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The 'pizza and vodka deal': Are the Syria ceasefire deal secrets leaking?

Israel Shamir
The Unz Review
Thu, 15 Sep 2016 18:52 UTC
syria map
The recent Syria agreement signed in Geneva by Kerry and Lavrov (probably it will be remembered as "Pizza and Vodka deal", as the journalists have been served these delicacies by the negotiating teams during the time they had to wait for the results) beside the points disclosed by the foreign ministers included five documents. The US insisted on keeping the content secret, despite Russian insistence to make them known. Here is what we learned about the contents of the secret documents and the negotiation process from our usually reliable Arab and Israeli sources.

The secret documents describe what should happen in Syria after the cease-fire will come into effect. The first day of cease-fire is called Day D. The Russians wanted it to begin at noon, while the Americans preferred sunset on Monday September 12, 2016. The American view prevailed. After first two days, at D+2, if cease-fire holds, the Russians and the Americans will extend it for a longer time. This actually happened on September 14, in a telephone conversation between Lavrov and Kerry. They extended it for another 48 hours. If it will hold for a week, hopefully the sides will extend it indefinitely and proceed to the next stage.

Comment: See our ceasefire coverage in our daily reports here:

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USA

US 'donates' $1.3 million to family of Italian hostage killed by drone strike in Pakistan


RT
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 18:38 UTC
US President Barack Obama
© Jonathan Ernst / ReutersUS President Barack Obama apologized on April 23, 2015 for a drone strike in January that year that killed Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein, aid workers held hostage by al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
The US has given a "donation" of $1.32 million to the family of Giovanni Lo Porto, the Italian aid worker killed in January 2015 by a US drone strike. Documents detailing the condolence payment also confirmed the attack took place in Pakistan.

In April 2015, US President Barack Obama admitted that Lo Porto and another aid worker, Warren Weinstein, were killed in a drone strike against a suspected Al-Qaeda base in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Lo Porto and Weinstein had been held hostage by the terrorist group since 2011.

Documents quoted by the Italian daily La Repubblica this week show that the US government signed an agreement with the Lo Porto family on July 8, to pay a total of 1,185,000 euros ($1.32 million) as a "donation in the memory of Giovanni Lo Porto."

The agreement also confirmed that Lo Porto was killed in Pakistan.

The admission was made shortly after Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's visit to Washington.
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Stormtrooper

Abusive behavior: Judge rules 'bullying' UK troops caused drowning death of Iraqi teen


RT
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 18:15 UTC
British soldiers
© Atef Hassan / Reuters
Bullying UK troops' conduct was the "plain and certain" cause of the 2003 drowning death of a 15-year-old Iraqi boy, an official inquiry has found.

The Iraq Fatality Investigations (IFI) inquiry into the death was led by former senior judge George Newman and reported Thursday.

The investigations' results were the polar opposite of a manslaughter court case into the death carried out in 2006 which saw all soldiers involved exonerated.
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USA

Clinton email scandal: What is the FBI hiding?

Andrew P. Napolitano
The Washington Times
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 17:44 UTC
Illustration on the co-option of the FBI and Justice Department over the Hillary email investigation
© Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times
Earlier this week, Republican leaders in both houses of Congress took the FBI to task for its failure to be transparent. In the House, it was apparently necessary to serve a subpoena on an FBI agent to obtain what members of Congress want to see, and in the Senate, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee accused the FBI itself of lawbreaking.

Here is the back story.

Ever since FBI Director James Comey announced on July 5 he was recommending that the Department of Justice not seek charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a result of her failure to safeguard state secrets during her time in office, many in Congress have had a nagging feeling that this was a political, not a legal, decision. The publicly known evidence of Mrs. Clinton's recklessness and willful failure to safeguard secrets was overwhelming. The evidence of her lying under oath about whether she returned all her work-related emails that she had taken from the State Department was profound and incontrovertible.

And then we learned that people who worked for Mrs. Clinton were instructed to destroy several of her mobile devices and to remove permanently the stored emails on one of her servers. All this was done after these items had been subpoenaed by two committees of the House of Representatives.
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Briefcase

Apple hit with $118 million tax bill in Japan after funneling money through Ireland


RT
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 17:09 UTC
Apple logo on window
© Clodagh Kilcoyne / ReutersTaking a bite out of public finances: Apple paid zero taxes.
Apple's tax bills continue to mount after yet another multi-million penalty was handed down to an iTunes unit in Japan. A total of $118 million (12 billion yen) is owed after it was found the company was funneling money through Ireland.

After investigating the company, the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau found that the royalties earned from fees paid by Apple iTunes subscribers in Japan were withheld from the exchequer, with the money instead channeled through a licensing firm owned by Apple in the Republic of Ireland.

The royalties earned should have been subject to a 20.42 per cent withholding tax but instead, as the royalties were earned through iTunes software built into the iPhone, the money was included into the cost of buying an iPhone handset, according to FT.
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Jet3

Saudis bombed a water well in "double tap" airstrike in Yemen, killing dozens including children and first responders

Andrea Germanos
Common Dreams
Mon, 12 Sep 2016 17:03 UTC
anti-Saudi protests
© Campaign Against Arms Trade/flickr/ccHuman rights campaigners protest against Farnborough International arms fair on July 11, 2016.
A United Nations official has condemned airstrikes, including a "double tap" attack, on a water well in Yemen that killed dozens of people including children. The statement comes as the Obama administration's proposed $1.15 billion arms to Saudi Arabia, who's leading the U.S.-backed coalition's bombing campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, faces opposition both on and off Capitol Hill.

In a statement released Monday, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said that 30 people were killed and 17 were wounded, with the casualties including first responders and two children, as a result of the airstrikes in the village of Beit Saadan in northern Yemen.

According to reporting by Reuters, several workers drilling for water were killed in the first strike; then, in what is known as a double-tap strike, warplanes came back and hit those who had rushed out to help the workers.

"I remain deeply disturbed by the unrelenting attacks on civilians and on civilian infrastructure throughout Yemen by all parties to the conflict, which are further destroying Yemen's social fabric and increasing humanitarian needs, particularly for medical attention at a time when the health sector is collapsing," Goldrick said, and urged all parties involved to adhere to the April 10 ceasefire.

UN Human Rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein last month called for an international investigation into human rights abuses in Yemen, saying the conflict was creating "devastating" toll on the country's population and that the "international community...has a legal and moral duty to take urgent steps to alleviate the appalling levels of human despair." International human rights groups have made a similar call.

As Kristine Beckerle and John Sifton of Human Rights Watch wrote last week, "the U.S. continues to provide logistical, tactical, and intelligence support to the Saudi-led military operation against the Houthis and their allies in Yemen that has resulted in numerous laws-of-war violations."
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Padlock

Media remains silent as Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Pipeline, steals more land in Texas for a different project

Claire Bernish
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 16:56 UTC
Energy Transfer Partners steals land in texas
© countercurrentnews.com
Energy Transfer Partners, the company responsible for construction of the hotly contentious Dakota Access Pipeline, has another controversial pipeline project with the potential to contaminate drinking water and the environment and destroy an area in Texas described as sacred and environmentally vital — and the ruthless company has been suing landowners to snatch their property for its own profiteering.

Known as the Trans-Pecos pipeline, the relatively short 143-mile project would carry natural gas from western Texas' Permian Basin — likened to "America's Saudi Arabia" as the country's "Most Important Oil and Gas Resource" by Forbes — across the border into Mexico. But this project will run through the state's pristine, remote Big Bend area, considered sacred to some and an environmental treasure to others, and — despite Texas' long history of devotion to Big Oil and Gas — has sparked vociferous debate about property rights and corporate power.

"It's a sacred landscape," explained Texan David Keller, an archaeologist at Sul Ross State University's Center for Big Bend Studies, for the Texas Tribune last year. "It truly is the last best place in Texas. When you destroy that landscape, you lose that sense of place."
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Info

How and why Russia and China are supporting Syria's devastated economy

Rasmus Jacobsen
Global Risk Insights
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 13:40 UTC
View of Syrian city
An economy in ruins

More than five years of armed conflict has had a catastrophic impact on the Syrian economy. National GDP has plummeted to less than 50% of pre-conflict output, and according to recent figures, the total economic loss to date amounts to 275 billion USD - around five times the 2010 GDP. And as violence continues in several parts of the country, especially in the pre-conflict commercial powerhouse of Aleppo, Syria's economic downfall can be expected to continue.

The extreme damage to the economy owes to a combination of a 25% drop in overall population, the displacement of half of all Syrians, a steep drop in economic activity, capital flight, massive destruction of infrastructure and productive capacity, as well as the loss of 25 million school years for Syria's children, which will reduce labor productivity for the coming generation. Furthermore, large segments of the Syrian business elite that initially remained confident in the future of the country have lost faith and divested their assets and relocated to neighboring countries.

Such an economic impact is not only affecting the Syrian population at present, but will be felt for decades, if not generations. If the war ended this year, it would take 10-15 years before Syria's per capita GDP would return to pre-conflict levels. And as the violence is expected to continue well into the future, total long-term economic costs could reach up to 1 trillion USD - nearly 20 times the 2010 GDP.

Comment: The Syrian war is about the natural gas and oil pipelines:

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Snakes in Suits

WADA is another case of shooting the alleged Russian messenger

Finian Cunningham
RT
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 15:47 UTC
WADA political cartoon
By now the pattern is not only familiar. It has become absurd. Sensitive, damning information is leaked into the Western public domain, and instead of explaining the contents - the response is: "Blame the Russians".

This week saw the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) being embarrassed with the release of confidential medical records showing how top US athletes were permitted to take banned drugs because they were given "Therapeutic Use Exemptions" by WADA. The athletes included multi-gold medal gymnast Simone Biles and tennis legend Serena Williams.

More leaked files by the hacker group involved have now embroiled British cycling champions Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, who were also permitted to take banned chemicals through the official, but secret, designation of "exemptions".

Thus far, some 29 athletes from eight countries have been implicated in the leaks for taking banned substances, including the US, Britain, Germany and interestingly enough one case from Russia. The latter tends to contradict Western claims that the hackers are "Russian agents".


Comment: See also: SOTT News Snapshot: September 15 edition - Everything you need to know about American doping


Comment: More WADA hack releases:
The hacker group known as 'Fancy Bears' has released a new list of WADA drug test results of well-known athletes. The latest list includes athletes from Great Britain, Denmark, Australia, Spain and Germany.

Great Britain's Nicola Adams, who became a double Olympic champion by winning gold at Rio 2016, is one of the athletes featuring in the list.

The documents show that Adams received a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) in 2009 for her use of banned substances salbutamol, salmeterol, fluticasone propionate, and another TUE in 2016 for the use of methylprednisolone.

Spanish gold and bronze medal-winning swimmer Mireia Garcia Belmonte is also on the list. Belmonte received a TUE in May 2013 for the inhalation of salbutamol, a medication that opens up the medium and large airways in the lungs.

The database published on the hacking group's website includes 11 athletes from five countries.

Great Britain

Nicola Adams, boxing, Olympic gold medalist
Laura Trott, cycling, double gold medalist
Siobhan-Marie O'Connor, swimming, silver medalist
Olivia Carnegie-Brown, rowing, silver medalist

Denmark

Jeanette Ottesen, swimming, bronze medalist

Australia

Kimberley Brennan, rowing, gold medalist
Alexander Belonogoff, rowing silver medalist
Jack Bobridge, cycling, silver medalist

Spain

Mireia Garcia Belmonte, swimming, gold/bronze medalist

Germany

Julian Justus, sports shooter
Laura Siegemund, tennis player


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TV

UK gov't plans to oppose Russian media's truth signal by pumping more money into the BBC propaganda machine


RT
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 15:15 UTC
BBC banner
© Peter Nicholls / Reuters
Among the measures the British government has proposed to counter alleged Russian 'propaganda and disinformation' is the provision of extra funding to BBC World Service to produce more content in Russian.

The plan, which puts the international broadcaster on par with MoD's freshly revamped psy-warfare 77 Brigade, was given by the cabinet to MPs in response to a July House of Commons Defence Committee inquiry called "Russia: Implications for UK Defence and Security."

One of the concerns voiced by the lawmakers was that "that the UK and NATO do not yet have a fully-developed strategy to counter Russian propaganda and disinformation effectively."

"We understand that efforts are underway in NATO to develop this," the report said. "In that respect, the establishment of 77 Brigade by the MoD is a welcome step in the right direction. However, the budget available to Russia means that NATO must substantially increase the level of resources which member states commit to this work."

The government's response was that, along with other NATO allies, it will step up strategic communications.

Comment: When the West is ever unsure what to do about something their go-to strategy is always: throw more money at it! Of course this strategy never works, but it sure does make a bunch of psychos rich in the process. At the same time, expanding the BBC is likely to drive more people to Russian media sources as more come to see just how corrupt and unreliable the BBC's reporting is compared to Russian news agencies.

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