As Obama aides refer darkly to 'red lines' rarely crossed before in decades of mutual eavesdropping, Rupert Cornwell investigates a diplomatic bust-up that reveals how even the closest relationships between allies have unspoken limits

Friends do not spy on friends. That illusion about America's attitude to its allies was conclusively debunked by Edward Snowden's revelations about America's National Security Agency and its British partner in global electronic eavesdropping, GCHQ. But by every account, the US is being repaid in kind by one of its closest international friends - Israel.

Israel has been trying to steal secrets from the US, its principal protector and benefactor, but also occasional rival, ever since the inception of the Jewish state in 1948, and even before. But according to the latest issue of Newsweek, quoting Obama administration officials, these activities have "crossed red lines" rarely encountered in the past.

In the words of one Congressional aide, with access to classified briefings in January on the subject, Israel's behaviour was "very sobering...alarming...even terrifying". Israel, it would appear, is after everything it can lay its hands on: not just diplomatic and policy documents, but industrial and military technology. The means include Israeli trade missions to the US, joint ventures between Israeli and American companies and, presumably, spying by Israeli intelligence agencies.

"Everyone does it," is a common reaction to such claims of ungentlemanly conduct. But by these accounts, in the case of America no one does it like Israel - not even allies with intelligence services as skilled as those of France, Germany, even the UK.

NOTE: This is an extremely important piece which I'd hoped would be accepted for publication. I submitted it to several publications, none of whom accepted it. Their loss. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the only way to give this work its proper audience is to ask you to make up for Google's search censorship by promoting it yourselves in any way possible. This work deserves to be read widely and I hope you'll help make that happen.

Former Israeli Mossad chief (2011-2015), Tamir Pardo, spoke to Israel's foremost TV news magazine (the video is only accessible via Israeli IP addresses), Uvda about his thirty years' working for Israel's foreign spy service. He was continuing a tradition begun by his predecessor, the late-Meir Dagan, who also did an interview with the TV program after he left his job. In fact, they both did the interviews for the same reason: they were deeply disaffected from their former boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Since so much of Israeli intelligence work is done covertly and under the pall of military censorship, preventing the public from having any inkling of what is done in its name, such interviews draw back the curtain slightly on an otherwise taboo subject in the Israeli media. As a result, the audience for such events is huge and the public hangs on every word.

Pardo didn't disappoint. He mixed a combination of striking candor with feigned humility to present a picture of an experienced Israeli spy who's been humiliated by his former boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and driven into a sort of forced exile.

Israeli former minister of energy and infrastructure, Gonen Segev, who is also a member of parliament, has been arrested on suspicion of espionage activities on behalf of the Iranian intelligence services, the Israeli police said on Monday.

"Segev was detained for questioning immediately upon his arrival in Israel after the gathered information revealed that he had been in contact with Iranian intelligence services and assisted them in activities against Israel. The investigation revealed that he had been recruited and acted as an agent on behalf of Iranian intelligence," the police said on Twitter.

The Shin Bet security service said that Gonen Segev was accused of spying for Iran and aiding the enemy during wartime.

According to the police, in recent years Segev lived in Nigeria, and in May he traveled to Equatorial Guinea.

"He was transferred to Israel at the request of the Israeli police after Equatorial Guinea did not allow him to enter its territory due to his criminal past," the police said.

Having lost control of the 'Russia collusion' narrative (still evidence-less after 18 months and increasingly exposed for bias), and unable to gain any traction with their attacks on the Trump-Kim summit (hard to make a case that more nuclear armaggeddon threats are better than less), the deep state (hand in mouth with the left and the media) are currently attempting to spin Trump's enforcement of Obama policies as an indication that he is a baby-stealing racist.

You've seen the sad, dramatic, emotive images...

There's just one problem - it's all a lie...
Source: The Burning Platform

The Great Tribes of Libya have issued the following situation report for Libya - June 17, 2018

1. Libya is still suffering and being occupied illegally by the radical terrorist mercenaries brought into our country by the CIA and other covert groups in 2011. These terrorists call themselves "militias" to mask their real identity and intentions. These militias are made up of radical Islamists and psychopathic criminals. The many criminal militia gangs in Libya have joined forces as they see all the Libyan people are against them. The Libyan people look for a country wide election to put a real leader and real security back in our country. These militias are made up of Muslim Brotherhood, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Ansar al Sharia, Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Sallafist groups. and all other militia gangs of mercenary criminals stealing from and destroying Libya.

2. The UN imposed puppet government in Tripoli has joined forces with these militia groups and supports them with arms and money.

3. Misurata gangs have now joined forces with these militias in order to maintain their area of illegal control.

4. Some of the leaders of these militias are as follows: Ibrahim Jadhran, Ishmael Sallabi, Zayad Balaam and Ibrahim Sharkasi. These men are all criminals, they are all working outside of our Libyan laws and security regulations. They have no respect for humanity, no respect for property. Today they sent missiles into 2 oil tanks at the port of Ras Lanuf, destroying those tanks and closing any access to the road between Tripoli and Benghazi. These men are thieves and murderers, they care not about the innocent Libyans who continue to suffer daily from lack of food, electricity, water, fuel, etc. They look only to their own gains and the theft of Libya resources. It is estimated that there are some 50,000 of them in Libya.

Moscow will continue dumping US debt, according to analysts who spoke to RT. Latest US Treasury Department data shows Russia cut its holdings by half in April.

That month, Russia sold $47.4 billion out of the $96.1 billion held in March. The latest statistics released by the US Treasury on Friday showed that, Russia had only $48.7 billion investment in American debt, dropping from 16th to the 22nd place of major foreign holders of US T-bills. Russia now holds less US debt than the small island nation of Bermuda.

After the London Stock Exchange (LSE) suspended share trading of sanctioned energy conglomerate EN+Group, other Russian firms are thinking of scrapping their stock listings in the UK in favor of the Moscow Stock Exchange (MOEX).

Cherkizovo Group, one of Russia's major producers and processors of poultry and pork, is considering a move to MOEX after the firm delisted from London last year, reports Bloomberg. TMK, Russia's largest manufacturer of steel pipes for the energy sector is mulling a similar move, according to the deputy chief executive officer of the company, as quoted by the media.

"It really doesn't make sense for Russian companies to list abroad in the current environment," Ekaterina Iliouchenko, a money manager at Frankfurt-based Union Investment Privatfonds GmbH told the agency. The analyst stressed that the new round of sanctions could force foreign exchanges to block transactions with their liquidity to "drop dramatically as foreigners exit."

Hawkish British MPs recommend the government increase spending on defense to three percent of GDP - exceeding NATO's two-percent target. The measure is being billed as "the only solution" to tackling threats like Russia.

Compiled by MPs of the Defence Select Committee, the 'Beyond 2 per cent' preliminary report into the Modernising Defence Programme (MDP), has called for an increase in funding from the treasury to the tune of an extra £17 billion (US$22.5 billion), if the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is to fill existing financial "black holes," according to the committee's chairman, Julian Lewis.


"Defence is constantly described as the first duty of government," he said.

"The MDP is the government's opportunity to show that it means what it says."

Arguing that the current spending regime as "far too low," the report identified a slew of capabilities that are in need of modernization: greater anti-submarine warfare capabilities; layered anti-air defense systems; upkeep and increase of personnel levels; more warships; and an upgrade in artillery and vehicle mounted anti-tank weapons that are so antiquated, they put the British Army "at serious risk of being outgunned by its Russian counterpart."

President Donald Trump appears to belong to what might be called the Benjamin Disraeli school of diplomacy.

The British prime minister once counseled, "Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel."

At his Singapore summit, Trump smartly saluted a North Korean general and then lavished praise on Kim Jong Un as a "strong guy" with a "good personality" and a "great negotiator." "He's funny, and ... very, very smart ... and a very strategic kind of a guy. ... His country does love him."

Russia keeps its most powerful grouping of troops in the western direction. Just according to official figures the equivalent of ten divisions under the control of three army HQs - not counting the grouping in Crimea, airborne divisions and forces of special operations, and also two (Baltic and Black Sea) fleets, the Caspian flotilla, the revived Mediterranean squadron, and the grouping in Syria - is concentrated in the space from the Caucasus to the Baltics. I think that I wouldn't be mistaken if I said that over half of the fighting capacity of Russia is concentrated in the Western strategic direction. And the Ministry of Defence continues at a fast pace to increase forces in this direction. At the same time it is necessary to take into account that in recent years the Russian army gained the highest mobility, i.e., the grouping can be quickly additionally strengthened by transferring forces and means from other regions.

It is clear that this happens not because Sergey Shoigu decided to play with toy soldiers and not because Dmitry Medvedev has to spend budget money, and especially not because Vladimir Putin, showing external peacefulness, secretly plans bad things. The deployment of such a grouping of troops that is especially fully completed during war-time, as well as supplying them with the latest weapons systems and constructing modern military camps and training grounds from scratch, is an extremely expensive luxury for a country that is under sanctions and its economy showed only the first signs of growth and can be easily brought down back - to stagnation. Respectively, if such expensive actions are made, then it means that from this side Russia feels real military danger.

But what is this danger?