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Frmr Norwegian border guard sentenced in Moscow for nuclear submarine espionage


RT
Tue, 16 Apr 2019 12:45 UTC
Russian Borei-class nuclear submarine, norwegian border guard spy russian sub
© Sputnik / Pavel Lvov
The FSB says it has been fully proven that Berg, acting under orders of Norwegian intelligence, gathered secret data, “harming the defensive capabilities of the Russian Federation.” The prosecution says Berg was harvesting data related to Russian nuclear submarines.
A retired Norwegian border guard was sentenced to 14 years in a Russian prison for gathering data on Russian nuclear submarines. His lawyer says he was played by the Norwegian side.

Frode Berg was arrested in Russia in December 2017 by operatives of the FSB, Russia's counter-intelligence and security agency. Few details are known about his case, which was heard by a Moscow court behind closed doors due to its sensitive nature.

The FSB says it has been fully proven that Berg, acting under orders of Norwegian intelligence, gathered secret data, "harming the defensive capabilities of the Russian Federation." The prosecution says Berg was harvesting data related to Russian nuclear submarines.

According to leaks-based reports in the Russian media, Berg served as a courier between his nation's intelligence and an employee of a Russian defense contractor. The latter, previously suspected of treason, was under FSB surveillance.

Comment: Norway says it doesn't consider Russia a threat, but relations are still rather frosty, thanks to the US / NATO:

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Star of David

Annexation for immunity? West Bank annexation may provide key to unlocking Netanyahu's legal troubles

Jonathan Cook
Mondoweiss
Tue, 16 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Netanyahu Likud Party election campaign
© Amir Cohen/Reuters
Launch party for Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party campaign, Ramat Gan, Israel, March 4, 2019.
After winning the Israeli election with a slim majority, in a campaign that grew more sordid and vilifying by the day, Benjamin Netanyahu is poised to begin his fifth term as Israeli prime minister.

The culmination of his dirty tricks campaign was an election-day stunt in which his Likud party broke regulations - and possibly the law - by arming 1,200 activists with hidden cameras, to film polling stations in communities belonging to Israel's large Palestinian minority.

Netanyahu justified the move by saying it would ensure the election was "kosher". Yet again, Israel's prime minister made it clear that the country's 1.7 million Palestinian citizens were unwelcome interlopers in what he regards as an exclusively Jewish political process.

The PR firm behind the stunt admitted another motive. The goal was for the cameras to be quickly discovered by police and thereby scare the one in five citizens who are Palestinian into staying home. A low turnout by Palestinian voters in Israel would ensure a stronger parliamentary majority for Netanyahu's coalition.


Comment: Netanyahu confirms his party spied on Palestinian voters in effort at voter suppression


In fact, slightly less than half of the minority cast a ballot, although the reason was probably as much down to their exasperation at a series of ever more right-wing Netanyahu governments as it was a fear of surveillance at polling stations.

Comment: See also:

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Eye 1

US unseals Assange affidavit, revealing probable cause for extradition & arrest for 'conspiracy'


RT
Tue, 16 Apr 2019 17:29 UTC
assange protest sign free press
© Agence France-Presse / Daniel Leal-Olivas
US prosecutors have unsealed an affidavit against Julian Assange that outlines their case against the WikiLeaks co-founder on a single count of "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion" that may or may not have succeeded.

As FBI special agent Megan Brown admits in the affidavit, "it remains unknown whether Manning and Assange were successful in cracking the password" to the Department of Defense computer they allegedly conspired to hack, meaning the sole charge against Assange remains his alleged attempt to assist Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning in accessing the documents that were eventually leaked in 2010.

Assange Affidavit by on Scribd


The "probable cause" for Assange's extradition to the US is described as hundreds of messages sent between Manning and Assange on the Jabber platform. The two "conspirators" should have known that releasing the documents "would cause injury to the United States," Brown declares, since it contained information about US allies in Afghanistan who were assisting coalition forces.

Comment: See also:

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X

Qatari FM calls for arms embargo against Libya's Haftar, while arming illegitimate UN-created govt


Sputnik
Tue, 16 Apr 2019 17:22 UTC
General Kalifa Haftar

General Kalifa Haftar
Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani called for imposing an effective arms embargo on Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army's (LNA) and suggested forcing the LNA leader to withdraw his troops from the territories seized during the army's ongoing operation to liberate Tripoli.

"[It is necessary] to implement an [arms] embargo against Haftar and prevent the countries supplying [Haftar] with arms and ammunition from doing so," the minister said in an interview with Italy's La Repubblica newspaper.

The minister also stressed that the withdrawal of Haftar's troops from the territories it had occupied during the operation was vital in order to prevent the LNA leader from thinking that he had gained control over these territories in a "natural way".

After the effective arms embargo is in place and the LNA forces are withdrawn, the minister suggested holding the Libyan National Conference that was scheduled for April 14-16 but was "deliberately foiled by Haftar's offensive."

The foreign minister of Qatar, which has been supporting the GNA, arrived in Rome on Monday to discuss the situation in Libya with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the state's foreign minister, Enzo Moavero Milanesi.

Comment: The Qatari FM is just engaging in mafia politics. His government is currently flying weapons into Misrata, home of the GNA-backed terrorists whom Haftar is attempting to cleanse from the country.

Must-read background on the current situation in Libya:

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Russian Flag

German investment in Russia highest in decade despite sanctions


RT
Tue, 16 Apr 2019 17:15 UTC
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel
© Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel
Investments by German businesses in the Russian economy exceeded €3 billion in 2018, marking the highest level since before the financial crisis more than a decade ago, according to the Russian-German Chamber of Commerce.

"Despite Western sanctions along with Russia's retaliatory measures the volume of investments by German corporations into the Russian economy last hit a record high in 2008," the German trade lobby said in a statement.

The chairman of the chamber Matthias Schepp highlighted that apart from substantial investment in projects such as the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, Russia's market offers great opportunities for German small and medium-sized businesses.

"Companies that are well aware of the Russian market are not in a hurry to be afraid of sanctions and political problems," Schepp said.

According to the statement, the total volume of financial inflows from German investors in 2018 amounted to €3.2 billion, exceeding the forecasts by the Deutsche Bundesbank that expected the figure to reach a maximum level of €2.1 billion.

Comment: U.S. policy is to destroy their enemies by any means possible in order to maintain global hegemony. And when actual warfare isn't possible, it resorts to economic warfare, among other forms. Unfortunately for the makers of this U.S. policy, Europe is simply too natural a trading partner of Russia to be completely cowed into obeying U.S. diktat. See also:

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Bad Guys

US war against Venezuela and Iran's 'deep states' goes public

Andrew Korybko
Oriental Review
Mon, 15 Apr 2019 17:09 UTC
Pompeo
© NEO
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
The US' desire to dismantle the network of Iranian influence in Latin America and specifically in Venezuela speaks to its commitment to counter the regional sway of its rivals' "deep states", though it's hitherto unprecedented for any country to make such a crusade public since the end of the Old Cold War, let alone clothe it in "anti-terrorist" and "anti-criminal" rhetoric.

US Secretary of State Pompeo recently reiterated his rhetoric that Iran is a "global threat", this time basing it on his claims that the country's network of influence in Latin America is supporting "transnational crime" and "terrorism". This comes shortly after Washington designated the IRGC as a "terrorist" organization and approximately half a year since the Justice Department began investigating Iranian ally Hezbollah's alleged links to drug cartels as a follow-up to the scandalous Obama-era "Operation Cassandra". Taken together, it's clear that the US desires to dismantle Iran and Venezuela's supposedly interconnected influence networks in Latin America as the next step in fortifying "Fortress America", and while "deep state" wars such as this one have been going on for decades, it's hitherto unprecedented for any country to make such a crusade public since the end of the Old Cold War when the US used to make similar claims about the USSR and its communist proxies.
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Cardboard Box

Amid chaos at Dept. of Homeland Security, Ron Johnson calls for honest, policy-focused immigration debate

Alexandra DeSanctis
National Review
Wed, 10 Apr 2019 14:58 UTC
Ron Johnson
© Erin Schaff/Reuters
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., May 15, 2018.
Wisconsin's Republican senator believes the issue is a lot more complex than either side is willing to acknowledge.

With Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's departure from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this week, the future of the Trump administration's immigration policy has been thrown into uncertainty, even as the situation at the southern border becomes increasingly unstable.

According to a New York Times report, Nielsen's relationship with the president worsened in recent months as he repeatedly blamed her for the ongoing surge in apprehensions at the border. The breaking point apparently came when Trump asked her to close ports of entry and stop accepting asylum seekers, and she refused. Some other reports suggested that the president also was frustrated with Nielsen's resistance to reinstating the "zero tolerance" policy of separating migrant children from their families at the border, which was scrapped last summer after months of controversy. (Trump denied this on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters, "We're not looking to do that, no.")

Nielsen's resignation came amid a months-long spike in the number of asylum seekers and migrant families stopped at the southern border. In early March, the Times reported that "for the fourth time in five months, the number of migrant families crossing the southwest border has broken records." Weeks later, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) head Kevin McAleenan called the situation an "unprecedented humanitarian and border-security crisis."
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Pirates

Trump was 'just joking' about loving Wikileaks, says WH press secretary

Allan Smith
NBC News
Sun, 14 Apr 2019 15:50 UTC
wikileaks
President Donald Trump was just joking when commented during his campaign that he "loved" WikiLeaks, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Sunday.

"Look, clearly the president was making a joke during the 2016 campaign," Sanders told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace about Trump's past praise for WikiLeaks. "Certainly we take this serious."

Sanders spoke about Trump's WikiLeaks remarks after the Department of Justice charged the website's fugitive founder Julian Assange with computer hacking following his arrest in London partly in connection with a U.S. extradition warrant. Assange had been living for nearly seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition.

Comment: It was obviously not a joke and that he really did love Wikileaks. This is just more evidence that the US president is not in charge. He was told to distance himself from Assange, and he obediently obliged.

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Bad Guys

Washington just had a secret meeting for 'US military assault' on Venezuela

Eoin Higgins
Common Dreams
Mon, 15 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Juan Guaidó
© Edilzon Gamez/Getty Images
With the backing of the Trump administration, opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself "interim president" earlier this year.
A group dedicated to regime change in Venezuela held a secret meeting on overthrowing the country's government last week, according to reporting from The Grayzone Project.

Journalist Max Blumenthal on Sunday revealed a list of meeting attendees he obtained over the weekend from a source.


The list (in which the meeting is misdated as being on April 20) shows that the event, held at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., boasted as attendees members of the State Department, the Colombian and Brazilian embassies, members of the Venezuelan opposition, and other officials in the American national security state.

Comment: For more on what Washington's "considerations" are for military intervention in Venezuela, see: Where will the Trump administration go to war next?

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Bizarro Earth

Top US general urges communication with Russia


RT
Mon, 15 Apr 2019 23:16 UTC
US army poland
© Reuters/Kacper Pempel
US 1st Armored Division deploying artillery at the Drawsko Pomorskie training area, Poland, March 2019
As US-Russia relations continue to wither, one top US general is pushing for greater cooperation between the nuclear adversaries, urging US officials to seek "more communication" with their Russian counterparts.

"It would ensure that we understand each other and why we are doing what we're doing," said Curtis Scaparrotti, four-star US Army general and the top NATO commander for Europe.

"It doesn't have to be a lot," Scaparrotti told the Associated Press on Sunday, adding that "communication is a very important part of deterrence."

Relations between the two countries have rapidly deteriorated in recent years, a development many analysts have deemed a "new Cold War." The general suggested US-Russia communications have all but ground to a halt.

Comment: Evidently, for some in the West, communication and cooperation with Russia would mean relinquishing their ultimate goal of unilateral world domination, and so they'll do just about anything to avoid it: Cooperation between NATO and Russia nonexistent - Russian deputy FM

See also:
NATO bases


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