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Ankara urges Paris not to make 'same mistake' as US on Syria


The Jordan Times
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 09:26 UTC
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
© AFP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends a joint press conference with the leaders of Russia and Iran as part of a tripartite summit on Syria, in Ankara, on Wednesday
Turkey on Thursday urged France not to "make the same mistake" as the United States by sending troops to the Syrian town of Manbij, which Ankara has threatened to attack to dislodge Kurdish militia.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey would expand its offensive against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia to the town in north Syria.

Turkey's pro-government Yeni Safak daily reported that France had deployed 50 soldiers to Manbij to support the YPG, while state-run Anadolu news agency said 100 French special forces were deployed at five bases in YPG-controlled areas of Syria.

Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said officials were looking into the reports and indicated Turkey would inform Paris of its opposition "if this is found to be true".

Comment: See also:

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USA

Duterte: 'Americans really do not honour their word'


Al Jazeera
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 12:33 UTC
Duterte

Duterte said that US President Donald Trump has voiced his approval of the Philippine drug war [EPA]
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has launched a fresh expletive-filled tirade against the United States, accusing one of the country's closest allies of lacking "word of honour", while suggesting that the CIA is out to get him.

In a speech in Manila on Thursday, Duterte lashed out at the US government for halting the planned sale of firearms to the Philippines because of human rights concerns.

"The fact is, the Americans really do not honour their word," he said, justifying his decision to turn to China and Russia to acquire rifles for Filipino forces.

"At least, if ever my airplane explodes, or if some roadside bomb explodes, maybe you can ask the CIA," Duterte told a group of farmers and fishermen gathered at the Malacanang presidential palace.

It was not the first time the Philippine president accused the CIA of plotting against him.

In 2016, he told a group of Filipinos in Vietnam that he received reports of an "alleged plan by the CIA to kill me". In 2017, he was also quoted as saying, "If I die, it's America [that is behind it]. It's the CIA".

Comment: Duterte's policies may be not be too popular with the west, but he's right to be critical of the US. See also:

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Magnify

Human rights lawyer: No evidence Lula is corrupt - Brazilian prosecutor wants him to prove innocence AFTER beginning 12-year prison sentence!


BBC
Sat, 07 Apr 2018 06:27 UTC
lula da silva
Brazil's Supreme Court has ruled that ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be jailed while he appeals against a graft conviction. He is facing 12 years in prison on charges of accepting a bribe but had asked to remain free during his appeal. Lula claims the charges are politically motivated, and designed to prevent him from running for president in October. Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has taken Lula's case to the UN Human Rights Commission.


Comment: The fix is clearly in on this one: whatever about the overall corruption findings of the 'Car Wash' investigations - which has played out like Brazil's 'Russiagate' - former president Lula da Silva has clearly been dragged into it in order to prevent his re-election later this year.

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Vader

John Helmer: 'The Empire Strikes Backwards'

John Helmer
Dance with Bears
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Skripal & The British Flush
Empires are just like everything else going down the toilet. Bits always stick on the porcelain which require more flushing. Embarrassing bits.

Now in its fifth week since the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury on March 4, the bits that cannot be flushed away are producing an odour whose obviousness is embarrassing for Salisbury Hospital and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The hospital is treating the Skripals for their medical welfare and is required by hospital policy and UK law to be accountable to their next of kin. Their rights of access to and from the hospital are also required by European Human Rights Convention. The evidence now accumulating is that the hospital is detaining and isolating the Skripals against their will, preventing contact with their family. Requested to explain this and identify her legal authority, the response of the hospital's chief executive, Cara Charles-Barks, is to stonewall.

Comment: British Government's Chemical Attack Narrative Falls Apart - Boris Johnson Lied About Russia

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Stormtrooper

To silence the press: Six journalists shot by Israel during Gaza protests


AFP/Yahoo
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 16:46 UTC
press_israel_gaza
© AFP Photo/SAID KHATIB
Demonstrators assist an injured Palestinian journalist Yasser Murtaja during clashes with Israeli security forces following a protest near the border with Israel, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on April 6, 2018. Demonstrators assist an injured Palestinian journalist Yasser Murtaja during clashes with Israeli security forces following a protest near the border with Israel, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on April 6, 2018
Six Palestinian journalists were shot and wounded by the Israeli army during clashes Friday between demonstrators and troops on the Gaza border, the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate said.

The union said the six were shot despite wearing clothes clearly identifying themselves as journalists, adding it held Israel "fully accountable for this crime".

None of the injuries were life threatening, but it called for the perpetrators to be held accountable.
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Dollars

How $37 million from the Clinton Foundation disappeared in Baltimore

Charles Ortel
LifeZette
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 21:05 UTC
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
© Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
A grant went to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund - but the group had only an office address in Washington, D.C. So what happened to the money?

Here's a question for which Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, special counsel Robert Mueller, and former FBI Director James Comey may well know the answer to - but aren't likely to want to talk about in public, under oath:

Why did the Clinton Foundation send a $37 million grant for the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund in 2010 to a Baltimore post office box when the CBHF told federal tax authorities that its only office that year was in Washington, D.C.?

For the rest of us, the answers to that and many other questions posed by those who wonder why investigations into obvious and rampant frauds involving Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and their purported foundation never go anywhere are complex. But they're worth following if you care about combating charitable fraud.

Be prepared, because the answers also make clear that too many powerful people were and are covering up an odious set of scandals that implicate Establishment Republicans and Democrats alike.
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Extinguisher

Operation 'Damage Limitation' stumbles as UK Establishment on back foot in Skripal Case

Neil Clark
Sputnik
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 21:52 UTC
skripal front door
© Reuters / Peter Nicholls
Deadly nerve agent on front door, but no hazmat suit.
The failure of the UK laboratory experts at Porton Down to confirm that the nerve agent we were told was used on the Skripals actually came from Russia, has led to back-pedalling from Ministers and Establishment-friendly journalists and the propagation of new, even more outlandish conspiracy theories to try and shore up the 'Official Narrative.'

The immediate response- following Tuesday's dramatic developments, was to dismiss the testimony of Porton Down CEO Gary Aitkenhead as unimportant. 'Porton Down lab probably baffled by the fuss over this interview' tweeted the BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner. 'Porton Down wouldn't be able to say where the nerve agent was from anyway' was the oft-repeated refrain. The trouble is that we already been told that the laboratory HAD identified the nerve agent as coming from Russia.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said as much in an interview on German television on 25th March.

In addition, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office tweeted on 18th March 'Analysis by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down made clear that this was a military grade Novichok nerve agent produced in Russia'.

Comment: From the mouths of babes:



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Mr. Potato

Ray McGovern on John Bolton: Lunatic let loose in the West Wing

Ray McGovern
Consortium News
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:01 UTC
JohnBolton
© AP/Seth Wenig

As Uber-Hawk John Bolton prepares to take over as national security adviser on Monday, Ray McGovern looks back at when Bolton was one of the "crazies" in the George W. Bush administration.

John Bolton's March 22 appointment-by-tweet as President Donald Trump's national security adviser has given "March Madness" a new and ominous meaning. There is less than a week left to batten down the hatches before Bolton makes U.S. foreign policy worse that it already is.

During a recent interview with The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill (minutes 35 to 51) I mentioned that Bolton fits seamlessly into a group of take-no-prisoners zealots once widely known in Washington circles as "the crazies," and now more commonly referred to as "neocons."

Beginning in the 1970s, "the crazies" sobriquet was applied to Cold Warriors hell bent on bashing Russians, Chinese, Arabs - anyone who challenged U.S. "exceptionalism" (read hegemony). More to the point, I told Scahill that President (and former CIA Director) George H. W. Bush was among those using the term freely, since it seemed so apt. I have been challenged to prove it.
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Black Cat

Sarkozy's hand caught in the French cookie jar?

Eric Margolis
EricMargolis.com
Thu, 29 Mar 2018 21:01 UTC
Nicolas Sarkozy
© Benoit Tessier/Reuters
France’s ex-president is accused of receiving €50m in campaign funds from Muammar Gaddafi.
There was something refreshing about watching former French president Nicolas Sarkozy being interrogated in a French jail. Particularly since he may soon be accused of conspiracy in the murder of my old friend, Col. Muammar Khadaffi of Libya.

Sarkozy and his former chief of staff, Claude Guéant, are being investigated for secretly accepting at least fifty million Euros from Khadaffi for his 2007 electoral campaign. Such a payment violated France's maximum permissible limit for political donation, not to mention a ban on foreign financing of candidates and failure to report the payments. Sarko also faces investigation over secret payments from the Gulf oil states.

French political candidates often have to wade through the sewers to finance their campaigns because spending limits were set relatively low to prevent big money from buying the elections, as in the United States.

These charges against Khadaffi and Guéant have been percolating for years with only a muted response. Sarkozy also got into hot water after he was accused of bilking large sums of cash from a senile heiress to France's L'Oréal cosmetics company.

Comment:

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Bad Guys

Washington and Riyadh's enduring global terror enterprise

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Saudi Regime
For decades the United States and its NATO allies have helped Saudi Arabia export methods of political indoctrination known as Wahhabism to radicalize individuals and swell the ranks of mercenary forces used to wage proxy wars abroad and manipulate Western populations at home.

What began as a means for the House of Saud itself to establish, expand, and eventually consolidate political power on the Arabian Peninsula in the 18th century has now become a finely honed tool of geopolitical power integrated into Washington's foreign policy.

A remarkable admission was recently made in the pages of the Washington Post in an article titled, "Saudi prince denies Kushner is 'in his pocket'."

The article would quote Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, stating (emphasis added):
Asked about the Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism, the austere faith that is dominant in the kingdom and that some have accused of being a source of global terrorism, Mohammed said that investments in mosques and madrassas overseas were rooted in the Cold War, when allies asked Saudi Arabia to use its resources to prevent inroads in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union.
Successive Saudi governments lost track of the effort, he said, and now "we have to get it all back." Funding now comes largely from Saudi-based "foundations," he said, rather than from the government.
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