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CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou: Julian Assange can't receive a fair trial in the US

Mohamed Elmaazi
Sputnik
Tue, 16 Mar 2021 08:00 UTC
Kiriakou
© Truthout/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0/.jpg
John Kiriakou
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will face a system that is rigged by design before he ever sets foot in the court room, should he be extradited to the Unites States, CIA officer-turned-whistleblower John Kiriakou explains in an exclusive interview with Sputnik.

John Kiriakou is a former CIA counter-terrorism officer and former chief investigator for the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In an exclusive interview with Sputnik, Kiriakou explains how he faced decades in prison after being charged with Espionage Act offences following his revelations that the Bush administration was engaged in torture of terror suspects. Kiriakou, who co-hosts The Backstory on Sputnik radio in Washington DC, also said that he did not believe it was possible for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to receive a fair trial, as he would face a jury made up of members of the national security state, the military, or their family members.

Sputnik: Can you explain the events leading up to you being arrested and prosecuted by the US federal government?
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Nuke

Iran's defense minister says country must prepare for nuclear and chemical attacks

Dave DeCamp
AntiWar.com
Tue, 16 Mar 2021 00:00 UTC
Hatami
© Tehran Times
Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami
On Tuesday, Iran's defense minister said the country must be prepared to face nuclear, chemical, and biological attacks.

"We should be prepared to defend our nation against all threats and whatever the enemy may one day use as an offensive tool, including chemical, nuclear and biological weapons," said Gen. Amir Hatami, according to Iran's Fars News Agency.

Hatami made his comments on the 33rd anniversary of a chemical weapons attack by Saddam Hussein on Iraqi Kurds in Halabja, Iraq. During the Iran-Iraq war that raged from 1980 to 1988, Hussein frequently used chemical weapons against Iran, sometimes with US support.

Declassified CIA documents revealed that in 1988, the US shared intelligence with Hussein to show the location of Iranian troops, knowing he would use lethal gas against them. The documents revealed the US had firm evidence Hussein was using chemical weapons as early as 1983.
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Bulb

Mandatory vaccination against coronavirus would be wrong, says Russian deputy PM, warning some citizens still 'distrust' all jabs


RT
Tue, 23 Mar 2021 18:53 UTC
Sputnik V Russian vaccine
© Sputnik
A medic works with a patient vaccinated with Russian Gam-COVID-VAK (trademark "Sputnik V") coronavirus vaccine who has come to donate antibody-rich plasma at the City Clinical Hospital No 52, in Moscow, Russia.
Russia's mass immunization campaign against Covid-19 has picked up speed, the country's deputy prime minister has told RT, saying that despite some anti-vax sentiment, there is no need to force the public to roll up their sleeves.

Speaking as part of an exclusive interview with RT in Russian published on Tuesday, Tatyana Golikova said that the authorities "now have a better understanding" of how to organize the public health campaign, and "more than 6,000 vaccination points have been opened in our country." Around 89 million sets of doses are now planned to be produced in the first half of this year, she added, with three domestically developed formulas.

"We have defined for ourselves the number of people that we need to vaccinate in order to achieve collective immunity is almost 69 million," Golikova said. "We are moving actively in this direction and, even at our current rate, we think we can reach these numbers in August, but we expect pace to pick up before then."
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Family

Public pressure: Biden administration finally releases images of migrant facilities at Texas border

Morgan Chalfant and Jonathan Easley
The Hill
Tue, 23 Mar 2021 18:34 UTC
texas migrant facilities march 2021
© Jaime Rodriguez Sr/U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Public Affairs
The Biden administration on Tuesday released video footage and photos of two Texas facilities housing migrant children amid pressure for more transparency at the federal centers.

A Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) official told The Hill that the agency continues to "discourage external visitors" - including the press - at the facilities housing migrant children.

However, CBP released two videos and 44 images of the facilities in Donna, Texas and El Paso, Texas in an effort to "balance the need for public transparency and accountability," the official said.

Comment: As pretty as these facility images are, they don't tell the whole story. The numbers arriving at the border far exceed their capacity. More on the overflow:
Gila Bend, Arizona, is a town of less than 2,000 people, located halfway between the state capital of Phoenix and Sonoyta, a village on the Mexican side of the border. Mayor Chris Riggs told Fox News on Monday that for the past two weeks, Border Patrol agents have been dropping off busloads of illegal immigrants in Gila Bend, with no further instruction from the government on what to do with them.

"Border Patrol let us know that they were going to be dropping migrants that had been detained for 72 hours in our town, which we really didn't understand because we have nothing here," Riggs told FOX Business. He said that he's been left "completely in the dark" by the Biden administration on what to do with the new arrivals, and has not received any funding to shelter, house or feed the migrants.

Announcing that he would declare a state of emergency in the hope of getting some federal aid, Riggs told Fox that to test two busloads of migrants for Covid-19 every week for a year would cost his town $600,000. In addition to the influx by bus, he said that 20 or so migrants are arriving every day on foot, and violent crime has increased in Gila Bend as a result.

Riggs has appeared on TV multiple times in recent weeks to highlight the same problem. "Quite frankly, it's going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars a year to be able just to provide them with a bottle of water and a sandwich when they get dropped off," he told Fox last week. He then spoke to RT, and said dropping migrants off without health and background checks was akin to "opening Pandora's box."

Riggs is just the mayor of one small town, but his story illustrates a wider problem along the US' 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
Meanwhile, in the progressive liberal bubble of Washington, Kamala seems to be not grasping the magnitude of the problem. Or perhaps, she just doesn't care?
Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed a reporter with a cackle and said "not today" after she was asked whether she had plans to visit America's southern border, which is now overwhelmed by migrants arriving in record numbers.

The exchange took place on Monday, as Harris spoke to reporters after arriving at Jacksonville International Airport in Florida on Air Force One. When asked about a potential trip to the border, she answered, "Um, not today" before letting out a laugh. "But I have before, and I'm sure I will again."


The response came off as tone deaf at a time when the border faces a rapid influx of illegal immigration and deteriorating conditions at migrant detention facilities, only worsening since President Joe Biden took office in January and enacted policies incentivizing migrants to make the trek north. Harris' comment also happened to come on the same day that both Axios and Project Veritas released photos showing the squalid conditions at holding centers for unaccompanied migrant children detained at the border.

...

Critics on social media blasted Harris for seemingly laughing off the issue.

"Kamala Harris, putting children in cages is NO laughing matter..." charged conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza.

"Apparently, the border crisis is now a laughing matter for the Biden administration," Senator Cruz's adviser Steve Guest quipped.

A supporter of ex-president Donald Trump argued that the media does not hold Harris to the same standard as the former Republican president.

"No urgency, no crisis," another commenter said. "If this was Trump, OMGEE, the breaking news goes all the way to the Milky Way."


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Star of David

No matter who wins in the latest Israeli election, it's clear that the Palestinians will be the losers

Robert Inlakesh
RT
Tue, 23 Mar 2021 16:28 UTC
protest sign netanyahu corruption
© Reuters
A woman walks past a banner depicting Israeli PM Netanyahu and words "Crime Minister" outside the Justice Ministry in Jerusalem
Israel goes to the polls today, with Benjamin Netanyahu set to rely on extreme right-wingers if he is to retain power, and the hardline Gideon Saar the probable alternative. Either outcome is bad news for the Palestinian people.

Benjamin Netanyahu heads into Tuesday's election, the fourth in only two years, with a deeply divided political opposition. The Israeli premier is running against 10 opposition parties, as opposed to four main parties in last year's election. And as he bids to win not only an election but also evade prosecution over corruption charges, he's brought under his wing the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, along with other far-right groups.
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Smiley

Russia's Lavrov seen wearing cheeky mask in China

Andrei Dergalin
Sputnik
Mon, 22 Mar 2021 14:50 UTC
lavrov cheeky mask
© Sputnik / Tatiana Kukushkina
The mask was apparently given to the minister by journalists as a gift.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sported a new look during his recent visit to China where he was seen wearing a face mask emblazoned with a message relating to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The design of the mask, which Lavrov apparently received as a gift from journalists, featured a simple message: "FCKNG QRNTN."

Comment: The man knows how to make a statement.

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Megaphone

Israel prepares for 'Capitol-style' attack on Knesset after election


RT
Mon, 22 Mar 2021 22:15 UTC
Knesset
© Reuters / Leah Millis
The Knesset building in West Jerusalem. knesset.gov.il; Supporters of Donald Trump storming the US Capitol.
Security agencies fear that January's events at the US Capitol, which was stormed by Donald Trump's supporters after the election, may repeat themselves at the Knesset and are training to avert such a scenario, local media said.

Tensions are running high as the Israelis are expected to go to the polls for the fourth time in two years on Tuesday.

The Knesset Guard and security agencies are even considering the possibility that those unhappy with the results of the vote may try attacking the Israeli legislature in West Jerusalem.

The scenario, which resembles the Capitol siege, was one of several included in the election day preparations of the security forces, Israeli Channel 13 reported.

Comment: The state of discontent on our planet is evident by the increasing number of protests of all kinds, and, in turn, some politicians appear to be using this as an opportunity to clamp down and seize further security powers:

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MIB

Anonymous US officials claim intel of Iran threatening US Army base and key American general

Alex Nitzberg
Just The News
Tue, 23 Mar 2021 10:21 UTC
iran flag
© Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Image Iranian man with bicycle behind Iranian flag in February 2021
Public of Iran has made threats about an Army base located in Washington D.C., and against Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Joseph Martin, according to a report citing two unnamed senior intelligence officials.

According to the Associated Press, the sources said that the National Security Agency in January intercepted communications that revealed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard communicating about "USS Cole-style attacks" targeting Fort McNair, a reference to a 2000 suicide attack in which a small vessel blew up next to a Navy ship, resulting in the deaths of 17 sailors.

"The intelligence also revealed threats to kill Gen. Joseph M. Martin and plans to infiltrate and surveil the base, according to the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss national security matters and spoke on condition of anonymity," the outlet reported.

Comment: The official story surrounding Soleimani's assassination is not all as it seems, and that may also be the case with the above anonymous leak; because it's possible that it tells us more about the US demonizing Iran and hyping up a war stance than about official Iranian plans:

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Eagle

Mass federalization: How Washington is bailing out failed states, decapitating competitive ones and ending America as you knew it

Mark Glennon
Wirepoints
Mon, 22 Mar 2021 00:00 UTC
The Capitol
An astonishingly sweeping, radical movement to level cities and states is underway, propping up the failures and pounding down those that have been successful. Most everything is being federalized. The role of cities and states as we have known them - as laboratories of democracy - is being eviscerated. It's being financed by both the United States Treasury and the Federal Reserve bank, which are now joined at the hip in fiscal profligacy.

Much of it is proceeding under the false labels of pandemic relief and fiscal stimulus. It's happening at such a rapid pace that the paper of record for government overreach, The Washington Post, fears that "the sheer volume of new programs threatens to swamp federal agencies."

It's a fundamental and historic remake of America, though its impact hasn't yet come close to sinking in. Some of the numbers that follow seem beyond belief, but they are real. If claiming that pending legislation will destroy America as you know it seems like exaggeration, read on to see what its supporters say, because it's their commentary that is most revealing.
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Bomb

If Israel accuses Iran of doing something, Israel is likely already doing it

Ted Snider
Mondoweiss
Mon, 22 Mar 2021 00:00 UTC
Netanyahu points to a drawing of a bomb
© Mario Tama/Getty Images
Netanyahu points to a drawing of a bomb in warning of Iran’s threat, in an address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2012 in New York
Israel has accused Iran of doing many nefarious things. But the historical record shows that whatever Israel accuses Iran of, it is likely that Israel is already doing it.

For example, Israel has repeatedly accused Iran of destabilizing the region by malignantly spreading across the region and forming alliances and exercising influence in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

But Israel is spreading across the region by forming alliances and exercising influence across the region. With varying degrees of formality and publicity, Israel has expanded its network and formed alliances with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. And this Israeli spread has been destabilizing both in terms of increasing weapons in the region and legitimizing and solidifying occupations.

The agreement between Israel and the UAE meant F-35 fighter jets, Reaper drones and EA-18G Growler jets that are capable of jamming enemy air defenses for the UAE and a large weapons package for Israel in compensation, potentially including combat helicopters, advanced communications satellites, bunker buster bombs, F-35s, KC-46A tanker aircrafts that are capable of refueling many aircrafts simultaneously and V-22 aircrafts that can transform from helicopter to airplane.
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