World news headlines, January to end-March 2018

This is an archived newsroll page on A Socialist In Canada, consisting of headlines and weblinks, with occasional news summary and brief analysis, for the indicated month(s) and year. See the current, ‘World news’ website page here. To find past stories on this and other news pages on this website, use the ‘find’ (word search) function on your web browser. Headlines in red denote items published on the main news page of A Socialist In Canada, mostly authored by Roger Annis.

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World news headlines on A Socialist In Canada, March 2018
All Eastern Ghouta towns liberated, key highway out of Damascus open after seven years of blockade, RT, March 31, 2018

Related:
Syrian army says it has regained control over most of eastern Ghouta, Reuters, March 31, 2018 [Reuters fills its report with the viewpoints of the right-wing ‘rebel’ militias that are finally losing their murderous grip over the urban territories on the eastern edges of Damascus region.]

Assange’s internet blackout and Skripal ‘chemical poison’ case are part of a propaganda war that risks a real one, interview with John Pilger, RT, March 30, 2018

1980 redux: Neocons try to sabotage a sporting festival in Russia once again, by Neil Clark, published in ‘Op Ed’ feature of RT, March 30, 2018

The Bolton appointment: How scared should we be?, by Daniel Lazare, Consortium News, March 30, 2018

Iraqi and Syrian deployments hinder Turkish operations against Kurds, Rudaw, March 30, 2018

[This report is informative but is littered with the unfounded accusation that Russia gave a “green light” to Turkey’s military intervention and occupation of Afrin in northwest Syria. The reality is the following: Russia declined to follow the urgings of armchair generals that it enter into a foolish and dangerous military confrontation with Turkey in Afrin over Kurdish forces declaring their loyalty to an alliance with Turkey’s fellow NATO member the United States. See March 29 report below reporting that Syrian Kurd officials met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on March 29 and urged him to send troops and jet fighters to join the illegal U.S. intervention into northern Syria.]

Anti-Russia screed published by socialists in Australia, by Roger Annis, A Socialist In Canada, March 29, 2018

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explains Russia’s retaliation against the expulsion of Russian diplomats, published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, March 29, 2018

Related:  Press release on Russia’s response to unfriendly UK steps, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, March 30, 2018  ‘The Russian Federation, as has been repeatedly stated, is ready for a substantive and responsible interaction both within international legal formats and bilaterally in order to establish the truth as well as look for and find the individuals involved in the Salisbury incident.’

Iraqi and Syrian deployments hinder Turkish operations against Kurds, Rudaw, March 30, 2018

[This report is informative but is littered with the unfounded accusation that Russia gave a “green light” to Turkey’s military intervention and occupation of Afrin in northwest Syria. The “green light” accusations against Russia are actually saying, ‘Russia declined to enter into a reckless and dangerous military confrontation in Afrin with NATO-member Turkey over Kurdish forces declaring their loyalty to an alliance with Turkey’s fellow NATO member the United States.’ One of the worst recent offenders is Al-Monitor, in this article dated March 29 and titled ‘Deciphering Russia’s delivery of Tell Rifaat to Turkey‘. But there are no Turkish forces in Tell Rifaat, a town east of Afrin! There is merely a threat by Turkey to invade and occupy the town.]

Related:
France declines Syrian Kurds’ urging to send troops and jet fighter to join illegal U.S. occupation forces in northern Syria, report on ANF News (Kurdish news outlet), March 30, 2018

[Mainstream Western media is reporting that France has offered to ‘mediate’ the conflict between the Turkish government and Syrian Kurdish forces. Turkey is refusing the offer, but who knows what is truly taking place.]

At least 12 killed by Israel in ‘Land Day’ protests along Israel/Gaza border, RT, March 30, 2018 (and report by Reuters here) Tens of thousands of people are protesting for the right of Palestinian people to return to the lands, houses and villages that were stolen from them by Israeli occupation

Related:
The biggest prison on Earth: A history of the occupied territories, book review by Michelle Weinroth, published in The Monitor (Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives), March-April 2018 edition (review begins on page 41), reviewing the book of the same name, by author Ilan Pappe. See also by Ilan Pappe: Ten Myths About Israel, Verso, May 2017, reviewed here (review begins on page 59).

The challenges of building a united resistance in Duterte’s Philippines, by Joshua Makalintal, published in Waging Non-Violence, March 14, 2018

Big American money, not Russia, put Trump in the White House: Reflections on a recent report, by Paul Street, published in CounterPunch, March 30, 2018 (lengthy essay)

Watching as Islamist fighters are evacuated from war-torn Eastern Ghouta, by Robert Fisk, The Independent, March 29, 2018

Related:
* France ready to send troops to Manbij: French media, by Rudaw News Network, March 29, 2018

France is ready to send troops to Manbij to reinforce American forces in the city and block any possible Turkish offensive, President Emmanuel Macron told a visiting delegation from Rojava, according to French media.

“An Arab, Kurdish and Christian delegation from Syria is being received at the Elysee to discuss the situation in Afrin and northern Syria,” a Rojava office announced on Twitter, Reuters reported. “Important announcements are expected from France.”

The Rojava delegation included co-chair of the ruling TEV-DEM coalition Asya Abdullah, co-chair of Afrin’s executive council Hevin Reshid, SDF’s Redur Khalil, YPJ spokesperson Nesrin Abdullah, and Rojava’s representative in France Khalid Issa, according to ANF. Macron assured the Kurdish delegation that French forces would be deployed to Manbij “very quickly,” Le Parisien reported, citing an unnamed Kurdish representative….

* Trump, Macron discuss intensifying ties with Turkey in Syria, says White House, by Rudaw, March 27, 2018 [Whatever happened to the supposed conflict in Syria between NATO members Turkey and the United States? Western media and naive observers have talked this up endlessly.]

* Turkish President threatens to launch wider offensive against Kurds after capturing Afrin, by Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, March 19, 2018 Turkey’s vow to ‘hand [Afrin] back to its real owners’ suggests fears of the ethnic cleansing of the Syrian enclave may be realised

Russian relations with Kurds in Syria have not changed, by Rudaw, March 29, 2018

… Kurdish leaders have accused Moscow of giving Ankara the green light for its military operation in Afrin. In Manbij, military leaders are placing their hope in support from US forces based in the city to shield them from a Turkish assault.

Lavrov, in a joint press conference with the UN’s special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura in Moscow on Thursday, reiterated Russian concerns that the Americans were “exploiting” their Kurdish allies in Syria. He called on all parties to work to restore peace and stability and stressed that the rights of Kurds must be preserved along with all groups in Syria…

Debate in U.S. over gun violence is a narrow opportunity for Democrats but a wide one for the left, by Bruce Dixon, managing editor, Black Agenda Report, March 29, 2018

Poland buys $4.75 billion Patriot missile system from U.S., Deutsche Welle, March 28, 2018

Related:
Patriot missiles are made in America and fail everywhere, by Jeffrey Lewis, Foreign Policy Magazine, March 28, 2018 The evidence is in: the missile defense system that the United States and its allies rely on is a lemon.

Russophobia and cold war-era politics skew nuclear disarmament letter by Bernie Sanders and three other U.S. Democratic senators, commentary by Patrick Lawrence, published in The Nation, March 27, 2018

Skripal poison saga just another episode in West’s propaganda campaign to corral Russia, commentary by Finian Cunningham, on RT‘s ‘Op Ed ‘feature, March 29, 2018

Sixty eight killed in Venezuela police station riot and fire, RT. March 29, 2018

North Korean and Chinese presidents hold talks in Beijing, RT, March 27, 2018 ‘It is our consistent stand to be committed to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula.’—Kim Jong-un, president of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Related:
China says North Korea’s Kim pledged commitment to denuclearization, Reuters, March 27, 2018

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged his commitment to denuclearization and to meet U.S. officials, China said on Wednesday after his meeting with President Xi Jinping, who promised China would uphold friendship with its isolated neighbor…

 

 

Calls for state governor to resign in Kemerovo, Siberia following tragic shopping mall fire, RT, March 27, 2018 In visit to the site of the March 25 tragedy, President Vladimir Putin asked after local negligence and corruption

How The Guardian became the west’s Pravda, by Jonathan Cook, published on his website blog, March 28, 2018 (Jonathan Cook is an award-winning, former mainstream journalist. He lives and writes from Nazareth, Palestine.)

… Reading between the lines of this Guardian article, one can understand that Russia is causing problems to western interests at the UN because it has an agenda – in supporting the Syrian goverment of Bashar Assad – that conflicts with Washington and Israel’s agenda of breaking apart the central authority holding Syria together. Both sides are dressing up their own, self-interested agendas in the language of human rights. A real journalist should be wary of taking either side’s word at face value on this matter.

But the failure of this article as journalism goes way beyond this kind of one-sidedness. How can a supposedly serious journalist in a supposedly serious liberal newspaper write about current threats to the protection of human rights at the UN and refer only to Russia and China? It is possible only if Borger sees his job not to act as a watchdog on power but as a promoter of a western diplomatic agenda intended to stoke anti-Russian and anti-Chinese sentiment…

The sharks circling around Corbyn scent blood, by Jonathan Cook, published on his website blog, March 26, 2018

After a short reprieve following Jeremy Corbyn’s unexpected success in Britain’s general election last year, when he only narrowly lost the popular vote, most of the Labour parliamentary party are back, determined to bring him down. And once again, they are being joined by the corporate media in full battle cry.

Last week, Corbyn was a Soviet spy. This week we’re in more familiar territory, even if it has a new twist: Corbyn is not only a friend to anti-semites, it seems, but now he has been outed as a closet one himself.

In short, the Blairites in the parliamentary party are stepping up their game. Corbyn’s social justice agenda, his repudiation of neoconservative wars of aggression masquerading as “humanitarianism” – lining the coffers of the west’s military-industrial elites – is a genuine threat to those who run our societies from the shadows…

Related:
The anti-semitism paradox damaging the British Labour Party, by Jonathan Cook, published on his website blog, March 27, 2018

Why do white people like what I write?, book review and essay by Pankaj Mishra, published in London Review of Books, print issue of Feb 22, 2018 Reviewing: We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, publisher Hamish Hamilton, Oct 2017, 367 pp, ISBN 978 0 241 32523 0 (Read it here in pdf format: Eight years of Obama in power)

The precarious rise of the Gulf states despots, essay by Nicolas Pelham, published in London Review of Books, print issue of Feb 22, 2018 (Read it here in pdf format: Gulf states despots)

Hitler’s stormtroopers, book review by Richard J. Evans, published in London Review of Books, print issue of Feb 22, 2018 Reviewing: Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler’s Brownshirts, by Daniel Siemens, Yale University Press, Oct 2017, 459 pp, ISBN 978 0 300 19681 8 (Read it here in pdf format: Hitler’s stormtroopers)

Afrin’s displaced people face new crisis as Turkey threatens operation on Tal Rifaat, Rudaw news agency, March 26, 2018

Related:
Turkey commences Tal Rifaat operation, Rudaw, March 27, 2018 Turkey has begun its takeover of Tal Rifaat, in the northern Aleppo countryside on Tuesday, where at least 50,000 people displaced from Afrin have sought shelter.

Turkey now occupies 28 villages in Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, Rudaw, March 26, 2018

What are Canadian special forces still doing in Iraq?, by Vassy Kapelos, CBC News, Mar 25, 2018 Down from 210, 120 troops remain six months after mission was suspended because of fighting between Iraqis and Kurds

Gang of 14 EU states plus U.S. and Canada stage coordinated diplomatic attack against Russia, report on RT, March 26, 2018 [The stooges in Canada and Europe are cheek-to-cheek with the Trump regime in Washington in ramping up their new cold war. One big family.]

Related:
Days after appointing war hawk John Bolton as national security advisor and days after hundreds of thousands protest gun violence in Washington, Trump regime expels 60 Russian diplomats, closes consulate in Seattle, report on RT, March 26, 2018

Three years of Yemen bloodbath marked by U.S. and UK arms deals with Saudis, RT, March 26, 2018

[Germany and Canada are also major arms peddler to the heavily armed dictatorship running Saudi Arabia. The anti-Russia stands of the Western imperialists distract and weaken antiwar opposition to their domestic and international arms peddling.]

The War on Drugs is far deadlier than most people realize, by Brian Saady, Foundation for Economic Knowledge (FEE), March 26, 2018 A significant percentage of the world’s violence could be prevented by ending the War on Drugs

Disgraced ex-president of Peru Pedro Kuczynski banned from leaving Peru, Telesur, March 24, 2018

Related:
* Peruvians call for new elections, rejecting Canada-friendly vice-president appointed to replace his disgraced predecessor, report on Telesur, Mar 22, 2018
* Peru’s new president Martin Vizcarra is ‘more of the same’ say analysts, Telesur, March 24, 2018* Peru’s new president is former ambassador to Canada and is unknown to most Peruvians, CBC News, March 23, 2018
* Canada voices solidarity with corrupt Peruvian leaders, statement by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on situation in Peru, March 23, 2018 [Peru has become a key ally in the drive by the United States, Europe and Canada to overthrow Venezuela’s socialist president Nicholas Maduro. Peru will host the Eighth Summit of the Americas, to be held in Lima on April 13 and 14, 2018. The theme of this year’s summit is ‘Democratic governance against corruption’. Serious! Venezuela has been excluded from the event.] * Another former Peruvian president is sent to jail, this time as part of growing corruption scandal, LA Times, July 14, 2017

Catalan leader Carlos Puigdemont arrested in Germany under Spanish extradition warrant, Telesur, March 25, 2018

Related:
Venezuela president Maduro says Spain’s persecution of Catalan leaders is ‘shameful’, Telesur, March 25, 2018

The Skripal chemical poisoning affair, by Richard Sakwa, published by the Valdai Discussion Club, March 23, 2018 (Richard Sakwa is Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent and Associate Fellow of Chatham House. He is the author of the 2015 book Frontline Ukraine.)

Reflections on the March 18, 2018 Russian presidential election and on the Sergei Skripal chemical poisoning case, by Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation, March 22, 2018

Other countries could have made ‘Russian’ nerve agent, by Debora MacKenizie, exclusive to New Scientist, March 20, 2018 (Read the article in pdf format here: Other countries making Novichok poison.)

Ceasefire deal agreed in Syria’s eastern Ghouta, The Guardian, March 23, 2018 [The Guardian report includes rote accusations of ‘chemical weapons’ usage by Syrian armed forces and it ascribes ulterior motives to the Syria government in making this latest ceasefire agreement. Its report is cited here because next to no other Western news outlet is reporting the ceasefire development. BBC, another top anti-Syria outlet, is also reporting the ceasefire.]

A ceasefire deal that will allow the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians and fighters under Russian guarantees has been reached in the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta. The agreement, which was confirmed by the spokesman of the second-largest rebel group in the area, will allow civilians and fighters to either leave for northern Syria or remain in their homes and reconcile with the regime of Bashar al-Assad, with guarantees from Moscow that they will not be prosecuted for opposition activities…

Related:
* More than 100,000 civilians safely leave Syria’s Eastern Ghouta since Feb. 28, reports Russia’s Reconciliation Center, RT, Mar 24, 2018

* Unlike U.S.-led coalition, Russia not hitting civilian homes in Syria with incendiary bombs, says Russian Ministry of Defense, RT, Marc 23, 2018

Russian Air Forces are not carrying out airstrikes on residential areas in Eastern Ghouta and don’t use incendiary bombs, Russia’s Defense Ministry said, refuting reports by Syrian pro-opposition activists as “glaring falsehoods.”

“Russian aviation doesn’t strike residential areas in Eastern Ghouta and, moreover, it doesn’t use incendiary ammunition, unlike the U.S.-led international coalition,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The damning reports by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the White Helmets group are a “glaring falsehood,” the ministry added, calling the two groups “swindlers” who are taking advantage of the sorrow of the Syrian people…

European Union member Spain charges 13 Catalan separatist leaders with rebellion, AP News, March 24, 2018

Related: Profiles of Catalonia’s rebels: The jailed, exiled & persecuted independence leaders, RT, March 23, 2018

[Western media editorialists are outraged that the Spanish government and legal system is embarked on vicious retribution against Catalonia leaders for holding a democratic referendum. No wait, correction: the editorialists are too busy filling their pages with anti-Russia venom and prejudice to bother with reporting the ugly reality of their own Western back yard.]

Turkish-backed forces capture Afrin: What comes next for Kurds and Syria?, interview with former UK Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford and Kani Xulam, founder of the American-Kurdish Information Network, on Sputnik Radio’s ‘Loud and Clear’, with hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou, March 20, 2018

[Peter Ford answers the nonsensical arguments of Western leftists and others that Russia ‘betrayed’ the Kurds of Afrin by declining to engage in direct military conflict with NATO-member Turkey when Turkey began its invasion of the territory (on January 20, 2018). Ambassador Ford correctly points to the Kurdish leadership’s military alliance with the United States as a dead end for the Syrian Kurdish population. Kurdish defense forces withdrew from Afrin with the assistance of Syria and Russia, moving south by land and then being flown to the Kurdish territories east, but don’t look for news of that in left-wing media in the West.]

The Skripal poisoning case goes to UK court for the first time: New uncertainties for the British and Russian governments, by John Helmer, published on his website Dances With Bears, March 22, 2018

European Union takes punitive against Russia over UK poisoning story, Reuters, Thursday, March 22, 2018

European Union member states agreed at a summit in Brussels to take further punitive steps against Russia in the coming days for the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, as Moscow accused the bloc of joining a London-driven hate campaign against it.

Late on Thursday, in a boost for British Prime Minister Theresa May, the 28-member EU collectively condemned the attack on a former Russian spy and said it was “highly likely” Moscow was responsible. They also recalled the EU ambassador to Russia. “Additional steps are expected as early as Monday at the national level,” summit chair Donald Tusk told reporters…

[Defenders of Russia have been saying for the last four years that leaders of France and Germany don’t wish to follow the aggressive stance against Russia of the U.S., UK and Canada. Nonsense. But doubling down, RT commences its March 22 report on the Bolton appointment with, “Despite being elected on an anti-interventionist program, Donald Trump has now surrounded himself with foreign policy hawks and Iraq war apologists…”]

John Bolton, Trump’s new national security advisor, was a prime mover of the Iraq ‘weapons of mass destruction’ fiasco, by Greg Thielman, reprinted from Dec 16, 2016

[Whatever happened to the Donald Trump that so many naive analysts in 2016 and 2017 said was critical of the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq and was bent on bucking the U.S. foreign policy establishment?]

The trained seals in Canada’s Parliament vote unanimously on March 19 to condemn Russian role in alleged chemical attack in Britain on March 4, report by iPolitics, March 20, 2018

Trump’s trade tantrums – free trade or protectionism?, by Michael Roberts, Marxist economist, published on his website The Next Recession, March 19, 2018

… China is also pushing aggressively into ‘the belt’ countries of its ‘one road’ project. That’s reflected in its exports, with sales to these states double those to the U.S. So any restrictive measures taken by the Trump administration against China can only accelerate this reallocation process.

… Back in the 1940s, foreign subsidiaries of U.S.-based corporations accounted for only seven per cent of all U.S. profits –the same proportion as exports. Globalisation of U.S. corporate operations and capital investment has changed that in the last 35 years. In 2016, the share of domestic profits has shrunk to 48 per cent of total profits, while the shares of foreign operations and exports have grown to 40 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively.

How many millions of people have been killed in America’s post-9/11 wars? Part one: Iraq, by Nicolas J.S. Davies, Consortium News, March 22, 2018

…‘The Iraq Death Toll 15 Years After the U.S. Invasion’ which I co-wrote with Medea Benjamin estimates the death toll in Iraq as accurately and as honestly as we can in March 2018. Our estimate is that about 2.4 million people have probably been killed in Iraq as a result of the historic act of aggression committed by the U.S. and U.K. in 2003…

Related:
Statement by Inder Comar on the 15th anniversary of the Iraq war, statement delivered at a side event of the 37th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 15, 2018 (Inder Comar is a lawyer in San Francisco.)

Boris Johnson’s Putin-Hitler comparison is a provocation too far, by John Wight, published in the ‘Op-Ed’ feature of RT, March 22, 2018

… Indulging Boris Johnson’s foray into the sporting history of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, we direct the foreign secretary to 1938, two years after the Berlin Olympics – a Berlin Olympics which, en passant, Moscow boycotted unlike Great Britain – at a time when the British government and ruling class, with few exceptions, were mired in the appeasement of Hitler’s fascist regime.

It was a shameful period in the country’s history, culminating in Britain colluding in the fascist dictator’s expansionist ambitions in Europe with regard to his desire to annex Czechoslovakia. This collusion was enshrined in the Munich Agreement, reached in conjunction with France and fascist Italy on 30 September 1938.

In May of the same year, England’s national soccer team had travelled to Berlin to play a friendly against Germany. As both teams lined up for the usual pre-match rituals, the England players, under instruction from the UK Foreign Office, gave a Nazi salute. England won the match, but Hitler won something far more important: cultural and sporting recognition of the barbarous master race ideology that was to lead to the death of tens of millions across Europe and beyond over the succeeding decade…

Iraq reaches political agreement with the Kurdish Regional Government, New York Times, March 22, 2018 The agreement comes as Iraq prepares for legislative elections in May

Related:
Iraq sends money to pay Kurdish salaries for first time since 2014, Reuters, Monday, March 19, 2018

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq sent money to pay salaries of state employees in the Kurdish region on Monday for the first time since 2014, the Baghdad government said, although a dispute over how much it will send the Kurds in future remains unresolved.

Monday’s agreement represents a step toward normalizing relations between the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region, which held a vote for independence last year that the central government swiftly crushed…

In Diyarbakir, eastern Turkey, tens of thousands celebrate Kurdish holiday of Newroz, condemn Turkish military intervention in Syria’s Afrin, Rudaw, March 21, 2018

Newroz celebrations take place under tightened security in Diyarbakir, Ahval, March 21, 2018

Sergei Skripal was of ‘zero value’ to Russia after spy swap, so why poison him?, asks Russian president’s media spokesman, RT, March 21, 2018 A full-length interview with Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of Vladimir Putin, will be broadcast on RT’s ‘Sophie Co’ program on March 23.

UK news program ‘The Day’ directed at school children says Vladimir Putin is ‘most dangerous leader since Hitler’, RT, March 22, 2018 (with related video news rpeort) Online news program ‘The Day’ is used by one in three UK schools.

Turkey rolls into Afrin, apparently on way to Manbij, by Metin Gurcan, Al-Monitor, March 20, 2018

… According to another source who also spoke on condition of anonymity, the YPG command east of the Euphrates River instructed the forces to hand over Afrin. At first, some YPG units did not heed the call and kept up the resistance, but the source said they had to give up after three days.

… The YPG withdrew its forces from Afrin via a military air base near Tel Rifaat under Assad’s control. This indicates that the regime and Russian forces had advance knowledge of the YPG’s decision to withdraw. It’s not yet clear what price Russia and the Syrian regime might have charged for allowing Kurdish forces to use the air base…

Erdogan impatient to charge ahead in Syria as Ankara sizes up Pompeo, by Semih Idiz, Al-Monitor, March 20, 2018

The poisonings of Sergei and Yulia Skripal is a terrorist attack on Russian citizens, says Russian foreign ministry, RT, March 21, 2018

Related:
Comment by the Russian foreign ministry on the statement of the EU Foreign Affairs Council on March 19, 2018 concerning the incident in Salisbury (United Kingdom), March 19, 2018

… Despite the attempts of the EU nations to observe some semblance of balance, the statement of the EU Foreign Affairs Council on March19 is based on the British version of the incident and, as a consequence, suffers from the same speculation and lack of proof.

… The EU Council ignores the fact that Russia has destroyed all chemical weapons, as the OPCW confirmed in 2017. Should this be interpreted as EU and British mistrust of the international chemical weapons watchdog? We have absolutely nothing to “declare,” as the EU demands. Russia does not produce or store any toxic chemical Novichok.

Toxic nothingburger: Cambridge Analytica exposé is dangerous political attack posing as journalism, commentary by Igor Ogorodnev, on RT, March 20, 2018

Trump pushes arms sales to Saudi Arabia as he lauds visiting ‘prince’ bin Salman, report by Middle East Eye and agencies, March 20, 2018

President Donald Trump feted Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday and lauded U.S. defence sales as a boost to American jobs.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate, lawmakers killed a measure seeking an end to U.S. support for Riyadh’s bombing campaign in Yemen. The Senate voted 55-44 to dismiss the resolution…

Related:
Saudi Crown Prince visit to Britain, March 2018, by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the UK government ‘On 7th March 2018, Britain’s relationship with one of our oldest friends in the Middle East will begin a new chapter with the visit of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.’

Related:
* British PM Theresa May defends deal to sell 48 British fighter jets to Saudi Arabia dictatorship, report in Middle East Eye,. March 9, 2018

* Theresa May defends Saudi ties as crown prince visit sparks anger, Agence France presse, March 7, 2018

… “The link that we have with Saudi Arabia is historic, it is an important one, and it has saved the lives of potentially hundreds of people in this country,” May said, pausing her answer briefly as opposition lawmakers cried “Shame!”…

 

 

 

 

 

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World news headlines on A Socialist In Canada, February 2018

British journalist Iona Craig wins George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting for her reporting on U.S. raid in Yemen in January 2017 killing civilians, by the Pulitzer Center, Feb 26, 2018

Related:
* Iona Craig’s award-winning reporting on Yemen in 2017, here in The Intercept
* Interview with Iona Craig, interview by ‘The Current’ weekday newsmagazine on Canada’s state-run broadcaster CBC, Feb 28, 2017 [Canada’s government has come under intense fire domestically for permitting the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which together with the U.S. and other regional dictatorships has been waging a cruel war for years against the people of Yemen.]

Syria’s tragedy, America’s crime: The collapse of national sovereignty, by Patrick Lawrence, published on his website, Feb 25, 2018 (article also appears in Salon Magazine)

… The three foreign interventions into Syria just described [U.S., Turkey, Israel] now fill daily press reports from the region. Each one is an open-and-shut breach of international law. I mentioned the original sins committed during Syria’s seven-year nightmare. We need to review these to understand what it is we witness now. While one cannot say for sure, I am halfway certain that had those earlier crimes not been perpetrated, the news from Syria today would be other than what it is.

Why Russia is emerging as the world’s indispensable diplomatic power, by Patrick Lawrence, published on his website, Feb 22, 2018 (article also appears in The Nation)

… I am well aware of the perils arising from any suggestion that Russia is up to anything but evil in all it does. The arguments in this line have never impressed me when placed against perfectly discernible realities, and they do not now. Too often, the operative assumption is that however Moscow describes its intentions they must be otherwise, for Russians never mean what they say. This is amateur logic on the face of it, but never mind that. In most cases—all of those noted here—one need only consult a map to recognize that Moscow’s interests lie where it indicates they lie. It wants a stable, secular Syria and a Middle East committed to regional security agreements (as favored by Iran, among others). It does not gain as Ukraine, with which Russia has long, dense, economic ties among much else, drifts toward failed-state status. There is much in it for the Russian Far East if North Korea can be brought into a regionally interdependent economy.

… Hostilities between the Assad government in Damascus and some Syrians erupted, as they did in numerous neighboring nations, in the course of the Arab Spring. What ensued in Syria could have been termed a civil war only for a brief interim. By 2012, and possibly earlier, the Obama administration authorized the first CIA operations intended to depose the Assad government. To this we must add Turkey’s interventions, motivated partly by Ankara’s animosity toward the Kurdish minority and partly by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s daydreams of a neo-Ottoman restoration across the region…

Related:
* Russia’s call for Turkey-Syria dialogue over Afrin irritates Ankara, by Semih Idiz, Al-Monitor, Feb 27, 2018
* Syrian Kurds angered by Western silence on Afrin, by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, Feb 25, 2018
* Czech authorities release Syrian Kurd leader, won’t follow Turkey’s request for extradition, by Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor, Feb 27, 2018

Russiagate revisited, by Jackson Lears, published in London Review of Books online blog, Feb 22, 2018 (Jackson Lears is the Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers University and Editor in Chief of the Raritan Quarterly Review.)

The anti-Russian hysteria in Washington has slipped beyond self-parody. We now have front-row seats in a theatre of the absurd, watching the media furor explode after Robert Mueller’s ‘indictments’ of 13 Russians and three Russian companies for interfering in the 2016 presidential elections.

Mueller’s actions deserve the scare quotes because they are not really indictments at all. The accused parties will never be extradited or brought to trial. Nor is it clear that their actions rise to the level of crimes. The supposed indictments are merely dramatic accusations, a giant publicity stunt.

Even if they were real indictments, they would not be convictions. American journalists seem to have forgotten that distinction…

Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit speech enhances his standing as UK prime minister in waiting, op-ed commentary by John Wight, RT.com, Feb 27, 2018 [The text of Jeremy Corbyn’s February 26, 2018 speech in Coventry, England on the topic of Brexit is here. In it, Corbyn stated, “Let us learn the lessons of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan and be clear that we will not take our country down the road of regime change wars again.” The words ‘Russia’, ‘Ukraine’, ‘Syria’ or ‘Korea’ do not appear in the speech; these are areas of British political and military ‘regime change’ engagement.]

Armed and dangerous: If police don’t have to protect the public, what good are they?, weekly commentary by John W. Whitehead, published on the Rutherford Institute website, Feb 26, 2018 (John Whitehead is a constitutional attorney, founder and president of The Rutherford Institute, and author of the 2015 book Battlefield America: The War on the American People.)

… So when police in Florida had to deal with a 19-year-old embarking on a shooting rampage inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. [on Feb 14, 2018], what did they do? Nothing.

There were four armed police officers, including one cop who was assigned to the school as a resource officer, on campus during that shooting. All four cops stayed outside the school with their weapons drawn (three of them hid behind their police cars). Not a single one of those cops, armed with deadly weapons and trained for exactly such a dangerous scenario, entered the school to confront the shooter. Seventeen people, most of them teenagers, died while the cops opted not to intervene. Let that sink in a moment.

Now before your outrage bubbles over, consider that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed (most recently in 2005) that police have no constitutional duty to protect members of the public from harm. Yes, you read that correctly…

Gun control is a lost cause in America, op-ed commentary by Michael Adams, Globe and Mail, Feb 27, 2018 (Michael Adams is president of the Environics Institute polling firm and author of Could It Happen Here? Canada in the Age of Trump and Brexit.)

Related:
* Why the shooting will continue, by Margaret Kimberley, senior columnist and editor, Black Agenda Report, Feb 28, 2018
* Will a boycott hurt the NRA? Take a look at Bill O’Reilly, by Anna North, Vox.com, Feb 27, 2018
* Canada’s Mountain Equipment Coop sport store chain to decide whether to drop outdoor brands owned by U.S. gun manufacturer, CBC News, Feb 26, 2018

Two excellent analyses of the situation in Syria, by Alexander Mercouris:
* East Ghouta: the last great battle of the Syrian war?, by Alexander Mercouris, The Duran, Feb 26, 2018
* Turkey, Russia and the Kurds: the struggle for Afrin Russia tries to broker a diplomatic solution to the Afrin conflict, by Alexander Mercouris, The Duran, Feb 25, 2018

[These two articles appear in The Duran, a website founded in 2015. Not so long after its launch, the website came to reflect the views of right-wing populists, whose idea of defending Russia from imperialism’s new cold war is to support the biggest cold warrior of them all (in the Clinton-Bush-Obama continuity), Donald Trump. The writings of Alexander Mercouris are a rare exception to that outlook in the The Duran.

[The author misses two important issues shaping the present situation. One, he only hints at Russia’s longstanding constitutional proposals to the Syrian government to accept Kurdish autonomy. Those proposals remains a key issue; for example, the recent all-Syria congress held in Sochi, Russia in January 2018 created a 150-member constitutional committee to work further on political solutions for Syria’s future.

[Two, he buys into the fiction of U.S.-Turkey conflict over the status of the Kurds in northern Syria. He writes, “[U.S. support to the Kurdish military forces] all but guarantees that the conflict between Turkey and the Kurds – and between Turkey and the U.S. – in Syria will continue and will escalate.” But Turkey and the U.S. know and understand what the other is doing and why. Turkey must put on a show for its domestic population of giving no quarter to the Kurds, while the U.S. is maneuvering to use the Kurds for its interests all the while preparing to betray them. In their Afrin intervention, Russia and Syria are parrying the NATO partners’ moves very well. But it’s all very unstable and dangerous–after all, Turkey is a NATO member, and NATO’s fundamental motto is ‘an injury to one of us is an injury to all of us’.]

Syria ceasefire resolution approved by UN Security Council, no date established for its start, ABC.au.net, from reports in AP and Reuters, Feb 24, 2018

… Sponsors Kuwait and Sweden amended the resolution in a last-minute attempt to satisfy Russia, dropping a demand that the ceasefire take effect in 72 hours.

… There is no set date for the ceasefire to take effect, but the resolution demands that [when and if a ceasefire is implemented] it be followed immediately by access for humanitarian convoys and medical teams to evacuate the critically ill and wounded…

See also:
* UN Security Council approves resolution on Feb 24 for 30-day ceasefire in Syria, RT.com, Feb 24, 2018
* Full text of UN Security Council resolution 2401 (2018)
* Security Council demands 30-day cessation of hostilities in Syria to enable humanitarian aid delivery, unanimously adopting resolution 2401 (2018), report by United Nations Press Service, Feb 24, 2018 (includes excerpts of discussion at Feb 24 Security Council meeting which adopted the resolution)

Related:
* Right-wing militias in Eastern Ghouta district of Syria’s capital city Damascus disrupt UN Security Council-demanded ceasefire, report on RT.com, Feb 27, 2018
* 150-strong Syrian constitutional committee agreed to at Sochi congress, RT.com, Jan 30, 2018

#Russiagate skeptics take a beating, by Matt Tabibi, Rolling Stone, Feb 22, 2018 We don’t know for sure where the Mueller probe is going, but don’t dare say that out loud

Related:
The hysteria over Russian bots has reached new levels, by Thomas Frank, The Guardian, Feb 27, 2018

[This column in the anti-Russia Guardian is an example of the growing numbers of mainstream publications or commentators who are discomforted by the absurdities, if not false claims, of the official investigation of alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election in 2016. That investigation is headed by Robert Mueller, the longest-serving head of the FBI and the present head of Special Counsel investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The discomforted are waking up to the civil rights consequences of allowing the FBI and the entire machine of the U.S. state and government (including the Donald Trump part of that) as heroic defenders of democracy.]

The authoritarians who silence Syria questions, by Jonathan Cook, published on his website blog, Feb 27, 2018

… Brian Whitaker’s latest outburst [in The Guardian] is directed against the impudence of a handful of British academics, including experts in the study of propaganda, in setting up a panel – the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media – to “provide a source of reliable, informed and timely analysis for journalists, publics and policymakers” on Syria. The researchers include Tim Hayward of Edinburgh University and Piers Robinson of Sheffield University…

New cold war hysteria and anti-Slavic racism in full flight in Canada as NATO peddles ‘Canadian Russiagate’: NATO researcher warns of Russian interference in 2019 Canadian election, by Mike Blanchfield, Canadian Press, published in state-run CBC News, Feb 27, 2018

Reporter investigating corporate crime in NATO-member Slovakia killed, from reports in AP and Reuters, in ABC.net.au, Feb 25, 2018

[The assassination of 27-year old Jan Kuciak follows the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia in NATO-member Malta on October 16, 2017 . She was a leading reporter in that country of corporate crime in Malta and Europe. The latest news of that investigation is here.]

Read also:
Who murdered Malta’s most famous journalist?, The Atlantic (conservative monthly magazine), Feb 18, 2018 Some member sof the European Parliament are so concerned about the situation in Malta that they have called for the creation of a special rapporteur to monitor the criminal investigation in Malta

… Long before she began investigating the Maltese leads unearthed in the Panama Papers, Caruana Galizia’s one-woman blog, Running Commentary, drove the news cycle in the EU’s smallest member state. She had reported on money laundering, the Italian mafia, and a controversial program begun in 2014 that allows wealthy foreigners to purchase Maltese passports; that program has effectively turned the country into a backdoor to Europe, especially for wealthy Russians. Damning scoops tied the prime minister’s wife, an aide, and one of his ministers to suspicious financial transactions through a Maltese bank to a Panamanian shell company; another scoop alleged that the aide had personally profited from the sale of Maltese passports. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat called a snap election last summer following the report about his wife—and won…

Turkey’s march on Manbij in north-central Syria stalled by wall of reality, by Fehim Tastekin, Al-Monitor, Feb 23, 2018

[The Al-Monitor writer voices the canard of “Moscow giving Turkey the green light on Afrin” when NATO-member Turkey undertook its invasion of the Afrin region of Syria on January 20. This is another of the frequent voicing in Western media, and by Western ‘leftists’, of the crazy idea that Russia would go to war with a NATO country (Turkey) in order to protect U.S.-allied Kurdish forces.

[The writer fails to explain to his readers that two, not just one, NATO country occupying Syrian soil have been dealt serious setbacks by Syrian-Kurdish cooperation in Afrin–Turkey, yes, but also the U.S.]

RT editors still have naive habit of believing Donald Trump’s words, report in RT.com on Feb 23, 2018 titled:’Get ISIS and go home’: Trump bucks Pentagon & State Dept. on ultimate U.S. goal in Syria’

[RT’s news reporting excels that of Western media. It rarely contains downright falsehoods as in the above report. But its columnists too-often intimate that Trump represents some kind of divergence from U.S. imperial policy, while embarassingly, a few columnists are downright pro-Trump.]

Some U.S. proponents of ‘election meddling’ conspiracy accusations against Russia getting cold feet, interview with anti-Russia writer Masha Gessen on anti-Russia Democracy Now!, Feb 23, 2018

[A curious phenomenon is happening amongst some of those in the West who have been peddling the allegations of ‘Russian meddling’ in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The accusations are proving so unfounded and increasingly stale that some of its proponents are taking their distance. An example is the anti-Russia writer Masha Gessen, who resides in the U.S., interviewed by the anti-Russia Democracy Now! outlet on February 23, 2018. Gessen refers to Russia as a “mafia state” and the sub-title of her latest book (written for Western buyers) is ‘How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia’. She is now softpedaling her claims of ‘Russian meddling’ in the 2016 election, telling Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, “It was not bold. It was not sophisticated. And we don’t know and probably never will know whether it had any impact.”

[Goodman, for her part, speaks not of ‘alleged’ Russian meddling but “the Russian election meddling” as established fact. The interview consists of the one playing off the other in their various conspiracies of the supposed actions of the government led by President Vladimir Putin. Here is an example of one of several all-but incomprehensible questions put by Goodman to Gessen: “Also, in terms of the noise that’s out there, I mean, in social media, the amount of people in the United States—and, of course, this is outside, this is foreign influence, but I’m sure there were many others who were doing the same thing—I mean, how significant was this?”]

Related:
The real goal of “Russiagate” is to prepare for endless austerity and war, by Glen Ford, executive editor, Black Agenda Report, Feb 22, 2018

Yanis Varoufakis’s account of the Greek crisis of 2015: A self-incrimination, book review by Eric Toussaint, published in six parts between July 2017 and February 2018

Yanis Varoufakis was the finance minister of Greece during the capitulation of the government of the Syriza party led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to the European Union financial oligarchs. Syriza was elected in January 2015; what followed was a punishing drive by U.S. and European imperialism to crush the left-wing aspirations of the Greek people. Varoufakis published a memoire in 2017 of the experience, titled Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment. Eric Toussaint has published a lengthy review of the book, in six parts beginning in July 2017. Toussaint is the director of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt, based in Belgium. Parts one to five of the review are located at the weblink above. Part six is published on Feb 20, 2018, here: Tsipras move towards the disastrous agreement with the Eurogroup of 20 February 2015.

Related:
A modern Greek tragedy, book review by Adam Tooze, published in the New York Review of Books, print edition of March 8, 2018. Reviewing: Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment, by Yanis Varoufakis, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017, 550 pp

There WAS a ‘good guy with a gun’ at the Parkland High School shooting in Florida. He did nothing, by Elliot Hannon, Slate.com, Feb 22, 2018 In response to the shooting at the Florida high school where 14 students and three staff were killed on February 14, Donald Trump is advocating an arms race in U.S. schools

Related:
The American gun glut is a problem for the entire world, by Jonah Shepp, New York Magazine, Feb 23, 2018

James Risen and Glenn Greenwald debate opposing views on ‘Russiagate’, one-hour broadcast on The Intercept’s ‘Intercepted’ program, with host Jeremy Scahill, Feb 22, 2018 (Jeremy Scahill is a co-founder of The Intercept and a proponent of anti-Russia prejudice.) See below Glenn Greenwald’s February 20, 2018 article, ‘A consensus emerges: Russia committed an ‘act of war’ on par with Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Should the U.S. response be similar?’)

[Under questionsing by James Risen, Glenn Greenwald states “I think there is now some evidence that Russia [sic] did things in the [2016] election to [the sentence is not finished]. The Mueller [FBI] indictment says it was to sow divisions in the United States…When you ask me now, do I believe Russia played a role in the election [cites the Mueller claims of 13 Russian individuals using social media to infuence U.S. citizens’ views]. I still don’t see any evidence… that Vladimir Putin ordered the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s emails…”]

How charity Oxfam allowed sex abuse in ailing countries like Haiti, panel discussion on Democracy Now!, Feb 21, 2018 Discussion with Sean O’Neill, chief reporter at The Times newspaper in London, which broke the story of the Oxfam and Save the Children scandals; the Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat; and Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Broadcast in two parts.

Related:
* Oxfam received 26 new reports of alleged sexual misconduct after Haiti scandal emerged, MPs told, by Lizzie Dearden, The Independent, Feb 21, 2018
* OXFAM scandal sparks fears of crisis in aid sector, by Paul Waldie, Globe and Mail, Feb 21, 2018 (you can read the article here in pdf format: OXFAM scandal sparks fears of crisis in aid sector)

[In the Democracy Now! broadcast, there is no discussion of how Haiti has been stripped of its national sovereignty over the years and decades by imperialist intervention (the United States, Europe, Canada). Yet the only path to end the brutal exploitation of women and girls in countries such as Haiti are policies of national and social development, duly implemented by a national, democratic government.

[As we have known and are learning anew, even the charities of the imperialist countries, leave alone their armies, promulgate extreme exploitation of women and girls. Political and business leaders in the imperialist countries along with their pliant media turn a blind eye. In Haiti, the ‘blind eye’ operated following the 2004 paramilitary coup and has done so again as the failed 2010 earthquake response program rolled out.]

A consensus emerges: Russia committed an ‘act of war’ on par with Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Should the U.S. response be similar?, by Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept, Feb 20, 2018

… All of this underscores the serious dangers many have pointed to for more than a year about why all this unhinged rhetoric is so alarming. If you really believe that Russia — with some phishing links sent to Podesta and some fake Facebook ads and Twitter bots — committed an “act of war” of any kind, let alone one on par with Pearl Harbor and 9/11, then it’s inevitable that extreme retaliatory measures will be considered and likely triggered…

Syria pro-government forces enter Afrin to aid Kurds against Turkey, Reuters, Feb 21, 2018

[News reports are very sketchy about political agreements underlying the military moves which have seen pro-Syria government and Kurdish military forces come together in Afrin, northwest Syria to block further military advances into the region by Turkey. The Turkish government and its pro-government media are understandably denying that any agreements have taken place or that pro-Syrian government forces have entered Afrin.

[The situation is a huge domestic political setback to the Turkish government. In the time-honored tradition of all military invaders, the government is telling the Turkish population that all is going swimmingly for its forces in northern Syria. Meanwhile, the Western ‘leftists’ that have been backing or turning a blind eye to the military buildup and regime-change intentions in Syria of the United States and its ally Israel can be expected to keep silent over these latest developments. That’s because events in Syria continue to flatly contradict everything the leftists have said for years about the Syrian government and its allies Russia, Iran and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon. The leftists have claimed that a ‘popular

revolution’ has been taking place against the Syrian government and that an ‘imperialist’ Russia has joined the Syrian government in suppressing it. In reality, the Syrian ‘popular revolution’ is similar to the ‘revolution’ in Ukraine which overthrew that country’s elected president in February 2014–both are spearheaded by extreme-right forces armed and supported by Western imperialism.]

Interview with Pervin Buldan, new co-leader of People’s Democratic Party in Turkey, Reuters, Feb 14, 2018

Oxfam’s Haiti sex scandal, by Isabelle Papillon, Haiti Liberté (print weekly), Feb 14, 2018

[Liberal journalists in The Guardian as well as The Independent‘s Patrick Cockburn have leapt to the defense of OXFAM International following revelations that OXFAM’s country director and others engaged prostitutes as they joined the rest of the world’s aid and charity industries in descending on Haiti following the January 2010 earthquake. The Guardian editorialized on February 12: “The debauchery of the Haiti sex parties [by OXFAM staff] is outrageous. But it must not be allowed to overshadow the courage and compassion of thousands of aid workers, nor the value of aid itself.”

[CounterPunch has reprinted Patrick Cockburn’s commentary. In it, he wrote, “Compare the lack of interest shown by the international media, politicians and assorted celebrities to this man-made calamity [outbreak of cholera in Haiti in October 2010], leading to the death of thousands of Haitians, to the hysterical outrage [emphasis added] expressed about Oxfam officials consorting with prostitutes in Haiti in 2011.”

[Cockburn shows his ignorance of the 2010 earthquake right off the bat in his column when he cites a figure of “220,000” earthquake deaths. Inflated figures such as that one ( ‘300,000’ was another popular figure bandied about by international agencies without the slightest documented proof) showed disrespect to the actual victims, who numbered 40,000 to 70,000. The inflated numbers were part of the fundraising effort of the aid and charity industries. Meanwhile, Cockburn’s insinuation that OXFAM has campaigned on behalf of the victims of the cholera epidemic introduced by United Nations occupation forces is risible. The agency’s Quebec outlet supported the 2004 paramilitary coup which brought UN soldiers to Haiti in the first place.

[OXFAM’s Haiti-induced crisis is far from over. It will be very difficult now to keep under wraps further scandalous revelations.]

From PyeongChang Olympics to lasting peace, by Hyun Lee, managing editor, Zoom In Korea, Feb 16, 2018

The FBI’s Robert Mueller, Russia and oil politics, by Rob Urie, CounterPunch, Feb 19, 2018

… The indictments [by the FBI of 13 individuals living in Russia] are a major political story, but not for the reasons given in mainstream press coverage. Once Mr. Mueller’s indictment is understood to charge the exploitation of existing social tensions (read it and decide for yourself), the FBI, which Mr. Mueller directed from 2001 – 2013, is precisely the wrong entity to be rendering judgment.

… It is the FBI’s legacy of conflating dissent with being an agent of a foreign power that Mr. Mueller’s indictment most insidiously perpetuates. Russians are ‘sowing discord,’ and they are using Americans to do so, goes the allegation. Black Lives Matter and Bernie Sanders are listed in the indictment as roadblocks to the unfettered ascension of Hillary Clinton to the presidency. Russians are sowing discord, therefore discord is both suspect in itself and evidence of being a foreign agent…

Merchants of death: America’s toxic cult of violence turns deadly, by John W. Whitehead, published in his column on the website of The Rutherford Institute, Feb 19, 2018 (John W. Whitehead is the president of The Rutherford Institute, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People.)

Kurdish militias in Afrin join forces with Syria government-allied forces to resist Turkey’s military intervention, report in Telesur, Feb 19, 2018

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are arriving in the northern Syria region of Afrin to support the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) against an ongoing Turkish military operation. Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reports that “popular forces” loyal to the Syrian president would arrive in Afrin “within a few hours to support its people’s stand against the Turkish regime’s attack on the area and its people.” …

Related:
* Reports on February 18, 2018 in anti-Russia/anti-Syria media: Middle East Eye, and Deutsche Welle
* U.S must immediately leave area it controls in southern Syria, declares Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, RT.com, Feb 19, 2018

Ten signs we’re heading for ‘economic armageddon’, warns former economic advisor to Australian government, by Liam Dann, business editor, New Zealand Herald (largest daily newspaper in New Zealand), Feb 11, 2018 (with graphs and three-minute interview with Liam Dann) Read here in pdf format: Ten signs of economic armeggeddon

Canadian arms manufacturer hopes to sell assault rifles to Ukraine as country looks to upgrade weaponry, by David Pugliese, National Post, Feb 14, 2018

A Canadian arms manufacturer hopes to re-equip Ukraine’s military with new assault rifles as that country tries to set the stage to join NATO while at the same time battling Russian-backed rebels. Colt Canada of Kitchener, Ont., is chasing a deal that could see Ukraine order up to 100,000 rifles.

[The National Post here repeats the canard that Ukraine is battling “seperatists” in eastern Ukraine. It cannot bring itself to explain the truth, which is that since April 2014, the people of eastern Ukraine are defending themselves against a military incursion by an extreme-right governing regime in Kyiv that is backed to the hilt by NATO.]

At Munich Security Conference, China reiterates policy of no first use of nuclear weapons, Xinhua news agency, in Straits Times (Malaysia), Feb 18, 2018

… “I share and express the concern about the danger [of nuclear weapons prolifertion]” Fu Ying told a panel discussion at the conference in Munich. She is a veteran diplomat and chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress of China.

Former U.S. vice president vaunts sanctions and NATO pressure against Russia in threatening speech to Munich Security Conference, news analysis by Alexandre Antonov, RT.com, Feb 17, 2018

Related:
* Trump’s national security advisor tells Munich Security Conference that Russian ‘meddling’ is beyond dispute, scoffs at idea of cooperation on security issues, Associated Press, Feb 17, 2018

* Trump’s national security chief calls Russian interference ‘incontrovertible’, by David Sanger, New York Times, Saturday, Feb 17, 2018

… The evidence of a Russian effort to interfere in the election “is now incontrovertible,” General H.R. McMaster said at the Munich Security Conference, an annual meeting of European and American diplomats and security experts, including several senior Russian officials. On Friday, just hours before the indictment, the top White House official for cyberissues accused Russia of “the most destructive cyberattack in human history,” against Ukraine last summer.

Taken together, the statements appeared to mark a major turn [sic] in the administration’s willingness to directly confront the government of President Vladimir V. Putin. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo also attended the Munich conference, and while they did not speak publicly, in private meetings with others here they reiterated similar statements.

The comments highlighted a sharp division [sic] inside the administration about how to talk about the [sic] Russian covert efforts…

Students and teachers in U.S. call for national day of protest against gun violence following Feb 14 killings of 14 students and three staff at Florida high school, Common Dreams, Feb 17, 2018

[Student activists and teacher representatives in the United States have called for a national day of protest in U.S. cities on April 20 against gun violence. This includes a planned march on Washington DC. April 20 is the anniversary date of the gun massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.]

Related:
Speech by student from Stoneman Douglas High School makes powerful plea for gun control, Common Dreams, Feb 17, 2018

Pentagon seeks massive boost in bomb budget for Iraq and Syria, by Jack Detsch, Al-Monitor, Feb 15, 2018

The Trump administration is seeking nearly $2 billion in precision-guided weapons for the Iraq and Syria battlefields as the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) faces increased threats [sic] from forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad. That’s 20 per cent more than the Pentagon spent on munitions in all Middle East war zones in 2017…

Russians spooked by U.S. cyber-attack policy which threatens nuclear retaliation, by Ray McGovern and William Binney, Consortium News, Feb 16, 2018

Moscow is showing understandable concern over the lowering of the threshold for employing nuclear weapons to include retaliation for cyber-attacks, a change announced on Feb. 2 in the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR)…

Until there are facts on election meddling, it’s all just blather – Russian foreign minister Lavrov on Mueller indictment, RT.com, Feb 17, 2018

Related:
* Anti-Trumpists use Mueller indictments to escalate tensions with nuclear-armed Russia, by Caitlin Johnstone, Consortium News, Feb 17, 2018 Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 alleged members of a Russian troll farm is leading to calls for escalation with Russia, exacerbating tensions that are already at historic – and dangerous – lows.
* The New York Times’ ‘really weird’ Russiagate story, by Daniel Lazare, Consortium News, Feb 16, 2018

… Even Matthew Rosenberg, the Times reporter who wrote the story, described it as “a really weird one” in an interview with Slate. More than merely weird, however, the piece offers valuable insight into the parallel universe that is Russiagate, one in which logic is absent, neo-McCarthyism is rampant, and evidence means whatever the corporate press wants it to mean.

… The results are incoherent even by Times standards. One reason may be that Rosenberg dashed the story off at breakneck speed after long-time intelligence writer and former Times-man James Risen published a similar piece a few hours earlier in The Intercept. But another is that the Russiagate narrative that the Times is pushing is itself incoherent and that Rosenberg is guilty of nothing more than toeing the company line.

Amazon is a 21st-century digital chain gang, by Marshall Auerback, Alternet, Jan 26, 2018

The ongoing persecution of Julian Assange, by John Wight, published on Medium.com, Feb 15, 2018

U.S. escalates Syrian war, by Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist, Black Agenda Report, Feb 14, 2018

A faction of Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) led by Selin Sayek Boke urges ‘extraordinary opposition’ to stop Erdogan, by Sibel Hurtas, Al-Monitor, Feb 14, 2018

Kurdistan Regional Government delegation arrives in Afrin, Syria as Turkey offensive softens Kurdish split, by Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor, Feb 13, 2018

Related:
Bashar al-Assad quietly aids Syrian Kurds against Turkey, Reuters, Feb 11, 2018

Russian military contractors killed by US strike in Syria, Associated Press, Feb 13, 2018

An unknown number of private Russian military contractors were killed by a U.S. strike in Syria, Russian media reported on Tuesday, February 13 in a development that could further inflame Russia-U.S. tensions. Officials in both Moscow and Washington remained coy about the deaths, which would be an embarrassment for both countries if it turns out that Russian fighters were part of a unit that attacked a military force with American troops. The U.S. attack reportedly took place in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour.

Last week, the U.S. military said it unleashed air and artillery barrages on Syrian government-backed troops after some 300 attackers launched what appeared to be a coordinated assault on Syrian opposition forces accompanied by U.S. advisers in the province of Deir el-Zour…

The Russian Defense Ministry has insisted that its troops weren’t involved in the incident, saying 25 Syrian volunteers were wounded in the U.S. strike. It also noted pro-government forces that advanced toward the area under control of the U.S.-supported forces had failed to coordinate their action with the Russian military in Syria…

Related: Foreign Ministry refutes reports about Russians killed in Syria, TASS Russian news agency, Feb 14, 2018

Reports on hundreds or dozens of Russians killed in Syria are misinformation, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told TASS on Wednesday. “Reports on hundreds, dozens fatalities in Syria disseminated by some Western media outlets are classic misinformation,” the source said. [End of TASS report.]

Following U.S. and Israel air strikes in Syria on Feb 8 and 10, now France says it might bomb if Syrian gov’t found to use ‘chemical weapons’ , RT.com, Feb 13, 2018

[French president contradicts Western government and media propaganda when he says France has ‘no proof’ of chemical weapons use by Syria gov’t. But Emmanuel Macron’s threat creates risk of chemical weapon provocation.]

UK judge upholds UK arrest warrant for Julian Assange, tears into his defense, report on Courthouse News, Feb 13, 2018

Related:
Italian journalist who obtained secret Sweden-UK emails from 2013 says Julian Assange’s fears of extradition to the U.S. by Britain are ‘completely rational’, RT.com, Feb 13, 2018

[Most mainstream reporting of the UK judge’s Feb 13 decision are keeping silent on Sweden’s dropping of criminal charges against Julian Assange in May 2017 and the revelation only days ago that Swedish prosecutors acknowledged in 2013 that Sweden’s seeking of extradition of Assange from the UK would not hold legally (see below the Feb 12, 2018 report by Jonathan Cook). Those which mention the dropping of charges dismiss its significance, for example Paul Waldie’s reporting from London in the Globe and Mail. One of the few mainstream reports to acknowledge all this is in The Guardian, Feb 13, 2018.]

No proof of doping does not mean innocence, says secretary general of Court of Arbitration for Sport on banning of Russian athletes from Pyeongchang Olympics, RT.com, Feb 13, 2018

Dutch foreign minister resigns after admitting 2016 lie saying Vladimir Putin spoke of creating a ‘greater Russia’, RT.com, Feb 13 Feb, 2018

Trump’s $4.4 trillion budget proposal boosts defense and immigration control, cuts benefit programs and environmental measures, by Justin Sink, Bloomberg News, Feb 13, 2018

… The Pentagon would see an $80 billion increase in its budget, up 13 percent. Entitlement programs would see a $1.7 trillion cut over a decade, including $237 billion from Medicare.

… Any president’s budget proposal is customarily dismissed by Congress — which controls the government’s purse strings, under the Constitution — as a dead-on-arrival wish list. That’s especially true with this year’s document. Just last week, Congress passed its own bipartisan two-year budget agreement that increased caps for both domestic and defense spending.

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said that Trump’s proposal “is a messaging document. The executive budget has always been a messaging document” …

Related:
Trump’s tax cuts near peak of the industrial cycle may precipitate, not head off, a new overproduction crisis, by Jon Britton, published in Liberation (U.S.), Feb 11, 2018

What we’ve learned from year one of Russiagate, by Aaron Maté, published in The Nation, Feb 12, 2018

… As high-level officials and investigators have repeatedly acknowledged, there is still no evidence so far of coordination between the Trump orbit and the Russian government over the release of stolen e-mails or any other campaign matter. There is only a curious cast of characters that makes for an unlikely conspiracy…

Russia’s ‘long hangover’, book review by Paul Robinson (University of Ottawa), published on his website Irrusianality, Feb 10, 2018

Shaun Walker, the Moscow correspondent at The Guardian, has a new book out, entitled The Long Hangover: Putin’s New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past. It advances the thesis that … this is where I run into a problem because he never explicitly says what his thesis is. But it’s sort of something like this: in an effort to unite the Russian people and raise the country’s patriotic spirit, Vladimir Putin has focused on a narrative of victory, above all victory in the Second World War. This focus has contributed to a situation in which Russians have failed to come to terms with the negative aspects of their Soviet past. This in turn helped to provoke and sustain the war in Ukraine…

Russia’s media scene: Not just a state affair, by Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor, Feb 6, 2018

Growing U.S. poverty and inequality: Statement by by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, following a two-week investigative visit to the United States, published on the website of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCR), Dec 15, 2017

Related:
The water runs milky and can feel like fire. In this impoverished Kentucky county, Trump’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan may not help, by Jenny Jarvie, LA Times, Feb 12, 2018

Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili deported from Ukraine to Poland, The Guardian, Feb 12, 2018

Saakashvili was a big supporter of Ukraine’s right-wing ‘Maidan’ revolution in 2013-14. In 2015, he was granted Ukrainian citizenship and appointed governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region by President Petro Poroshenko. He resigned the post in November 2016, calling Poroshenko’s NATO-backed government hopelessly corrupt. His deportation on Monday came a week after a court in Kiev rejected his appeal against extradition to Georgia, where he faces three years behind bars on charges of illegally pardoning police officers accused of murder. He was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013. In 2008, he provoked a military clash with Russia, expecting NATO to rush to his aid. But instead, Georgia’s armed forces were thrashed.

The People’s Democratic Party (HDP) of Turkey elects two new co-leaders to replace those arrested in 2016, Press TV, Feb 11, 2018 [32,000 (!) people streamed into the one-day party congress in Istanbul on February 11.]

Related:
Portraits of the new co-leaders of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli, by Sezin Oney, Ahval news agency, Feb 10, 2018

The preceeding, interim female co-leader of the HDP, Serpil Kemalbay, has been issued a detention order by the NATO-member Turkish government for opposing Turkey’s military intervention into Afrin, northern Syria beginning in December 2017. She replaced Figen Yüksekdag who was jailed in November 2016, along with co-leader Selahattin Demirtas. Yüksekdag’s Parliamentary immunity was removed by a Turkish court in February 2017.

The UK’s hidden role in Julian Assange’s continued detention, by Jonathan Cook, published on his website blog, Feb 12, 2018

It now emerges that the last four years of Julian Assange’s effective imprisonment in the Ecuadorean embassy in London have been entirely unnecessary. In fact, they depended on a legal charade. Behind the scenes, Sweden wanted to drop the extradition case against Assange back in 2013. Why was this not made public? Because Britain persuaded Sweden to pretend that the two still wished to pursue the case…

Syria denounces ‘new aggression’ after U.S. warplanes bomb government forces on February 8, by Jon Queally, Common Dreams, Feb 8, 2018

Related:
* Israel, Syria, Iran clash in the skies, by Ben Caspit, Al-Monitor, Feb 11, 2018 [Amidst a dearth of factual reporting about Israel’s aerial attacks against Syria on February 10 and its the longer-term intentions of the U.S.and Israel, this account in Al-Monitor voices a positive spin (‘Iran made us do it’) on Israel’s aggression.] * Syria’s downing of F-16 jet sent warning message to Israel, news analysis in Press TV, Feb 10, 2018
* Israel, beware!, commentary in Press TV, Feb 11, 2018

U.S. vice-president’s bid to isolate North Korea at Olympics falls flat, by Zeke Miller and Matthew Pennington, Associated Press, Feb 9, 2018

Related:
Is South Korea straying off the U.S. leash in its recent relations with the north?, by Ramsey Liam posted on Zoom In Korea, Feb 9, 2018 (Ramsay Liem is Professor Emeritus and Visiting Scholar, Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Boston College.)

Review of Raoul Peck’s ‘The Young Marx’, film review by Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed by Scott McLemee, Feb 2, 2018

Opioids and alcohol lead Americans into ‘depths of despair’, by Melissa Healey, LA Times, Feb 8, 2018

An epidemic of despair is disproportionately claiming the lives of rural white Americans in the prime of adulthood. And for a second year in a row, their deaths by drugs, drink and self-destruction have caused life expectancy in the United States to fall….

North Korea’s scientific and economic advances, a four-part series by Kim Soobok, published in Zoom In Korea in early February 2018. Kim Soobok traveled and researched in North Korea for this series between 2012 and 2015.

• Introduction, February 6, 2018
• Part 1: Science and technology as the path to economic progress, Feb 6, 2018
• Part 2: Watering the fields: A two-decade struggle, Feb 7, 2018

To be continued. Watch this space or go to Zoom In Korea in the coming days for parts three and four.

Opening ceremonies of winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea: An opening for peace, by Bruce Arthur, sports writer, Toronto Star, Feb 8, 2018

Related:
Korean ‘Olympic truce’ fosters hope for detente, but would current world order allow it?, unsigned commentary on RT.com, Feb 10, 2018

Talks suspended in Dominican Republic between Venezuela government and opposition, by Rachael Boothroyd Rojas, Venezuela Analysis, Feb 8, 2018

Dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the country’s anti-Chavista opposition collapsed Tuesday, after opposition representatives refused to sign an official political agreement outlining a framework for democratic coexistence between the two warring political forces. The country is headed to a presidential election on April 22…

Related:
* Text of the political agreement agreed by the Venezuela government but rejected (for now) by the right-wing opposition, Telesur, Feb 8, 2017
* European Parliament calls for more sanctions on Venezuela, says it won’t recognize outcome of April 22 presidential election, by Ryan Mallett Outtrim, Venezuela Analysis, Feb 9, 2018

Russiagate and the surveillance duopoly, by Margaret Kimberley, published in her ‘Freedom Rider’ column in Black Agenda Report, Feb 7, 2018

‘We must oppose the surveillance state altogether and we should not be tricked by duopoly theatrics into thinking that either of the evil twins are acting in our interests.’

Related: The FISA memo is not a big nothing-burger, it’s a whopper with fries, by Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report, Feb 7, 2018

Venezuela: Presidential election date set for April 22, by Rachael Boothroyd Rojas, Venezuela Analysis, Feb 8, 2018

… Current President Nicolas Maduro Moros is set to stand for re-election on behalf of the leftist We Are Venezuela party, the Socialist Unified Party (PSUV) and other smaller leftist parties allied to the government party.

Related:
* Venezuela’s Maduro launches new political party, by Lucas Koerner, Venezuela Analysis, Jan 29, 2018
* Venezuelan leftist parties mull backing Maduro for reelection, by Paul Dobson, Venezuela Analysis, Jan 30, 2018

Venezuelan Constituent Assembly approves workers’ councils law, by Paul Dobson, Venezuela Analysis, Feb 3, 2018

Related:
Venezuelan workers allege persecution, trade union leaders arrested, by Paul Dobson, Venezuela Analysis, Feb 7, 2018

Life expectancy in the U.S. drops for a second year in a year, drug poisonings and suicides are leading causes, USA Today, Feb 8, 2018

The New York Times (and a lot of other people) want you to believe that NATO allies U.S. and Turkey could come to blows in northern Syria, report in New York Times titled ‘On Northern Syria front line, U.S. and Turkey head into tense face-off’, Feb 7, 2018

[Like the Trump presidency itself, the U.S. and Turkish interventions in Syria are an elaborate game of smoke and mirrors to further Western interests. Only the naive believe that NATO’s and Turkey’s interests are at odds.]

Contrary to Western media speculation, North Korea says it is not interested in meeting U.S. Vice President Mike Pence while he is in South Korea for the Pyeongchang Olympics, report by Associated Press, Feb 8, 2018

U.S. House of Representatives approves release of Democrats’ memo answering Nunes memo released on Feb 2, RT.com, Feb 7, 2018

The House Intelligence Committee has voted to publish the memo authored by the Democrats challenging last week’s majority report about the FBI and DOJ abuses of surveillance powers to spy on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign…

Stephen Cohen speaks on the memo released by Representative Devin Nunes on Feb 2: ‘Not Russiagate but Intelgate’, interview with Stephen Cohen on ABC Australia, Feb 5, 2018 Donald Trump claims the FBI abused its surveillance powers investigating his campaign’s possible Russia ties. Russia scholar Stephen Cohen says the Nunes memo shows ‘Russiagate without Russia’.

Stock market drop: Is it 1987, 2007 or 1937?, by Michael Roberts (Marxist economist), published on his website, Feb 6, 2018

Yesterday, the US stock market fell by the most in one day since mid-2007, just before the credit crunch, the banking crash and the start of the Great Recession…

Washington’s ‘crackpot’ nuclear posture endangers the world to an alarming degree, commentary by Finian Cunningham, published on RT.com, Feb 6, 2018

Related readings:
* Head of Nobel Peace Prize-winning group: Trump’s nuclear policy ‘puts us on the path to nuclear war’, interview with Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, broadcast on Democracy Now!, Feb 5, 2018 (audio interview and transcript)

A treaty intended to limit the United States and Russia’s long-range nuclear arsenals officially takes effect today. But the once-promising treaty, signed eight years ago by President Obama, is overshadowed by a new nuclear arms race sparked by President Trump. On Friday, the Trump administration unveiled its new nuclear weapons strategy, which involves spending at least $1.2 trillion to upgrade the United States’ nuclear arsenal, including developing some completely new nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Posture Review calls for developing low-yield warheads, which critics say blur the lines between the nuclear and non-nuclear weapons…

* U.S. continues to develop monster, non-nuclear bombs, including for use against Korea, report by Michael Klare, The Nation, Feb 7, 2018

* No time for complacency over Korea war threat, by Jonathan Marshall, Consortium News, Feb 7, 2018 Although the North Korea crisis has largely faded from the headlines, the chances of war breaking out are still unacceptably high – requiring greater attention from both the peace movement and Congress.

David Harvey denies imperialism, by John Smith, published in Review of African Political Economy, Feb 7, 2018 (John Smith is the author of Imperialism in the 21st Century, published by Monthly Review Press in 2016)

[David Harvey is a highly regarded Marxist economist, but his wrong-headed analysis of modern-day imperialism as explained here by John Smith underlines the frail state of analyses of contemporary imperialism by contemporary Marxists. Smith’s essay is perhaps a case of the pot calling the kettle black, for Smith’s highly-praised and valuable 2016 book nevertheless refrains from making any analysis of contemporary Russia. Is present-day Russia imperialist or not? Smith apparently decided that this crucially important question is not so important.]

UK court rejects Assange attempt to quash arrest warrant, RTE (Ireland), Feb 6, 2018

… Mr Assange, 46, has been holed up inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London for more than five years because he fears extradition to the United States. If he were to leave, he would face arrest by British police for skipping bail in June 2012 by seeking refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to face an allegation of rape, which he denied.

The Swedish case has since been dropped but in the eyes of the British authorities Mr Assange remains in breach of his bail conditions.

… The judge said she would issue a further ruling on 13 February on whether the arrest warrant for Mr Assange for breaching his bail conditions should be kept in place. His lawyers made a new application asking her to consider whether it is in the “public interest” to maintain it.

Related:
Arrest warrant upheld in Julian Assange case, new hearing on February 13, RT.com, Feb 6, 2018

… According to Assange, only the first technical point of his legal challenge has failed. Judges will hear and decide on the other points on Tuesday afternoon [February 6] and if Assange wins any of them, the warrant falls. He wrote on Twitter, “Wall to wall fake news stating stating the government won today’s hearing. Nothing of the sort has happened. The hearing is still happening. Only one point has been ruled on.”

Poland’s president Andrzej Duda to sign controversial Holocaust bill into law, report by Reuters, Feb 6, 2018 The bill imposes jail terms for suggesting Poland was complicit in the Holocaust

Trump ‘national defense’ plan calls for new nuclear weapons, by Jacqueline Klimas, Politico, Feb 2, 2018

Related:
* Trump nuclear policy will adopt more aggressive stance toward Russia, CBS News, Feb 2, 2018

* Trump nuclear doctrine takes tougher stance on Russia, Associated Press, Feb 4, 2018

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday announced it will continue much of the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons policy, but take a more aggressive stance toward Russia. It said Russia must be convinced it would face “unacceptably dire costs” if it were to threaten even a limited nuclear attack in Europe…

* The new U.S. defense strategy: War with great nations and a new arms race, by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, published in the weekly newsletter of Popular Resistance (U.S.), Feb 4, 2018

The frightening far-right militia that’s marching in Ukraine’s streets, promising to bring ‘order’, by Anna Nemtsova, The Daily Beast, Feb 5, 2018

[The Daily Beast and its anti-Russia correspondent Anna Nemtsova provide an insight into the reign of terror which the far right in Ukraine is exercising over the country’s political life. But the Daily Beast cannot resist adding a bizarre and gratuitous anti-Russia twist in the form of a sub-headline reading ‘Russia loves these guys’. The Beast and Nemtsova also dare not ask the question: ‘Why are Western media and governments, not to speak of the Western left, silent over the far-right phenomenon in Ukraine?]

Turkey tackles two roles in Syria: peacemaker, provocateur, by Fehim Tastekin, Al-Monitor, Feb 3, 2018

Revenge of the International Olympic Committee: IOC decides ‘not to invite’ to the 2018 games in Pyeongchang 15 of the 28 Russian athletes recently cleared by the Court of Arbitration for Sport of 2014 doping accusations, RT.com, Feb 5, 2018

… In its February 1 decision, the Court of Arbitration for Sport unanimously ruled there was not enough evidence against the 28 Russian athletes to conclude they had committed any anti-doping rule violations. Their appeals against Olympic bans were fully satisfied, while the request to reexamine the cases of another 11 were only “partially upheld”.

The CAS ruling meant the cleared athletes are technically eligible to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. In addition, their medals won at the 2014 games in Sochi. Russia were reinstated, propelling Russia back to the top of the overall medal count…

Academics who serve as Israel’s useful idiots, by Jonathan Cook, published on his website blog, Feb 5, 2018 (Jonathan Cook resides in Nazareth and reports extensively from Israel-Palestine on his website.)

No anti-aircraft weapons were sent to ‘our’ Syrian rebels, Pentagon says after downing of Russian jet, RT.com, Feb 4, 2018

… The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier the jet was attacked from the ground by rebels possibly using a man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS) in the designated ceasefire zone in Idlib province.

Democrats now love George Bush and the FBI more than Republicans do, commentary by Danielle Ryan, RT.com, Feb 3, 2018

Related:
‘Mind-bending’ reversal now has Dems defending FBI, Bush, by Alex Roarty, McClatchy News, Feb 5, 2018

Row over NATO-member Poland’s ‘we’re innocent’ Holocaust law: Angry Israel calls off visit by Polish security chief, RT.com, Feb 2, 2018

Reversal of Olympics convictions of Russian athletes shows an inept ‘Russian doping’ saga, unsigned commentary on RT.com, Feb 2, 2018

Top sports court overturns IOC’s ban on 28 Russian athletes in groundbreaking ruling, RT.com, Feb 1, 2018 (and read an Associated Press report here)

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has cleared 28 Russian athletes and dropped their life-bans over alleged doping at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Their results have been reinstated and the athletes are eligible to compete in the 2018 Winter Games… The court also partially upheld the appeals of other 11 Russian athletes as the evidence collected “was found to be sufficient to establish an individual ADRV [anti-doping rule violation].”

… More than 40 Russian athletes, including Sochi Olympic champions, were slapped with life bans from the IOC and had their Sochi records annulled as punishment for alleged doping violations in Sochi…

Western media turns its gunsights on the Court of Arbitration for Sport following its ruling reversing doping convictions of Russian athletes

[For several years, Canada’s state-run news broadcaster, the CBC, has pushed for a ban of Russian athletes at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Its reporting has featured the campaigning of former International Olympics Committee member Dick Pound. He was part of the IOC when doping went rampant at the Olympics. He led the appeal to prevent Ben Johnson from being stripped of his gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics.

[In its print and broadcasting reporting of the CAS ruling, the CBC is highlighting the original accusations against the athletes, not how and why the arbitration court found those accusations lacking. An Associated Press report published on CBC on February 1 highlights the views of a U.S. athlete who says the court decision means “the integrity of sport is on the line”. Canadian luge athlete Sam Edney is cited as tweeting, “Above anything else, this is a very very very dark day for the Olympics.”

[The CAS decision casts new light on the accusation which lies at the center of the movement to ban or restrict Russia’s participation in the Olympics, namely the existence or not of an organized scheme by Russian government and sporting officials to manipulate doping control samples in the laboratory at the 2014 winter games in Sochi. The case against Russia was largely built on the testimony of the former head of its drug testing laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov. In 2016, he received special permission from the U.S. government to move to the United States. A February 1, 2018 report in the New York Times cites Rodchenkov’s U.S. lawyer: “Clean sport is dead. The CAS decision proves that certain countries can get away with anything and everything. Today’s decision will forever stand as the low point in sports integrity.” ESPN reports that the CAS received testimony from Rodchenkov in making its decision.

[The IOC itself is criticizing the CAS decision.]

 

---

World news headlines on A Socialist In Canada, January 2018

Ankara-Moscow dealings still tangled as Idlib smoke clears, by Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor, Jan 31, 2018

… Kivanc believes that at a certain point, Russia, Syria and Iran will inevitably combine forces to root out all the jihadis in Idlib and that Turkey will find itself facing a new wave of refugees. What will Turkey do then with its Free Syrian Army allies, and what will happen to some 10,000 al-Qaeda-linked Uighur Turk fighters?

The doomsday machine: Confessions of nuclear planner Daniel Ellsberg, book review by Thomas Powers, published in New York Review of Books, Jan 18, 2018 Reviewing: The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg, Bloomsbury, 420 pp (Interview on CBC Radio One, 45 minutes, with Daniel Ellsberg on Feb 1, 2018, here.)

Trump’s state of the union speech: Long on theater, short on policy, by Jack Rasmus, published on his website, Jan 31, 2018

Now the U.S. is playing spoiler role in Korea, Syria and elsewhere. But why?, by Patrick Lawrence, published in Salon.com, Jan 28, 2018 (Patrick Lawrence is Salon’s foreign affairs columnist.) Washington can’t adjust to losing its role as global sheriff, and the entire world must bear the consequences

Trump signs executive order to keep Guantanamo Bay gulag open, embracing the original sin of the ‘swamp’ he said he would drain, by Noa Yachot, senior editor, American Civil Liberties Union, Jan 31, 2018

Related:
* State of the Union address: Donald Trump uses tragedy and despair to sell his message, by Philip Williams, chief foreign correspondent, ABC.net.au, Jan 30, 2018
* The Pentagon is planning for war with China and Russia — can it handle both?, by Aaron Mehta, Defense News, Jan 30, 2018 [‘Oh, did we neglect to mention Iran in our headline?’] * From Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech on January 30, 2018: “As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and so powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else. Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly.”

The Russians are coming! Send money quickly!, commentary by Tomasz Pierscionek, published in the ‘Op Edge’ feature of RT.com, Jan 31, 2018 (Tomasz Pierscionek is editor of the London Progressive Journal)

The U.S. list of Russian oligarchs is a disgrace, by Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg News, Jan 30, 2018 [In which Bloomberg‘s Leonid Bershidsky laments that the U.S. list of wealthy Russians threatened with more sanctions should be more accurate and effective. “The Treasury list, copied uncritically from a Forbes Russia list, shows the Trump administration isn’t serious about sanctions.”]

Related:
‘It’s like the Americans just copied the phonebook’: Russian officials respond to the U.S. government’s new ‘Kremnlin list’, published on Meduza, Jan 30, 2018

Final statement of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress held in Sochi, Russia Jan 29, 30, 2018, published on the website of the Russia Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jan 30, 2018

Related:
* Sergei Lavrov’s comments to media following the close of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi, Russia, published on the website of the Russia Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jan 30, 2018
* Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at a plenary meeting of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, Sochi, January 30, 2018, published on the website of the Russia Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jan 30, 2018

Battle for strategic Syrian peak continues, by Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor, Jan 29, 2018

… Turkish-led forces capturing territory by day only to lose it to the Kurds by night is becoming something of a pattern [in Afrin, northern Syria], testing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bullish pledges to drive the YPG out of the more than half of Turkey’s 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Syria that remains under Syrian Kurdish control.

Turkey’s image is already in tatters because of Erdogan’s brutal crackdown on dissidents, including scores of Kurdish leaders. It is fast losing the propaganda war over Afrin. Much of the global media coverage is highlighting the growing number of civilian casualties, including women and children, killed in wave upon wave of Turkish airstrikes. Social media is awash with images of charred babies who allegedly perished in Turkish attacks.

The monitoring group Airwars reports, “From the start of operations on January 20th to January 28th, at least 41 to 55 civilian deaths have been assessed by Airwars as likely caused by Turkish-backed forces, along with an estimated 10 to 15 civilian fatalities tied to Kurdish counterfire.” Turkish bombs have also reportedly damaged an ancient temple built by the Arameans in the first millennium B.C. that is part of Afrin’s rich archaeological heritage…

Related: Stop Turkey’s war against Afrin region of Syria, statement signed by several hundred politicians and other activists in Australia, January-February 2018

Hundreds killed in Afrin, including civilians, says Russia, by Rudaw news agency (Kurdish Iraq), Jan 30, 2018

… The death toll in Turkey’s military operation in Afrin stands at several hundred, according to Russia’s Foreign Ministry, which denied “betraying” the Kurds in northern Syria, hinting that the blame lies with the United States. Hundreds have been killed and civilians are among the dead, Maria Zakharova, foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a press conference on Wednesday.

… Zakharova said Russia is seriously concerned about the situation in northern Syria and urged all parties to show restraint. Responding to accusations that Russia had betrayed Kurds by not preventing Turkey’s operation, she implied the United States should carry responsibility.

“We would like to note that it was not us who consistently created the conditions in northern Syria that Turkey considered a threat to its national security. We are not responsible for impeding the restoration of legitimate Syrian government’s control in that region,” she stated.

… “It was not us who has been building up forces in these areas to perform functions that belong solely to the Syrian state, and thus inciting separatism,” Zakharova stated. She stressed Russia’s commitment to Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected…

Russia’s role in Afrin, Syria, commentary by Maxim A. Suchkov, Al-Monitor, Jan 29, 2018

Russia was first to propose the concept of including Kurdish autonomy in a new Syrian constitution, which, back in the day, perturbed Turkey and excited the Kurds. Russia believes the issue of Kurdish autonomy should also be negotiated. Therefore, the popular line of criticism about “Russia betraying the Kurds” doesn’t seem to bother Moscow on its merits…

Russia’s relations with the PYD [Syrian Kurdish party affiliated to the Syrian Democratic Forces] are likely to be sour, at least in the short term…. As for not having the PYD in attendance at the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi [January 29, 30, 2018], Moscow doesn’t see that as its own failure; it expects the PYD’s absence to create a long-term problem for the PYD itself.

… Recently, Kurdish authorities in Afrin issued a letter urging the Syrian government “to undertake its sovereign obligations to protect its borders [from the Turkish offensive].” Though the letter doesn’t mention whether Kurdish officials see passing Afrin to Damascus control as an option, it might be a sign that a reality check is pushing the Kurds to consider options they previously resisted…

[The following comment was posted by Roger Annis to the above Al-Monitor article: The accusations that Russia failed to defend the Kurds of Afrin and should have opposed the Turkish intervention which commenced on January 20 are facile and inaccurate. Russia made a reasoned proposal to forestall a Turkish intervention. This was rejected by the Syrian Kurds. They have entered into a willing alliance with the United States and seem ready to gamble on that, notwithstanding the long history of U.S. betrayals. The U.S. defense secretary stated that Turkey has ‘legitimate’ concerns in northern Syria which its intervention is addressing. So to summarize the madcap theory of a Russian ‘betrayal’ of the Kurds, Russia is to enter into a military conflict with a NATO member (Turkey) in order to defend forces allied with the U.S.? That is folly, it is armchair quarterbacking from afar. Russia has bent over backwards to achieve rights for the Kurds through the only process whereby this can happen–a political process of dialogue and agreement among Syrians. This is precisely a goal of the national dialogue congress taking place in Sochi. Although Turkey is attending that congress, it seems evident that its intervention into Afrin is designed to weaken if not sabotage the congress proceedings.]

Book review: Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder, by Paul Robinson (University of Ottawa), published on his website Irrussianality, Jan 28, 2018

In her latest book, Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder, Amy Knight wishes to convince us “how scary and unpredictable Russia has become”. (p. 3) To this end, her book recounts multiples instances in which, she alleges, the “Putin regime” has orchestrated the murder both of ordinary Russian citizens and of prominent political opponents. Knight is a respectable author whose 1993 biography of Beria I found quite informative. In Orders to Kill, however, she has abandoned academic neutrality in favour of political activism. The result is far from satisfactory…

German automakers conducted tests of poisonous auto fumes on monkeys, humans, Associated Press, Jan 29, 2018

Israel and NATO-member Poland agree to talks amidst tensions over Poland’s proposed law prohibiting blame to Poles for WW2-era Holocaust, The Daily Caller, Monday, Jan 29, 2018

… Israel has “no tolerance for the distortion of the truth, the rewriting of history and the denial of the Holocaust,” Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu said at his weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, according to the Associated Press…

Related:
* NATO-member Polish legislature votes to criminalize Ukrainian Bandera-nationalist ideology, RT.com, Jan 27, 2018
* Poland’s Holocaust blame bill, by the Editorial Board, New York Times, Jan 29, 2018

Paving way for Syrian peace: Syria National Dialogue Congress opens in Sochi, Russia, RT.com, Jan 29, 2018 (with video news report at weblink)

Who is using chlorine as a chemical weapon in Syria?, by Charles Shoebridge, published in the ‘Op Edge’ feature of RT.com, Jan 27, 2018

The alleged use of chlorine as a weapon in Syria is back in the news in the U.S. and UK, with fresh incidents reported and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson taking the opportunity within the last few days to condemn Syrian President Bashar Assad over the issue. Unusually, he also later appeared to concede there may be some doubt – but asserted anyway that “whoever conducted the attacks, Russia bears responsibility”. So how does the alleged evidence that the Syrian government is carrying out chlorine attacks stack up? …

‘Unprecedented level of violence’ in the heart of Kabul as Taliban sends ‘clear message’ to Trump, interview with Lotfullah Najafizada, news director of TOLOnews, on Democracy Now!, Monday, Jan 29, 2018 (Video broadcast as well as transcript at the original Democracy Now! weblink. TOLOnews is a 24-hour news channel in Kabul, Afghanistan.)

In Afghanistan, Islamic State militants have carried out an early-morning attack on a military academy in the western outskirts of the capital of Kabul, killing at least 11 troops and wounding 16. This marks the latest in a wave of deadly attacks this month. Monday was already declared a national day of mourning in Afghanistan, after a Taliban attacker drove an ambulance filled with explosives into the heart of the city on January 27, killing at least 103 people and wounding as many as 235. One week earlier, Taliban militants killed 22 people at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel. Last week, another six people were killed in an assault claimed by the Islamic State on the office of aid group Save the Children in the eastern city of Jalalabad. This comes as the United States has stepped up its assistance to Afghan security forces and its airstrikes against the Taliban and other militant groups…

[See below for news reports on the January 27, 2018 bomb attack in Kabul that killed more than 100.]

Erdogan’s plans for Afrin might not sit well with Syria, by Fehim Tastekin, Al-Monitor, Jan 26, 2018

[Following the rejection by Kurdish leaders of Syria and Russia’s proposal to avert a Turkish military intervention into the Afrin region of northwest Syria, the people of that region are facing the fury of Turkey’s army and dictatorial governing regime as well as calculated betrayals by Turkey’s NATO ally, the United States. Turkey’s military intervention into Afrin began on January 20. It aims at establishing a full-fledged occupation, to be administered by ‘rebel’ paramilitary forces that have sought the overthrow of Syria’s government since 2011.

[Al-Monitor writer Metin Gurcan explains events with this claim in a January 25 article: “It appears Turkey had Moscow’s go-ahead for the offensive, given that Russia controls all Syrian airspace west of the Euphrates River. Russia no doubt sees that the operation will drive a deeper wedge between the NATO allies Turkey and the United States in light of the latter’s support for the YPG. Moreover, Russia probably calculates that, faced with the threat of being overrun by Turkey and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) allies, the YPG will now be more open to Moscow’s earlier suggestion of handing Afrin back to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.” The writer appears to believe it would be a mere trifle for Russia to knowingly enter into military conflict with NATO-member Turkey. His words echo the claims by Western leftists that Russia has “betrayed” the Kurds of Afrin by withdrawing its military forces from the region. Yet Russia has consistently argued that the Kurds and other national minorities in Syria should have significant representation in the country’s constitution and governing order. The Syrian government has entertained much discussion on the matter.]

Related: Is U.S. bailing on Syrian Kurds?. ‘Week In Review’ by Al-Monitor, Jan 28, 2018

What lurks behind Turkey’s unending emergency rule?, by Sibel Hurtas, Al-Monitor, Jan 28, 2018

… According to the opposition, the AKP [Turkey’s governing party] is planning to stick to the state of emergency up until November 2019, when Turkey is scheduled to go to the polls to elect its first executive president — who will officially assume the sweeping powers approved in a controversial referendum in April 2017. Some believe the government could opt for early elections this year…

Puerto Rico is a man-made disaster, by Charles R. Venator-Santiago, Huffington Post, Jan 29, 2018

Months after hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated Puerto Rico [Sept 6 and Sept 20, 2017, resp.], what should have been an example of how one of the most powerful nations in the world could rebuild a territory is instead an example of a man-made catastrophe now moving to the mainland. Today, only 60 per cent of Puerto Rico’s population has access to reliable electric power. Access to potable water is compromised. Food and jobs are scarce, and houses are uninhabitable. More than 40 per cent of schools do not have electricity. Thousands of police officers are not showing up to work, and violent crime is rampant…

[The writer misses an opportunity (obligation?) to explain in his article that the failure of reconstruction in Puerto Rico mirrors the total failure of all the Western world’s big powers to ‘build back better’ following Haiti’s devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010. The earthquake killed an estiamated 40,000 to 70,000 people. Nine months later, UN Security Council occupation soldiers from Nepal (!) brought cholera to the island because they were not pre-screened for the disease. More than 10,000 Haitians have died as a result of the criminal negligence of the UN.]

Robert Parry’s legacy and the future of Consortium News, by Nat Parry, Consortium News, Jan 28, 2018 Robert Parry, editor and publisher of Consortiumnews.com, died peacefully Saturday evening. In this tribute, his son Nat Parry describes Robert’s unwavering commitment to independent journalism.

Tall tales by Australia’s anti-Russia leftists about Turkey’s invasion of Syria [Green Left Weekly newspaper in Australia has a lengthy article dated January 26 which headlines, ‘Afrin invasion: Turkey attacks northern Syria’s democratic revolution — with Russian and US approval’. And the proof of the claim by the writer that Russia “approves” the Turkish intervention into Syria? Why, because the writer says so in his headline! Such is the state of anti-Russia journalism these days, even from the ‘left’. To read what Russia truly says, see the entry below dated January 25; it consists of two statements by the Russian foreign ministry on the Turkish intervention into Syria.]

The annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: Where talk on ‘inequality’ is cheap but a burger platter costs $59, by Neil Clark, published in the ‘Op Edge’ feature of RT.com, Jan 26, 2018

What were the Iran protests really about?, op-ed commentary by Peter Loewen, Janice Goss Stein, Farhaan Ladhani, published in The Globe and Mail, Jan 27, 2018

… Using a unique online platform that allows individuals to anonymously share their opinion, we surveyed 1,054 Iranian adults between Jan. 5 and 9.

… We found that support for the protests is thin. Only 27 per cent of respondents agreed that they supported them; 45 per cent disagreed. Three in 10 neither agreed nor disagreed. The protesters and their supporters are still very much in the minority.

What drives support among the minority who do back the protests? Our results suggest three factors matter: a lack of confidence in the government, a belief that corruption is rampant and, in a result that surprised us, a belief that life was better before the revolution. Our survey data do not support the argument that those among the Iranian public who are sympathetic to the protesters are motivated in an important way by anger about inequality…

Kabul bomb: 95 dead and 163 wounded in huge explosion in Afghanistan capital, by Harriet Agerholm, The Independent, Jan 27, 2018

Related:
* More bombs, deaths in Trump’s first year in office, by Sonali Kolhatkar, Truthdig, Jan 27, 2018 The greatest impact of Donald Trump’s first year as president has been kept out of sight from most Americans. The wars the U.S. waged during Barack Obama’s tenure have sharply escalated under Trump. The result has been a predictable and massive spike in civilian deaths…
* How the Pentagon enlisted Trump to continue its perpetual ‘war on terror’, by Gareth Porter, Truthout.org, Jan 25, 2018 The speech by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on January 17 laying out a series of conditions that would make it possible to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria confirmed what had already been revealed by the Pentagon itself: The Trump administration is planning to keep US troops in Syria indefinitely…
* Training quick and staffing unfinished, U.S. army units brace for surging Taliban in Afghanistan, New York Times, Jan 26, 2018 They are being heralded as a key part of President Trump’s new strategy to resolve the nearly 17-year war in Afghanistan. But their training has been cut short by months, and units are still short-staffed, as some of the estimated 1,000 additional military advisers prepare to arrive in Afghanistan in time for the spring fighting season, officials said…
* ‘The path to a win in Afghanistan’: What’s different in 2018?, press release by the NATO military alliance, Jan 15, 2018

Four factors affecting Turkey’s new operation in northern Syria, by Metin Gurcan, Al-Monitor , Jan 25, 2018

Turkey, Russia wage proxy war against Washington in Syria, by Cengiz Çandar, Al-Monitor, Jan 24, 2018 [So says the headline writer at Al-Monitor.]

[This article is a speculative summary of Turkish policy considerations underlying its invasion of northern Syria’s Afrin region–‘Operation Olive Branch’ as Turkey calls it–beginning on January 20, 2018. Among the author’s mix of speculations is this claim: “… no one was left with any doubt that Operation Olive Branch had the Russian green light.” No evidence or explanation of this unfounded claim is offered.

[How about an alternative explanation: Russia withdrew from Afrin in order not to risk a direct clash with the Turkish army in a de facto defense of the U.S. allied, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF had rejected the Syrian government’s proposal for a cooperative assertion of Syrian government control over Afrin.What about the ‘coincidence’ that the Turkish intervention comes just days before the Syrian National Dialogue Congress which will take place in Sochi, Russia on January 29, 30? Turkey’s intervention appears very much as an efforft to sabotage those otherwise hopeful deliberations.

Two responses by the Russian foreign ministry and foreign minister on the Turkish military intervention into Afrin, northern Syria

1. From the weekly news briefing on January 25, 2018 of Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova:

… As we have already announced, Sochi will host the Syrian National Dialogue Congress next week, on January 29-30. Apart from Russia, Turkey and Iran are actively involved in preparations for the Congress. Invitations are being sent out to 1,600 Syrian participants. UN representatives and a number of regional and international partners have been invited to attend as observers.

Our efforts are designed to bring about peace and stability in Syria without delay, put its economy back on track and enable refugees to return to their homes. We hope that all those sincerely interested in seeing an end to the armed conflict will encourage the Syrians to voice constructive positions during this unique intra-Syrian event.

Unfortunately, other scenarios exist too. A delay in restoring the unity of Syrian society is fraught with new dangerous challenges, including the current developments in Afrin, where units of the Turkish Armed Forces jointly with the Syrian opposition are conducting a military operation. As you know, the Turkish side is presenting this as a response to security threats to Turkey in northern Syria at a time when the Syrian government does not control this territory…

… We are certain that it is unacceptable to turn Syria into a stage for confrontation between external forces pursuing their own interests. The people of Syria themselves must determine the future of their country. We hope that the upcoming Sochi forum will become an important step along this road.

2. Comment by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at press briefing on Jan 22, 2018

Question: The Turkish military operation against US-supported Kurds in northern Syria has been continuing for the last few days. What does Moscow think about this operation? Are you surprised at Washington’s extremely restrained response to these latest developments, and will they influence the place and role of the Kurds in the Syrian peace settlement?

Sergey Lavrov: First, you have no doubt read the statements from Moscow following the start of Turkey’s operation in Afrin. Statements have been made by the Foreign Ministry and the Defence Ministry. We called for restraint and for respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic…

U.S. adds 21 individuals, nine companies to anti-Russian sanctions list over Ukraine crisis, RT.com, Jan 26, 2018

UK defence secretary drops latest fear bomb, casually warns Russia is planning mass murder, news analysis by Simon Rite, RT.com, Jan 26, 2018

UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson is really settling into his job, and started the weekend early by scaring the hell out of the British public by claiming Russia could cause “thousands and thousands and thousands” of deaths… “What they [Russia] are looking at doing is they are going to be thinking ‘How can we just cause so much pain to Britain?’” Williamson said. “Damage its economy, rip its infrastructure apart, actually cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths, but actually have an element of creating total chaos within the country.” …

Related: Britain’s top Army general begs for more cash so he can fight… guess who, news analysis by Simon Rite, RT.com, Jan 22, 2018

Globe and Mail targets Canada’s new ambassador to China for favouring Canada-China economic ties

[In a front-page news/commentary article on January 26, 2018, two top Globe and Mail writers score longtime Liberal Party mainstay John McCallum for saying (in the reporters’ words) that “Canada now has more in common with China’s authoritarian regime than with the United States under President Donald Trump.” McCallum was appointed ambassador to China in January 2017. The reporters write further: “China’s one-party state has come under significant criticism for its brutal human-rights record as well as its aggression in the South China Sea. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, China has, over the last decade, ‘effectively seized over 80 per cent of the South China Sea, an area about the size of Western Europe’ and built 12 ‘militarily significant facilities’ in the region, including three major fighter bases.’ “] [Beginning several years ago, the Globe and Mail has joined China to its already virulent new cold war drive against Russia.

[Canada’s social-democratic party has positioned itself on the right extreme of Canada’s new cold war politics. During the 2015 federal election, then-NDP leader Thomas Mulcair taunted the incumbent Conservative Party, saying its anti-Russia sanctions were not harsh enough. Chiming in to the Globe and Mail‘s latest anti-China screed, NDP MP Nathan Cullen is cited as follows in the Globe report: “NDP MP Nathan Cullen described Mr. McCallum’s comments as facile, saying the average Canadian might be taken aback to hear a government representative saying this country is more in line with ‘Communist China than our American cousins’.”]

Trump and the Fed: U.S. shadow bankers about to deepen control of U.S. economy, by Jack Rasmus, Jan 24, 2018

… The Davos crowd may think they are sitting on their mountain in Switzerland, but they are really partying on the Titanic, as they steam on oblivious to what’s coming, unable to foresee the approaching economic icebergs below the surface. And as their mainstream economists, asleep on the bridge, almost in unison declare ‘steam on’, all is well and getting better.

[Wikipedia: The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics (particularly the panic of 1907) led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises ]

Turkey continues its game of rhetoric with U.S. over U.S. maneuvering with Kurds in Syria, report by Reuters, Jan 25, 2018

Turkey urged the United States on Thursday to halt its support for Kurdish YPG fighters or risk confronting Turkish forces on the ground in Syria, some of Ankara’s strongest comments yet about a potential clash with its NATO ally…

The U.S. has around 2,000 troops in Syria, officially as part of an international, U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State…

Six days into the campaign, Turkish soldiers and their Free Syrian Army rebel fighter allies have been battling to gain footholds on the western, northern and eastern flanks of Afrin [province of Syria]. They appear to have made only limited gains, hampered by rain and clouds, which have limited the air support…

[Reuters neglects to explain that the U.S. troop presence is completely illegal and is opposed by the Syrian government.]

Related:
Syrian Kurds seek Damascus’ protection as Turkey’s Erdogan vows to return Afrin to ‘owners’, RT.com, Jan 26, 2018

‘Charity’ institution of many of Britain’s economic elite is shut following annual gala permitting groping of 130 young women hired to serve food, drinks, The Independent, Jan 24, 2018

UN Security Council refrains from condemning Turkey, AFP, Jan 22, 2018

On January 22, the UN Security Council discussed Turkey’s intensifying offensive against Kurdish militias and the worsening humanitarian crisis in Syria but did not condemn or demand an end to the sensitive Turkish operation…

[Western media is propagating the idea of a Turkey-U.S. conflict over Syria. But Turkey is attacking the Kurds in Afrin province of Syria and U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis says Turkey has “legitimate security concerns”. NATO countries spout ‘concern’ about their fellow NATO member Turkey’s operation, but this only means they may use such ‘concern’ as a cover to intervene themselves. NATO’s doctrine of ‘an attack against one member is an attack against all’ is an extremely dangerous side of the Turkish intervention in Afrin. Purported Turkish-U.S. conflicts can disappear in seconds when NATO interests are at stake.

[For its part, Germany is expressing ‘concern’ about the Turkish operation in Afrin and says it will halt arms sales to Turkey so long as the conflict continues. This is NATO member Germany’s way of reminding Turkey of Turkey’s dependence on its fellow NATO members. ]

U.S. chemical weapons blame-game: Well-timed PR stunt or trick to justify military presence in Syria?, editorial comment in RT.com, Jan 24 2018

Conflicting reports emerge as Turkey’s ‘Olive Branch’ military intervention rakes Kurdish Afrin region in northwest Syria, by Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor, Jan 22, 2018

… With the exception of the pro-Kurdish bloc, Turkey’s main political groups are backing the Turkish intervention amid a tidal wave of nationalist euphoria that is gripping the public…

Before the deluge: How Washington sealed Puerto Rico’s fate, by Petra Bartosiewicz, Harper’s Magazine, print issue of February 2018, Vol 336, #2013 (In pdf format here, 11 pages: Puerto Rico, Harpers Magazine, January 2018)

In the summer of 2016, when Congress installed a financial control board to address Puerto Rico’s crippling debt, I traveled to San Juan, the capital. The island owed some $120 billion, and Wall Street was demanding action…

Post-Hurricane Maria [Sept 20, 2017], Puerto Rico looked familiar [as a case of ‘disaster capitalism’]. Yet here, of course, the disaster long predated the storm. What primed the island for the kinds of austerity measures already in motion were decades of repression so encompassing as to be an assault on society of hurricane proportions…

Related:
Our American poorhouse: Puerto Rico, Harper’s Magazine, June 1943 (In pdf format here, eight pages: Puerto Rico, Harpers Magazine,, June 1943) Puerto Rico is he poorhouse of the United States. Nowhere else under the American flag is there such a concentration of squalor, disease, and chronic starvation as exists on this island…

Russia Insider goes Goebbels: Debunking Charles Bausman’s warped vision of Russian reality, by Dmitry Babich, published on The Duran, Jan 18, 2018 (Dmitry Babich is a Russian political commentator. He is a regular on RT.com‘s ‘CrossTalk’ current affairs program which is hosted by Peter Lavelle.) Russia Insider’s editor-in-chief rails against the supposed Jewish origin of the world’s ills but totally fails to understand Russia’s history or its people

Congress’s ratification of Trump’s spying power is a direct threat to our privacy, by Marjorie Cohn, Truthout.org, Jan 22, 2018

When it voted 65 to 34 on January 18 to pass the National Security Agency’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Reauthorization Act of 2017, Congress gave Donald Trump vast authority to spy on Americans. Senate Republicans and Democrats have handed the Trump administration a dangerous tool to intercept our internet communications and target immigrants, people of color and government critics…

Related:
Senate votes to give Trump vast domestic spying powers that ‘no president should have, by Jon Queally, Common Dreams, Jan 18, 2018

Coalition gov’t deal in Germany says arms exports to warmakers in Yemen will be banned, but it’s not clear if decision will be implemented, Deutsche Welle, Jan 22, 2018

[Germany’s announcement that it will ban arms sales to Saudi Arabia places other NATO arms peddlers in the hotseat, notably the U.S., UK and Canada. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland are dodging questions about the German announcement. The government is facing a pesky lawsuit seeking a judicial ban on its approval of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. On January 8, 2018, a federal court judge rejected the government’s legal bid to kill the lawsuit.

[Western media have been providing key cover for Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen–which has killed more than 5,000 and caused a cholera epidemic. They refer to the war variously as a ‘proxy war’ or ‘war for regional influence’ between Saudi Arabia and Iran. But it is not Iran that is bombing the people and country of Yemen—it is the theocratic regime in Saudi Arabia, backed by the NATO powers.]

Related:
German arms manufacturers have Germany in the top five of the world’s arms peddling countries, report in Deutsche Welle, Dec 29, 2017

Glenn Greenwald hits out against Russiagate obsession of Western journalists, by Simon van Zuylen-Wood, New York Magazine, Jan 21, 2018 Where others see Russia collusion, Greenwald sees ‘McCarthyism’.

… “I used to be really good friends with Rachel Maddow,” Greenwald says. “I’ve seen her devolution from this really interesting, really smart, independent thinker into this utterly scripted, intellectually dishonest, partisan hack.”

Turkish troops cross Syrian border near Afrin, news analysis by Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor, Jan 21, 2018

Related:
* Mattis says Turkey notified Pentagon before attacking U.S.-backed Kurds in Syria, RT.com, Jan 21, 2018

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says Turkey gave advance notice that it was planning to launch an attack on U.S.-allied Kurdish militias in Syria, but he did not specify if Washington tried to dissuade Ankara… “Turkey is a NATO ally. It’s the only NATO country with an active insurgency inside its borders. And Turkey has legitimate security concerns,” said Mattis, who noted that gains against Islamic State did not soothe Turkey’s concerns over a breakaway Kurdish state on territory…

* Turkish assault on Kurdish enclave threatens to open deadly new phase in bloody seven-year civil war, by Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, Jan 22, 2018 [In this latest column, Patrick Cockburn falls for the ruse of a ‘fallout’ between NATO members U.S. and Turkey over policy towards the Kurdish people in Syria. But has the U.S. ever offered a peep of protest against Turkey’s internal war against its Kurdish population, including the jailings of the top leadership of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), the third-largest party in the Turkish legislature? What about U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis saying Turkey has ‘legitimate security concerns’ which underlie its military intervention into Afrin province in Syria beginning on January 19? Some ‘fallout’.]

Hollywood’s ‘The Post’ versus the real story of the Pentagon Papers, lengthy article by James DiEugenio, Consortium News, Jan 22, 2018

… Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have given us a combination Washington/Hollywood fairy tale. A ‘feel good’ film that works only for those who are unaware of the underlying facts, which they and their screenwriters have truncated and altered to produce their desired effect. The best thing I can say about this film is that it could provoke the viewer to get the real story by reading [Daniel] Ellsberg’s book Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.

The foundation of lies of the gang-up conference in Vancouver against North Korea, column by Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom, Jan 22, 2018

… When [Canadian foreign minister Chrystia] Freeland first announced her plans in late November [2017], she said China’s attendance would be crucial. “We absolutely intend to invite China and we very much hope China will be able to attend,” she told reporters then.

It’s time to call economic sanctions what they are: war crimes, by Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, Jan 19, 2018

… Economic sanctions are like a medieval siege but with a modern PR apparatus attached to justify what is being done. A difference is that such sieges used to be directed at starving out a single town or city while now they are aimed at squeezing whole countries into submission’

World’s richest one per cent bagged 82 per cent of global wealth in 2017, while poorest half got nothing, says Oxfam report, RT.com, Jan 22, 2018

[Turkish artillery began heavy artillery as well as aerial bombardment of the Kurdish-populated Syrian province of Afrin on January 19. See this report in Reuters on January 21. Rudaw news agency (Kurdish region of Iraq) reports on January 21 that at least 18 civilians have been killed, citing the UK-based Syrian Observatory on Human Rights. Rudaw also reports that Turkish ground forces have been pushed back, citing Kurdish military spokespeople.

[Turkey says it is sending ground troops into Afrin in what it calls ‘Operation Olive Branch’. It also says it plans to link that occupied territory with the Syrian territory which Turkey already already occupies in the Kurdish and Arab-populated region of north-central Syria (blue area in adjoining map). That territory was seized by Turkey during its ‘Operation Euphrates Shield’ launched in August 2016.

[Russia has withdrawn its ground and air forces forces from Afrin, to avoid a direct clash with the belligerent and unpredictable NATO-member Turkey. Syrian Kurdish forces say this amounts to a Russian “approval” of the Turkish intervention. But the Kurdish forces are in a partnership with the U.S. military, so their harsh words should be read in that light. Their words would have Russia jeopardize the victories made in Syria during the past two years against right-wing jihadi forces in order to protect U.S.-allied Kurdish forces against the U.S.-allied Turkey. As foolhardy as that idea sounds, it gets worse–what if, in the event of a Russian-Turkish clash, Turkey and the U.S. invoke the NATO charter’s ‘collective defense’ clause by which an attack on one member is deemed to be an attack on all? Turkey’s purported ‘conflict’ with the U.S. and other NATO countries would vanish in a flash.

[The Syrian government has condemned the Turkish bombardments and intervention, as has the government of Iran. During the 18 months in which Turkey has occupied Syrian soil in north-central Syria, there have been no moves by the Syrian military to expel the occupiers. Syria already has its hands full fighting U.S.-backed jihadi and other ‘rebel’ forces elsewhere in the country, which Turkish military planners would know well. The U.S. is methodically working away to weaken the Syrian government. Its aim is to weaken Syria’s territorial integrity if not outright partition the country.]

A liberal pillar of the Establishment: The Guardian has a ‘new look’ but old-style orthodoxy, by Media Lens (UK), Jan 18, 2018

Related:
Apple and The Guardian: Partners in a death spiral, by Jonathan Cook, published in his website blog, Jan 20, 2018

Tory favors, pensions hole and ‘blacklisting’ workers: The slow and ignoble fall of Britain’s Carillion construction and service conglomerate, RT.com, Jan 15, 2018

Carillion plc is going into liquidation after being overwhelmed by huge financial difficulties, throwing the futures of 43,000 employees into turmoil. Huge government contracts for nearly 900 schools, 50,000 Ministry of Defence homes, and hospitals across the UK are held by the crisis-hit firm saddled with a £1.5 billion ($2.07 billion) debt, sparking a rush to discover which projects could be in jeopardy…

Related:
* Carillion plc, Wikipedia
* The Tories are doing Corbyn’s job for him, Financial Times, Jan 12, 2018 (click for text in pdf format)

Peace should be integral to the upcoming women’s marches across the United States, by Cindy Sheehan and Rick Sterling, published in CounterPunch, Jan 19, 2018 There is one thing missing from publicity and philosophy of the upcoming Women’s March in Washington DC and cities across the U.S.: the urgent need for peace not war!

Donald Trump’s first year in office and the illusion of choice in the U.S. two-party duopoly, by Neil Clark, published in the ‘Op-Edge’ feature of RT.com, Jan 19, 2018 The striking thing about Trump’s first twelve months compared to the Obama administration is not how different his foreign policies have been, but how similar…

Ankara might be awaiting Russian ok for Afrin operation, by Metin Gurcan, Al-Monitor, Jan 18, 2018

[It’s a mystery why Al-Monitor would believe that Russia will accept a military intervention by NATO-member Turkey against the Kurdish population in the Afrin province of northwest Syria. Russia has long advocated a federal constitution for Syria which would recognize certain autonomous political and social rights for Syria’s Kurdish population. Moreover, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke to reporters at the United Nations in New York on January 19 about the double game which the United States is playing in its professed support to the Kurds. He said, “It’s a fact that U.S. forces are seriously involved in creating alternative government bodies on vast part of the Syrian territory. This, of course, absolutely contradicts their own obligations, which they committed to on numerous occasions, including at the UN Security Council, on maintaining the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Syria.”] [Russia and Syrian military aircraft control the skies over western Syria. Turkey cannot wage a sustained military intervention into Syria without military aircraft to provide air support for ground troops. This will limit its boastful and pre-announced intervention into Afrin province, much of which will take the form of punishing artillery attacks from Turkish soil.]

Knot over Afrin region in northwest Syria: How the battle for a small Kurdish enclave could be the death knell for U.S.-Turkey ties, lengthy news analysis by RT.com, Jan 18, 2018 This week, the countdown began for Afrin, a Kurdish-held enclave in the north of Syria which is feverously preparing for a major Turkish offensive…

What’s going on in Ecuador?, an interview with Wladimir Iza, by Joe Emersberger, published in CounterPunch, Jan 19, 2018 (Wladimir Iza is a longtime political activist in Ecuador and supporter of Rafael Correa.)

Vancouver summit on North Korea failed to provide alternative to Russian and Chinese proposals, says Russian foreign ministry, RT.com, Jan 17, 2018

Related:
Russia condemns Canada’s North Korea summit as ‘propaganda’, by Bruce Campion Smith, Ottawa bureau reporter, Toronto Star, Jan 18, 2018 [This Toronto Star report bends over backwards to provide a positive spin on the ‘nothing’ conference issuing more threats against North Korea which took place in Vancouver on January 16. Alternative media in Canada went further, with the National Observer and HuffPost Canada (the latter using a Canadian Press story) presenting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (Donald Trump’s foreign policy emissary) and his Canadian sidekick Chrystia Freeland as heroic figures battling demon rulers of North Korea. The entire story of five decades of Western hostility, embargos and nuclear threats against the people of North Korea goes entirely untold in all of these media outlets.]

Winston Churchill: Hero, racist, and imperialist, by John Wight, published in the ‘Op Edge’ feature of RT.com, Jan 17, 2018

Tillerson says U.S troops will stay in Syria; U.S. huddles with allies over upcoming national dialogue conference in Sochi, Russia, by Laura Rozen, Al-Monitor, Jan 18, 2018

Related:
Syrian Foreign Ministry: U.S. military presence in Syria is an act of aggression against Syria’s sovereignty, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), Jan 18, 2018

Will Erdogan defy Russia and U.S. and attack Kurds in Afrin?, by Semih Idiz, Al-Monitor, Jan 17, 2018

Related:
* War rages in Turkish media in anticipation of military operation into Syria, by Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor, Jan 17, 2018
* Damascus warns it may shoot down Turkish planes attacking Kurds within Syrian borders, RT.com, Jan 18, 2018 [Previous incursions by Turkey into Syria to attack Kurdish forces have gone unopposed by the Syrian military.]

Surprise: Gang-up conference in Vancouver against North Korea ends with threats of more sanctions and demands for unilateral disarmament of the country

[The January 16 reunion conference in Vancouver of the genocidal warmakers against Korea in 1950-53 (what the Toronto Star calls a “coalition of countries” was a publicity stunt that ended on a tired refrain. The column reporting on the gathering by the Globe and Mail‘s Gary Mason is headlined, Why the Vancouver summit on North Korea was futile. Ironically, while the conference aimed to deepen the division of north and south Korea dating from 1953, the two Koreas have agreed to field a joint team at the Winter Olympics to begin in Pyeongchang, South Korea on February 9. Athletes from the two Koreas will march together during the opening ceremony under a “unification flag” depicting their peninsula and will field a single women’s ice hockey team.

[Canadian media played along with the stage show in Vancouver, including by stirring Cold War-era nuclear fears in its reporting of false-missile alarms sounded in Hawaii and Japan on January 13 and 16, respectively. But skepticism over the conference was also sounded. The National Observer alternative media outlet fell for the stage show, providing gushing treatment of the words of U.S. Secretary of State’s Rex Tillerson as he reiterated the Trump regime’s threats against the Korean people. The Observer fashions itself as part of the ‘resistance’ to the Trump regime, but it echoes Trump’s warmaking threats against Russia, China and the Korean people.]

Erdogan says Turkey will ‘strangle’ U.S.-backed force in northern Syria ‘before it’s even born’, Reuters, Jan 15, 2018 [Russia is also concerned, for different reasons, about the U.S.-backed Kurdish border force in northern Syria, saying U.S. scheming threatens the sovereignty and territrial integrity of Syria.]

Trump’s racist comments on ‘s***hole’ countries: Eagerness for scandal betrays a cruel indifference to discrimination, by Shree Paradkar, opinion columnist, Toronto Star, Jan 13, 2018, Donald Trump’s latest round of vulgarism represents the contemptuous attitudes and biases that inform U.S. and Canadian immigration policy-making

Related:
* Love of Trump endures despite it all, by Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist at Black Agenda Report, Jan 10, 2018
* What Canada and America owe Haiti, by Andray Domise, Maclean’s Magazine (Canada monthly), Nov 24, 2017 The United States and Canada have a brutal, ruinous record in Haiti. This should inform the treatment of asylum seekers today.

George Monbiot is not only a hypocrite, but a bully too, by Jonathan Cook, published on his website blog, Jan 12, 2018

More details emerge of gang-up against North Korea to take place at Vancouver conference on Jan 16 hosted by Canada, U.S., report by Lee Berthiaume, Canadian Press, Jan 11, 2018

Canada and its Korean War allies [!] will sit down in Vancouver next week to mull ways to tighten the screws on North Korea – including whether to intercept North Korean shipping.

U.S. State Department officials confirmed that China and Russia were not invited to Tuesday’s meeting… Instead, only those countries that deployed troops as part of the United Nations during the Korean War between 1950 and 1953 have been invited to participate in the discussions…

China says not all the main parties of the conflict in Korea will be in Vancouver and so it won’t attend, RT.com, Jan 10, 2018

[A gang-up against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) will take place in Vancouver, Canada on January 16, 2018 in the form of a conference hosted by Canada’s foreign minister and the U.S. secretary of state. North Korea is not invited, nor is Russia. China and Russia are the only two countries to share a land border with the DPRK. The two countries hosting the Vancouver conference were among those which waged a genocidal war against the Korean people from 1950 to 1953. Invitations to the conference are specifically directed at other countries that took part in waging that war. Reuters news agency reports, “Canada and the United States are co-hosting the meeting in Vancouver on Jan. 16 to demonstrate international solidarity against North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.”]

Related news: U.S. to sell Japan $133 million in missiles to counter North Korea threat [sic], by Ellen Mitchell, The Hill, Jan 9, 2018

Murder of lawyer Iryna Nozdrovska on Jan 1, 2018 shakes Ukrainians’ faith in justice system, Deutsche Welle, Jan 5, 2018 Related: Ukraine claims it has caught killer of campaigning lawyer, Irish Times, Jan 9, 2018

The Guardian, White Helmets, and silenced comment, by Tim Hayward (University of Edinburgh), published on his website, Jan 12, 2018

Trump isn’t another Hitler. He’s another Obama, by Caitlin Johnstone, published on Medium.com, Jan 5, 2018

Britain’s finance capitalists discuss prospects for Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister, article in Financial Times, Dec 7, 2017. Read the article in pdf format: Jeremy Corbyn as Britain’s PM

Ideologue in Canada’s Globe and Mail daily presents four scenarios for war with North Korea, says ‘best possible’ outcome is to ‘eliminate’ the political leadership of the country before the bombs and missiles fly, by David Welch, special to the Globe and Mail, Jan 6, 2018 (David Welch is Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) Chair of Global Security at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (University of Waterloo, Ontario) and CIGI Senior Fellow.)

… The best possible endgame would see someone high up in the North Korean leadership decide that their own long-term interest, and that of their family and compatriots, would be best served by taking matters into their own hands, eliminating Mr. Kim and his enablers, and signalling a willingness to co-operate with the international community…

Pouring it on in Canada:
* Kim Jong-un is a gangster: Here’s how to sort him out, by Robert Huish, professor of ‘international development studies’, Dalhousie U, Halifax, Nova Scotia, published on The Conversation, Jan 7, 2018
* Kim Jong Un is in the nuclear drivers’ seat, op-ed commentary by Simon Palamar, Toronto Star, Jan 8, 2018 [This CIGI ideologue claims the United States has been seeking a “denuclearization” policy on the Korean peninsula but has been frustrated by an intolerant government in North Korea. Donald Trump’s genocidal threats to reduce North Korea to nuclear ashes? ‘Don’t know of that.’ Decades-long economic sanctions by the U.S. against North Korea? ‘I’ll have to check into that.’ U.S. refusal to sign the 1953 armistice agreement ending the 1950-53 Korean War? ‘Never heard of it.’

First broadcast of 2018 of Lee Camp’s ‘Redacted Tonight’ weekly comedy program on RT.com, Jan 4, 2018. Watch Lee Camp speak of the grotesque feigning of concern by U.S. politicians for the discontent of some of people in Iran, for two minutes beginning at the 15’45” mark.

Four years of Ukraine and the myths of Maidan, interview with Stephen Cohen, broadcast on The John Batchelor Show, late December 2017. Print summary and audio of the interview are posted on The Nation, Jan 3, 2018.

[The interview with Stephen Cohen provides a valuable overview of the events in Ukraine since late 2013. One item curiously missing from the print summary is any description of the civil war which the new, right-wing government in Kyiv launched in eastern Ukraine (Donbass region) in April 2014. A related curiousity is Stephen Cohen’s brief reference to that civil war as a “war which broke out against the Kyiv government”. Cohen also terms the March 2014 referendum vote in Crimea to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation an “annexation” by Russia.]

Related:
Seeing the unseen in Ukraine: Why is America sending arms?, by Patrick Lawrence, published in Salon.com, Dec 31, 2017 (with comment by Roger Annis)

These are the real causes of the Iran protests, by Trita Parsi, published in The Nation, Jan 4, 2018

Statement on Iran Demonstrations by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), Dec 31, 2017

Trump’s vow to support Iran opposition carries ‘no credibility’ as demonstrations enter sixth day, interview on Democracy Now! with Trita Parsi and Reza Sayah, Jan 3, 2018 (Trita Parsi is a founder and the president of the National Iranian American Council and is the author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Legacy of Diplomacy; Reza Sayah is a freelance journalist based in Tehran, Iran.)

Glenn Greenwald on Iran protests: Trump tweets ‘Time for change’ while backing dictators worldwide, interview with Glen Greenwald, editor of The Intercept, on Democracy Now! Jan 2, 2018 Glenn Greenwald on Iran protests: Trump tweets ‘Time for change’ while backing dictators worldwide, interview with Glen Greenwald, editor of The Intercept, on Democracy Now! Jan 2, 2018 [One hour interview discussing U.S. foreign policy. The first 25 minutes of the interview discusses Iran. The interview then turns to ‘Russiagate’. Glenn Greenwald states that it is “obviously possible” that the Russian government was behind the 2016 hacking of the emails of members of the Democratic National Committee; he then goes on to state there is “no evidence” of collusion between the Trump election campaign and the Russian government. He says responsiblity for the deterioration of U.S.-Russia relations is shared by the governments of the two countries.]

Massive protests erupt in Iran against sanctions and unending poverty, by Vijay Prashad, AlterNet (pro-Democratic Party, anti-Russia outlet), Jan 3, 2018 Trump and Netanyahu are trying to take credit, but this movement is all about the people

My year inside Trump’s insane White House, by Michael Wolff, Hollywood Reporter, Jan 4, 2017

Related:
So Trump didn’t want to be president but colluded with the Russians to do it?, by Monica Showalter, The American Thinker, Jan 4, 2018 In his stemwinder piece on the early chaotic days of the Trump administration, Michael Wolff would have us believe that Donald Trump really didn’t want to be president…

The scary reality behind Trump’s long Tuesday of weird tweets, by Matthew Yglesias, VOX.com, Wednesday, Jan 3, 2018

… The tweet was just one of many inflammatory statements by Trump over a long day of bizarre tweeting that included everything from fanning the flames of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to attempting to take credit for airplanes being safe, calling for the prosecution of a top aide to Hillary Clinton, attacking the new publisher of the New York Times, and plugging Lou Dobbs’s show on the Fox Business Network. Along the way, he also reiterated a New Year’s Day dig at Pakistan.

It’s a puzzling array of topics that at first glance appears to defy any explanation as a communications strategy or a set of policy priorities. But the source turns out to be clear: It’s all Fox News…

The 12 victories of Venezuelan President Maduro in 2017, by Ignacio Ramonet, published on TeleSur, Jan 3, 2018

Statement from the Iranian Canadian Congress regarding protests in Iran, issued on Jan 2, 2018

… In the days since the protests began, some politicians and political groups in Canada and abroad who have for years advocated for sanctions and aggression against Iran have tried to exploit these protests to justify their anti-Iranian policies…These efforts constitute nothing but an attempt to cynically exploit people’s legitimate demands to advance these groups’ own political agenda..

My life as a New York Times reporter in the shadow of the war on terror, by James Risen, The Intercept, Jan 3, 2017 (lengthy essay)

… My case [in court in January 2015] was part of a broader crackdown on reporters and whistleblowers that had begun during the presidency of George W. Bush and continued far more aggressively under the Obama administration…