Russia"s Alleged Meddling In Catalan Vote: Playing The Blame Game

Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Few people are able to recognize their own mistakes. Many prefer to deny the truth becoming willfully oblivious to obvious facts. Why assume responsibility if there is such a thing as blame shifting - a true-and-tried method to get away with it? Pointing a finger at someone else to divert attention serves the purpose.

There is method to this madness and Western politicians have been resorting to blame-shifting tactic increasingly often. Each and everything going awry in the world is the fault of Russia. The drive of peoples for independence is a good example. Take Catalonia to illustrate the point.

The Spanish government said on Nov.10 that it had noted news manipulation about the Catalan crisis on social media originating from Russia’s territory. Spain"s government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said disinformation on social networks was a "serious issue." According to Spanish Defence Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal, the government had established that "many messages and interventions via social networks come from Russian territory." She did not offer any specific examples to confirm the affirmation. Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said there was evidence of activity by Russian networks and hackers. The trolls are said to be spreading misinformation across social media to further "destabilize" Spain and the EU.

The issue was even raised at the EU foreign and defense ministers meeting on Nov.13-14, where Spain briefed the EU on the alleged interference. The debate comes after eight member states urged EU foreign service chief Federica Mogherini to build up the counter-propaganda cell in her service.

Spanish media have many times attacked Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik Spanish language services for instigating tensions in Catalonia, supporting the separatist movement. El Pais daily wrote an editorial on Nov. 10 denouncing "the intense campaign by Russian media that are close to the Kremlin," whose "propaganda machine" it accused of siding with the pro-independence movement.

NATO leadership chimed in. On Nov.9, US General Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of NATO forces in Europe, called on Russia to stop “meddling” into European elections. He was concerned over Russia’s “malign influence’ in other countries. The Atlantic Council, a US-based think-tank close to NATO, has published a report suggesting that Russia was seeking to meddle in support of Catalan independence and to discredit the Spanish central government"s position that the referendum on independence held on Oct. 1 was illegal. El Pais, the Washington Times and Politico all issued publications alleging that an army of Russian bots had perfected their techniques of online influence and thus ensured the October 1 vote went down the path of separation.

If the accusations were true, it would mean that Russia-backed media networks operate to undermine Russia’s official position on the issue made clear in a Foreign Ministry’s statement. Russia has consistently voiced its respect for Spain’s territorial integrity.

Can anyone of sane mind believe that Russia’s “meddling” is the real reason to make over 40 percent of Catalans support independence?

Has Russia been behind the 95-year-old independence movement in Catalonia?

 

Has Russia made the Catalans’ language and culture distinct?

 

Did Russia make Francisco Franco oppress the Catalan people?

 

Has Russia provoked the economic crisis in Spain, which has served to magnify calls for Catalan independence?

 

Has Russia made Catalans believe that the current tax structure is unfair?

 

Has Russia made Madrid unwilling to renegotiate Catalonia’s autonomy agreement?

 

Has Russia written Spain’s constitution, which expressly prohibits a region from breaking away unilaterally?

 

Did Moscow order Spanish police to use brutal force, while preventing the unconstitutional vote?

 

If it didn’t count, why take such pains to stop it?

 

Several world leaders and political figures condemned the violence specifically. Did Russia make them do it?

 

Did Russia make the EU abstain from mediation effort? And, finally, does Russia stand to gain from an independent Catalonia?

With many publications on the issue, no evidence has been produced to demonstrate a link between the Russian government and Catalonia vote.

Obviously, the use of the "Russian meddling" narrative seems to work as a distraction from the wrongdoing of the Spanish government. The fantasy provides a convenient scapegoat to avoid responsibility of the Spanish government for missing opportunities to launch meaningful political dialogue with Catalonia and mishandling of the vote.

 Spain is by far not the only country to use the narrative to its own advantage. As Karl Sharro, a well-known British architect and satirist, commented on the results of UK elections, “The most disappointing thing about the UK election is there wasn"t even a hint of Russian interference. It"s like we don"t matter at all.”

Things Are Escalating Quickly

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I didn’t spend all week writing about the gigantic tremors occurring in the Middle East because I thought it was fun. If I’m even remotely correct in my analysis, the entire world will be affected and shaped for decades to come by what’s about to go down in the region.

Rather than rehash what I already wrote, I suggest you take a read of the following if you missed them the first time around.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia Are About to Make More Disastrous and Idiotic Mistakes – Part 1

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia Are About to Make More Disastrous and Idiotic Mistakes – Part 2

There’s been a major update since those posts were published. Namely, it appears the government of Lebanon has seen enough and is coming out with its side of the story. As I reported in Part 1, the Saudis immediately claimed Lebanon declared war on it following the obviously staged and forced resignation of Hariri via Saudi Arabia over the weekend. This appears to be a case of classic psychological projection, as in reality, Saudi Arabia appears to have declared war on Lebanon. It straight up kidnapped their Prime Minister.

Here’s some of what we learned from Reuters:

Lebanon believes Saad al-Hariri is held in Saudi Arabia, from where he resigned as prime minister, two top Lebanese government officials said, amid a deepening crisis pushing Lebanon onto the frontlines of a power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

 

A third source, a senior politician close to Saudi-allied Hariri, said Saudi Arabia had ordered him to resign and put him under house arrest. A fourth source familiar with the situation said Saudi Arabia was controlling and limiting his movement.

 

In a televised statement indicating deep concern at Hariri’s situation, his Future Movement political party said his return home was necessary to uphold the Lebanese system, describing him as prime minister and a national leader.

 

Hariri’s exit fueled wide speculation that the Sunni Muslim politician, long an ally of Riyadh, was coerced into stepping down by Saudi Arabia as it seeks to hit back against Iran and its Lebanese Shi‘ite ally Hezbollah.

 

“Keeping Hariri with restricted freedom in Riyadh is an attack on Lebanese sovereignty. Our dignity is his dignity. We will work with (foreign) states to return him to Beirut,” said the senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government had yet to declare this position.

 

Hariri aides had until Thursday denied he was under house arrest but took a dramatically different tone after a meeting of the Future Movement convened at Hariri’s Beirut residence on Thursday.

 

A statement read by former prime minister Fouad Siniora said his return was “necessary to recover respect for Lebanon’s internal and external balance, and in the framework of full respect for Lebanese legitimacy”.

 

Saudi Arabia this week lumped Lebanon together with Hezbollah as parties that are hostile to it, breaking with a long-established policy that has drawn a line between them and raising concerns of further Saudi measures.

 

The senior Lebanese politician close to Hariri said: “When he went (to Saudi Arabia) he was asked to stay there and ordered to resign. They ordered him to read his resignation statement and he has been held under house arrest since.”

 

Two U.S. officials said the Saudis, led by Crown Prince Mohammed, had “encouraged” Hariri to leave office.

While Lebanese officials were initially quiet, there seems to be an emerging consensus across the various political factions that the Saudis kidnapped Hariri and that such an action is unacceptable. While the Saudis are clearly trying to cause chaos in Lebanon, it seems Lebanese leadership, as well as the people on the street, have no interest in civil strife and renewed violence given all that’s happened to them in recent decades. This puts further pressure on the Saudis, as it seems the latest geopolitical scheme by clown prince Mohamed bin Salman is failing, just like his prior disastrous moves in Yemen and Qatar. The question now is whether or not MBS will figure out a way to escalate his provocation of Lebanon? If so, how will the U.S., Europe and the rest of the region respond?

It seems some sort of escalation is coming given that both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have called for their citizens to evaluate Lebanon. From Haaretz:

Saudi Arabia has warned its citizens against travelling to Lebanon and asked those who in the country to leave as soon as possible, the kingdom’s official news agency quoted an official source in the Foreign Ministry as saying.

 

“Due to the circumstances in the Lebanese Republic, the kingdom asks its citizens who are visiting or residing” in the country to leave it as soon as possible, the source added.

Circumstances it created, of course.

The Foreign Ministry of Kuwait ordered its citizens to leave Lebanon immediately as well.

Switching gears, while things continue to bubble in an extremely dangerous direction overseas, the corporate media and U.S government have been busy at work here at home in a desperate attempt to regain control of the narrative and silence patriotic whistleblowers.

Let’s start with the corporate media’s recent shameless and degenerate attempt to smear William Binney.

I’ve discussed Mr. Binney over the years. Before it was decided that his character needed assassination, here’s how NPR described him back in 2014:

Bill Binney worked at the National Security Agency nearly three decades as one of its leading crypto-mathematicians. He then became one of its leading whistleblowers.

 

Now 70 and on crutches, both legs lost to diabetes, Binney recalls the July morning seven years ago when a dozen gun-wielding FBI agents burst through the front door of his home, at the end of a cul-de-sac a 10-minute drive from NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.

 

“I first knew that they were in there when they were pointing a gun at me as I was coming out of the shower,” Binney says.

 

When I ask him why the agents were there, he replies: “Well, it was to keep us quiet.”

 

For Binney, the decision to quit the NSA and become a whistleblower began a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when he says he discovered the spy agency had begun using software he’d created to scoop up information on Americans — all without a court order.

 

“I had to get out of there, because they were using the program I built to do domestic spying, and I didn’t want any part of it, I didn’t want to be associated with it,” he says. “I look at it as basically treason. They were subverting the Constitution.”

It’s no wonder the out of control, unconstitutional U.S. surveillance state doesn’t like Mr. Binney, but what the media did to him over the past week is clownishly evil and intentional. It started when The Intercept reported that CIA director Mike Pompeo had meet with Binney at Trump’s request to discuss a memo he signed along with other members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) claiming the DNC email breach was the result of a leak and not a hack. Fellow celebrated whistleblower Thomas Drake and other members of VIPS disagreed and refused to sign the memo, making it controversial. That said, Binney’s credentials should not be called into question.

As The Intercept itself noted in its article:

Binney’s adherence to a widely disputed theory about the DNC email theft that is favorable to Trump marks a new twist for a retired government employee who has become an outspoken critic of the intelligence community to which he once belonged. Binney grew up in Pennsylvania, majored in math at Penn State, and joined the Army in 1965. He was assigned to the U.S. Army Security Agency, learning communications traffic analysis and, in 1967, was assigned to NSA headquarters. In 1970, he joined the NSA as a civilian and remained at the agency for the rest of his career. He rose through the ranks to become the agency’s technical director for world geopolitical and military analysis and took over the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center, a kind of skunkworks to test out new ideas.

 

Drake and Binney both emerged from the government’s draconian leak investigation as prominent whistleblowers. Their fame grew after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden went public in 2013 and provided the press with access to a trove of NSA documents about the agency’s mass surveillance programs. Binney was featured in “Citizenfour,” the Oscar-winning 2014 documentary about Snowden directed by Laura Poitras; he was also the subject of a 2015 documentary titled “A Good American.” (Poitras co-founded The Intercept following Snowden’s 2013 disclosures.)

Rather than rationally question whether or not Pompeo should’ve met with Binney about the memo, corporate media had a complete hyperbolic meltdown, proceeding to smear and slander Binney with lack of hesitation you’d expect from state media in totalitarian regimes. Here are just a few examples:

CNN

MSNBC

Tweet from NBC

Conspiracy theorist says President Trump pushed meeting with CIA chief https://t.co/J0OVWvUmq6 pic.twitter.com/ZL9vQFBJwg

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 7, 2017

The clownish smears above are very important in two respects. First, NBC and CNN both know exactly who William Binney is and know that he’s the furthest thing in the world from a “hack.” Therefore, this is a deliberate and intentional attack on him. It’s straight up character assassination.

The fact that these so-called impartial news organizations, the same ones that constantly decry the “fake news” of others, would stoop to this tells you everything you need to know. Corporate media giants are as biased and agenda driven as any blog or state-sponsored media outlet on earth, possibly more so. These outlets feel so threatened by anyone going against the narrative they want to push, they no longer debate facts and offer clear cut analysis. Rather, they’ve decide to fully embrace the most base propaganda tactics imaginable. All this does is further expose how shady as useless these media outlets are to anyone capable of even a modicum of free thought.

While that’s a good thing, it brings us to another uncomfortable realization. These media outlets aren’t even attempting to convince people with a functioning brain any longer. As I noted on Twitter the other day:

We"ve fully entered the moment when corporate media isn"t even talking to people with more than two brain cells.
It"s just messaging to keep the very ignorant in line.

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 8, 2017

Which reminds me of an excellent observation from the Counterpunch article, Why Ridiculous Official Propaganda Still Works:

Chief among the common misconceptions about the way official propaganda works is the notion that its goal is to deceive the public into believing things that are not “the truth” (that Trump is a Russian agent, for example, or that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, or that the terrorists hate us for our freedom, et cetera). However, while official propagandists are definitely pleased if anyone actually believes whatever lies they are selling, deception is not their primary aim.

 

The primary aim of official propaganda is to generate an “official narrative” that can be mindlessly repeated by the ruling classes and those who support and identify with them. This official narrative does not have to make sense, or to stand up to any sort of serious scrutiny. Its factualness is not the point. The point is to draw a Maginot line, a defensive ideological boundary, between “the truth” as defined by the ruling classes and any other “truth” that contradicts their narrative.

 

Imagine this Maginot line as a circular wall surrounded by inhospitable territory. Inside the wall is “normal” society, gainful employment, career advancement, and all the other considerable benefits of cooperating with the ruling classes. Outside the wall is poverty, anxiety, social and professional stigmatization, and various other forms of suffering. Which side of the wall do you want to be on? Every day, in countless ways, each of us are asked and have to answer this question. Conform, and there’s a place for you inside. Refuse, and … well, good luck out there.

Corporate media in the U.S. has finally made its final transition into the sort of outright propaganda described above.

Meanwhile, at almost the exact same time that Binney was being smeared by the likes of CNN and NBC, the U.S. government embarked on its very own dangerous and authoritarian mission against narratives that threaten their ability to brainwash people. Specifically, RT is being forced to register as a foreign agent as of this coming Monday.

RT reported on the matter:

Washington will apply its Foreign Agents Registration Act to RT America, the channel has announced. The Department of Justice has given the broadcaster until Monday to register as a foreign agent, otherwise the channel’s head faces arrest and its accounts could be frozen.

 

The piece of legislation was adopted in the US in 1938 to counter pro-Nazi agitation on US soil. Washington has made the decision to apply the act towards the company that supplies all services for RT America on its territory, including TV production and operations. Just over 400 entities are currently registered under the legislation, but it does not include a single media outlet.

 

“We believe that the demand does not only go against the law, and we will prove it in court – the demand is discriminative, it contradicts both the democracy and freedom of speech principles. It deprives us of fair competition with other international channels, which are not registered as foreign agents,” RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan said.

Simonyan had said the decision put freedom of speech in the US under question. RT has been under pressure for showing the American audience “a different point of view,” the editor-in-chief added.

In light of that, let’s recall a couple of the examples laid out in a U.S. intelligence report on Russia “meddling” in the U.S. election as examples of nefarious propaganda. From the DNI report:

• In an effort to highlight the alleged “lack of democracy” in the United States, RT broadcast, hosted, and advertised third-party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates.The RT hosts asserted that the US two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a “sham.”


• RT aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement on 1, 2, and 4 November. RT framed the movement as a fight against “the ruling class” and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations. RT advertising for the documentary featured Occupy movement calls to “take back” the government. The documentary claimed that the US system cannot be changed democratically, but only through “revolution.” After the 6 November US presidential election, RT aired a documentary called “Cultures of Protest,” about active and often violent political resistance (RT, 1-10 November).

Given corporate media’s unwillingness to expose the systemic rigging and fraud inherent within our economic and political system, a void existed which RT came in to help fill. Exposing foreign audiences to an alternative perspective is precisely what foreign media channels do. Considering what I showed you earlier with regard to the character assassination campaign against NSA whistleblower William Binney, how can anyone argue that U.S. media isn’t just as biased as any other media organization?

This isn’t about nefarious Russians as much as it’s about the U.S. government wanting to regain its monopoly on the narrative it wishes to force feed to the public. Unfortunately for them, they haven’t accepted that the gig is up and we aren’t buying it anymore.

The three things I focused on today, war against Iran, the smearing of a celebrated NSA whistleblower, and attacks against RT are all related.

The degenerates in power know that another war in the Middle East won’t be popular. Dissent must be silenced ahead of a big war push, and narratives must get in line in order to successfully sell the public on another violent and disastrous adventure against our best interests.

Things are escalating quickly right now indeed.

*  *  *

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Russia Warns It Will Retaliate Against American Media Next Week

It has been over a month since Russia and the US engaged in political tit-for-tat escalations, but that is about to change: after a recent crackdown by the U.S. government, which ordered state broadcaster RT to register as a foreign agent following accusations it interfered in last year’s presidential elections, and which saw Twitter ban all RT-sourced advertising (despite actively seeking RT"s business beforehand) Russia said on Thursday it would retaliate next week against the American media, Bloomberg reports.

While the Russians didn’t specify what measures would be taken, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that “practical implementation” of steps in response to the U.S. move would begin next week. Russia has previously warned its retaliation would mirror restrictions imposed by the U.S. The foreign-agent label, which applies to several state-owned outlets operating in the U.S. including Japan’s NHK and the China Daily newspaper, requires disclosure of the media organization’s foreign funding.

As reported earlier today, RT"s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, said on the broadcaster’s website that it has no choice but to comply with the DOJ’s demand to register as a foreign agent by a final deadline of Monday. Otherwise, the head of the channel’s U.S. subsidiary would face arrest and its bank accounts would be frozen, she said. “This demand violates U.S. law and we intend to appeal it in U.S. courts.”

What may Russia"s next move be?  One month ago, Zakharova said that “we have never used Russian law in relation to foreign correspondents as a lever of pressure, or censorship, or some kind of political influence, never. But this is a particular case..."

She cited a 1991 Russian law which, she said, stated that if a Russian media outlet is subject to restrictions in a foreign country, then Moscow has the right to impose proportionate restrictions on media outlets from that country operating inside Russia. “Correspondingly, everything that Russian journalists and the RT station are subject to on U.S. soil, after we qualified it as restriction of their activities, we can apply similar measures to American journalists, American media here, on Russian territory." She did not identify any specific U.S. media outlets that would be targeted. She said it made no difference from the Russian government’s point of view if those outlets were backed by the U.S. state, or privately-funded.

In September, Russia’s state communications regulator accused CNN International of violating its license to broadcast in Russia and said it had summoned the broadcaster’s representatives in connection with the matter. The watchdog did not publicly disclose the nature of the violation. The head of the regulator said it was a technical matter and denied that politics was involved. The U.S. Congress is investigating RT’s role in the 2016 election, as well as possible influence by state-owned Sputnik news service.

Russian authorities have signaled that CNN and Radio Liberty could be among those targeted in response to the action against RT.

US Threatens To Cut Off China From SWIFT If It Violates North Korea Sanctions

In an unexpectedly strong diplomatic escalation, one day after China agreed to vote alongside the US (and Russia) during Monday"s United National Security Council vote in passing the watered down North Korea sanctions, the US warned that if China were to violate or fail to comply with the newly imposed sanctions against Kim"s regime, it could cut off Beijing’s access to both the US financial system as well as the "international dollar system."

Speaking at CNBC"s Delivering Alpha conference on Tuesday, Steven Mnuchin said that China had agreed to "historic" North Korean sanctions during Monday"s United Nations vote. "We worked very closely with the U.N.  I"m very pleased with the resolution that was just passed.  This is some of the strongest items.  We now have more tools in our toolbox, and we will continue to use them and put additional sanctions on North Korea until they stop this behavior."

In response, Andrew Ross Sorkin countered that "we haven"t been able to move the needle on China, which seems to be the real mover on this, in terms of being able to apply the real pressure. What do you think the issue is?  What is the problem?"

The stunner was revealed in Mnuchin"s answer: "I think we have absolutely moved the needle on China.  I think what they agreed to yesterday was historic.  I"d also say I put sanctions on a major Chinese bank.  That"s the first time that"s ever been done.  And if China doesn"t follow these sanctions, we will put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the U.S. and international dollar system.  And that"s quite meaningful."

And to underscore his point, the Treasury Secretary also said that "in North Korea, economic warfare works. I made it clear that the President was strongly considering and we sent a message that anybody that wanted to trade with North Korea, we would consider them not trading with us.  We can put on economic sanctions to stop people trading."

In other words, to force compliance with the North Korean sanctions, Mnuchin threatened Beijing with not only trade war, but also a lock out from the dollar system, i.e. SWIFT, something the US did back in 2014 and 2015 when it blocked off several Russian banks as relations between the US and Russia imploded.

Of course, whether the US would be willing to go so far as to use the nuclear option, and pull the dollar plug on its biggest trade partner, in the process immediately unleashing an economic depression domestically and globally is a different matter.  So far Washington has been reluctant to impose economic sanctions on China over concerns of possible retaliatory measures from Beijing and the potentially catastrophic consequences for the global economy. Washington runs a $350 billion annual trade deficit with Beijing, while the PBOC also holds over $1 trillion in US debt.

Ironically, the biggest hurdle to the implementation of the just passed sanctions may be the president himself.  “We think it’s just another very small step, not a big deal,” Trump told reporters at the start of a meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. "I don’t know if it has any impact, but certainly it was nice to get a 15-to-nothing vote, but those sanctions are nothing compared to what ultimately will have to happen,” said Trump who has vowed not to allow North Korea to develop a nuclear ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States.

Separately, at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Republican Chairman Ed Royce said the U.S. should target major Chinese banks, including Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. and China Merchants Bank Co., for aiding Kim’s regime. Russia also came in for criticism. Assistant Treasury Secretary Marshall Billingslea said in prepared remarks to the committee that North Korean bank representatives “operate in Russia in flagrant disregard of the very resolutions adopted by Russia at the UN.”

While China and Russia supported the latest UN sanctions, officials made clear they were troubled by Haley’s comments in the Security Council that the U.S. would act alone if Kim’s regime didn’t stop testing missiles and bombs. They emphasized the world body’s resolution also emphasized the importance of resolving the crisis through negotiations. “The Chinese side will never allow conflict or war on the peninsula,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement on Tuesday.

In a soundbite late on Tuesday, Japan"s Nikkei quoted prime minister Shinzo Abe who said that "in the end, [the North Korean] problems should be solved through diplomatic dialogue," adding that Japan will "work together with the international community to apply maximum pressure, so that North Korea commits to perfect, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization." For Japan to engage with the regime, he stressed it would have to be "on the condition that North Korea commits to" this complete denuclearization."

Which, of course, won"t happen: “sanctions of any kind are useless and ineffective,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters earlier this month at a summit in Xiamen, China. “They’ll eat grass, but they won’t abandon their [nuclear] program unless they feel secure.”

Predictably, North Korea"s Foreign Ministry slammed the sanctions saying it “condemns in the strongest terms and categorically rejects” the United Nations adding more sanctions, North Korea’s state-run KCNA reported on Wednesday morning. Instead, North Korea warned it “will redouble efforts to increase its strength” as it seeks to establish “practical equilibrium” with U.S.

And so, not only is the entire geopolitical circle jerk back at square one, but the ball is again back in North Korea"s court, while the decision on whether or not to launch another ICBM really depends on whether China will give it the quiet go ahead; a China which responds notoriously poorly to being threatened in the global financial arena, like for example when the US threatens to kick it out of the global dollar system...

United Nations Unanimously Approves New Sanctions On North Korea

The UN Security Council has unanimously voted to step up sanctions on North Korea in retaliation for the country’s recent sixth and most powerful nuclear test. The 15-member Security Council passed the resolution unanimously, with both China and Russia siding with the US against North Korea, which however should not come as a surprise because as previewed this morning, the US drastically watered down its original sanctions proposal, which now excludes Trump"s prior demands for an oil import ban as well as international asset freeze on the government and leader Kim Jong Un, in order to win the support of Moscow and Beijing. This was the ninth sanctions resolution unanimously adopted by the 15-member council since 2006 over North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs.

Despite the compromises, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the resolution would cut North Korean exports by 90% and reduce the refined products available to North Korea by 44% and fuel by 30%. “Today we are saying the world will never accept a nuclear armed North Korea,” she said. “This will cut deep.”

Well, not really: the resolution slashes 55% of the country’s gas, diesel and heavy fuel imports, imposing a ban on condensates and natural gas liquids, a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products, and a cap on crude oil imports at current levels, in other words N.Korea"s oil flow remain untouched (as a reminder, China supplies most of North Korea’s crude). According to US officials quoted by Reutrs, North Korea imports some 4.5 million barrels of refined petroleum products annually and 4 million barrels of crude oil.

The new resolution also will impose an embargo on all textile trade and require inspections and monitoring of North Korea’s sea vessels by member states, but doesn’t provide for the use of military force to gain access to the ships.

According to the WSJ, a proposed ban on North Korean foreign workers, a source of an estimated $1 billion in annual revenue to the regime, also was reworded to allow countries to employ North Korean nationals if deemed vital for humanitarian reasons. It also doesn’t apply to workers who hold contracts taking effect before the adoption of the resolution.

Previously, China and Russia - veto-holders on the 15-member Security Council - had voiced opposition to harsher measures and threatened to block the vote if the ban on oil remained. China is reluctant to pressure the North Korean regime to the brink of collapse fearing instability at its border, a flow of refugees and a possible American military presence. Both Russia and China have said they favor direct talks and not sanctions.

Nikki Haley said that the sanctions will target $1.3 billion in North Korea revenue. The US ambassador to the UN added that the "strong relationship between Trump and Xi played a key role in negotiating the new UN sanctions", or translated: China imposed its terms on the US proposal so that China would note veto the mostly optical measure, to avoid making Trump look weak again in the UN. She also said that the US is "not looking for war" with North Korea, and added that North Korea has not yet "passed the point of no return." That said, by now it is completely unclear just what would entail passing said "point of no return."

After a week of intense negotiations, a unanimous Security Council vote against North Korea was viewed as politically more important than a strong U.S. stand that risked division, diplomats said. “Any perception of weakness on the side of the Security Council would only encourage the regime to continue its provocations and objectively create the risk of an increasingly extreme situation,” said France’s Ambassador François Delattre.

Of course, further provocations by the regime at this point remain all too likely. And so, now attention turns to Pyongyang and North Korea"s response: overnight, the state-run KCNA agency unleashed numerous warnings and threats toward the US should the sanctions pass.  “In case the U.S. eventually does rig up the illegal and unlawful ‘resolution’ on harsher sanctions, the DPRK [North Korea] shall make absolutely sure that the U.S. pays due price,” the spokesman of the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

However, it is unclear if these drastically watered down sanctions, which have China"s explicit blessing, will be sufficient to prompt another ICBM launch and/or nuclear test. In any case, keep an eye on those flashing red headlines.

Kim Jong Un: "The Entire US Territory Is Now Within Our ICBM Range"

Confirming a Friday report by David Wright, physicist and co-director of the UCS Global Security Program, that the newest North Korean ICBM - which on Friday night flew for 45 minutes, reaching an altitude of up to 3,725 kilometers and traveled just under 1,000 kilometers before landing in Japan waters - can strike half the major metro areas on the continental US, overnight North Korea"s leader Kim Jong-Un said that “we have demonstrated our ability to fire our intercontinental ballistic rocket at any time and place and that the entire U.S. territory is within our shooting range.”

Quoted by the Korean Central News Agency, he also expressed his “great satisfaction” with the ICBM test - the country"s second after an earlier test on July 4 - which reaffirmed that the missile was able to deliver a “large-sized, heavy nuclear warhead" to the United States. The test  was part of the "final verification" of the Hwasong-14 missile’s technical capabilities, including its maximum range.

As a reminder, Wright"s calculations showed that the ICBM could have a range 10,400 km (6,500 miles), not taking into account the Earth’s rotation, which if added would increase the range of missiles fired eastward. And, calculating the range of the missile in the direction of some major US cities gives the approximate results in Table 1, which showed that Los Angeles, Denver, and Chicago appear to be well within range of this missile, and that Boston and New York may be just within range while Washington, D.C. is just out of range.

Melissa Hanham, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, confirmed the findings saying that the test showed North Korea is now capable of hitting U.S. cities such as Denver or Chicago.

Also on Saturday, Kim said the test was a “serious warning” to the US, which has been “meaninglessly blowing its trumpet” in threatening Pyongyang.

In response, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement that "as the principal economic enablers of North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability." He added that even as the US seeks a peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Tillerson said, “we will never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea nor abandon our commitment to our allies and partners in the region.”

In a late Friday statement from the White House, Trump rejected North Korea"s claims that its nuclear program is designed to prevent an attack by the U.S. or other, saying it had the “opposite effect.”

“By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people,” Trump said.

China also responded to the launch, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang saying in a Saturday statement in the People’s Daily newspaper that Beijing also opposes North Korea’s launch and its violations of Security Council resolutions, while calling on all parties to show restraint.

As Reuters subsequently reproted, Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed “military response options” in a phone call with his South Korean counterpart, his spokesman said in an emailed statement that didn’t elaborate. While Trump hasn’t ruled out a military response, Dunford warned in June that an armed conflict with North Korea would leave the millions of residents in Seoul, South Korea’s capital, to face casualties “unlike anything we’ve seen in 60 or 70 years.” This month he told a security conference in Colorado that “what’s unimaginable to me” is allowing the capability for “a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado.”

Shortly after the North Korean launch, the US and South Korean militaries responded with their own display of military strength, firing live surface-to-surface missiles from rocket launchers, amid renewed tension on the peninsula. Videos posted by the South Korean Ministry of Defense showed the US-made Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, as well as its own Hyunmoo Missile II.

The missiles hit the East Sea on Saturday morning, where North Korea’s ballistic missile is believed to have landed, as part of a live-fire exercise to demonstrate its “precision firing ability,” the US 8th Army said. US Forces in Korea said two missiles were fired from the ATACMS along with two Hyunmoo system missiles. The ATACMS is a Lockheed Martin surface-to-surface missile, with a range of 160km that can be fired from a range of rocket launchers.

The South Korean ministry said it was responding “to provocations of North Korean ballistic missiles.” “The systems can be rapidly employed to provide deep-strike precision capability, enabling the ROK-U.S. Alliance to engage a full array of time-critical targets under all weather conditions,” the 8th Army said on Facebook.

South Korea also said it would deploy four additional THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] anti-missile launchers after North Korea’s test. The THAAD deployment had been delayed after South Korean President Moon Jae-in ordered an environmental assessment. Meanwhile, China on Saturday said it had grave concerns about the possibility of more Thaad launchers in South Korea. It called on the U.S. and South Korea to stop the deployment, saying the launchers hurt the strategic balance in the region.

"We Are Forced To Strike Back": Russia Set To Expel 30 US Diplomats, Seize US Assets

When Obama announced the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and the seizure of Russian diplomatic compounds in Maryland last December, in response to alleged Russian interference in the election, Putin just smiled and said Russia would not retaliate, expecting that relations between Russia and the US would normalize under president Trump. Six months later, relations have not only not normalized but have deteriorated further following the latest round of sanctions against Russia despite daily allegations that Trump colluded with the Kremlin to convince several million Americans to vote against Hillary.

And, as a result, Putin"s patience appears to have run out, and according to Russian newspaper Izvestiya, the Kremlin is set to expel around 30 US diplomats and freeze some US assets in a retaliatory move against Washington.

Moscow may expel about 30 US diplomats, freeze some US assets in Russia https://t.co/nWxx0bbtfr #USRussia pic.twitter.com/uLGKiE4YO4

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) July 11, 2017

Quoting a Foreign Ministry source, the Izvestiya newspaper says the move is due to the failure to reach an agreement on two Russian diplomatic compounds in the US seized by the outgoing Obama administration in December last year.

“There is a preliminary agreement on holding a meeting between Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ryabkov and US Under Secretary of State Thomas Shannon in St. Petersburg. If the compromise is not found there, we will have to take such measures,” a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told the Izvestiya newspaper.

Izvestiya also cited Andrey Klimov, a senator in the upper house of Russia"s parliament, who said that "Russia had already waited more than six months for the Trump administration to improve the relationship between the two countries" and was now forced to strike back.

"We are forced to draw a line and answer in a similar way," Klimov told Izvestiya. "These moves are not meant as our attempts to show our negative attitudes toward the Trump administration but rather as evidence of the fact that Russia is a strong nation that deserves respectable treatment."

The Russian newspaper adds that the decision came after Trump and Putin"s first meeting at the G20 Summit in Germany failed to produce an agreement on the lightening of US sanctions against Russia. The issue of the Russian diplomatic compounds was also raised at the Putin-Trump meeting in Hamburg, according to the Russian press reports.

And, as Trump and his family face fresh claims of collusion with the Kremlin, Putin’s patience over the non-return of the Russian compounds has run out.

According to the newspaper, while the administration plans to seize the American summer house in a forest region outside of Moscow and a warehouse in the center of the city, it will not touch the residence of the American ambassador and the American international school in St. Petersburg.

US-China Agree On Need For "Complete, Irreversible" Korean Denuclearization

After terse public exchanges this week, each proclaiming the other is not working hard enough on "solving" the Kim Jong Un "situation", Chinese state media said on Saturday, reporting the results of high level talks in Washington this week, that China and the United States agreed that efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula should be "complete, verifiable and irreversible."

The week started off tense, with the President tweeting that "while I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!"

While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 20, 2017

Which received a quick response from China...  

China has “played an important and constructive role” in seeking peace on the Korean peninsula, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters in Beijing.

China strictly implements United Nations Security Council resolutions and isn’t the crux of the North Korean issue, he said.

But now, as Reuters reports,US and China have agreed on a path forward after high-level talks. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said on Thursday that the United States pressed China to ramp up economic and political pressure on North Korea, during his meeting with top Chinese diplomats and defense chiefs. China"s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and General Fang Fenghui met Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during the talks. Yang later met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House, where they also discussed North Korea, Xinhua reported.

"Both sides reaffirm that they will strive for the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," a consensus document released by the official Xinhua news agency said.

The consensus document also highlighted the need to fully and strictly hold to U.N. Security Council resolutions and push for dialogue and negotiation, which has long been China"s position on the issue.

Military-to-military exchanges should also be upgraded and mechanisms of notification established in order to cut the risks of "judgment errors" between the Chinese and U.S. militaries, the statement also said.

Chinese state media described the talks, the first of their kind with the Trump administration, as an upgrade in dialogue mechanisms between China and the United States, following on from President Xi Jinping"s meeting with Trump in Florida in April.

Saudi Arabia Gives Qatar 24 Hour Ultimatum As Analysts Warn Of "Military Confrontation"

Shortly after imposing a naval blockade in the immediate  aftermath of the Qatar diplomatic crisis, one which left the small Gulf nation not only politically isolated and with severed ties to its neighbors but potentially locked out of maritime trade and crippling its oil and LNG exports, on Tuesday SkyNews Arabia reported that Saudi Arabia has given Qatar a 24 hours ultimatum, starting tonight, to fulfill 10 conditions that have been conveyed to Kuwait, which is currently involved in the role of a mediator between Saudi and Qatar.

Saudi Arabia gives #Qatar 24 hr ultimatum to fulfill 10 conditions that have been sent to #Kuwait https://t.co/OpWGvvDY7r #Iran #QatarCrisis

— Reza H. Akbari (@rezahakbari) June 6, 2017

???????: #???????? ????? #?????? ??10 ???? ??? ?? ?????? ?????? ???? 24 ???? ???? ?? ??? ??????

— ???? ???? ?????-???? (@SkyNewsArabia_B) June 6, 2017

According to media report, among the key demands by Saudi Arabia is that Qatar end all ties Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Developing: Saudi Arabia issues ultimatum to #Qatar demanding it end all ties Muslim Brotherhood & Hamas pic.twitter.com/mIgWLsXfKg

— Dipatch2016 (@Daily_News_Wire) June 6, 2017

While there was little additional information on the Ultimatum and more importantly what happens should Qatar not comply, Al Jazeera reported that Kuwait"s emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, left Saudi Arabia on Tuesday after holding mediation talks with the Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz to try to defuse an escalating crisis between Arab countries and Qatar. No details were given on the talks.

In addition to Saudi Arabia"s aggressive approach, Egypt"s Foreign Ministry accused Qatar of taking an "antagonist approach" towards Cairo and said "all attempts to stop it from supporting terrorist groups failed". Qatar denied the allegations, with a Foreign Ministry statement describing them as "baseless" on Monday.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, analyst Giorgio Cafiero of Gulf State Analytics, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Washington, DC, said: "I think the Kuwaitis as well as Omanis ... fear the prospects of these tensions escalating in ways which could undermine the interest of all six members of the GCC.

"There are many analysts who believe that a potential break-up of the GCC has to be considered right now."

"If these countries fail to resolve their issues and such tensions reaches new heights, we have to be very open to the possibility of these six Arab countries no longer being able to unite under the banner of one council," said Cafiero.

He added that if tension escalates, some have warned of a "military confrontation".

'State-Sponsor-Of-Terror' Iran Says London Attacks Are "Wake-Up Call" For West, Urges Funding Crackdown

In what we are sure many will see as the most ironic headline of the day, Reuters reports Iran said on Sunday the London attacks were a "wake-up call" and urged Western states to go after ideological and financial sources of terrorism, state media reported, in a thinly veiled reference to Saudi Arabia.

Having been the center of attention during President Trump"s recent trip:

“The United States and Israel can declare with one voice that Iran must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon – never, ever – and must cease its deadly funding, training and equipping of terrorists and militias, and it must cease immediately,” Trump said in at a meeting in Jerusalem with the Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin.

Trump added that he had detected, too, “a growing realisation among your Arab neighbours that they have common cause with you in the threat posed by Iran”.

As Reuters notes, Iran denies Western charges of sponsoring terrorism, and accuses Saudi Arabia"s Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam and funding from its arch-rival of being behind Sunni militant groups who have been behind a recent spate of deadly attacks in Europe. Saudi Arabia, the bastion of Sunni Islam and a close U.S. ally, denies backing terrorism and has cracked down on jihadists at home, jailing thousands, stopping hundreds from travelling to fight abroad and cutting militant finances.

Shi"ite Muslim power Iran and Saudi Arabia are longstanding religious and political arch-rivals and often accuse each other of backing terrorism. Relations are fraught as they support each other"s foes in regional wars such as in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

And it appears Iran has had enough. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi is quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA as saying:

"Repeated blind terror attacks around the world are a wake-up call for the world community,"

"To uproot terror, it is necessary that they (Western states) address the root causes as well as the main financial and ideological sources of extremism and violence, which are clear to everyone,"

"Clear" Indeed.

'Fake News'? James Clapper Notes "Curious Pattern" Of Deaths Among Russian Elites

Earlier in the year, a number of non-mainstream media outlets noted the fact that an unusual number of high-ranking Russian diplomats were turning up dead. Mainstream media shunned the narrative as "conspiracy" or "fake news", which makes the fact that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper pointing out to CNN that there is a "curious pattern" of deaths even more intriguing.

As we noted previously, seven Russian diplomats have died in the last 3 months - all but one died on foreign soil. Some were shot, while other causes of death are unknown. Note that a few deaths have been labeled "heart attacks" or "brief illnesses."

1. You probably remember Russia"s Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov — he was assassinated by a police officer at a photo exhibit in Ankara on December 19.

2. On the same day, another diplomat, Peter Polshikov, was shot dead in his Moscow apartment. The gun was found under the bathroom sink but the circumstances of the death were under investigation. Polshikov served as a senior figure in the Latin American department of the Foreign Ministry.

3. Russia"s Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, died in New York this past week. Churkin was rushed to the hospital from his office at Russia"s UN mission. Initial reports said he suffered a heart attack, and the medical examiner is investigating the death, according to CBS.

4. Russia"s Ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, died after a "brief illness January 27, which The Hindu said he had been suffering from for a few weeks.

5. Russian Consul in Athens, Greece, Andrei Malanin, was found dead in his apartment January 9. A Greek police official said there was "no evidence of a break-in." But Malanin lived on a heavily guarded street. The cause of death needed further investigation, per an AFP report. Malanin served during a time of easing relations between Greece and Russia when Greece was increasingly critiqued by the EU and NATO.

6. Ex-KGB chief Oleg Erovinkin, who was suspected of helping draft the Trump dossier, was found dead in the back of his car December 26, according to The Telegraph. Erovinkin also was an aide to former deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, who now heads up state-owned Rosneft.

7. The top official of Russia"s space agency, 56-year-old Vladimir Evdokimov, was found dead in his prison cell (where he was being questioned on charges of embezzlement). Investigators found two stab wounds on Evdokimov"s body, but no determination had been made of whether they were self-inflicted.

If we go back further than 3 months...

8. On the morning of U.S. Election Day, Russian diplomat Sergei Krivov was found unconscious at the Russian Consulate in New York and died on the scene. Initial reports said Krivov fell from the roof and had blunt force injuries, but Russian officials said he died from a heart attack. BuzzFeed reports Krivov may have been a Consular Duty Commander, which would have put him in charge of preventing sabotage or espionage.

9. In November 2015, a senior adviser to Putin, Mikhail Lesin, who was also the founder of the media company RT, was found dead in a Washington hotel room according to the NYT. The Russian media said it was a "heart attack," but the medical examiner said it was "blunt force injuries."

10. If you go back a few months prior in September 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s driver was killed too in a freak car accident while driving the Russian President’s official black BMW  to add to the insanity.

If you include these three additional deaths that’s a total of ten Russian officials that have died over the past 2 years.

Many have questioned whether this rash of deaths was being undertaken by the deep state in retaliation for Putin"s defiance... former acting director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Michael Morell openly conspired to “covertly” kill Russians and Iranians in Syria in an August 2016 interview with Charlie Rose. While Morell was talking about killing Russian and Iranian soldiers it is definitely a strange piece to add to this puzzle.

Are we witnessing a battle between the deep state and Russia in a spy versus spy plotline or is this all just a freak coincidence?

Well, as The Hill reports, James Clapper, speaking to host Jake Tapper Sunday on CNN"s "State of the Union", is here to set things straight...

"Well, this obviously has been a curious pattern."

"We have had difficulty, though, in actually generating an evidentiary trail that could equate convincingly and compellingly in a court of law a direct connection between certain figures that have been eliminated who apparently ran afoul of Putin."

Aha... So that"s the narrative - back to the "Putin is a killer" meme.

Clapper said it is an “interesting pattern. I will put it that way."

The wife of one of Putin’s most prominent critics, activist and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, said her husband had been poisoned again, after experiencing kidney failure and being put in a medically induced coma in February. She reportedly said the doctors diagnosed him with an “acute poisoning by an unidentified substance."

President Trump, during an interview in early February with then-Fox News anchor Bill O"Reilly, defended Putin and objected to him being called "a killer."

“We have a lot of killers,” Trump said at the time. “You think our country is so innocent?”

Of course, Clapper was not done, he had plenty more to say on Trump...

"I think in many ways our institutions are under assault both externally -- and that"s the big news here is the Russian interference in our election system -- and I think as well our institutions are under assault internally,"

"The founding fathers, in their genius, created a system of three co-equal branches of government and a built-in system of checks and balances," Clapper said. "I feel as though that is under assault and is eroding."

Presumably Clapper was upset at being the man Trump pointed to as clarifying the lack of evidence of a Trump-Russia collusion?

Trump Considering "Kinetic Military Action" On North Korea Including "Sudden Strike"

Following Sunday"s failed medium-range missile test by Kim Jong-Un, President Donald Trump has been evaluating his response options and according to Bloomberg, which cited a "person familiar with his thinking", is willing to consider ordering "kinetic" military action, including a sudden strike, to "counteract North Korea’s destabilizing actions in the region"

However, before launching another offensive campaign - or war as some would call it - Trump’s preference is for China to take the lead on dealing with North Korea, according to the source.

While still afforded the luxury of time, Trump may be forced to decide soon how to respond: on its take on the ongoing North Korea crisis, the New York Times said in a front-page article that "what is playing out, said Robert Litwak of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, ... is "the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion," but the slow-motion part appears to be speeding up."

That said, Trump’s reported strategy isn’t a radical departure from long-standing U.S. policy. As Bloomberg writes, "he isn’t particularly interested in toppling the regime of leader Kim Jong Un and isn’t looking to force a reunification of the two Koreas, the person said. He instead wants to push for their long-term cooperation."

Furthermore, Trump’s national security team had already thought through various scenarios that North Korea might take, and how the U.S. would react. So when the medium-range missile test failed right after launch early Sunday morning local time, Trump was informed immediately and decided to downplay it, according to the person. It was Trump’s decision that the administration’s initial response would come from Defense Secretary James Mattis, who issued a 22-word statement Saturday night.

This was followed by National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster, who used familiar language Sunday to describe North Korea’s “provocative and destabilizing and threatening behavior,” while leaving all options on the table as his team helps develop plans of action for the region. In a previously reported interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” McMaster said Trump had directed the National Security Council to collaborate with the Defense and State Departments, and intelligence agencies to “provide options and have them ready for him if this pattern of destabilizing behavior continues.”

Hours after the failed test, McMaster emphasized Trump’s preference, as with this month’s airstrikes in Syria, for unannounced military action. He added that the North Korean leader’s unpredictability complicated U.S. strategy.

McMaster’s use of “provocative” and “destabilizing” to describe North Korea echoes administrations of both parties that have attempted to rally others on the global stage, including China, to help prevent fresh war on the peninsula. Trump used the language in his February visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Meanwhile, China has refused to commit to any specific course of action and as discussed earlier, Beijing made a plea for a return to negotiations. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Monday that tensions need to be eased on the Korean Peninsula to bring the escalating dispute there to a peaceful resolution. Lu said Beijing wants to resume the multi-party negotiations that ended in stalemate in 2009 and suggested that U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in South Korea were damaging its relations with China.

Ultimately, Trump may be in wait and see mode for the next week until all the available options are on the table: on April 25, the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier is expected to reach the South Korea east coast on April 25. If Trump is indeed pressed to make a swift decision, he will surely do so once air support is available next weekend, just as the first round of the French presidential election takes place.

Is War Between U.S. And China Brewing In The South China Sea?

Authored by James Holbrooks via TheAntiMedia.org,

Adding fuel to an already highly combustible situation in Southeast Asia, Reuters reported Tuesday that China has “largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea,” and that the Asian superpower “can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time.”

Citing satellite imagery analyzed by the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative, part of Washington, D.C.’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, the news agency writes that “work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities.”

Sticking to the mainstream narrative that China is an aggressor in claiming sovereign rights to the majority of the South China Sea, Pentagon spokesman Commander Gary Ross says the new images confirm what the U.S. military already knows.

“China’s continued construction in the South China Sea is part of a growing body of evidence that they continue to take unilateral actions which are increasing tensions in the region and are counterproductive to the peaceful resolution of disputes,” he told Reuters.

China, as it has repeatedly, downplayed this notion and stuck to the position that it’s simply erecting defensive infrastructure within its own borders, as would any nation.

“As for China deploying or not deploying necessary territorial defensive facilities on its own territory, this is a matter that is within the scope of Chinese sovereignty,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a press briefing Tuesday.

Despite comments such as these — and the very real fact that China hasn’t actually invaded anyone — the corporate media jumped on the news of the new images.

Forbes, for instance, ran a piece that essentially listed all the reasons why China is a really bad actor in the region, and CNN talked to analysts who explained how the military buildup on the artificial islands will be gradual as China continues to exert its authoritarian influence over neighboring countries.

That’s the narrative. Believe as you will.

But the reality of the situation in the South China Sea - all geopolitical analysis aside - is that there’s about to be a hell of a lot of military hardware in those waters.

As Anti-Media has been reporting, U.S. forces are already in the region, taking part in joint drills with ally South Korea that will last until the end of April. Then, at the beginning of May, Japan — another U.S. ally — will sail its navy’s most powerful warship through the South China Sea on a three-month tour.

That means that just as the joint drills with South Korea end — which, incidentally, units from Delta Force, the Navy SEALS and Army Rangers are taking part in — Japan will shove off a warship aimed at waters claimed by China.

If that timing seems a little curious, also consider that the U.S. just deployed its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system in South Korea, which both China and Russia cared none too much for.

With China showing no signs of backing away from its stance in the South China Sea — both ideologically and physically —  and with the corporate media willing and eager to push the “evil China” narrative that the U.S. military appears hell-bent on capitalizing on, it appears the long-dreaded collision course with China may, indeed, be not far off on the horizon.

Russia Is Pissed: Threatens To Spill Obama Admin Secrets If US Intel Doesn't Stop Leaking

This is a great find from Josh Caplan over at VesselNews / Gateway Pundit...

Towards the end of a press briefing in Russia late last week, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova made several comments about Russia"s frustrations with the Obama State Department over leaking diplomatic plans the United States had asked Russia to keep secret, and issued what can only be construed as a warning in response to the flood of highly classified information finding it"s way from the US Intelligence Community to the media.

The US Department of State has more than once asked us not to announce planned visits until the last minute. This is not our tradition. We have been operating openly for years, but we have respected the requests we have received from our colleagues in Washington in the past few years. But what happened after that? First, the US Department of State asked us to keep the planned visit quiet and not to announce it until the last possible minute, until we coordinated the date. We did as they asked. But a day or two later the information was leaked by the US State Department and sometimes by the US administration. Frankly, this put Russia and the media in a strange situation, because they didn’t know who to believe – the official agencies or the many leaks.

 Zakharova left the door open to diplomacy, implying it may have simply been how the Obama administration operated:

It is difficult to say if this diplomatic communication is a US tradition or the latest technique. As I said, such cases in our relations with the US Department of State have become a bad tradition over the past few years.

In regards to the leaks of highly classified information making it"s way out of the US Intelligence Community concerning Russia, a stern warning was issued:

Also, I would like to say that if the practice of leaking information that concerns not just the United States but also Russia, which has become a tradition in Washington in the past few years, continues, there will come a day when the media will publish leaks about the things that Washington asked us to keep secret, for example, things that happened during President Obama’s terms in office. Believe me, this could be very interesting information.

I wonder if that includes whatever President Obama was talking about with outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev?

Obama: "After my election I have more flexibility"
Medvidev: "I will transmit this information to Vladimir" ???? https://t.co/lH3nQz4xZl???? pic.twitter.com/1ZtYkM6njd

— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) March 28, 2017

You can read the entire briefing in English here.

Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com * Follow on Twitter @ZeroPointNow

Another Senior Russian Official Has Died

Since the day of Donald Trump"s election, high-ranking Russian officials have been dropping like flies and today"s reports that a top official of Russia"s space agency has been found dead brings the total to eight.

As we noted previously, six Russian diplomats have died in the last 3 months - all but one died on foreign soil. Some were shot, while other causes of death are unknown. Note that a few deaths have been labeled "heart attacks" or "brief illnesses."

1. You probably remember Russia"s Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov — he was assassinated by a police officer at a photo exhibit in Ankara on December 19.

2. On the same day, another diplomat, Peter Polshikov, was shot dead in his Moscow apartment. The gun was found under the bathroom sink but the circumstances of the death were under investigation. Polshikov served as a senior figure in the Latin American department of the Foreign Ministry.

3. Russia"s Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, died in New York this past week. Churkin was rushed to the hospital from his office at Russia"s UN mission. Initial reports said he suffered a heart attack, and the medical examiner is investigating the death, according to CBS.

4. Russia"s Ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, died after a "brief illness January 27, which The Hindu said he had been suffering from for a few weeks.

5. Russian Consul in Athens, Greece, Andrei Malanin, was found dead in his apartment January 9. A Greek police official said there was "no evidence of a break-in." But Malanin lived on a heavily guarded street. The cause of death needed further investigation, per an AFP report. Malanin served during a time of easing relations between Greece and Russia when Greece was increasingly critiqued by the EU and NATO.

6. Ex-KGB chief Oleg Erovinkin, who was suspected of helping draft the Trump dossier, was found dead in the back of his car December 26, according to The Telegraph. Erovinkin also was an aide to former deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, who now heads up state-owned Rosneft.

If we go back further than 3 months...

7. On the morning of U.S. Election Day, Russian diplomat Sergei Krivov was found unconscious at the Russian Consulate in New York and died on the scene. Initial reports said Krivov fell from the roof and had blunt force injuries, but Russian officials said he died from a heart attack. BuzzFeed reports Krivov may have been a Consular Duty Commander, which would have put him in charge of preventing sabotage or espionage.

8. In November 2015, a senior adviser to Putin, Mikhail Lesin, who was also the founder of the media company RT, was found dead in a Washington hotel room according to the NYT. The Russian media said it was a "heart attack," but the medical examiner said it was "blunt force injuries."

9. If you go back a few months prior in September 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s driver was killed too in a freak car accident while driving the Russian President’s official black BMW  to add to the insanity.

If you include these three additional deaths that’s a total of nine Russian officials that have died over the past 2 years... until today...

As AP reports, a top official of Russia"s space agency has been found dead in a prison where he was being held on charges of embezzlement.

A spokeswoman for Russia"s Investigative Committee, Yulia Ivanova, told the state news agency RIA Novosti that the 11 other people in Vladimir Evdokimov"s cell were being questioned.

Investigators found two stab wounds on Evdokimov"s body, but no determination had been made of whether they were self-inflicted.

Evdokimov, 56, was the executive director for quality control at Roscosmos, the country"s spaceflight and research agency.

He was jailed in December on charges of embezzling 200 million rubles ($3.1 million) from the MiG aerospace company.

So, while motive is unclear in all of these cases, that brings the total number of dead Russian officials in the past two years to ten. Probably nothing...

Erdogan: "Europeans Would Revive The Gas Chambers If They Weren't Ashamed"

Six months ago, it was virtually assured that as part of his daily out at the West, Philippines" president Duterte would accuse then-president Obama of being a "son of a bitch (or whore)." Now, a similar dynamic is playing out between Turkish president Erdogan and Angela Merkel, and/or the German (and Dutch) people, whom he now accuses on an almost daily basis of being Nazis, as a result of the escalating diplomatic spat between Turkey and Europe. And while some have grown accustomed to Erdogan"s daily verbal diarrhea, today the Turkish president took it to the next level: while on Sunday Erdogan once again compared Europe with the Nazis, and accused Angela Merkel of engaging “Nazi practices", he escalated dramatically when he said that Europeans “would revive gas chambers” if they weren"t ashamed."

Speaking at yet another demonstration in Istanbul on Sunday, where he rallied support for a "Yes" vote in Turkey"s upcoming constitutional referendum, Erdogan said Europe’s “masquerade ball” is over: saying the “struggle” against his country has reached a new level, Erdogan slammed European nations, particularly Germany and the Netherlands, for their “Nazi regulations” as they revealed “the hatred they have accumulated for years against our country, our nation or even against all Muslims on TV screens and newspaper headlines every day.”

Erdogan then stunned listeners when he compared treatment of Turks to Jews during the Second World War, when he said “if [Europeans] weren’t ashamed, they would revive the gas chambers,” he said quoted by the Hurriyet Daily News.

Predictably, the Turkish president then turned his sights on Angela Merkel. "When we call them Nazis they [European politicians] get uncomfortable. They rally together in solidarity. Especially Merkel," Erdogan said as cited by AFP. “Merkel. She backs [the Netherlands] too. You too are practicing Nazi practices. To whom? To my Turkish brothers and sisters in Germany,” the Turkish leader also said as quoted by the AP. Erdogan said that the current policy of a number of European states is based on fear of Turkey’s power.

“[The European states] do not have the urge to hide their intentions and cannot hide the discomfort they feel from Turkey, which is growing stronger," Erdogan said, as cited by Reuters.

Erdogan"s comments come as Turkey"s Foreign Ministry summoned the German ambassador to express Ankara"s anger over a Kurdish rally held in Frankfurt on Saturday. The Turkish president’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin also called Germany’s actions “a worst example of double standards.” Quoted by Deutsche Welle, Kalin said that “the German ambassador was invited, summoned, to the Foreign Ministry and this [rally] was condemned in the strongest way." The spokesperson added that the “scandalous” event in Frankfurt shows that European countries are in fact actively campaigning against Turkey"s constitutional reform, which of course is merely a pretext to give Erdogan near-supreme executive and legislative power.

Scheduled for April 16, the plebiscite proposes amendments to the constitution that will make Erdogan the sole executive head of state, with the authority to choose his own cabinet ministers, enact laws, call elections, and declare states of emergency. Turkish officials have been seeking meetings with Turks living in Europe ahead of the referendum hoping to get the support of the strong diaspora — in Germany alone, there are 1.5 million people with Turkish citizenship. But these plans did not go down well with the European authorities.

“It is unacceptable to see the symbols and slogans of the [outlawed Kurdistan Workers" Party] PKK [at a rally in Frankfurt] while Turkish ministers and politicians are barred from meeting with their fellow citizens,” Kalin told in an interview to CNN Turk. Around 30,000 Kurdish supporters took to the streets in Frankfurt on Saturday to denounce the Turkish president and the upcoming referendum which seeks to expand his presidential powers.

Kalin wasn"t finished, and in the day"s final assault on Germany, Erdogan"s spokesman said Turkey accused Germany of backing last summer"s Turkish "coup" plotters.Kalin responds to remarks by Bruno Kahl, head of Germany’s federal intelligence agency, who said Turkey failed to convince Gulen was responsible for coup attempt, in Der Spiegel interview published Saturday. According to Kalin, "Kahl’s comments were proof of Germany’s support to Gulen network."

“Why are they protecting them? Because these are handy instruments that can be used against Turkey,” Kalin asked and answered.