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Pepe Escobar: Fear and loathing on the Afghan Silk Road

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Wed, 21 Jun 2017 12:52 UTC
Afghan policeman
© Reuters / Omar Sobhani
Will the New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ever manage to cross the Hindu Kush?

Temerity is the name of the game. Even though strategically located astride the Ancient Silk Road, and virtually contiguous to the US$50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) - a key BRI node - Afghanistan is still mired in war.

It's easy to forget that way back in 2011 - even before President Xi Jinping announced BRI, in Kazakhstan and Indonesia, in 2013 - the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touted her own Silk Road, in Chennai. No wonder the State Dept.'s vision bit Hindu Kush dust - because it assumed war-torn Afghanistan as the plan's lynchpin.
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Info

Iranian Official: Tehran plans to release evidence of US backing of Daesh terrorists


Sputnik
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 12:48 UTC
Daesh billboard
© REUTERS/ Nour Fourat
Iran is planning to publish evidence of US actions supporting Daesh, media adviser to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRIGC) commander-in-chief told the RT broadcaster in an interview.

On June 11, the Iranian military announced that they had evidence of direct US support of Daesh militants.

"These documents are planned to be released. It is necessary to mention that these documents are not written texts or some kind of contracts that could be published in a written form. This evidence is related to the aspects of battle actions. This means that the evidence show, in which locations [the United States] provided assistance to the IS. Weapons, supplies, logistical and medical assistance — all these point at this support," Hamid Reza Moghadam Far said.

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Info

US and China officials agree North Korea is 'top security threat'


RT
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 12:29 UTC
Rex Tillerson (R) and James Mattis
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
China and the US agree that North Korea's nuclear program represents a major threat to peace and security and has called for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the US secretaries of state and defense said after meeting their Chinese colleagues.

China understands that the US regards North Korea as "our top security threat," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in Washington, DC on Wednesday.

Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis spoke at the State Department after their meetings with China's State Councilor Yang Jiechi and General Fang Fenghui, Chief of the People's Liberation Army's Joint Staff Department.

"We both call for the immediate, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and on DPRK to halt its illegal nuclear weapons program and its ballistic missile tests," Tillerson said, adding that US officials expect China to exert greater pressure on Pyongyang.
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Network

#Vault7 'Brutal Kangaroo': CIA's secret cyberweapon can infiltrate world's most secure networks


RT
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 12:23 UTC
WikiLeaks website
© Joe Raedle / AFP
WikiLeaks' latest release in its Vault7 series details how the CIA's alleged 'Brutal Kangaroo' program is being used to penetrate the most secure networks in the world.

Brutal Kangaroo, a tool suite for Microsoft Windows, targets closed air gapped networks by using thumb drives, according to WikiLeaks.

Air gapping is a security measure employed on one or more computers to ensure that a secure computer network is physically isolated from unsecured networks.
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Attention

Macron abandons regime change in Syria: Says 'no legitimate successor' to Assad and Libyan Civil War a mistake

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 12:09 UTC
Emmanuel Macron and Vladamir Putin
French President Emmanuel Macron signals abandonment of regime change policy saying removal of President Assad from power is no longer France's "priority" which will focus on working with Russia to defeat Jihadi terrorism instead.

Newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron is the first Western leader to reflect the changed political realities in Syria caused by the recent advances of the Syrian army.

Specifically Macron has confirmed that removing President Assad from power can no longer be a priority, since there is no 'legitimate successor' to him. The priority must instead be fighting the 'enemy' - Jihadi terrorism - which requires the help of Russia.
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Snakes in Suits

Boris Johnson gives 'worst interview by politician ever' on live BBC radio


RT
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 11:55 UTC
Boris Johnson
© Toby Melville / Reuters
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's competency has yet again been called into question following a botched BBC interview in which the Tory minister failed to answer key questions on the government's program set out in the Queen's Speech.

During the interview on BBC Radio 4 with Eddie Mair, Johnson repeatedly stumbled over questions about the Tories' policies announced in the state opening of Parliament on Wednesday.

Mair asked what policies outlined in the Queen's Speech would tackle the "burning issues" highlighted by Prime Minister Theresa May a year ago when she entered Downing Street.
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Attention

AP sources reveal UAE has secret torture prisons in Yemen, US involved in interrogations


RT
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 11:47 UTC
terrorist prison
© Reuters
The UAE operates a network of 'black sites' in war-torn Yemen, where terrorist suspects are abused and tortured, an AP investigation has found. US personnel have been involved in at least some interrogations, agency sources said.

There are at least 18 clandestine prisons across southern Yemen operated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or by Yemeni forces created and trained by the Arab nations, AP reported on Thursday. A number of the estimated 2,000 detainees there are subjected to abuse and torture and have no legal protection, sources from the agency said.

The US military provides lists of questions for the detainees and receives transcripts of the interrogations done at the black sites, potentially making America complicit in torture. American citizens have been directly involved in some of the interrogations, although none of the sources confirmed participation in the alleged abuses, the report said, citing several unnamed US defense officials.
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Light Saber

House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy: Just found out DNC never turned over servers allegedly "hacked" By Russia

Tim Hains
Real Clear Politics
Wed, 21 Jun 2017 17:05 UTC
Trey Gowdy
At a Wednesday afternoon hearing at which former Obama DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson testified, newly appointed House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy of S.C. discusses the facts which he has discovered about the DNC claim that it was hacked by a hostile foreign power during the 2016 election.
GOWDY: Director Johnson, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I do think it's important. The last time you and I talked, I wasn't 100 percent sure, but I've since had it confirmed -- the DNC never turned the server over to law enforcement.

So twice now you have said that you could have camped out in front of the DNC, and I would say, in defense of you, it wouldn't have made any difference if you had, because they weren't going to give you the server.

So if you're investigating, either from law enforcement or from an intelligence standpoint, the hacking by foreign, hostile government, wouldn't you want the server? Wouldn't that help you, number one, identify who -- who the attacker was?

And if memory serves me, this was early in the summer of 2016 when we learned of the DNC hack. So if they had turned the server over to either you or Director Comey, maybe we would've known more, and maybe there would've been more for you to report.

So I guess what I'm asking you is, why would the victim of a crime not turn over a server to the intelligence community or to law enforcement?

JOHNSON: I -- I'm not going to argue with you, sir. That was a leading question, and I'll agree to be led.

(Video via Amicus Humani Generis on YouTube)
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Pills

Missouri sues opioid manufacturers 'engaged in a deliberate campaign of fraud'


RT
Wed, 21 Jun 2017 21:59 UTC
opioid pills
© George Frey / Reuters
Missouri became the third US state to accuse major drug manufacturers of misrepresenting the risks posed by opioids. About 500 Missourians have died in 2015 from non-heroin opioid overdoses, and thousands of others were hospitalized.

On Wednesday, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley filed the civil lawsuit in state court in St. Louis against Purdue Pharma LP, Endo Health Solutions, and Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

The three companies carried out a complex, multi-year campaign in which they deliberately misrepresented the addictive risks of opioids, and "engaged in a deliberate campaign of fraud to convince Missouri doctors and consumers otherwise," according to the complaint.
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Info

Cuban FM: Trump would blame Havana for climate change, if he believed in it


RT
Wed, 21 Jun 2017 21:37 UTC
A vintage car drives past the U.S. Embassy in Havana
© Alexandre Meneghini / ReutersA vintage car drives past the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, June 19, 2017.
The US president's new restrictive policy towards Cuba infringes on Americans' rights, "repeats the worst of the past" and makes "no common sense" in the modern international climate, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla told RT in an exclusive interview.

The foreign policy now led by US President Donald Trump "is the policy of the 60s of the past century, the policy which is typical of the Cold War. And it's led in the world that has now completely changed," Parrilla said.

The 45th US president "does exactly the same as ten American presidents before him did, apart from the last two years of Obama's presidency."

"It's worth pointing out that there is some inevitable historic tendency in moving towards normalizing relations with Cuba," he said.
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