Only one week after announcing her decision to step down as one of the three members on the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria where she has spent five years since it's inception in September 2012, Carla Del Ponte told Swiss media in interviews published Sunday, that her team has collected enough evidence against the President of Syria, Dr. Bashar Al Assad to convict him of war crimes.

She stated that her reason for stepping down is due to frustration at the U.N. Security Council's failure to continue the commission's work by setting up a special tribunal for Syria that could try alleged war criminals. "That is why the situation is so frustrating. The preparatory work has been done, but nevertheless, there is no prosecutor and no court," she told Sonntagszeitung. "It's a tragedy." She stated that "everyone in Syria is on the bad side. The Assad government has perpetrated horrible crimes against humanity and used chemical weapons. And the opposition is now made up of extremists and terrorists." In Sunday's interviews, she said she had handed in her resignation letter last Thursday, and that she would officially step down on September 18, after the commission presents its latest report to the UN Human Rights Council. UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed last week for the commission to continue its work despite Del Ponte's departure.

As a veteran former war crimes Prosecutor and former Swiss Attorney General, Del Ponte has prosecuted war crimes in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia and is accustomed to high stress, high level corruption and crimes. Therefore her abrupt decision to step down and theoretically throw in the towel based on "frustration" seems a bit out of character for someone of her caliber.

Note by the Saker: interesting interview with Abby Martin, I highly recommend it. Please try to set aside the typical Leftist clichés and language and just listen about what she experienced while visiting Palestine for the first time.

I wanted to share this video with you because Abby's experience exactly mirrors mine. Except that I was even more clueless than her when I set foot in Israel for the first time. Being the loyal little Cold Warrior and Right-winger that I was, I sincerely believed that Israel was a land of heroic refugees surrounded by Arab terrorists (yeah, I was that dumb. I was also 19 years old...). It took me exactly one week to change my views by a full 180 degrees.

I saw everything Abby describes, or things very similar, with my own eyes. That was true in 1982 and it remains true in 2017. Imagine putting up with THIRTY FIVE YEARS of that kind of oppression! And now try to imagine living through SEVENTY YEARS of this and you will get a sense, of what it is to be a Palestinian. In truth, none of us, not even Abby or myself, can imagine any of that since we are not Palestinians and we never lived this nightmare, we only visited this place.

Abby says that which others never do. Please set aside her silly aspects and take in the reality she describes. It is all true, 100% true.

The Saker

President Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on Republican senators, an approach he may regret if he is someday impeached and the Senate has to weigh charges against him stemming from an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

More than half of the 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would be central to any proceeding to remove Trump from office, have tangled with the Republican president, including on Thursday when he fired off early-morning tweets.

In one Twitter series, Trump called Senator Lindsey Graham "publicity seeking" and said he "just can't forget his election trouncing" in the 2016 presidential race. Trump also assailed Senator Jeff Flake, another Republican critic, as "a non-factor in the Senate," adding, "He's toxic."

Flake and Graham are members of the Judiciary Committee, whose Chairman Chuck Grassley has urged Trump to tone it down.

"He should be 100 percent sticking to ideas and forget about personalities," Grassley said on Friday when pressed on whether Trump might find himself without the friends in Congress he would need to defend himself in an impeachment proceeding.

The 'white supremacy' march and car attack on antifa counterprotestors at Charlottesville last week has been presented by the mainstream media as clear evidence of the endemic racism in America, particularly among Conservatives and those who voted for or support Donald Trump. There's a serious problem of racism and discrimination in America today, against Blacks, Latinos, homosexuals and transgenders, or so we're told. Something has to be done, therefore, and everyone should get behind these 'minorities' and their fight for 'equal rights'.

In this hystericized atmosphere, supposed 'representatives' of just about every other minority you can think of have jumped on the victimhood bandwagon. If you're a member of a minority and feel that you're being discriminated against, then you're actively encouraged to get out and protest about it. If you're a member of a minority group and don't feel like you're being discriminated against, then you've probably internalized and accepted the discrimination, and need to wake up and start protesting.

What all of this reveals is not so much that discrimination is rife in the USA today, but that victim-hood promises all sorts of unearned privileges and even power, so you'd be a fool not to get some while the getting is good.

Aerial footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows combat aircraft hitting Islamic State vehicles as they tried to retreat from Aqerbat, Syria. A large group of the militants in the area has been encircled by the Syrian Army.

The airstrikes targeted military vehicles used by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

According to the Defense Ministry, Syrian government forces have surrounded the militants near the town of Aqerbat. The Islamists are trying to escape to Deir ez-Zor, the last stronghold controlled by the terrorist group.

"Following successful operations by Syrian troops, the last supply route used by the militants to deliver weapons, ammunition and material in the vicinity of Aqerbat is now within reach of the Syrian military's firepower," the ministry said.

The grandparents of a 10-year-old girl sued Albuquerque this week, accusing it of failing to investigate the child's mother, her boyfriend and his cousin, who are charged with first-degree murder: physically and sexually assaulting the girl until she died.

Victoria Martens, a fourth-grader, died on Aug. 26, 2016, after being raped, suffocated, stabbed and dismembered by her mother, Michelle Martens, and two friends: Martens' boyfriend, Fabian Gonzales, and Gonzales' cousin, Jessica Kelley, according to criminal charges against the three.

They also are accused of wrapping Victoria's mutilated body in a towel and burning it in a bathtub at Martens' Albuquerque apartment. Police arrived after receiving multiple 911 calls from neighbors who heard screaming.

Martens and her boyfriend approached a neighbor for help after accusing Kelley of beating them with an iron.

All three have been charged with first-degree murder, child abuse, kidnapping, tampering with evidence and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

The bitcoin revolution has caught the attention of traditional banks and hedge funds. Financial companies are working on a platform that will use blockchain technology to verify and record transactions in gold trading.

Exchange owner CME Group, TradeWind Markets, and financial technology firm Paxos are working to make the $27 billion-a-day gold market digital.

The companies say it will add more transparency and security to the gold market.

"Digital gold would take market share away from other gold instruments: futures, physical gold bullion, gold ETFs," Ebele Kemery, head of energy investing at JPMorgan Asset Management told Bloomberg.

Japanese financial information provider Fisco has announced the offering of unsecured corporate bonds denominated in bitcoins. The step could potentially boost the firm's business when the digital currency is legally accepted as a financial asset.

The Tokyo-based company issued a three-year bond worth 200 bitcoins to another firm in the Fisco group. The obligation pays a three percent coupon and returns the 200 bitcoins to the holder on its maturity on August 10, 2022.

The corporation plans to test the bonds' potential to become an effective instrument for fundraising, according to Masayuki Tashiro, chief product officer of Fisco, as quoted by Bloomberg.

The current status of a bitcoin bond is unclear, as only obligations issued in traditional currencies such as yen and US dollars are recognized as corporeal bonds by Japanese law.

Are the Kurds bluffing or do they know something no one else does?

The leading spokesman of the Syrian SDF, a militant organization led by the Kurdish YPG which is classified as a terrorist group by Turkey, has stated that the US is set to occupy Syria for decades to come.

Talal Silo has said that the Kurdish fighters in Syria have reached an agreement that would imply a de-facto Kurdish entity in Syria would form under the auspices of US military occupation of the territory which is recognized by every major international body, including the United Nations as Syrian territory.

The United States has yet to comment on the remarks and for good reason. The remarks open up a Pandora's Box of problems for all those impacted, including Washington.

As extremism begins to grip American society on both sides of the ideological line, it's worth noting that the mass media has been a catalyst for the sharpening of radical divide across the United States. Not since the Civil Rights-era has there been such a distinctly divided American nation. The Washington Post is right in the middle.

The violence witnessed in Charlottesville was indicative of a larger ideological battle that has, until recently, largely been played out in mass and social media, as the non-stop barrage of race-baiting news only serves to capitalize on the strife for clicks - ie increased revenue - at the expense of maintaining a civil society.

One can pinpoint the drastic recent sharpening of ideological divisions in the US to the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. In many ways, Brown's murder was a catalyst to the divisive nature of American society that we are seeing play out in the streets today.