 'safe passage' for Julian Assange