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May urged to intervene in Saudi executions amid arms sale bonanza


RT
Fri, 21 Jul 2017 16:02 UTC
Theresa May and Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
© Bandar Algaloud / Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court / Reuters
Prime Minister Theresa May has been urged to talk to the UK's Saudi allies about forthcoming executions as new figures show £3.3 billion worth of arms sales to the Gulf regime have been licensed in the past three years alone.

The human rights charity Reprieve has warned that 14 men, including one arrested as a minor, are set to be executed by the Saudi authorities for cybercrime offenses.

MPs, including former Labour leader Ed Miliband, have signed a letter to the PM asking her to try and intervene to stop the sentences being carried out.

Reprieve and the MPs have both warned that the men, who allegedly signed confessions under torture, could have been caught and held by Saudi personnel who had received training by UK security forces.
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Info

Kremlin aide says US asked Russia about hacking before Presidential vote, then remained silent


RFE/RL
Fri, 21 Jul 2017 15:57 UTC
computer user
A Kremlin aide told Russian news agencies on July 20 that the United States formally asked Moscow for information on its alleged election hacking one week before last year's U.S. presidential vote, and that it replied the next day.

"We supplied them with a preliminary response the following day. In January when [former President Barack] Obama was still in office, before the inauguration [of Donald Trump], we gave a detailed answer," Andrei Krutskikh, a special presidential aide on cybersecurity was reported as saying.

Krutskikh added that U.S. leaders have been silent about it ever since. "They clammed up," he said.
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Info

White House aide says US not seeking immediate ouster of Assad


RFE/RL
Fri, 21 Jul 2017 15:44 UTC
Bashar al-Assad
© AFP
The United States won't insist on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's immediate ouster as it seeks a political settlement of the country's six-year civil war, President Donald Trump's counterterrorism adviser said on July 20.

"I don't think it's important for us to say Assad must go first," Tom Bossert said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. "The U.S. would still like to see Assad go at some point. That would be our desired outcome."

The White House's position represents a significant change from Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, who insisted Assad must go as part of any political settlement in Syria.

Other Western powers have also softened their opposition to Assad recently, most notably France under recently elected President Emmanuel Macron, who like the White House says that Assad's stepping down is not a precondition for reaching a peace agreement in Syria.
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Info

Aliyev satisfied with level of Azeri-Russian relations


Sputnik
Sat, 22 Jul 2017 15:40 UTC
Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev
© Sputnik/ Aleksey Nikolskyi
Relations between Azerbaijan and Russia are developing very successfully, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Friday.

"We are satisfied with the high level of our relations, we are actively cooperating in the political, trade-economic, humanitarian spheres, there are good prospects in the transport and energy spheres," Aliyev said at the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Azeri leader noted that such contacts took place regularly and give "a good impetus to the improvement of our bilateral relations, which are developing very successfully."
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Rocket

Hezbollah launches rocket strike on terrorists near Syrian-Lebanese border


Sputnik
Sat, 22 Jul 2017 15:35 UTC
Hezbollah launched a rocket strike
© AP Photo/ Syrian Central Military Media
The Lebanese Hezbollah movement has carried out a rocket strike on the supply lines and locations of the Jabhat Fatah al Sham terrorist group (formerly known as the Nusra Front, banned in Russia) on the Syrian-Lebanese border, a source in the Shiite movement told Sputnik on Saturday.

"Heavy short-range rockets flew to the Jabhat al-Nusra [Nusra Front] terrorists' locations and supply lines at the triangles of the al-Oueini and al-Heyl valleys in the mountainous region of Aarsal. The attack resulted in great destruction at the site of the shelling and liquidation of a large number (of terrorists)," the source said.

According to the source, the Hezbollah militants managed to take control of four more areas bordering Syria in the area south of Aarsal.

"The Syrian Air Force aircraft struck at positions of Jabhat al-Nusra in the mountainous region of Flita (on Syrian territory) bordering the mountainous region of Aarsal," the source added.
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Handcuffs

Trump warns Iran: Faces 'serious consequences' unless it frees US prisoners


RFE/RL
Sat, 22 Jul 2017 15:21 UTC
Donald Trump
© Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump warned that Iran faces "new and serious consequences" unless all "unjustly detained" American citizens are released and returned, the White House said on July 21.

Trump urged Iran to return Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared more than 10 years ago in Iran, businessman Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer, and "all other American citizens unjustly detained by Iran."

"For nearly forty years, Iran has used detentions and hostage taking as a tool of state policy, a practice that continues to this day with the recent sentencing of Xiyue Wang to ten years in prison," the White House said, referring to a Princeton University researcher who was sentenced by Iran for spying last week.

"Iran is responsible for the care and well-being of every United States citizen in its custody," the White House said.

"President Trump is prepared to impose new and serious consequences on Iran unless all unjustly imprisoned American citizens are released and returned."
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Info

Iraqi VP talks tough: US contributed to ISIS creation, now tries to claim victory over it


RT
Sat, 22 Jul 2017 15:03 UTC
Nouri al-Maliki
© Reuters
The recapture of Mosul is an achievement of the Iraqi people while the US is trying to highjack it and claims it was them who "led that war," Iraq's Vice President Nouri al-Maliki has told the RIA Novosti news agency.

"Yes, they supported us with aviation, but the main credit goes to the Iraqi soldiers, people's militia, Iraqi air force," al-Maliki stated in his interview with the Russian news agency.

He added that he "regrets and denies [Americans] claiming the victory [in Mosul] is their achievement."

"In reality, this is the victory of the Iraqi army," al-Maliki said, revealing that the victory came at a high cost, with some 20,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers having been either killed or wounded.
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Dollar

Good point but no chance: Syria requests compensation from US over destruction wrought by war

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:07 UTC
destruction in Syria
America's illegal presence in Syria and the loss of civilian life which has resulted from it, has led Syria to request compensation at the United Nations.

The government of the Syrian Arab Republic has written to the United Nations demanding that the international body compensate Syria for its human and material loses which resulted from illegal US and US allied bombings of Syrian infrastructure.

The letter comes shortly after Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reminded the world that US intervention in Syria is illegal according to the international law that the UN is supposed to enforce.
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Eye 2

Hospitalized, diagnosed with brain cancer, John McCain blasts Trump for cutting weapons flow to Al Qaeda and ISIS

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Sat, 22 Jul 2017 13:22 UTC
McCain
Republican Senator John McCain
John McCain blasts President Trump on Twitter from his hospital bed.

Yesterday The Duran confirmed news that Donald Trump has fully shifted US policy in Syria away from arming and aiding Salafist/jihadist terrorist fighters, and now now allying exclusively with Kurdish.

President Trump decided to end a disastrous Obama program to train, fund and arm jihadist terrorist (many of whom were Al Qaeda and ISIS fighters) to overthrow Assad.

The Obama program has been a complete failure, costing Americans taxpayers millions of dollars.
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Snakes in Suits

NSA leak: AG Sessions reportedly discussed Trump campaign with former Russian ambassador

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 22 Jul 2017 13:56 UTC
Jeff Sessions
The Washington Post just made Attorney General Jeff Sessions's rotten week even worse.

In what appears to be yet another leaked NSA intercept, WaPo reports citing 'current and former American officials', that Sergey Kislyak, the now infamous former Russian ambassador to the US, told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters - including policy issues important to Moscow - with Sessions during the 2016 presidential race. If accurate, the report would amount to yet another straw on the camel's back of Sessions' relationship with the former ambassador - who has been at the center of many of the US media's stories alleging collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign.

When he announced his intentions to recuse himself from the DOJ's probe into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign back in March, Sessions adamantly denied allegations that he had discussed the campaign with Russian officials, including former ambassador Kislyak. Sessions opted to recuse himself after he failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak during his confirmation hearing with the Senate back in February.
"I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign," Sessions said in March when he announced that he would recuse himself from matters relating to the FBI probe of Russian interference in the election and any connections to the Trump campaign.
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