Recent reports indicate differences - and defeatism - among Americans and rebels in southern Syria.

RI reported before that US ordered the rebel group Shuhada al-Qaryatayn (Martyrs of Qaryatayn) out of the joint US-rebel base at al-Tanf in southern Syria. The rebel group had to leave because it did not agree with the new US demand that it should stop picking a fight with the Syrian army.

But it doesn't end here. A spokesman for the group claims the US threatened to bomb the outfit. Supposedly after the split the US optimistically sought to get back the heavy weapons it had equipped the group with. When the rebels first refused to hand them over, the Pentagon then supposedly threatened to bomb the outfit it had trained, equipped, and salaried for something like two years.

Supposedly the two then struck a compromise where the rebels returned some of the weapons.

President Trump's Signing Statement makes clear he regards sanctions law as unconstitutional and will challenge it in the Supreme Court rather than have his veto overridden and risk impeachment by trying to veto it.

Yesterday I wrote an article for The Duran in which I expressed the view that the Presidential Statement published in connection with US President Trump's signing of the new sanctions law passed against his wishes by the US Congress clearly pointed to an intention to bring a future challenge against the sanctions law to the US Supreme Court.

The person known as Simon has pointed out on the thread of this article that President Trump's Signing Statement - the one which is actually attached to the law itself - goes much further, and not only details where the President's lawyers - which in this case means the White House's Legal Counsel and the Department of Justice - think the sanctions law falls into outright illegality, but makes the intention to bring a challenge to the US Supreme Court crystal clear.

US President Donald Trump's signature, imposing new sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea, prompted Republican Senator John McCain to call out the president - this time for (faint) praise.

Trump expressed major reservations about the bill immediately after signing it into law. That's a new level even for Trump: to bash something he will forever be on-record as having approved to become law. "The concerns expressed in the president's signing statement are hardly surprising, though misplaced," McCain said Wednesday.

"While the American people surely hope for better relations with Russia, what this legislation truly represents is their insistence that Vladimir Putin and his regime must pay a real price for attacking our democracy," the statement says.

California CEO Allegedly Smuggled Rifle Scopes to Syria - Daily Beast, August 1, 2017:

Rasheed Al Jijakli,[the CEO of a check-cashing business who lives in Walnut, along with three co-conspirators, allegedly transported day and night vision rifle scopes, laser boresighters used to adjust sights on firearms for accuracy when firing, flashlights, radios, a bulletproof vest, and other tactical equipment to Syrian fighters.
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If Jijakli is found guilty, he could face 50 years in prison. Jijakli's case is being prosecuted by counterintelligence and Terrorism and Export Crimes Section attorneys. An FBI investigation, in coordination with other agencies, is ongoing.

Under Trump, a Hollowed-Out Force in Syria Quickly Lost C.I.A. Backing - NY Times^*, August 2, 2017:

C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, recommended to President Trump that he shut down a four-year-old effort to arm and train Syrian rebels.
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Critics in Congress had complained for years about the costs [...] and reports that some of the C.I.A.-supplied weapons had ended up in the hands of a rebel group tied to Al Qaeda
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In the summer of 2012, David H. Petraeus, who was then C.I.A. director, first proposed a covert program of arming and training rebels
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[Mr. Obama signed] a presidential finding authorizing the C.I.A. to covertly arm and train small groups of rebels
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John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama's last C.I.A. director, remained a vigorous defender of the program ...

When will the FBI investigate Messrs Petraeus, Obama and Brennan? Where are the counterintelligence and Terrorism and Export Crimes Section attorneys prosecuting them? Those three men engaged in the exactly same trade as Mr. Jijakil did, but on a much larger scale. They should be punished on an equally larger scale.

^* Note: The NYT story is largely a whitewash. It claims that the CIA paid "moderate" FSA rebels stormed Idleb governate in 2015. In fact al-Qaeda and Ahrar al Sham were leading the assault. It says that costs of the CIA program was "more than $1 billion over the life of the program" when CIA documents show that it was over $1 billion per year and likely much more than $5 billion in total. The story says that the program started in 2013 while the CIA has been providing arms to the Wahhabi rebels since at least fall 2011.

The latest US sanctions targeting Russia's oil and gas sector will cause Gazprom some headaches in building the new gas pipeline to Germany, experts say. However, US restrictions are unlikely to stop the project.

"The price of any project automatically increases," Tatiana Mitrova, director of the Skolkovo Energy Center told Reuters.

"Gazprom's relationships with partners, subcontractors, and equipment and service providers are very complicated. They will all ask for a risk premium," she added.

"This, however, does not mean that Nord Stream-2 won't be built," said Katja Yafimova of the Oxford Energy Institute.

Religious persecution in the DPRK has long been discussed by Western media and anti-Pyongyang organizations. On August 10, 2016, in its annual report, the US State Department stated that freedom of conscience in the DPRK did not exist, and the regime brutally persecuted everyone engaging in any religious practices. The special document, The 2015 International Religious Freedom Report describes that, although the right to freedom of religion in the DPRK is guaranteed by the Constitution, any religious activity unsanctioned by the state becomes a reason for repressions, and a significant part of political prisoners are those who worshiped the crucified god. Owning the Bible and any religious materials brought from other countries is prohibited and punishable (up to the death penalty). For this reason, since 2001, Washington has classified the DPRK as a country where the freedom of religion is violated.

In 2017, the South Korean NGO Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) issued the 2016 White Paper on the Freedom of Religion in the DPRK. According to the authors, the study was conducted on the basis of a survey of 11,730 North Korean refugees who arrived in Korea after 2007, and 51.8% of them indicated that religious activities in the North were punishable by the sending of people to camps as political prisoners. There are also less severe punishments. 2.8% mentioned correctional labor, 11.4% - imprisonment in ordinary prisons. The analysis of the database on human rights in the DPRK revealed that after the 1990s, 1,247 cases were registered closely linked to the persecution of religious circles. 59.3% of them were imprisonment cases, 10.7% - restriction of movement, 9.1% - death penalty. In 6.6% of the cases, religious activists had gone missing.

As Britain's love affair with state secrecy collides yet again with public demands for transparency, RT asks what exactly Her Majesty's Government has to hide.

Rather than release a trove of documents under the 30-year disclosure rule, the British government says it will keep many of its secret files under wraps, citing ongoing national security interests.

A number of files from 1986 and 1987 had been due for release to the National Archives at Kew, west London. But, not for the first time, government departments decided to exercise their right under transparency laws to withhold documents.

A shadowy loophole, called Section 3(4) of the Public Records Act 1958, allows departments to retain files "if, in the opinion of the person who is responsible for them, they are required for administrative purposes or ought to be retained for any other special reason."

Iran has vowed to pursue smart and carefully considered countermeasures against the US after Donald Trump signed a bill which authorizes new sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Tehran believes the latest punitive measures violates the terms of P5+1+EU nuclear deal with Iran.

On Wednesday, President Trump signed 'Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act' into law - punitive legislation which targets Iran along with Russia and North Korea.

Tehran believes the latest measures, which targets Iran's missile program, violate the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between Iran and six world powers, including the United States.

Relations between the US and Russia are at an all-time and very dangerous low, US President Donald Trump tweeted, adding that the Americans should blame the Congress for this turn of events.

On Wednesday, the US president put his signature to legislation imposing additional sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea, and limiting his own ability to ease those restrictions without approval from Congress.

Trump said he had greenlit the unwanted act "for the sake of national unity," despite the legislation being "seriously flawed" and having "clearly unconstitutional provisions."

When Washington imposed sanctions against Moscow in 2014 over the conflict in Ukraine, the US targeted Russia's ability to develop unconventional oil resources.

They include tapping hard-to recover reserves which require newer extraction techniques like fracking, an area where Russia relies on Western technology.

Norway's Statoil continues to develop unconventional resources in Russia without breaching sanctions, and energy major BP is reportedly considering a similar project.

According to Reuters, shale deposits in south east Russia are regarded as 'limestone formations,' which are not the subject to sanctions.