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Scott Ritter: Did former Tony Blair aide Jonathan Powell meet with an Al-Qaeda front organization?

Scott Ritter
RT
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 17:41 UTC
jonathan powell tony blair aide al qaeda hts syria
© REUTERS / Toby Melville / File
Jonathan Powell, Britain's ex-Chief of Staff to former Prime Minister Tony Blair
A media report says he did; the British Foreign Office refuses to comment. Recent events, however, are not inconsistent with both the motives for and potential results of such a meeting, which fits Powell's MO to a T.

It was a headline designed to catch the attention of anyone reading it: "British intelligence suggests al-Nusra start cooperating with West." According to an unnamed "diplomatic source in Moscow", Tony Blair's former Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, held a meeting with Mohammad al-Julani, the head of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as Jabhat Al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate based in the Syrian Province of Idlib, where it is actively engaged in operations against the Syrian government headed by President Bashar Assad.

The purpose of the meeting, according to the source quoted by Russian news agency TASS, was to encourage HTS to build closer ties with the West to re-brand HTS as a pro-Western, anti-Assad group, thereby opening the door for the provision of financial and material support to HTS' struggle against Assad.
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Bad Guys

Report says lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, linked to Hunter Biden, being probed by Justice Department

Mark Moore
New York Post
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 17:01 UTC
Hunter Biden
© Getty Images
Hunter Biden
A consulting firm linked to Hunter Biden that did work ​for Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that paid the Biden scion $83,000 a month to sit on its board, is under investigation by the Justice Department, according to a report on Thursday.

Blue Star Strategie​s​ is being probed for potential illegal lobbying after it took on Burisma as a client while Hunter was on its board, Politico reported.

The US Attorney's Office in Delaware, ​which is already investigating Hunter for possible "tax" violations, is working with lawyers in the Justice Department's National Security Division in Washington, DC, the report said.

One aspect of the investigation is whether Blue Star failed to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) that requires Americans to disclose lobbying work for foreign entities.

Comment: That Blue Star Strategies was involved in some shady business on behalf of Burisma is fairly certain. Will the rats turn on each other? We can only hope.

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Eye 1

Novichok inquest to become 'public inquiry' with secret sessions, as evidence contradicts UK government narrative

John Helmer
Dances With Bears
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 10:21 UTC
plane stop
The British Government is preparing to halt the coroner's court inquest into allegations that Novichok caused the death of Dawn Sturgess in Salisbury on July 8, 2018.

After replacing the Salisbury coroner in January of this year, and after a single hearing on March 30 by secret service advisor and ex-judge Baroness Heather Hallett, briefings by the Cabinet Office and the security services have led to the decision that the only way of preserving the government's narrative of a Russian nerve agent attack, first against Sergei and Yulia Skripal, then against Sturgess, is to introduce Defence Ministry and MI6 evidence in secret session.

Hallett and the lawyers advising her inadvertently allowed secret medical evidence to slip into the public record on March 30. This revealed that two leading English pathologists could not agree to sign their findings on the cause of Sturgess's death after holding two autopsies in July of 2018; they then delayed signing their final post-mortem report for almost five months. That report, dated November 29, 2018, the medical records of the first and second autopsies, along with ambulance paramedic logs, hospital admission records, and ward medical notes remain top secret. Together with the papers of MI6 agents, Porton Down nerve agent experts, and Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Office official in charge, this classified evidence is inadmissible in coroner's court proceedings under English law; they are allowable in closed-door session if a public inquiry is substituted.

Comment: As SOTT reported back in 2018: Skripal Likely Poisoned by British Intelligence in Effort to Smear and Silence Russian World View

See also: Urine, blood, hearsay: OPCW report gives the German game away, reveals no novichok, no Navalny crime

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Wolf

Macron postpones unpopular pension reform promise until after France's elections in spring 2022

Geert De Clercq
Financial Post
Thu, 03 Jun 2021 12:00 UTC
El presidente francés, Emmanuel Macron, habla durante en discurso en Kigali
© AFP
Emmanuel Macron, 27th May 2021
French President Emmanuel Macron's planned reform of the pension system cannot go ahead as planned in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, he said on Thursday, retreating on one of the signature reforms he promised to push through when he came to office.

"I do not think that the reform as it was originally envisaged can go ahead as such," Macron told reporters.

"It was very ambitious and extremely complex and that is why it generated anxiety, we must admit that. Doing it right now would mean ignoring the fact that there are already a lot of worries."

Comment: Deferring the unpopular reforms until after the 2022 election sounds like a cunning campaign strategy in Macron's run for reelection: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal #26: Globalization vs Nationalism - The Hidden Causes of The Yellow Vest Protests in France

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Info

Biden to alter Trump order targeting US investments in Chinese military firms: report

Thomas Barrabi
Fox News
Thu, 03 Jun 2021 09:51 UTC
chinese military
Order will be unveiled amid calls for the Biden administration to crack down on firms with ties to the Chinese military.

President Biden will issue an executive order later this week altering a Trump-era ban on U.S. firms making investments in companies with ties to the Chinese military, according to a report Wednesday.

Under Biden's directive, the Treasury Department will be tasked with compiling a list of companies at risk of penalties for ties to China's defense and surveillance technology sectors, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The order will mark a change from Trump's policy, which tasked the Defense Department with tracking potential violations.
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Eye 1

Ice Age Farmer Report: Cyberattack Shuts Down Biggest Meat Producer in World, JBS - Cyberpandemic meets Food Supply


Ice Age Farmer
Mon, 31 May 2021 09:14 UTC
ice age
The WEF's promised "cyberpandemic" has hit our food supply, as the biggest animal protein producer in the world, JBS, stopped operations worldwide after a cyberattack. The situation may escalate quickly as live animals are involved, and require feed. But more importantly, Is this just a scripted event to move us to the WEF's desired post-animal economy, and to hide a global shortage of grains?


Sources
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Stock Down

Biden administration adds 59 Chinese companies - including Huawei and military firms - to investment blacklist


RT
Thu, 03 Jun 2021 23:36 UTC
Joe Biden
© Reuters/Carlos Barria
Joe Biden gestures as he delivers remarks during a visit to the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 1, 2021.
President Joe Biden has signed an executive order barring Americans from investing in 59 Chinese firms, including telecoms giant Huawei and a plethora of arms manufacturers. The order builds on an earlier decree by Donald Trump.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump don't see eye-to-eye on much and, immediately after taking office in January, Biden set about undoing nearly every single Trump policy by executive order. However, hostility toward China is a rare policy shared by both Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

Biden proved this on Thursday, signing an executive order that prohibits US investment in 59 Chinese companies. The order is almost identical to one signed by Trump late last year, though it adds a handful of firms and shifts authority for enforcement from the Defense Department to the Treasury, a move that officials told the WashingtonPost beforehand is more legally sound.

The firms on the list were chosen due to their overt or alleged work for China's defense or surveillance sectors, or for their owners' ties to these sectors.
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Newspaper

Indian politician killed in Kashmir, detainee shot dead after gunfight in camp


Yahoo
Thu, 03 Jun 2021 06:38 UTC
Pandita
© AP Photo/Channi Anand
India Kashmir Politician Killed:
Relatives of Rakesh Pandita, a politician who was killed late Wednesday, mourns at their residence in Jammu, India, Thursday, June.3, 2021. Assailants fatally shot the politician belonging to India’s ruling party in disputed Kashmir, police said Thursday, blaming separatist rebels for the attack. The unidentified assailants fired at Pandita late Wednesday in the southern town of Tral, where he was visiting a friend, police said. He was declared dead in a hospital.
Assailants fatally shot a politician belonging to India's ruling party in disputed Kashmir, and separately, police on Thursday killed a detainee who they said snatched an officer's rifle and fired at officials inside a police camp.

The unidentified assailants shot Rakesh Pandita late Wednesday in the southern town of Tral, where he was visiting a friend, police said, blaming anti-India rebels for the attack. He was declared dead in a hospital.

Rebels in Indian-controlled Kashmir have been fighting the central government for decades. Suspected militants carried out a string of deadly attacks last year on members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party in Kashmir. Among those killed was a top BJP politician and his father and brother, who were also party members.

Comment: See also: The conflict in Kashmir

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Snakes in Suits

Danish PM insists relations with European allies don't need repairing amid US spying connection allegations


RT
Thu, 03 Jun 2021 16:33 UTC
NSA Frederiksen

The National Security Agency (NSA) logo. Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images; (inset) Mette Frederiksen Wikipedia
Denmark's prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, defended the nation's relationship with its allies on Wednesday, after France and Germany demanded answers over reports the US used Danish information cables to spy on European leaders.

On Tuesday, Denmark's public broadcaster reported that the US exploited its relationship with the Nordic nation's intelligence agency to spy on political figures in France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden between 2012 and 2014.

America's National Security Agency (NSA) reportedly used internet cables to and from Denmark, which hosts key landing stations for the underwater lines, to intercept digital communications, including text messages, telephone calls, and online activity.

Comment: For other recent spying revelations, see: See also:

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Star of David

Israel's assault on Gaza a huge economic gamble


Press TV
Tue, 01 Jun 2021 05:48 UTC
Israel econ gamble
© Unknown
The Gaza War and Carnage: Did Israel calculate the economic losses of its offensive?
The military costs of Israel's onslaught on the Gaza Strip, from the price of the missiles launched from the Iron Dome missile defense system to other military hardware, should be compared with the military cost for the Palestinian resistance factions. We shall also take a look at how the economy of Israel has been ravaged due to the war.

Israel was just recovering from the COVID 19 pandemic. It had mass vaccinations underway and was hoping to get its economy going again. Did investments in Israel fall? What about business closures? These are some things which Israel may have neglected to factor into its calculations of the cost of war.

There has been a call from the BDS movement, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, to boycott firms complicit in Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine land. Did their voices get heard, did the international community react? These are some things that we shall delve into.

It was a brutal war. Israel bombed Gaza. There were civilian casualties on both sides; on the Israeli side, 11 were killed; on the Palestinian side, about 300. It was disproportionate. But another area was also uneven, the number of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

Over 4000 Palestinian missiles were sent deep into the occupied territories, disrupting the lives of Israeli citizens and closing businesses across the occupied territories.

Comment: The War on Gaza was Netanyahu's 'Hail Mary' pass to reelection. Instead it took down the candidate as part of the cost and carnage.

See also:

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