FEDERICO PIERACCINI -- Saudi Arabia is Weakening US Influence in the Middle East

FEDERICO PIERACCINI | 29.06.2017 | WORLD

Saudi Arabia is Weakening US Influence in the Middle East

As widely anticipated, tensions between members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are slowly corroding the unity of Washington’s allies in the Middle East

In a series of almost unprecedented events among Washington's regional allies, the crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar seems to worsen by the day. The long-awaited list of demands presented to Doha by Riyadh seem to be intentionally impractical, as if to oblige Qatar to plead guilty to the crimes alleged by the Saudi kingdom or face the consequences, still unknown.

The surreal requests start with demands to close the international television network Al Jazeera, as well as halt the financing of the Muslim Brotherhood. At the heart of the issue remains the question of political and diplomatic relations with Iran, the bane of the Saudi royal family’s existence. The House of Thani that controls Qatar has until July 3 to accept all the demands presented. At the moment, Doha seems to be sending mixed messages, announcing that it wants to evaluate the Saudis’ proposals, but also letting it be known that most of the demands are «not reasonable».

Another interesting tidbit concerns the removal of Muhammed bin Nayef by the Saudi king as his successor to the throne. Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the young 31-year-old nephew, replaces Muhammed bin Nayef, the former Crown Prince and major ally of the CIA and European and American governments. Mohammad bin Salman is currently the most controversial figure in the Middle East. Responsible for the devastating war in Yemen and the desperate financial state of Riyadh’s finances, he oscillates between his Vision 2030 and an anti-Iranian preoccupation that is likely to bring his kingdom to bankruptcy. In Yemen, he waged a military campaign costing in the tens of billions of dollars, only to lose against the poorest Arab country in the world. His irrational anti-Iranian stance has even led him to risk a conflict within the GCC (thanks to the precious lobbying role of the UAE ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba) over the excessive freedom of Doha's foreign policy.

ALEX GORKA -- Fake Story Scandal: How Russia Obsession Led CNN into a Trap

ALEX GORKA | 29.06.2017 | WORLD

Fake Story Scandal: How Russia Obsession Led CNN into a Trap

CNN is in trouble, with its reputation tanking as a result of publishing an article connecting Trump ally and Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci, who served on the executive committee of Trump's transition team, to the $10-billion Russian Direct Investment Fund. The story based on a single antonymous source happened to be a fake. Despite swift retraction of the article, apology published and the following resignation of three veteran journalists, the image of the cable news network has been greatly tarnished.

True, CNN imposed new rules on the stories regarding Russia but it will hardly repair the damage done. The network was on track for record profit of more than $1 billion in 2017. It has been expanding investigative teams while vigorously attacking the US president to be ultimately caught in an anti-Trump trap. «I would encourage everyone in this room and, frankly, everyone across the country, to take a look at it», Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. «I think if it is accurate, I think it’s a disgrace to all of media, to all of journalism."

In early January President Donald Trump called CNN «fake news’. The White House refused to send its spokespeople or surrogates onto CNN shows, accusing the network’s reporters of publishing highly-damaging and unverified accusations about the president’s behavior in Russia. Some people believed it was not a smart move because leading news networks, like CNN, have become powerful enough to make politicians, including presidents, do their best to avoid quarrels. It is widely believed that politicians come and go, but media outlets remain. Looks like CNN is on the way to become an exclusion from this rule.

The recent fake story is just another example of the network’s inaccurate reporting and wrongdoings. CNN has been involved in a series of scandals. It touted the boy called Omran Daqneesh as the face of civilian suffering in Aleppo at a time the city was divided between pro-government and rebel forces and suffered under intensive fighting. CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour used the picture of Daqneesh in her October interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to question Russia’s support of Damascus in the Syrian conflict. «That is a war crime, sir», she said showing the photo. The boy resurfaced in world media this month after his family agreed to talk to journalists. His father Mohammad Kheir Daqneesh accused the White Helmets of using his family to produce propaganda.

In March, CNN reported that the FBI had information suggesting President Donald Trump associates «may have coordinated» with Russians on the release of information damaging Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the election. «There’s probably more evidence that CNN colluded with the Clinton campaign to give her questions than the Trump campaign gave any kind of collusion», White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer snarked at today’s press briefing, when asked about that report.

MATTHEW JAMISON --Theresa May's Dirty DUP Deal

MATTHEW JAMISON | 28.06.2017 | WORLD

Theresa May's Dirty DUP Deal

Theresa May has finalized a shameful and disgraceful deal with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party to help her cling on to power and prop up her minority Tory Government. Never in Mrs. May's wildest nightmares could she have imagined when she called the ghastly 2017 General Election in a naked power grab for a landslide majority, she would be returned to 10 Downing Street having lost seats with a share of the national vote only 2% higher than Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, and no majority of her own to govern effectively in the House of Commons.

So she has had to buy votes from one of the most right-wing, racist, homophobic, sexist, Islamophobic, sectarian and backwards parties in all of the UK. What can one say about the DUP? They are a freak circus of inarticulate, antediluvian bigots who exist in the stone ages. The DUP have a long history of close links and associations with the Protestant colonist terrorist «loyalists» of Northern Ireland. The loyalist terrorists started the conflict in Northern Ireland not the IRA. It was the virulently anti-Catholic sectarian DUP and their allies in the loyalist terrorist groups such as the UVF, UFF and UDA who waged a vicious campaign of violence, civil disobedience and discrimination against the Roman Catholic, Irish nationalist minority in Northern Ireland from the early 1960s onwards in much the same way white supremacists in the United States fought against the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King. 

The DUP under their abominable Cult leader, the maniac «Reverend» Ian Paisley, opposed every single initiative and proposal to bring peace between the warring communities of Northern Ireland up until 2007 when Ian Paisley was able to become First Minister. Paisley's road to Damascus was about forty years in the making and because of him and his politics of bigotry/fear and his methods of whipping up the uneducated Protestant loyalist masses, quite a lot of innocent people lost their lives during that period. The members of the DUP are quite a motley crew. We have the former DUP Leader and First Minster Peter Robinson and his wife Iris. Mrs. Robinson had to resign her seat in disgrace from the House of Commons and her membership of the DUP was terminated when it came to light she had an extramarital affair with a 19-year-old in 2008 and she and her husband were faced with allegations of financial impropriety related to the affair. 

The Robinsons were also major culprits in the 2009 Parliamentary expenses scandal. Mr. Robinson has had a long history of being involved with loyalist terrorists and was involved in a financial scandal of his own while stating that he: »wouldn't trust Muslims devoted to Sharia Law, but I would trust them to go down to the shops for me». Another DUP MP a Mr. Sammy Wilson has been embroiled in a racist scandal of his own. Ironically for the DUP which is militantly anti-gay quite a few of their members are repressed homosexuals. Then we have their current leader a Ms. Arlene Foster who gave away half a billion pounds in public money to her cronies in the infamous «Cash for Ash» scandal. If this had happened in China, Ms. Foster would be in jail, not handed a further 1 Billion Pounds of public money by Theresa May to waste, as she wasted the last Half a Billion Pounds.

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Former CIA Employee Explains 'Dirty Little Secret' of US Mainstream Media

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POLITICS

16:47 28.06.2017(updated 17:06 28.06.2017)Get short URL

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Notwithstanding the scandal blowing up around CNN over its outright false coverage of 'Russia-Trump collusion', the mainstream US media's narrative on Russia isn't going anywhere anytime soon, says former CIA analyst and author John Kiriakou.

CNN is in trouble. Facing scandal Monday with the resignation of three staffers following the retraction of a story alleging ties between Russia and President Donald Trump's transition team, the broadcaster was hit with a second humiliating blow Tuesday, after a CNN producer was caught on camera admitting that the Russia-Trump narrative was "bullsh*t" used to score ratings.

Speaking to Russian media about the scandal, John Kiriakou, a former US intelligence officer turned whistleblower, explained that unfortunately, the blow to CNN's reputation following revelations of dishonesty and misreporting aren't going to stop the mainstream media's claims of collusion between Russia and President Trump.

"The dirty little secret of the American media is that it's all corporatist, it's all owned by gigantic companies and all they care about is the financial bottom line," Kiriakou said, speaking to RT.

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CNN Producer 'Fesses Up: Russia Narrative 'Bullsh*t,' 'We Do It for the Ratings' (VIDEO)

"They have to be more and more explosive in their stories, and sometimes the truth gets lost in those stories," he added.

In his hidden camera interview with Project Veritas, CNN supervising producer John Bonifield admitted that the reason the broadcaster continues to circulate the Trump-Russia collusion story is that the story sells, lack of proof notwithstanding.

Boasting about the network's "incredible" ratings, Bonifield explained that CNN's goal was to make money, not conform to journalistic ethics standards. "All the nice cutesy little ethics that used to get talked about in journalism school, you're like, 'that's adorable'…This is a business," he said.

Berlin Police Car File Photo‘They Were Bored’: Public Sex, Parties Get 220 Berlin Officers Booted from G20

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‘They Were Bored’: Public Sex, Parties Get 220 Berlin Officers Booted from G20

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EUROPE

23:13 28.06.2017(updated 23:40 28.06.2017)Get short URL

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Hundreds of Berlin-based police officers, deployed in Hamburg to assist with security for the upcoming G20 summit, have been returned to their home city following accusations of intoxication, public sex and misuse of firearms.

Ahead of the July 7-8 annual G20 summit of world leaders, this year hosted in Hamburg, teams of police forces from around Germany have been brought to the city to enhance security operations for the event.

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German Authorities Say Erdogan's Guards Prosecuted in US Should Not Come to G20

But the waiting is the hardest part, and an estimated 220 Berlin officers have been sent home after members of their troupe were accused of having sex in public, brandishing their weapons while off duty and generally being drunk as lords.

A spokesperson for the Berlin police force, while not exactly apologizing, expressed frustration with the behavior of the officers, declaring, "you can't just have sex out in the open!"

"They were bored. There was no television," the spokesperson offered by way of an explanation, adding, "This behavior is embarrassing for the Berlin police."

Understanding Russia: The Continuum of History

Understanding Russia: The Continuum of History

7183 ViewsJune 20, 2017 31 Comments

by Yameen Khan

The United States is actively committed to bring Russia into submission via encirclement and a two pronged attack.

NATO’s expansion of bases in vassal states right up to Russia’s borders, coupled with an attempt at encroachment in Syria, should allow The Hegemon to undermine Russia’s underbelly from the Caucasus to Central Asia.

To understand how Russians usually respond to Western power a little time travel, starting 1219 AD, is more than useful.

This was a time when a cataclysmic event left deep scars on the Russian character; an abiding fear of encirclement, whether by nomadic hordes then or by nuclear missile bases today.

Russia then was not a single state but consisted of a dozen principalities frequently at war with each other. Between 1219 and 1240 all these fell to the Genghis Khan hurricane, whose lightning-speed cavalry with his horse-borne archers, employing brilliant tactics unfamiliar to Europeans, caught army after army off guard and forced them into submission.

For more than 200 years Russians suffered under the Golden Horde of the Mongol – named after their great tent with golden poles. They left the Russian economy in ruins, brought commerce and industry to a halt, and reduced Russians to serfdom. Asiatic ways of administration and customs were superimposed on the existing Byzantine system.

Taking full advantage of its military weakness and of its reduced circumstances, Russia’s European neighbors started to help themselves to its territory, starting with German principalities, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden. The Mongols couldn’t care less so long as they received their tribute. They were more concerned with their Asiatic dominions.

Still, European cities did not match the riches of Samarkand and Bukhara, Herat and Baghdad, whose incomparable wealth and splendor outshone wooden-built Russian cities.

Russia’s greatest fear begins here – crushed between their European foes to the West and the Mongols to the East. Russians were to develop a paranoid dread of invasion and encirclement which has tormented their foreign relations ever since. Hardly ever has an experience left such deep and ever-lasting scars on a nation’s psyche as this cataclysm did on Russians. This explains, among other things, their stoical acceptance of harsh rule at home.~