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Iran reports two new attacks on Iranian tankers; calls Red Sea 'unsafe'

TIm Korso
Sputnik
Thu, 07 Nov 2019 21:35 UTC
Sabiti damage
© Reuters/West Asia News Agency
Damage to the vessel Sabiti
Tehran had previously only reported a single attack on one of its tankers, which took place in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia on 11 October. The country promised to conduct a full investigation of the incident before pointing the finger at those responsible, but noted that the incident must have been organised by "one or more" states.

Iranian authorities have notified the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) that a total of three of its oil tankers have been attacked over the course of six months, all in the same region - in the Red Sea, off the Saudi coast, The Wall Street Journal reported. In its letter to the international body, Tehran indicated that the attacks, which it argues were likely "organised by one or more states", had impacted regional maritime security in a negative way. The Iranian letter reportedly stated:
"A major concern in this respect is that the organised and directed pattern of these attacks within a short time and similar locations have rendered the Red Sea as an unsafe route for ships to adopt for their voyages."
Apart from the confirmed attack on the Sabiti oil tanker, which took place on 11 October, Iran reportedly mentioned two other occasions in the notification to the IMO. One of them took place in August 2019 and involved a tanker named "HELM". This vessel reported suffering a technical failure in the Red Sea on 21 August, but provided no further details at the time and didn't refer to the incident as an "attack".

Comment: See also:

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Dollars

Dems turn on billionaire Bill Gates for not being a fan of Sanders' or Warren's proposed wealth tax


RT
Thu, 07 Nov 2019 17:08 UTC
Bill Gates
© Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann
Bill Gates
Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates was eviscerated on social media after balking at some Democratic candidates' wealth tax and hinting he'd vote for whoever is "more professional," which some took as a dog whistle for Trump.

Gates expressed some apprehension about the "wealth tax" proposed by Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, admitting he'd only be willing to fork over so much of his massive fortune. "I've paid over $10 billion in taxes, I've paid more than anyone in taxes! I'm glad to have — If I had to pay $20 billion, it's fine," he told the New York Times DealBook Conference on Wednesday.

"But when you say I should pay $100 billion, then I'm starting to do a little math about what I have left over," the world's richest man said, to laughter from the audience. "Just kidding," he added, while his body language suggested he wasn't.
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Light Sabers

Iran says it shot down infiltrator drone near key port - not one of ours, US responds


RT
Fri, 08 Nov 2019 17:57 UTC
drone attack iran
Iranian air defense forces have shot down a foreign drone near the port city of Mahshahr, Iranian media reported, showing alleged footage of the intercept as proof. The US Central Command said it didn't lose any of its UAVs.

The drone was taken down on Friday by an Iran-developed Mersad surface-to-air missile, the Iranian Mehr news agency reported. Alleged footage of the takedown released by the Iranian side showed a missile being fired, followed by an explosion.

Gholamreza Shariati, the governor of the Khuzestan province where Mahshahr is located, said a wreck of the drone was recovered from the marshlands in the suburbs of the city.
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Cult

Eric Ciamarella describes the coup d'etat a.k.a the Complete Fake Impeachment Inquiry

Seraphim Hanisch
The Duran
Fri, 08 Nov 2019 17:29 UTC
eric ciaramella CIA
© LaCorte News
Featured photo from LaCorte News piece identifying the Ukraine whistleblower as CIA analyst Eric Ciamarella
Fox News just ran a piece noting that the "Ukraine whistleblower", alleged to be CIA agent by the name of Eric Ciamarella is on record for tweeting in 2017 that the "coup has begun", two years before its realization unfolded in the Compleat Fake Impeachment Inquiry which has been dominating much of the news cycle for all American media outlets. What we see now is this coup in progress. Fox reports:
Mark Zaid, the attorney for the Ukraine call whistleblower, allegedly identified as Eric Ciaramella, on Thursday defended a series of tweets from 2017 in which he predicted a "coup" against President Trump and promised to "get rid of him" — saying in a statement the tweets referred to "a completely lawful process."
Here, as printed in an earlier piece by Fox, is what Mr. Zaid said:
Mark Zaid, one of the attorneys representing the intelligence community whistleblower at the center of the Democrats' ongoing impeachment inquiry, tweeted conspicuously in January 2017 that a "coup has started" and that "impeachment will follow ultimately."

Then, in July 2017, Zaid remarked, "I predict @CNN will play a key role in @realDonaldTrump not finishing out his full term as president." Also that month, Zaid tweeted, "We will get rid of him, and this country is strong enough to survive even him and his supporters."

Comment:

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Brain

Macron says NATO is brain-dead - Russia and all thinking humans agree


The Economist
Thu, 07 Nov 2019 17:38 UTC
Emanuel Macron
© REUTERS / Yoan Valat/Pool
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has warned European countries that they can no longer rely on America to defend NATO allies. "What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO," Mr Macron declares in a blunt interview with The Economist. Europe stands on "the edge of a precipice", he says, and needs to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power; otherwise we will "no longer be in control of our destiny."

During the hour-long interview, conducted in his gilt-decorated office at the Elysée Palace in Paris on October 21st, the president argues that it is high time for Europe to "wake up". He was asked whether he believed in the effectiveness of Article Five, the idea that if one NATO member is attacked all would come to its aid, which many analysts think underpins the alliance's deterrent effect. "I don't know," he replies, "but what will Article Five mean tomorrow?"

NATO, Mr Macron says, "only works if the guarantor of last resort functions as such. I'd argue that we should reassess the reality of what NATO is in the light of the commitment of the United States." And America, in his view, shows signs of "turning its back on us," as it demonstrated starkly with its unexpected troop withdrawal from north-eastern Syria last month, forsaking its Kurdish allies.


Comment: Cue the outrage:
Macron's "drastic words" were "unnecessary, even if we do have problems and must get it together," Merkel complained at a Berlin news conference on Thursday, insisting the "transatlantic partnership is indispensable for us."

Stoltenberg backed her up, declaring "European unity cannot replace transatlantic unity," and warning that the EU cannot defend Europe without outside assistance. When the UK finally leaves the alliance, some 80 percent of NATO's defense will be funded by non-EU countries, he warned.

The general secretary praised Germany as "the heart of NATO" and lauded Merkel's government for boosting its military spending. With most of NATO's member countries failing to chip in their promised 2 percent of GDP, Germany announced on Thursday it hopes to hit that target for the first time by 2031 - seven years later than the date agreed upon by the alliance's members in 2014.
Zakharova's response was more entertaining:
"Golden words. True and accurate. A proper definition of the current state of NATO," Maria Zakharova wrote in a Facebook post, referring to the hard-hitting remark Macron made in an interview to the Economist, which was published on Thursday.
Lavrov too:
"I wouldn't want to drag myself into a discussion about the medical side of this issue," Lavrov told reporters, at an arms control event in Moscow on Friday. He added, sarcastically: "If Macron had felt that the diagnosis he made [of NATO] was so evident - he had all the right to state it. He knows NATO better than me, since he represents a nation which is a member of the alliance."

Lavrov noted that Russia remains interested in building mutually-beneficial relations with the US-led bloc, which would be based on an equal footing. "So, once NATO 'recovers', we'll be right there."

The Kremlin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the trans-Atlantic military alliance was designed for confrontation since its inception. He, too, quipped about Macron's take on NATO's current state of affairs.

"Whether NATO is alive or dead, and which of its parts are comatose - that's not for us to decide. We're not pathologists."


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Bomb

Perennial lies: Israel says Iran is less than a year away from making nukes

Tim Korso
Sputnik
Fri, 08 Nov 2019 17:30 UTC
Netanyahu Bomb Iran
Iranian officials earlier discarded the idea that the country could obtain or use nuclear weapons, insisting that it goes against their religious principles. Israel, which has long accused Tehran of running a nuclear weapons development programme, ignored these statements.


Comment: Coming from Israel, a country which already has its own illegal stockpile of nuclear weapons.


Israeli intelligence believes that Tehran is making progress in its nuclear programme, and can potentially make its first atomic weapons soon if it decides to, the Israeli Kan 11 broadcaster reported citing anonymous sources.

"Iran can achieve a nuclear bomb within less than a year if they decide to act quickly in that direction", the broadcaster cited the intelligence agency's warning.


Comment: And they've been that far away from making the bomb for decades... Almost seems as if maybe they're not planning to do it, and never were?

The broadcaster's sources further noted that the Israeli authorities are transferring "materials" that allegedly prove their claims to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but said that the process is taking too long due to bureaucracy.
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Magnify

Inconvenient truths: Alarming things we have learned under Trump, but not always about him

Stephen F. Cohen
The Nation
Wed, 06 Nov 2019 17:21 UTC
white house storm
© AFP / SAUL LOEB
Almost daily for three years, Democrats and their media have told us very bad things about Donald Trump's life, character, and presidency. Some of them are true.

But in the process, we have also learned some lamentable, even alarming, things about the Democratic Party establishment, including self-professed liberals. Consider the following:

— The Democratic establishment is deeply and widely imbued with rancid Russophobic attitudes. Most telling was (and remains) a core "Russiagate" allegation that "Russia attacked American democracy during the 2016 presidential election" on Trump's behalf — an "attack" so nefarious it has often been equated with Pearl Harbor. But there was no "attack" in 2016, only, as I have previously explained, ritualistic "meddling" of the kind that both Russia and America have undertaken in the other's elections for decades. Little can be more phobic than the allegation or belief that one has been "attacked by a hostile" entity. And yet, this myth and its false narrative persist in the Democratic Party's discourse, campaigning, and fund-raising.
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Chess

Iran is winning strategic struggle for influence, even as US cripples its economy

Darius Shahtahmasebi
RT
Fri, 08 Nov 2019 16:49 UTC
Azadi Tower
© Getty Images / Sir Francis Canker Photography
Azadi Tower illuminated at late dusk in Tehran, Iran
A new report has confirmed what some analysts have been saying for some time: that Iran is winning the regional struggle for strategic influence.

The 217-page report, published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), is entitled "Iran's Networks of Influence in the Middle East" and details Tehran's use of proxy forces and networks throughout the region and the effects and benefits of its "minimum output" foreign policy strategy.

It is probably worth mentioning at this point that H.R. McMaster, Trump's former national security adviser, was once an employee of the IISS. As was James Steinberg, a former US deputy secretary of state. Furthermore, at the end of 2016, the Guardian revealed that the organization had received £25 million ($32 million) from the Bahraini royal family (apparently almost half of its total income has come from Bahrain). Iran and Bahrain aren't exactly close friends.

Notwithstanding the potential motives and bias of the IISS, the report definitely arrives at some interesting conclusions.
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Attention

Sen. Kamala Harris introduces bill to lengthen school day by three hours

Yelena Dzhanova
CNBC
Wed, 06 Nov 2019 16:20 UTC
kamala harris
© Alex Edelman | AFP | Getty Images
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks with children at the Iowa State Fair on August 10, 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa.
Presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., introduced a bill Wednesday that would lengthen the school day to 6 p.m. to better align with working parents' schedules.

The proposal, first reported by Mother Jones, calls for a three-hour extension of elementary school hours during weekdays and appoints money for the creation of summer programs and activities when school is not in session.

Five-year grants of up to $5 million would go to school districts serving a high number of low-income families to push the end of the average school day from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in 500 schools. School days typically start at 8 a.m. Teachers and faculty, the bill says, would not have to work additional hours unless they sign up for an extra shift, for which they would be compensated at the rate they get during normal school hours.

Comment: Why end the school day at all? Let the state raise your kids!

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Eye 1

MI6 officer with pornographic images of children on work computer had charges dropped

Owen Bowcott
The Guardian, UK
Tue, 26 Mar 2019 13:22 UTC
MI6 Headquarters in London, England
© Felix Clay/The Guardian
MI6 Headquarters in London, England.
An MI6 officer was discovered to have child sexual abuse images on his work computer but the charges against him were eventually dropped, the intelligence service has told an inquiry.

The illegal material was found in 2006 and the official was dismissed, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) heard on Tuesday. The case was referred to the police who investigated. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) brought charges but it never came to trial.

Evidence about the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), or MI6 as it is more commonly known, was given by an anonymous officer who testified at the inquiry via video link. Before 2015, he confirmed, the service had no specific policies relating to preventing or reporting suspected child abuse.

The officer, who is responsible for overseeing MI6's compliance with the law, told the inquiry that pornographic material involving children was found by SIS staff in 2006. "When this material was discovered, it was [examined] and we conducted an internal investigation to find out which employee had been responsible," he told the inquiry.

Comment: See also:

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