Puppet Masters

US sanctions Chechnya's elite police unit, Russia intends reciprocal response

RT
Thu, 16 May 2019 17:53 UTC

The US has blacklisted a Russian police unit in the southern republic of Chechnya as well as five individuals, under the Global Magnitsky Act that allows Washington to sanction 'human rights abusers' anywhere.

Thursday's announcement by the Treasury Department affects the Terek Special Rapid Response Team (SOBR), the Russian equivalent of a SWAT team. The sanctions also apply against the team commander, listed as Abuzayed Vismuradov.

Four more individuals were added to the blacklist, including the warden of Penal Colony IK-7 by the name of Sergey Leonidovich Kossiev. The official positions of three other sanctioned Russian citizens were not given.

Comment: RT reports that in Russia also intends to respond reciprocally:

Moscow to react 'reciprocally' to US blacklisting of elite Chechen police unit - Kremlin

Russia will respond 'reciprocally' to the US sanctions placed on Chechen special police unit Terek, Vladimir Putin's spokesperson said, slamming Washington's move as 'destructive.'

"Obviously, the principle of reciprocity applies here," Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday, adding that Washington's recent actions against Chechnya's Terek Special Rapid Response Team will trigger "necessary countermeasures."

Peskov did not specify what steps are being considered.

On Thursday, the US Treasury Department included the rapid-response unit - a local equivalent of a SWAT team - into the anti-Russian sanctions list. The sanctions also personally apply to the team's commander.

It was done under the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act, which is an extension of an earlier US law adopted to target Moscow. The legislation allows the US government to sanction anyone it sees as complicit in violating human rights anywhere in the world.

Russian officials heavily criticized the law, saying that Washington does not provide sufficient evidence for its enactment and uses it to target people arbitrarily.

First the US sanctions Iran's Revolutionary Guard accusing it of being a terrorist organization, and now it blacklists the Chechen elite police unit, it's not immediately clear what the US' intentions are, other than an attempt to smear Chechnya and, by-proxy, Russia.

It's a pretty outrageous claim considering that American police have a well earned reputation for their violent and inhumane treatment of citizens but the US government does nothing to correct the abuses at home: Woman who claimed to be pregnant killed by Texas cop during arrest scuffle

Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Bill Browder, the Magnitsky Act, and anti-Russia Sanctions: Interview with Alex Krainer

Activists guarding Venezuelan embassy offered State Department a peaceful resolution to standoff but US chose to ignore international law

Consortium News
Mon, 13 May 2019 21:01 UTC

Comment: Prior to the Illegal US raid on the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington DC, the Embassy Protection Collective wrote to the State Department, outlining the traditional mechanism for treating another country's diplomatic properties when the countries are in conflict. The State Department chose to ignore centuries of custom, opting instead to seize the property in favor of its puppet, Juan Guaido.

It is hard to imagine what will be accomplished, as Venezuela will not recognize any activity of the "embassy" as legitimate. Carlos Vecchio is unable to authorize passports or any other diplomatic credentials, thereby depriving innocent Venezuelan citizens access to services.

The blatant violation of international law by the US government will have repercussions on diplomatic relations between countries far into the future. America has put a time-tested framework in jeopardy

Activists protecting the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington have written to the State Department offering a way to peacefully end the standoff between themselves and an argy mob of Guaidó supporters.

Activists who have lived inside the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington for more than a month protecting it from seizure by an illegitimate government have offered the State Department a solution to the crisis unfolding at the diplomatic compound. Last week the State Department pulled the credentials of Venezuelan diplomats-still recognized at the United Nations- preventing them from entering their place of work. Instead the U.S. recognized Venezuelan "diplomats" representing the self-declared "president" Juan Guaidó.

Comment:

NATO-led airstrike kills 17 Afghan police officers 'by mistake'

RT
Fri, 17 May 2019 09:31 UTC

An airstrike by the NATO-led Resolute Support mission reportedly killed 17 police officers in Afghanistan on Thursday, injuring a dozen others in a 'mistake' during fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban.

The strike was conducted as Afghan police were fighting the Taliban outside Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand province, with Afghan officials describing the incident as a "mistake". Head of the provincial council Attaullah Afghan said 14 policemen were also wounded in the strike.

It wasn't clear whether Afghan or US forces carried out the strike, the AP reported, although the Taliban claimed it had been US forces.

Comment: Bombing hospitals, schools, weddings, and so on, is par for the course for the US led coalition's reign of terror in the Middle East:

2 US destroyers enter Persian Gulf with carrier strike group on standby off coast of Oman

RT
Fri, 17 May 2019 02:06 UTC

Two US Navy warships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles have entered the Persian Gulf with a carrier strike group on stand-by off the coast of Oman, as Washington keeps accusing Tehran of planning to attack "American interests."

Guided missile destroyers USS Gonzalez (DDG-66) and USS McFaul (DDG-74) transited the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday afternoon, the US Naval Institute (USNI) reported. Their sailing proceeded "without challenge" or "harassment" from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, despite boiling hot tensions between Tehran and Washington, the publication's defense sources noted.

The two destroyers are now in close proximity to other American warships in the region sent by Washington earlier this month to tackle what the US called "heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against US forces and our interests." No evidence has yet been offered to back up those claims.

Comment: See also:

Farage's Brexit Party is 'crushing all competition' in the social media war

RT
Fri, 17 May 2019 09:48 UTC

Nigel Farage's Brexit Party are crushing the competition in the social media battle being fought online, with their Facebook posts generating more shares than every other UK political party combined, according to new data.

89up, a London-based online content and social media consultancy have analysed a database of 1.5 million Facebook pages, since the beginning of the EU election cycle, which started a month ago.

They found that the Brexit Party generated 125,035 shares, dwarfing the numbers of their rivals. The Tories were the closest with 26,400, with Labour, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Green Party all trailing with less than 6,000 shares. The new pro-second referendum party Change UK had a dismal 56 shares.

Comment: The elites are no doubt going to blame social media/Russia for the landslide euroskeptic victories in the upcoming 'EU election' (if it can even be called that). Never, never will they accept that they're simply in the minority...

OPCW confirms leak of covered-up report, suggesting Douma incident 'false-flag' is genuine

Kit Knightly
Off-Guardian
Fri, 17 May 2019 09:48 UTC

The leaked OPCW report appears to have been confirmed genuine.

The report, titled "Engineering Assessment of Two Cylinders Observed at Douma Incident", came to public prominence a few days ago after The Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media released their analysis of the text.

Since then it has gotten a lot of play all across the alternate media (you can read our original report here, but there were many others too).

It has received virtually zero coverage in the mainstream media, of course. And that doesn't appear likely to change any time soon.

Comment: So there you have it. The security services for the US, UK and French governments - aka FUKUS - staged a 'chemical weapons attack' in Douma, killing 70 Syrian innocents, blamed the Syrians/Russians, then bombed Syria to 'punish' Syria.

Those are the facts. The rest is Fake News.

Propaganda alert: UK raises threat level for soldiers & officials in Iraq 'due to Iranian threat'

Jess Shankleman
Bloomberg
Fri, 17 May 2019 09:48 UTC

The U.K. raised the threat level for its armed forces and diplomats in Iraq because of an increased security risk from Iran, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The move by the British government follows a decision on Wednesday to order its non-emergency government employees to leave Iraq amid increasing Middle East tensions.

The Ministry of Defence refused to confirm the new threat level, first reported by Sky News, but said in a statement that "we keep the security of our deployed personnel and assets under constant review."

Comment: Also see:

Florida Senate unanimously approves draconian 'anti-Semitism law', DeSantis to sign it in Jerusalem

John Haughey
The Center Square
Fri, 17 May 2019 09:48 UTC

The Senate Monday may have given Gov. Ron DeSantis the perfect agenda-sweetener for his Florida Cabinet meeting next month in Jerusalem - a signing ceremony for a new Florida law requiring public schools to treat anti-Semitism as discrimination, and anti-Semitic speech and acts as racist speech and acts.

The Florida Senate unanimously approved House Bill 741 with all 39 members on the chamber floor Monday signing on as co-sponsors.

HB 741 - approved by the House 114-0 on April 11 - was substituted for its Senate companion bill, Senate Bill 1272, which had only progressed through one committee, on the Senate floor and adopted after senators consented to waive procedural rules to accelerate its passage.

Maduro: "US raid on Venezuela embassy a brutal act against int'l law"

TeleSUR
Thu, 16 May 2019 06:09 UTC

© EFE
Demonstrators occupying the Venezuelan embassy in Washington D.C. on behalf of Venezuelan authorities were removed after the U.S. invaded it.

The President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro rejected and repudiated the storming of its embassy by United States police officers Thursday.

"The U.S. has raided the premises of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington ... a brutal act against international law and lack of respect for embassies in the world," said the president.

The Venezuelan head of state says he gave instructions to take its complaint of the event to the highest authorities and is expecting U.N. member states to make declarations against this violation.

Comment: See also:

Remember that time John Bolton said it's good to lie about war?

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Thu, 16 May 2019 05:32 UTC

Journalist Whitney Webb recently tweeted a 2010 video clip I'd never seen before featuring US National Security Advisor John Bolton defending the use of deception in advancing military agendas, which highlights something we should all be paying attention to as Trump administration foreign policy becomes increasingly Boltonized.

On a December 2010 episode of Fox News' Freedom Watch, Bolton and the show's host Andrew Napolitano were debating about recent WikiLeaks publications, and naturally the subject of government secrecy came up.

"Now I want to make the case for secrecy in government when it comes to the conduct of national security affairs, and possibly for deception where that's appropriate," Bolton said. "You know Winston Churchill said during World War Two that in wartime truth is so important it should be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies."

"Do you really believe that?" asked an incredulous Napolitano.

"Absolutely," Bolton replied.

"You would lie in order to preserve the truth?"

"If I had to say something I knew was false to protect American national security, I would do it," Bolton answered.

Comment: Not that whoever replaces him will be much better, but it seems like Bolton's time may be up. See also:

Oh, and I thought he was f**king rhesus monkeys ... :O

codis

But now she is almost safe from Ze Virus ... Soon to be totally safe

codis

Every person I know fully supports the False-Flag narrative. Like everything else about our federal government deep state, they lie. It is all...

L. Wood

Wonder who created those vaccines and funded the research.

Searcher109

You can tell this is an MSM article, and on reading it, I could actually hear in my head the phony concern in the voice of a tv announcer, how...

ReRan

Puppet Masters

US sanctions Chechnya's elite police unit, Russia intends reciprocal response

Activists guarding Venezuelan embassy offered State Department a peaceful resolution to standoff but US chose to ignore international law

NATO-led airstrike kills 17 Afghan police officers 'by mistake'

2 US destroyers enter Persian Gulf with carrier strike group on standby off coast of Oman

Farage's Brexit Party is 'crushing all competition' in the social media war

OPCW confirms leak of covered-up report, suggesting Douma incident 'false-flag' is genuine

Propaganda alert: UK raises threat level for soldiers & officials in Iraq 'due to Iranian threat'

Florida Senate unanimously approves draconian 'anti-Semitism law', DeSantis to sign it in Jerusalem

Maduro: "US raid on Venezuela embassy a brutal act against int'l law"

Remember that time John Bolton said it's good to lie about war?

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