#assad is still brutalizing people last I had heard | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

itsfinancethings · 5 years

Link

Mustafa Karali is a freelance photojournalist and founder of Duzen, a humanitarian organization that runs art, culture, and filmmaking workshops for Syrian and Turkish youth in the border city of Gaziantep. A Syrian national, he worked with reporters James Foley and John Cantlie to cover the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2011. The trio collaborated on multiple stories together until jihadists kidnapped Foley and Cantlie, and forced Karali, then their translator, to flee at gunpoint. After 21 months as an ISIS hostage, Foley was brutally murdered in 2014, in an execution filmed by his captors. The whereabouts of Cantlie remain unknown.

I first met James and John at a protest in my hometown of Binnish, in northwestern Syria. They were taking photos and I was working with local media. I wasn’t a professional photographer, just a guy with a camera. They came to my home and we ate barbecued chicken. I remember John looked through the images on my SD card and he said, “f*** you, you’re not a photographer.” I got so angry. But I said, “okay then, teach me something.” He agreed, but he said he would tell me the truth about my work, and if I got upset, he’d stop teaching me.

John taught me so much about composition and framing; how to shoot fighters on the front lines. James taught me how to work safely because I didn’t have any war reporting experience: how to take different routes to avoid snipers and what to do during shellfire. They were great teachers. John put me in contact with news agency the Associated Press and I started shooting for them.

The day James and John were kidnapped we were trying to get out of Syria. James had shrapnel in his leg and medics at the local field hospital couldn’t take it out. We decided to go to Turkey for treatment but we stopped at an Internet cafe on the way. A jihadi with a beard and a beret came in while we were uploading files. John called out to him, “Che Guevara!” The man looked at us, opened his laptop for one or two minutes, closed it, and left. I knew we were in trouble. James was angry at John for drawing attention to us.

We told a taxi to take us to the border but on the way, a van approached fast from our left. There were armed men inside wearing masks, four or five of them. They signaled for us to stop. I told the driver to keep going, so did John. James told him to stop because they might shoot at us. The driver was confused. He stopped.

One of the gunmen got out and fired bullets into the ground. I didn’t know what to do. They said, “why are you with these men?” I said, “I am their friend.” They asked me where I was from and I told them Binnish. They asked for my ID. Then they said, “go.” I said, “I won’t go without my friends.” The man pointed his gun at me and said, “if you don’t go now, I will kill you here.” John looked at me and said “not again. Help me.” He had been kidnapped before. I remember, he said it twice. “Not again.” I had tears in my eyes. “I will help you, bro,” I said. Then the taxi driver said, “Mustafa, let’s go.”

John Cantlie with a Free Syrian Army fighter in in Aleppo, Syria, on Nov. 06, 2012. The photo was taken by the author.

After the kidnapping, I was traumatized. I couldn’t work for six months. Eventually, my producer at AP called and said “what’s happening Mustafa? Why are you not sending photos?” She told me my work was important and encouraged me to continue. She gave me hope and I went back to work, photographing the revolution. In late 2014, I went to Turkey to attend workshops run by Human Rights Watch and Witness, a humanitarian organization that trained me to collect video evidence of war crimes committed by Assad’s forces and armed factions.

By the time I returned to Syria, conditions had worsened. If you wanted to take pictures in the northwest, you had to grow your beard and dress like a jihadi to be left alone. At checkpoints, militants would question me and take my camera and laptop. I was followed everywhere, even away from the front lines just taking photos of civilians at refugee camps.

The space for free movement was getting smaller and smaller and I was kidnapped twice more. The second time I think my captors were from Al Nusra, a jihadist group then aligned with Al Qaeda, but I can’t say for sure. They held me for two days and accused me of everything: being a thief, working for the U.S. government, working for ISIS. One of the guys dragged me outside. He made me get down on my knees. He loaded a Kalashnikov and put it against my head. My life flashed before my eyes the way it does in films. Then the gunman shot a single bullet into the ground in front of me, right next to my ear. I thought I had been executed, but I could still see and hear. I was touching my head to find the wound. The guy said we are not going to kill you this time. We are just scaring you.

It was my wife Hiba that pushed for us to leave. She said, let’s go to Turkey, let’s go anywhere else but here. She told me to think about my daughter and the danger I was putting her in. I knew she was right. We first tried to cross into Turkey with a smuggler but when they demanded I give my daughter sedatives I refused. Later, a producer colleague helped my family get permission to cross into Turkey legally.

Halil Fidan—Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesSyrians fleeing from clashes between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants wait at the Turkish-Syrian border to cross into Turkey on Sept. 18, 2014.

When we arrived here, I didn’t have a plan. For a few weeks, we stayed with my wife’s brother in Turkey’s southernmost province Hatay, which borders Syria. Then we moved to Gaziantep, a big city in southern Turkey where there are lots of humanitarian organizations and media offices. At first, things were okay. My brother sent me a new camera from Dubai and I picked up assignments with Al Jazeera. I shot photos for them when they did interviews in border areas like Gaziantep, Hatay, and Kilis. Gradually, I saved enough to buy my own camera bag, tripod, and lighting equipment.

I also started to work with Gate of Sun, a cultural endeavor that aims to create bonds between Turks and Syrians through filmmaking workshops. This year, my Iraqi friend Bahaa and I set up our own program along similar lines. It’s called Duzen, which means balance in Arabic. We teach students how to use simple tools like mobile phones to document their experiences and train them in editing and post-production techniques. We currently have 30 Syrian and Turkish students in Gaziantep and receive funding from the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration.

Back in 2014, when I came to Turkey for training, things were different. Turkey had granted millions of refugees temporary protection status and nobody seemed to have a problem with us. But over the past few years, the situation has deteriorated. There’s a lot more tension.

Last year the Turkish government started to crack down on Syrians living here illegally, sending them back to Syria. That set off a wave of hate speech and gave nationalists and racists a platform to abuse refugees. There were anti-Syrian riots in Istanbul. Refugees were beaten in the streets. Syrian-owned stores were vandalized.

It’s bad in Gaziantep too. A couple of weeks ago I was playing with my daughter and we were speaking in Arabic. An old man stopped us in the street and asked whether we were Syrian. When I told him yes, he started shouting at us and he spat on me. We can’t retaliate out of fear that the government will kick us out.

My wife and I started thinking about leaving Turkey last year. We have two daughters now and the eldest is almost ready to start school. If I send them to school in Turkey, they won’t learn Arabic or English. When they grow up they will say, “Dad, what are we doing here?” Then there’s the difficulty of finding stable work. As a freelancer, I sometimes have to borrow from friends to pay the rent. This month we were five days late and even though we have been renting our house for more than two years the landlord said we have to leave by the end of the month.

I was planning to apply for legal immigration to the Netherlands. Friends have told me there is no racism there and my family can get their papers quickly. I’ve contacted people at the Dutch Embassy, and friends have been trying to help. But we can’t wait much longer. At the end of February, when Turkey said it would no longer block refugees from leaving, I thought: this is our chance.

The war has been going on for nine years and the idea of moving again is difficult. Syria will always be home. I miss it and sometimes I think about whether one day we’ll be able to go back. Now we are going further away but I feel like there’s no other choice.

Some of my friends in Gaziantep are planning to leave tomorrow. I’ve been following the news and have heard stories about violence at the border. They tell me, “Mustafa, you have a family, don’t put them in danger.” They say they will go first and tell me if it’s safe. If there’s a way to get into Greece, we will just leave. I will not wait one minute longer here.

As told to Joseph Hincks. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

newsfundastuff · 5 years

Link

IDLIB, Syria -- Before the war in Syria, Idlib city, with its tree-lined avenues and white-stone buildings, was known for its calm, provincial air.Today it overflows with families who fled the war in other parts of Syria, swelling the population to nearly 1 million people.Some shelter in bombed-out buildings. Those who can't find shelter are camped in the soccer stadium, and more line up outside for food handouts.Residents are so used to the shelling that no one even flinches at the sound of an explosion.But for Syria's last rebel-held city the worst is yet to come.To the north, nearly 1 million people are living along roadsides and in olive groves in what is already one of the worst humanitarian disasters of Syria's brutal nine-year war.To the south and east, Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes are closing in, now just 5 miles away. When they reach Idlib city, its million residents are likely to flee, doubling the number of displaced people in the north.Dr. Hikmat al-Khatib, an orthopedic surgeon, urged his parents to move to a town to the north. But when it was bombed his mother decided to stay put."Her words shocked me," al-Khatib said. "The only choice is to wait for death."I made a rare visit into Idlib with a photographer and interpreter on Wednesday, crossing the border from Turkey. We were accompanied by relief workers of a Syrian charity and members of a jihadist rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which controls the province.We found 100 families camped in the stadium, which has been converted into an emergency shelter.Amina Sahloul was sitting on the floor around a stove in a large underground room for women and children. She had arrived hours earlier, after fleeing her village in the dead of night, clinging with her five grandchildren behind her son on a single motorcycle."We came away because of the airstrikes," she said. "They started dropping cluster bombs. It was like fire raining in the sky."There has been no letup for the people of Idlib province as the forces of President Bashar Assad of Syria, backed by Russian air power, have smashed their way forward, demolishing towns and villages in the south and east of the province with punishing airstrikes.A cease-fire declared Thursday by Turkey, which backs Syrian opposition forces, and Russia, which backs the Syrian government, seemed to be holding on Friday but few believe it will last. Assad has insisted he will continue his offensive to retake Idlib province, and rebel groups have vowed to resist.At the soccer stadium, as word came across the radio that Russian planes were near, tension rose as people nervously scanned the skies.Earlier that day, when an artillery shell slammed into a nearby neighborhood, few people even looked up. The Syrian government fires rockets all the time.But when Russian planes begin a concerted assault, they use overwhelming force, laying down lines of repressive fire that force people to run for their lives with only minutes to get away."Whenever I hear planes I start running like crazy, I lose my mind," Hassan Yousufi said as he paced angrily around the men's shelter in the stadium. "I lived beside the highway for 45 years. I memorized the Quran and was just biding my own life. My brother was killed. The Russians bombed us."Outside of the stadium, life is on a war footing. The streets are busy with cars and motorcycles and women walk together in the main shopping street, but the city has only two hours of electricity a day and boys sell gasoline in plastic jerrycans on street corners.Idlib province has been free from government control for the length of the war and today is largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group. But there were few armed fighters in sight in Idlib city, the provincial capital, on Wednesday.Police officers loyal to the opposition stand guard outside the governor's office and the police station which still bear the scars of fighting from the first days of the revolution.Billboards around the city bear glossy posters of uniformed rebel fighters, calling on people to join the fight."It is your turn to heed the call," reads one. "There is no honor without jihad," urges another, beside a military checkpoint.Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, has been designated a terrorist group by the United Nations but recently allowed Western journalists into Idlib in cooperation with Turkey, which has wanted to build international pressure against Russia and Syria.On the front lines to the south and east, the rebels, by their own account, have taken a pounding."In the last one-and-a-half months we had a collapse," said Abu Ahmed Muhammad, an HTS spokesman. But he added that the Syrian government had lost many more soldiers than the opposition had, and had to bring in Iranian-backed fighters to retake the strategic town of Saraqib, which has changed hands several times in the last two weeks.Hours before Russia and Turkey agreed to the cease-fire, he warned that nothing would come of it."Both sides will escalate," he said "We in the HTS factions will never accept to de-escalate because the Russians are on top and they may not agree to a peace settlement."But most of the province's three million people are civilians, and they are desperate for an end to the violence. They cling to the hope that Turkey's growing deployment of troops into the province will stop the onslaught."Anything that makes us feel secure or takes the regime away from us is a very good thing," said Abdul Razzaq, the head of the emergency relief for the Syrian charity, Violet. His teams were still helping people flee villages on the front line and preparing in case of a mass evacuation of the city. "But Idlib city is huge and where to take them?" he said.An hour's drive north of the city, blue and white tents pockmark the rocky hillsides and olive groves of the border area. Camps for thousands of displaced families sprouted up from the early days of the war and over the years have turned into settlements of concrete-block housing, built with foreign assistance.Hundreds of thousands more people have joined them in the last six weeks, pitching tents beside the roads and among the rocky limestone outcrops in a densely crowded strip along the Turkish border. Families are sheltering in mosques and schools, empty stores and factories.Even those are not safe. A woman who gave her name as Umm Abdul fled her village three months ago and took refuge with her family in an old brick factory outside the town of Maaret Misrin. On Monday, she was out picking herbs with two of her children when she heard a sound like birds and looked up to see two missiles tumbling out of the sky toward her."I lay the kids on the ground and covered them with my body," she said. "They say if you lie down you don't get hit by shrapnel."She was knocked unconscious and her 18-month-old daughter was wounded but all three survived.At an emergency shelter near the Turkish border, Alia Abras, 37, pushed forward to speak. "Do you know the meaning of displacement?" she asked. "You are like stray dogs."Rescuers took two-and-a-half hours to dig her and her three children out of the rubble of their home in the town of Ariha a month ago, she said. It was the middle of the night but they were left on the street beside their ruined home because there were others still to be rescued. The whole neighborhood around the main hospital had been hit."We spent two days sitting in the street," she said until Violet's rescue team found them and brought them to the shelter, which houses 45 families in a shopping center in the town of Sarmada."I wish I had died under the ruins and my children with me," she said. "We lost everything my husband and I spent our lives building up. We are at zero."In a camp called Al Nasr, new arrivals have pitched tents just yards from the concrete wall topped with rolls of barbed wire that marks the Turkish border. Some are already building breeze-block houses on a hill facing Turkey.Four families were squeezed into one tent set up on top of the camp sewer. They had no other option, they said. Behind the tent, sewage drained down the hill into a fetid pool."No one else would take it," said Hannah al-Mijan, a farmworker and mother of seven. "We do not have money to build."The family had been displaced twice and without work they had fallen into debt. "We are below zero," she said. Her husband, Muhammad, shushed her, telling her not to shame them.This time they chose to live within 100 yards of the border wall. Were they not scared that this place would also be bombed?Al-Mijan shook her head, and gestured at the hill opposite. "That's Turkey," she said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

https://ift.tt/2vEqQYy

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

orendrasingh · 5 years

Link

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2vEqQYy

#OS #Blogger

0 notes

englishchinesetranslations · 5 years

Link

A photo of US freelance journalist Carl Goette-Luciak with a Nicaraguan Sandinista that Max Blumenthal misrepresented on his blog Grayzone to grave consequences (Photo: Twitter)

The first in a three part series on the toxic influence of psuedo-journalists in the digital age and the danger they represent to the self-determination of peoples across the globe.

Professional liars, conspiracy theorists and old-fashioned fanatics have existed since the dawn of civilization, but in a digital age where clicks are driven by outrage and sensational headlines, these bad actors find themselves in possession of a megaphone with global reach that has never before been seen in human history. But not all grifters and yellow journalists are created equal. That is to say, in media platforms prone to consolidation and driven by outrage, the most extreme voices have a tendency to dominate the field.

The game of exaggerations, baseless accusations and dictator apologia for cash and clout is becoming increasingly dominated by a small and particularly unhinged group of smear-merchants who boast a cultish group of very-online and very-aggressive followers. These electronic minions of misinformation spread the exaggerations, denials and half-truths they receive from their grifter masters with evangelical zeal, and an apparent imperviousness to facts or reality ¹.

Enter Grayzone, a supposedly leftist crew of “journalists” with opaque financing and Russian support.

This all-caps charge against responsible journalism is led by son of a wealthy Clinton advisor, Max Blumenthal and his zany “never met a Human Rights violation we didn’t like” cohorts at Grayzone ². They receive helping hands from a number of shady media organizations and fringe voices that include Russian disinformation network RT, TeleSur in South America, reknown racists Richard Spencer, Tucker Carlson, a nazi school shooter and even ex-KKK wizard David Duke.

Though they claim to write from the left, their digital fog-machine defies political boundaries, incorporating anti-semetic smears about Soros that have white-supremacist origins, genocide denial tricks pioneered by European fascist parties and the “always discredit or insult rather than respond to fact” tactics of sociopaths like Alex Jones.

Every social movement in the world they dislike is the fault of the CIA, and every government they support, which are unfailingly disturbingly authoritarian, can do no wrong.

These fearless champions of state-violence cheer police forces brutalizing protesters, deny well-documented death squads and rationalize oppression at every turn.

Despite Blumenthal’s attacks on journalists who work for publications funded by Soros, he has had no problem accepting money from that source in the past, such as when he worked for the Nation, whose parent company, TYPE Media Center is funded in part by grants from the man he so often demonizes, nor from his time at “Media Matters” which has also enjoyed Soros funding. Oh, and also AlterNet, who helped him develop Grayzone until 2018, when they fired him, presumably because his conspiracy theory mongering was damaging their reputation.

Nor has he been above accepting gifts from the regimes he writes so flatteringly about. Blumenthal and other writers at Grayzone have also been exposed accepting “journalism prizes” from pro-Assad lobby groups.

What are their motives? That varies from personality to personality, but they all share two traits: an inability to realize the world does not in fact revolve around the United States and the certainty that they know what should happen in countries they don’t live in infinitely better than people who do.

As David Smilde, senior fellow at human rights group WOLA and Professor at Tulane aptly stated, they “instrumentalize the realities of the global South for their own purposes — whether that be personal identity work or political battles they consider important — and it’s a form of colonialism”

It’s American exceptionalism turned on its head — an inability to imagine that people in other countries have the agency to form their own social movements and revolutions without help from the U.S. This worldview leads them to de-legitimize and dismiss protesters in Hong Kong, Iraq, Iran, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Venezuela as illegitimate, and to deny horrific human rights abuses in a score of countries across the globe from Russia to Bolivia.

Grayzone: Defenders of Authoritarians the World Over

I first heard of Max Blumenthal during Grayzone’s 2018–2019 “Latin American Human Rights Violation Denial Tour”. Someone sent me a video of Max Blumenthal in a rich neighborhood of Caracas as “proof” that the thousands of Venezuelan immigrants I saw daily did not, in fact, exist.

A couple catches a nap as we hitched a ride in a truck transporting scrap metal while travelling with the thousands fleeing VZ. Last year, I walked to Bogota from the Venezuelan border with the “caminantes”. Mini-doc of the trip here. (Photo: Joshua Collins)

The issue? The health crisis he was denying wasn’t happening in the luxury neighborhoods he prefers to frequent on his junket-journalism tourist trips, but rather in the barrios and the countryside where the majority of the country works for less money per month than minimum wage workers in the United States make in an hour.

As he crowed sarcastically to the camera, I dismissed him as a confused tourist and kept documenting the 5 million Venezuelans who have fled their collapsed country in the biggest mass-migration in South American history.

I talked daily with people suffering from years of healthcare neglect and insecurity while Max stayed in the capital, assuring everyone that the unfolding humanitarian crisis was nothing more than U.S State Department propaganda (reportedly never leaving the safety of rich Caracas neighborhoods).

“You don’t know what it’s like to work all day only be to able to afford a few tomatoes and some lettuce, to make a little salad. And to wake up to your daughter telling you ‘I’m hungry’, but you have nothing to give her. You can’t imagine the feeling of powerless,” one immigrant told me a few days after Blumenthal’s Potemkin Village video variety show, which included mocking employees at a mall in terrible Spanish — employees who at the time most likely worked for $7 a month. (The monthly minimum wage has since slipped to $3).

But that was just the beginning. I would hear much from the Grayzone crew over the next year, and learn a lot more about their checkered past, a record that has left a chain of victims around the globe for years.

Flipping Sides After a Trip to Russia

youtube

An interview in which Blumenthal laments leftists who would supports Bashar Al-Assad in Syria

Max Blumenthal got his start writing about Syria in 2011, where he was staunchly on the side of rebels against Assad. He spoke passionately of atrocities committed by the Assad regime, even resigning from a Beirut paper in 2012 because he claimed they were “Assad apologists”, who “paid me pathetically, barely enough to pay rent in my New York apartment.”

He even goes so far as to say that some of his colleagues in Syria were so caught up in “Anti-Imperialism” that they found themselves in the warped position of defending Assad, whom he viewed as a murderer.

He was accompanied in this endeavor by his mustachioed Brooklyn hipster side-kick Ben Norton, who, unlike Max, dispensed his Syria expertise via internet from New York.

It’s unclear what qualifications Norton possessed at the time however, other than a willingness to follow Max’s every editorial lead, a bitchin’ one-man noise band, and the sweetest chinstrap in Williamsburg, but he was on board, and he was vehemently anti-Assad.

Suddenly, in 2015 Max and his pet mustachio flipped sides. It just so happens that they became pro-Assad after attending a Moscow luxury Gala; the same event that got Jill Stein and Trump appointment Michael Flynn (who was paid $40,000 for attending) in hot water. They were new true-believers in the Assad regime, and enthusiastic apologists for the murderous actions they had previously railed against.

Was it a Russian buy-out that changed their views? That’s hard to say. Despite Grayzone’s constant evidence-free attacks on other journalists’ supposed connections to the pentagon and the NED (National Endowment of Democracy, which he claims is an instrument of “regime change”), the funding for Grayzone is completely opaque.

It is unclear how they fly a dozen employees around the world and still manage to rent expensive apartments in New York and Washington D.C.

But suddenly Max had a new girlfriend, Anya Parampil (who joined RT in 2014). He also had a new media sponsor and an “Anti-Imperial” axe to grind. Grayzone coverage immediately became pro-Assad. Parampil would soon be fired from RT and go to work full-time for their shadily financed project as they expanded markets and found new countries to exploit outside of the Middle East.

I’m sure it is completely coincidental that everything Grayzone has published since then has towed exactly with the official propaganda coming from the Kremlin, that he suddenly became obsessed with “Russia hysteria” and that his work is now amplified by RT.

But Syria isn’t my area of expertise. Much has been written on Grayzone’s disaster junket-journalism coverage of the Middle East that includes selfies next to torture sites, promoting conspiracy theories about aid group the White Helmets and denying atrocities committed by Assad. My experience lies more in how they have misrepresented Latin America — which they have done with vigor.

On Nicaragua, Grayzone and Death Squads

When I first heard of their antics as I worked on the Venezuelan border, Grayzone were recently returned from a trip to Nicaragua. One in which they framed a fiercely violent government oppression of protests that killed hundreds, and injured thousands , as a justified response.

Human rights investigators invited to the country by Nicaraguan president Ortega however, did not agree with those claims. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights stated that the regime had “used lethal weapons against children and students” and had arbitrarily detained hundreds of peaceful protesters who had been subsequently exposed to treatment that amounted to torture, including mass-beatings, death-threats, sexual assault and psychological abuse that included “threats of rape”, witholding food and water, “threatening to kill their relatives” and even threats of “burning them alive”.

Whether the protests were “valid” or not, would become a moot point; Ortega outlawed public protests shortly after crushing them violently.

As these events were occurring, Max Blumenthal and the Grayzone crew were portraying Daniel Ortega as a hero, hyping his baseless assertions that the students weren’t a legitimate protest movement, but rather a CIA front in a series of articles claiming international conspiracy. These claims were as without evidence as those of the government. Their effort culminated in an absolutely exhausting and fawning hour-long interview with the Nicaraguan president, in which Ortega blamed the hundreds of student deaths on everything from “crime” to “car accidents”.

Before Grayzone left Nicaragua, they would attack a number of journalists and protesters who presented accounts that didn’t fit their pre-conceived narrative. They misrepresented a young protester who released a video of police killing her fellow students that went viral. She was later captured by police and forced to record a “confession” obtained under state torture.

Grayzone ran a story on the event, stating the killings at the University were a hoax, a claim Max would repeat in various interviews while in Nicaragua.

The story Max published however, was penned by an author who doesn’t even exist, as exposed in a 2018 report by Charles Davis at the Daily Beast.

It was a breath-taking display of a lack of journalistic ethics on the part of Blumenthal.

Also while in Nicaragua, Max penned a lengthy piece in Mintpress heavily implying, if not stating directly, that Carl David Goette-Luciak, an independent reporter who wrote for NPR and the Guardian, was actually a regime-change plant. In the same piece, he represents a journalist who was killed by government snipers while livestreaming, as being killed by protesters.

His claims were accompanied with a photo of Luciak beside an armed soldier whom Max claimed was opposition. He wasn’t. Luciak was actually posing with a Sandinista — a leftist. The picture was taken as part of a pro-bono project with Azucena Castillo, a Nicaraguan journalist currently in exile for her work at independent media organization Radio de la Ciudadania. It’s unclear if Max was simply making up the accusation or fooled by government claims. Either way it’s a lie that led to grave consequences.

An image that circulated on social media following Max’s lie. The photo is accompanied with a caption that falsely claims Luciak was posing with a “A leader of the MRS party”. He wasn’t

These false claims led to thousands of people publishing Goette-Luciak’s address as well as death threats that forced him into hiding. Eventually Luciak was captured by State forces, threatened with torture and charged with disseminating “fake news” by the Nicaraguan government before being deported from the country.

Defending the use of live ammunition against Nicaraguan citizens, mass-detainment and State-sponsored torture wasn’t enough however, they had to shift the onus of blame onto the people being massacred. You see, in the bizarro Grayzone worldview, oppressive and murderous police forces are actually champions of the people. When they kill hundreds of protesters, it is always justified.

The Grayzone tactics of cheer-leading state violence, smearing and attacking critics with distortions that put their lives in danger, misrepresenting protesters as hapless, violent pawns of foreign powers and obfuscating facts on the ground have become the trademarked tactics of this crew as they tour the world in search of social media “likes”.

These breaches of journalism ethics, white-washing human rights violations and editorializing breaking news against protesters have very dangerous real-world effects.

And as they champion these attacks on the liberty of people in countries they don’t live in, they damage the credibility of brave protesters and journalists putting their lives on the line who do.

Max Blumenthal said something back when he opposed war crimes in 2013 that resonated with me.

“People have a right to rise up against oppression”

I agree. It’s a shame he seems to now stand for the opposite.

Joshua Collins is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Colombia. He has worked for Al Jazeera, the New Humanitarian and various other organizations in Latin America. For more stories you can follow him on twitter or at his website Muros Invisibles.

#benjamin norton #max blumenthal #grayzone

0 notes

actutrends · 5 years

Text

‘The Cave’ Filmmaker Shares the Inspiring Story Of A Syrian Female Doctor’s Courage

Syrian filmmaker, Feras Fayyad, documents the immense courage of Dr. Amani Ballour, fighting to run an underground hospital in war torn Syria in his film, ‘The Cave.’ In our EXCLUSIVE interview, he shares what moved him to tell this story.

Imagine choosing to stay in a hospital under daily bombardment in war torn Syria. Imagine deciding to risk your life to save the lives of other men, women, and children. Imagine having that kind of courage, and doing this day after day for five years. Now, imagine doing this, as a female doctor, in the traditional patriarchal Syrian society. That’s exactly what pediatrician, Dr. Amani Ballour did and why she is the fascinating and inspiring heroine of the Oscar-shortlisted documentary film, The Cave, by Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad. Dr. Amani, as her colleagues and patients affectionately call her, was so respected in the underground hospital, called ‘the cave’, in Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, that she was democratically elected to be the managing director there, an unheard of position in Syrian society.

Fayyad, who was also nominated for an Oscar for his documentary Last Men in Aleppo (2017), was so in awe of Dr. Amani when he began to receive footage of her work in the besieged hospital, serving 400,000 trapped Syrians, that he decided to make her the focus of the documentary he was hoping to make on the underground Syrian hospitals. These hospitals in battleground areas were all located underground for protection and have struggled to remain in operation. Some like ‘The Cave’ have now been destroyed or forced to close during the Syrian Civil War, which has lasted 8 years so far.

“I wanted to make a documentary about hospitals in Syria because these were a beacon of hope for people wanting to continue to stay in the country. And what I discovered was that the hospitals were not just a place for saving lives, treating children, and victims of war, they were a place where a cultural movement was happening,” Fayyad tells HollywoodLife in an exclusive interview.

Before hearing of Dr. Amani, Fayyad was in a different hospital filming in northern Syria and hired crews at a few of the “underground” hospitals throughout the country to help him film. However, as footage came in of the extraordinary Dr. Amani leading the Ghouta hospital, he directed his camera crew to follow her closely. She was so unusual in Syria: a young woman who rejected marriage at an early age, against the wishes of her mother and father, and who had dedicated her to life to her job, and was not searching for a man to protect her, even in the terrifying Syrian war.

“We’re talking about the first woman to lead a hospital in the history of Syria,” points out Fayyad enthusiastically. “And she wasn’t just doing practical work, saving the lives of the children, but she’s having conversations with little girls. Supporting them, telling the girls, ‘you should not be ordinary, you should be something important.’ These are girls, who never have had that support from their families, they heard that from Dr. Amani.”

Syrian Pediatrician Dr. Amani Ballour /National Geographic

Fayyad’s cameras manage to poignantly convey Dr. Amani’s quiet courage and humanity as she tries to inspire aspirations in her young female patients, who are scared and hurt and trapped with their families in what seems to be a never-ending war. Their innocence is wrenching to watch. Sweet, lovely faces and voices of children who should just be able to be carefree but who instead are growing up amid bombings, mostly trapped underground to stay as safe as possible.

Yet Dr. Amani, who Fayyad follows for three and a half years in her underground hospital, still has hope that the little girls she talks to and little boys she treats, will have a future of possibilities. Somehow, she and the other doctors, surgeons, nurses, emergency workers and guards, maintain their dedication and humanity in their claustrophobic quarters, always short of medicine, medical supplies and food, but yet still fighting to save lives every day.

When Syrians first began to protest peacefully to demand a more democratic government over eight years ago, there was hope that their leader, President Bashar al-Assad could be convinced to share power. However, he responded by cracking down on protesters violently. Areas of the country and neighborhoods where resistance was based became the target of brutal military crackdowns and all out civil war broke out . Ghouta, which is a suburb of Damascus, became one of Assad’s targets and it began to be bombarded relentlessly by his military and his Russian allies.

Hospitals like ‘The Cave’ were forced underground. By the time Fayyad began filming Dr Amani and her dedicated colleagues, her daily mission had become to save as many lives as possible and “to build the minds and the souls of little girls in Syrian society…she was building in the face of destruction,” explains the director.

Syrian Oscar Nominated Director Feras Fayyad /Stine Heilmann

Yet even Dr. Amani, who is seen repeatedly springing into action to treat a child or baby wounded by attacks or suffering from malnutrition, has her limits. When Assad and the Russians launched a chemical attack with chlorine on the innocent citizens of Ghouta, she is emotionally overwhelmed. The children and babies are rushed to the hospital, foaming at the mouth, gasping to breath, and Dr. Amani and her colleagues race to save as many as they can with the limited oxygen and medication that they have. Hundreds die.

Imagine facing that horror, and still working on to save those that she can. Dr. Amani stayed on managing ‘The Cave’ for five years, devoted to her mission of saving lives and inspiring girls and women, before the situation became untenable. She and almost all of the medical staff were finally forced to evacuate, but Fayyad tells HollywoodLife that there has been no happy ending for Dr. Amani yet, just as there is no relief for millions of other Syrians. Almost 11 million Syrians–almost half the population–have been displaced. Close to 4 million have become refugees. An estimated 400,000 Syrians have died in the war.

Dr. Amani did escape to Turkey, but she is not allowed to practice medicine there. She only has temporary protection in that country. “She is a very important voice and she’s not allowed to do anything,” bemoans a frustrated Fayyad. “She shares with me how difficult it is. It’s not easy for her emotionally and mentally.” She wants to keep working in the medical world and empower women and little girls. Fayyad, who has been granted political asylum in the European Union, and lives in Denmark, hopes that Dr. Amani will be accepted by Canada or another English speaking country, since she speaks English so well.

Yet, he himself, an Oscar nominated director, potentially about to be nominated a second time, may not be able to get a visa to attend the Oscars ceremony in LA, thanks to Donald Trump‘s Muslim travel ban.

The Cave will be available for viewing on National Geographic in early 2020.

The post ‘The Cave’ Filmmaker Shares the Inspiring Story Of A Syrian Female Doctor’s Courage appeared first on Actu Trends.

0 notes

goarticletec-blog · 6 years

Text

AP FACT CHECK: On break, no break by Trump in twisting facts

New Post has been published on https://www.articletec.com/ap-fact-check-on-break-no-break-by-trump-in-twisting-facts/

AP FACT CHECK: On break, no break by Trump in twisting facts

WASHINGTON (AP) – Displaying a thin grasp of science, President Donald Trump questioned the reality of global warming because it was cold outside. Then came a federal report laying out the severe consequences of climate change and rebutting the notion that a frigid snap means it isn’t happening.

Sizing up the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump declared he had closed it this past week and mandated that “no one’s coming in.” Actually, one crossing from Mexico, among dozens that stayed open, was partially closed before rush hour and pedestrians still had access to the U.S. during that time.

Before and throughout his Thanksgiving vacation in Florida, Trump took no holiday from twisting facts across a broad front – on Saudi Arabia, the recent election and the 2001 terrorist attacks among the topics.

A look at some of his rhetoric:

CLIMATE

TRUMP: “This is the coldest weather in the history of the Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC, and one of the coldest Thanksgivings on record!” – tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS – Whatever happened to Global Warming?” – tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump is conflating weather and climate. Weather is like mood, which changes daily. Climate is like personality, which is long term.

The climate is warming, which still allows for record cold spells.

On Friday, the White House produced the National Climate Assessment by scientists from 13 Trump administration agencies and outside scientists. It amounted to a slap in the face for those who doubt the climate is changing.

“Climate change is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and quality of life, the economy, and the natural systems that support us,” the report says. It details how global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas is hurting each region of U.S. and different sectors of the economy. The report also projects increased deaths and disease.

The White House report swept aside the idea, already discredited, that a particular plunge in temperatures can cast uncertainty on whether Earth is warming. It says more than 90 percent of current warming is caused by humans: “There are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observational evidence.”

“Over shorter timescales and smaller geographic regions, the influence of natural variability can be larger than the influence of human activity,” the report says. “Over climate timescales of multiple decades, however, global temperature continues to steadily increase.”

In other words, there are cold days in a warming climate.

The federal climate assessment is mandated by law every few years.

___

IMMIGRATION

TRUMP: “Two days ago, we closed the border. We actually just closed it. We’re saying, nobody is coming in, because it was out of control.” – remarks to reporters Thursday.

THE FACTS: By no means did he seal the border.

On Monday, the U.S. closed northbound traffic lanes for a few hours at the San Ysidro, California, crossing to install new barriers. It’s the busiest of more than 40 U.S.-Mexico crossings. That work was completed and the lanes reopened before the morning rush of commerce and commuters who work legally in the U.S. Officials also closed one pedestrian crossing facility at San Ysidro and left the other open, so it’s not true that everyone was blocked from coming in, even at that one crossing. U.S. authorities acted out of concern that migrants gathered on the Mexican side might bolt for the U.S.

Trump is threatening to seal the border if Mexico doesn’t properly “control” people trying to get into the U.S. He claimed “I’ve already shut it down, for short periods.” When pressed about whether he meant only that one border crossing, he said: “No, no. Yeah. I’ve already shut down parts of the border.”

___

THE COURTS

TRUMP: “Justice Roberts can say what he wants, but the 9th Circuit is a complete & total disaster. It is out of control, has a horrible reputation, is overturned more than any Circuit in the Country, 79%, & is used to get an almost guaranteed result.” – tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an “independent judiciary,” but if it is why … are so are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking.” – tweets Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump is wrong in suggesting that rulings by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco are reversed by the Supreme Court more frequently than those of any other federal appeals court. His description of the “shocking” number of overturned cases in the 9th Circuit belies the nature of the appeals system.

When the Supreme Court hears a case, it is more likely to overturn it than not. It does so about two-thirds of the time.

In the last term, the Supreme Court overturned 100 percent of the decisions of the 1st Circuit in Boston, the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia and the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati. For the 9th Circuit, 86 percent were overturned.

Over the past five years, the Supreme Court overturned a greater percentage of rulings from the 3rd Circuit (92.3 percent), the 6th Circuit (85.1 percent) and the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit (81.8 percent) than from the 9th (77.4 percent), according to The Associated Press’ analysis of statistics from the legal website Scotusblog.

The 9th is by far the largest of the 13 federal courts of appeals, covering Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. That means that in raw numbers, more cases are heard and reversed from the 9th year in and year out. But that does not make it the most frequently overturned.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, who’d been nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, temporarily barred the Trump administration from refusing asylum to immigrants who cross the southern border illegally. That set off Trump’s ire. Any appeal is likely to go to the 9th Circuit.

Trump’s tweets took issue with an unusual rebuke from the U.S. chief justice, John Roberts. Roberts spoke up for the independence of the judiciary after Trump branded Tigar an “Obama judge” and said “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.”

___

THE ELECTION

TRUMP, on his impact on the midterm elections: “Look at Florida. I went down to Florida. Rick Scott won and he won by a lot. I don’t know what happened to all those votes that disappeared at the very end. And if I didn’t put a spotlight on that election before it got down to the 12,500 votes, he would’ve lost that election, OK? … They would have taken that election away from him.” – interview with “Fox News Sunday.”

THE FACTS: Trump is exaggerating the vote margin of Scott’s victory as being “a lot” and suggesting without evidence that his own efforts prevented Democrats from engaging in voter fraud.

Scott, Florida’s Republican governor, edged out Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in the closest Senate race in the nation in the midterm elections – by a margin of 10,033 votes, or 0.12 percentage points. It also was the closest Senate race in Florida since at least 1978, according to the Florida’s Division of Elections website. It required two recounts – by machine and by hand – as mandated by state law due to the razor-thin margins.

Trump asserts without evidence that the attention he brought to the Senate race prevented Democrats from “taking” that election from Scott, hinting at voter fraud by suggesting votes “disappeared at the very end.”

Despite Trump’s repeated claims after the Nov. 6 election of Florida races being potentially “stolen,” the state agencies charged with investigating potential fraud have said no credible allegations exist. It’s not uncommon for vote tallies to change in the days after Election Day as local officials process remaining mailed and provisional ballots. In Florida, Scott saw some of his lead dwindle after the Democratic strongholds of Palm Beach and Broward counties continued to count votes.

___

SYRIA

TRUMP: “The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq’s fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more.” – statement Tuesday.

THE FACTS: He’s inflating the already staggering number of Syrians killed in more than seven years of civil war. Syrian government forces, led by President Bashar Assad and backed by Russia and Iran, have retaken most of the territory rebels seized during a war that has killed nearly 500,000 people, according to estimates by United Nations and human rights groups.

___

SAUDI ARABIA

TRUMP: “After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries – and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business.” – statement Tuesday.

THE FACTS: He’s greatly overstating the value of expected Saudi investments in the U.S.

The arms package, partly negotiated under the Obama administration, mixes old deals, some new business and prospective purchases that have not been worked out.

The Pentagon said last month that Saudi Arabia had signed “letters of offer and acceptance” for only $14.5 billion in military purchases and confirmed Tuesday that nothing further has reached that stage.

Those letters, issued after the U.S. government approves a proposed arms sale, specify its terms. Much of that $14.5 billion involves a missile defense system, a contract that appears to have advanced more than other significant investments but not been completed.

Moreover, the State Department estimated last year that if the full $110 billion in prospective arms business is fulfilled, it could end up “potentially supporting tens of thousands of new jobs in the United States.” That’s a far cry from the 500,000 to 600,000 jobs that Trump has said the arms deal is worth.

Details of the package have been sketchy, with no public breakdown of exactly what was being offered for sale and for how much. The government’s Congressional Research Service has described the package as a combination of sales that were proposed by President Barack Obama and discussed with Congress and new sales still being developed.

Meanwhile, there has been no verification from either country that “the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States,” as Trump put it in his statement. White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters did not respond to a request to explain the figure.

___

TRUMP: “Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let’s go lower!” – tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Merely thanking Saudi Arabia for lower oil prices is a gross oversimplification. Oil prices, which peaked Oct. 3, have been falling on the realization that U.S. sanctions against Iran would not create a shortage and on fear that slower economic growth internationally will depress energy demand.

Although the U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia remains the biggest exporter, and as a so-called swing producer with the ability to adjust production up or down relatively quickly, it can indeed influence the price of crude. But the market is far more complex than Trump suggests. Canada is actually the leading source of U.S. oil imports, for example, with Saudi Arabia second.

___

TRUMP: “Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance.” – statement Tuesday.

THE FACTS: This seemingly benign view of Saudi intentions in Yemen does not square with reality on the ground. A Saudi-led blockade is at least partly responsible for widespread starvation in a country where three quarters of the population needs life-saving assistance. It’s the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The U.S. has scaled back support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iranian-backed rebels and is pressing for a cease-fire.

The international aid group Save the Children estimated Wednesday that 85,000 Yemeni children younger than 5 have died of hunger and disease since civil war broke out in 2015. The United Nations says more than 1.3 million Yemeni children have suffered from severe acute malnutrition since the coalition went to war against Houthi rebels.

___

TERRORISM

TRUMP: “Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools!” – tweet Monday.

THE FACTS: There was nothing original or clairvoyant in the reference to bin Laden in Trump’s 2000 book. As part of his criticism of what he considered Bill Clinton’s haphazard approach to U.S. security as president, his book stated: “One day we’re told that a shadowy figure with no fixed address named Osama bin Laden is public enemy Number One, and U.S. jetfighters lay waste to his camp in Afghanistan. He escapes back under some rock, and a few news cycles later it’s on to a new enemy and new crisis.”

Trump’s book did not call for further U.S. action against bin Laden or al-Qaida to follow up on attacks Clinton ordered in 1998 in Afghanistan and Sudan after al-Qaida bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The U.S. attacks were meant to disrupt bin Laden’s network and destroy some of al-Qaida’s infrastructure, such as a factory in Sudan associated with the production of a nerve gas ingredient. They “missed” in the sense that bin Laden was not killed in them, and al-Qaida was able to pull off 9/11 three years later.

In passages on terrorism, Trump’s book correctly predicted that the U.S. was at risk of a terrorist attack that would make the 1993 World Trade Center bombing pale by comparison. That was a widespread concern at the time, as Trump suggested in stating “no sensible analyst rejects this possibility.” Trump did not explicitly tie that threat to al-Qaida and thought an attack might come through the use of a miniaturized weapon of mass destruction, like a nuclear device in a suitcase or anthrax.

___

Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein, Robert Burns and Josh Boak in Washington, Jill Colvin in Palm Beach, Florida, and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

___

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

The Washington Times Comment Policy

The Washington Times welcomes your comments on Spot.im, our third-party provider. Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.

Source link

0 notes

mikemortgage · 6 years

Text

AP FACT CHECK: On break, no break by Trump in twisting facts

WASHINGTON — Displaying a thin grasp of science, President Donald Trump questioned the reality of global warming because it was cold outside. Then came a federal report laying out the severe consequences of climate change and rebutting the notion that a frigid snap means it isn’t happening.

Before and throughout his Thanksgiving vacation in Florida, Trump took no holiday from twisting facts across a broad front — on Saudi Arabia, the recent election and the 2001 terrorist attacks among the topics.

A look at some of his rhetoric:

CLIMATE

TRUMP: “This is the coldest weather in the history of the Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC, and one of the coldest Thanksgivings on record!” — tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS – Whatever happened to Global Warming?” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump is conflating weather and climate. Weather is like mood, which changes daily. Climate is like personality, which is long term.

The climate is warming, which still allows for record cold spells.

The White House report swept aside the idea, already discredited, that a particular plunge in temperatures can cast uncertainty on whether Earth is warming. It says more than 90 per cent of current warming is caused by humans: “There are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observational evidence.”

In other words, there are cold days in a warming climate.

The federal climate assessment is mandated by law every few years.

——

IMMIGRATION

TRUMP: “Two days ago, we closed the border. We actually just closed it. We’re saying, nobody is coming in, because it was out of control.” — remarks to reporters Thursday.

THE FACTS: By no means did he seal the border.

——

THE COURTS

When the Supreme Court hears a case, it is more likely to overturn it than not. It does so about two-thirds of the time.

In the last term, the Supreme Court overturned 100 per cent of the decisions of the 1st Circuit in Boston, the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia and the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati. For the 9th Circuit, 86 per cent were overturned.

Over the past five years, the Supreme Court overturned a greater percentage of rulings from the 3rd Circuit (92.3 per cent), the 6th Circuit (85.1 per cent) and the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit (81.8 per cent) than from the 9th (77.4 per cent), according to The Associated Press’ analysis of statistics from the legal website Scotusblog.

——

THE ELECTION

THE FACTS: Trump is exaggerating the vote margin of Scott’s victory as being “a lot” and suggesting without evidence that his own efforts prevented Democrats from engaging in voter fraud.

Scott, Florida’s Republican governor, edged out Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in the closest Senate race in the nation in the midterm elections — by a margin of 10,033 votes, or 0.12 percentage points. It also was the closest Senate race in Florida since at least 1978, according to the Florida’s Division of Elections website. It required two recounts — by machine and by hand — as mandated by state law due to the razor-thin margins.

——

SYRIA

——

SAUDI ARABIA

TRUMP: “After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defence contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries — and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business.” — statement Tuesday.

THE FACTS: He’s greatly overstating the value of expected Saudi investments in the U.S.

The arms package, partly negotiated under the Obama administration, mixes old deals, some new business and prospective purchases that have not been worked out.

Those letters, issued after the U.S. government approves a proposed arms sale, specify its terms. Much of that $14.5 billion involves a missile defence system, a contract that appears to have advanced more than other significant investments but not been completed.

——

TRUMP: “Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let’s go lower!” — tweet Wednesday.

——

TRUMP: “Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance.” — statement Tuesday.

——

TERRORISM

——

Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein, Robert Burns and Josh Boak in Washington, Jill Colvin in Palm Beach, Florida, and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

——

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2S8V1ws via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

#IFTTT #Financial Post

0 notes

newsintodays-blog · 6 years

Text

US, UK, France strike Syria in first coordinated action against Assad

New Post has been published on http://newsintoday.info/2018/04/14/us-uk-france-strike-syria-in-first-coordinated-action-against-assad/

US, UK, France strike Syria in first coordinated action against Assad

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S., British and French forces struck Syria with more than 100 missiles on Saturday in the first coordinated Western strikes against the Damascus government, targetting what they called chemical weapons sites in retaliation for a poison gas attack.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the military action from the White House, saying the three allies had “marshaled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality”.

As he spoke, explosions rocked Damascus.

The bombing represents a major escalation in the West’s confrontation with Assad’s superpower ally Russia, but is unlikely to alter the course of a multi-sided war which has killed at least half a million people in the past seven years.

That in turn raises the question of where Western countries go from here, after a volley of strikes denounced by Damascus and Moscow as at once both reckless and pointless.

By morning, the Western countries said their bombing was over for now. Syria released video of the wreckage of a bombed-out research lab, but also of President Bashar al-Assad arriving at work as usual, with the caption “morning of resilience”.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, with Damascus allies saying the buildings hit had been evacuated in advance.

British Prime Minister Theresa May described the strike as “limited and targeted”. She said she had authorized British action after intelligence indicated Assad’s government was to blame for gassing the Damascus suburb of Douma a week ago.

In a speech she gave a vivid description of the victims of the chemical strike that killed scores, huddling in basements as gas rained down. She said Russia had thwarted diplomatic efforts to halt Assad’s use of poison gas, leaving no option but force.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the strikes had been limited so far to Syria’s chemical weapons facilities. Paris released a dossier which it said showed Damascus was to blame for the poison gas attack on Douma, the last town holding out in a rebel-held swathe of territory near Damascus which government forces have recaptured in this year’s biggest offensive.

Washington described its targets as a center near Damascus for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weapons, a chemical weapons storage site near the city of Homs and another site near Homs that stored chemical weapons equipment and housed a command post.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called the strikes a “one time shot”, although Trump raised the prospect of further strikes if Assad’s government again used chemical weapons.

“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” the U.S. president said in a televised address.

The Syrian conflict pits a complex myriad of parties against each other, with Russia and Iran giving Assad military help that has largely proven decisive over the past three years, crushing any rebel threat to topple him. Fractured opposition forces have had varying support from the West, Arab states and Turkey.

The United States, Britain and France have all bombed Islamic State fighters in Syria for years and had troops on the ground to fight them, but refrained from targetting Assad’s government apart from a volley of U.S. missiles last year.

Although the Western countries have all said for seven years that Assad must leave power, they held back in the past from striking his government, lacking a wider strategy to defeat him.

Assad’s government and allies responded outwardly with fury to Saturday’s attack, but also made clear that they considered it a one-off, unlikely to harm Assad in any meaningful way.

Russia, whose relations with the West have deteriorated to levels of Cold War-era hostility, has denied that last week’s chemical weapons attack took place and even accused Britain of staging it to whip up anti-Russian hysteria.

President Vladimir Putin called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss what Moscow decried as an unjustified attack on a sovereign state. Syrian state media called the attack a “flagrant violation of international law.” An official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it would cause consequences against U.S. interests.

Arab states, generally hostile to Assad and Iran, backed the Western action, including both Saudi Arabi and its rival Qatar.

“ABSORBED THE STRIKE”

But the Western powers were at pains to avert any further escalation, including any unexpected conflict with their superpower rival. French Defense Minister Florence Parly said the Russians “were warned beforehand” to avert conflict.

A senior official in a regional alliance that backs Damascus told Reuters the Syrian government and its allies had “absorbed” the attack. The sites that were targeted had been evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia, the official said.

“If it is finished, and there is no second round, it will be considered limited,” the official said.

At least six loud explosions were heard in Damascus and smoke rose over the city, a Reuters witness said. A second witness said the Barzah district of Damascus was hit.

A scientific research facility in Barzah appeared to have been completely destroyed, according to footage broadcast by Syrian state TV station al-Ikhbariya. Smoke rose from piles of rubble and a heavily damaged bus was parked outside.

The Western intervention appears to have virtually no chance of altering the military balance of power at a time when Assad is in his strongest position since the war’s early months.

In Douma, site of last week’s suspected gas attack, the final buses were due on Saturday to transport out rebels and their families who agreed to surrender the town, Syrian state TV reported. That effectively ends all resistance in the suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta, marking one of the biggest victories for Assad’s government of the entire war.

A missile is seen crossing over Damascus, Syria April 14, 2018. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

The combined U.S., British and French assault involved more missiles, but appears to have struck more limited targets, than a similar strike Trump ordered a year ago in retaliation for an earlier suspected chemical weapons attack. Last year’s U.S. strike, which Washington said at the time would cripple Assad’s air forces and defenses, had effectively no impact on the war.

Mattis said the United States conducted Saturday’s strikes with conclusive evidence that chlorine gas had been used in the April 7 attack in Syria. Evidence that the nerve agent sarin also was used was inconclusive, he said.

Syria agreed in 2013 to give up its chemical weapons after a nerve gas attack killed hundreds of people in Douma. Damascus is still permitted to have chlorine for civilian use, although its use as a weapon is banned. Allegations of Assad’s chlorine use have been frequent during the war, although unlike nerve agents chlorine did not produce mass casualties as seen last week.

The global chemical weapons watchdog, the OPCW, has sent a team to assess last week’s suspected gas attack. Saturday’s strikes took place before the inspectors had a chance to gather evidence at the scene.

Mattis, who U.S. officials said had earlier warned in internal debates that too large an attack would risk confrontation with Russia, described the strikes as a one-off to dissuade Assad from “doing this again”.

But a U.S. official familiar with the military planning said there could be more air strikes if the intelligence indicates Assad has not stopped making, importing, storing or using chemical weapons, including chlorine. The official said this could require a more sustained U.S. air and naval presence.

EXIT SYRIA?

The U.S., British and French leaders all face domestic political issues over the decision to use force in Syria.

Trump has been leery of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, and is eager to withdraw roughly 2,000 troops in Syria taking part in the campaign against Islamic State.

“America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria, under no circumstances,” Trump said in his address. “The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons.”

Trump has tried to build good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A prosecutor is investigating whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Moscow in illegal efforts to help him get elected, which Trump calls a witch hunt.

“To Iran and to Russia, I ask, what kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?” Trump said in his address.

In Britain, May’s decision to order strikes without consulting parliament overturned an arrangement in place since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Her predecessor David Cameron was damaged politically when he lost a vote in the House of Commons on whether to bomb Syria.

Britain has led international condemnation of Russia, persuading more than 20 countries to expel Russian diplomats, over the poisoning with a nerve agent of a former Russian spy in England last month. May made clear that case was part of her calculus in ordering retaliation for chemical weapons in Syria.

She argued on Saturday it was necessary to act quickly without waiting for parliament’s approval. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn accused her of following Trump, hugely unpopular in Britain, into battle without waiting for the evidence.

Slideshow (11 Images)

In France, Macron has long threatened to use force against Assad if he uses chemical weapons, and had faced criticism over what opponents described as an empty threat.

Reporting by Steve Holland and Tom Perry,; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Tim Ahmann, Eric Beech, Lesley Wroughton, Lucia Mutikani, Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick and John Walcott in Washington; Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam Ellen Francis in Beirut; Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge in London; and Jean-Baptiste Vey, Geert de Clerq and Matthias Blamont in Paris; Polina Ivanova in Moscow, Writing by Peter Graff, Editing by Angus MacSwan

Source link

0 notes

itsfinancethings · 5 years

Link

March 07, 2020 at 06:01AM

John Cantlie with a Free Syrian Army fighter in in Aleppo, Syria, on Nov. 06, 2012. The photo was taken by the author.

As told to Joseph Hincks. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

ramialkarmi · 7 years

Text

Evidence mounts that Russia used Facebook to sow political chaos in the US

A series of developments on Wednesday shed new light on the lengths Russia went to exploit social media, and Facebook in particular, to spread disinformation and generate political division among the American public.

Facebook recently came under the microscope after it emerged earlier this month that fake accounts linked to Russian entities used the platform to spread fake news and bought $100,000 worth of inflammatory ads leading up to the 2016 election.

The company still does not know the extent of Russia's purchases or whether these unidentified ad buys remain on the site. Facebook has since confirmed that Russia-linked groups did more than buy ads and post memes — they tried to organize anti-immigrant, anti-Clinton rallies in Texas and Idaho.

Wednesday's developments indicate that Kremlin-backed entities went even further than what was previously reported.

'Russia knows no ends and no limits'

In one instance, The Daily Beast learned, operatives supported by the Russian government created a Facebook group impersonating a California-based Muslim organization, called United Muslims of America, to sow anti-US sentiment among American Muslims by targeting politicians across the spectrum.

Pro-Kremlin trolls used the group to push fabricated stories, like one claiming Hillary Clinton admitted that the US "created, funded and armed" Al-Qaeda and ISIS — which she did not and the US did not — and that John McCain was the true founder of ISIS — which he was not. Both Clinton and McCain are frequent and vocal critics of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin.

In addition to spreading disinformation about Democratic and Republican politicians, the group also used Twitter and Instagram to spread divisive memes and messages.

Though Russia's interference in the US election was aimed primarily toward helping Donald Trump clinch the presidency, this development indicates that "Russia knows no ends and no limits to which groups they would masquerade as to carry out their objectives," Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beast.

Indeed, though Russia backed Trump's candidacy during the election, the report noted that the fake Facebook group's biggest swell in activity came after the president ordered a missile strike on Syria's Shayrat airfield in April. Trump made the decision after a deadly chemical attack, allegedly carried out by Syrian President Bashar Assad, killed scores of civilians in a northwest province of the country.

Russia is a staunch ally of Assad and repeatedly warned the US against taking harsh action following the chemical attack. Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said that the US' missile strike constituted "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law."

On April 9, three days after the strike, the fake UMA Facebook account posted a meme signaling its opposition to the move, according to the report. The $93 million that the strike cost, the social-media posting said, "could have founded [sic] Meals on Wheels until 2029." The group posted more than a dozen memes afterward — both on Facebook and on Instagram — opposing US intervention in Syria.

The real United Muslims of America organization, Swalwell said, "seek[s] harmony between the US and the Muslim world."

"Many of these individuals I have heard first-hand denounce terrorist attacks across the world, including those carried out by Muslims," Swalwell said. "To see their name hijacked by the Russians, if true, and carrying out Russian goals of undermining the U.S. is disturbing and not who they are."

The fake UMA group organized several real-life events, according to The Daily Beast, though it's unclear if it successfully drew an audience. Fifty-nine people were marked as having attended one event in September 2016, while 20 were marked as having attended another in June this year, though the report said there's no evidence that anyone showed up.

Consistent with the overall goal of creating discord

On Wednesday evening, CNN followed up with a separate report with details about a Facebook ad Russia bought during last year's election which was centered around the Black Lives Matter movement and targeted specifically towards the cities of Ferguson and Baltimore.

The ad was bought by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll factory based in St. Petersburg.

Both cities made headlines in 2014 and 2015, respectively, when two young, unarmed black men were killed following encounters with law enforcement in what critics said was an example of frequent police brutality toward predominantly African-American communities.

Eighteen-year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014 after Brown allegedly robbed a convenience store.

Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old from Baltimore, was arrested in April 2015 and died a week later from injuries that were sustained when he was being transported in a police vehicle.

The incidents sparked massive nationwide protests and calls from Black Lives Matter, as well as other civil-rights groups, for law enforcement to be held accountable for their actions.

The Russian-backed Facebook ad appeared in late 2015 or early 2016, sources told CNN, and though it was meant to appear supportive of Black Lives Matter, it may also have conveyed the group as threatening to some residents of those cities.

"This is consistent with the overall goal of creating discord inside the body politic here in the United States, and really across the West," Steve Hall, the former CIA officer and CNN National Security Analyst, told the cable network. "It shows the level of sophistication of their targeting. They are able to sow discord in a very granular nature, target certain communities and link them up with certain issues," he said.

Cyberwarfare as a way to support informational goals

The Internet Research Agency, the Russian company that bought the ad, is known for its activities in the informational space.

From his research on the company last year, journalist Adrian Chen discovered that Russian internet trolls — paid by the Kremlin to spread false information on the internet — were behind a number of "highly coordinated campaigns" to deceive the American public.

It's a brand of information warfare, known as "dezinformatsiya," that has been used by the Russians since at least the Cold War. The disinformation campaigns are only one "active measure" tool used by Russian intelligence to "sow discord among," and within, allies perceived hostile to Russia.

From his interviews with former trolls employed by Russia, Chen gathered that the point of their jobs "was to weave propaganda seamlessly into what appeared to be the nonpolitical musings of an everyday person."

Indeed, "the Russians generally look at cyberwarfare as a way to support informational goals, like shaping an election," Paulo Shakarian, the CEO of CYR3CON, a cybersecurity threat intelligence firm, told Business Insider in July. The belief is rooted primarily in Putin's long-held view that cyberwar is a way to influence the informational battlefield.

Russia's objectives were also likely bolstered — intentionally or not — by Trump himself.

"Part of the reasons active measures have worked in the US election is because the commander-in-chief has used Russian active measures at times against his opponents," former FBI special agent Clint Watts told the Senate Intelligence Committee in May, pointing to Trump’s citations of fake-news stories pushed out by Russian-linked entities last year.

"[Trump] denies the intel from the United States about Russia, and he claimed the election could be rigged — that was the number one claim pushed by RT, Sputnik News, all the way up until the election," Watts said. "Part of the reasons Russian active measures work is because they parrot the same lines."

Facebook, for its part, appears to have been slow to act in the wake of Russia's actions.

Former President Barack Obama tried to warn the platform's CEO and co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, about the threat of fake news and its effect on the 2016 election less than two weeks after Trump won the presidency,The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Nine days before Obama warned him about the effect fake news had on the November result and the problem it would pose in future elections, Zuckerberg struck down the notion as a "crazy idea" that "surely had no impact" on the end result.

Following the president's warning, Zuckerberg acknowledged the problem but said fake news wasn't widespread on Facebook, according to The Post. He added at the time that there was no easy solution to the issue, according to those familiar with the matter.

SEE ALSO: 'Private briefings,' warrants, and wiretaps — here are the dizzying Trump-Russia developments you may have missed

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Watch Stephen Colbert bring out Sean Spicer at the Emmys to defend the crowd size

#Tech Insider #Arab #Entrepreneurship #sillicon alley insider

0 notes

studentofrhetoric-blog · 7 years

Text

Part 1, Thursday, April 27th, 2017

International News:

--- "French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said on Thursday she wanted to replace the "grey" European Union by a "happy Europe," in a speech that focused on her plans to build back border checks, but did not mention her anti-euro stance. One aide said the positive spin on Le Pen's euroscepticism was meant to try and reassure voters of conservative candidate Francois Fillon, who did not qualify for the May 7 run-off, and try and convince them to vote for her. "The EU is grey, like the color of the Brussels technocrats' suits, Le Pen said, adding: "I want to give it colors because my Europe is happy, diverse, colorful, it's got the face of its peoples." Le Pen, who wants to hold a referendum on France's EU membership after six months of negotiations to turn the bloc into a loose cooperative of nations, did not announce any shift in her policies and reaffirmed that what she wanted was a "Europe of free nations, of cooperations." But while she repeatedly talked of her plans to take France out of the Schengen border-free area, she did not mention returning to the Franc national currency - which is also among her policies. With a majority of French voters opposed to leaving the euro, the Le Pen campaign has not insisted on that part of her platform over the past months."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-le-pen-europe-idUSKBN17T340?il=0

--- "Armed British police officers arrested a man carrying knives near Prime Minister Theresa May's office in London on Thursday on suspicion of preparing an act of terrorism. The 27-year-old man was detained by counter-terrorism officers on Parliament Street, a stone's throw from the parliament building, May's Downing Street office and government departments, during a stop-and-search in an ongoing security operation, police said. A Western security source said the man, from London, was on the radar of counter-terrorism officers and the domestic intelligence agency MI5 before his arrest. No one was injured in the incident, and May was not at Downing Street at the time because she was campaigning in northern England for a June 8 parliamentary election. A source familiar with the investigation said the suspect had been arrested as part of an intelligence-led operation."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security-idUSKBN17T23W?il=0

--- "Germany's top cyber official on Thursday confirmed said his agency was aware of computer attacks on two foundations tied to Germany's ruling coalition parties for some time, and was helping the think tanks analyze what happened. Arne Schoenbohm, president of the BSI federal cyber security agency, did not comment on security firm Trend Micro's claim that the attacks were carried out by "Pawn Storm," the same Russian hacking group linked to attacks on French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron or the U.S. election. Other experts have said the group, also known as "Fancy Bear" or "APT 28," is linked to GRU, the Russian military intelligence directorate. German officials and lawmakers say the attacks are the latest in a series aimed at disrupting German elections and damaging Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has pushed to maintain sanctions on Russia over its actions in eastern Ukraine. Germany's intelligence agencies issued unusually frank warnings late last year about what they called Moscow's "aggressive" cyber spying and disinformation campaigns."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-cyber-idUSKBN17T2Y1?il=0

--- "The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, pushed the U.N. Security Council on Thursday to focus "all eyes and all pressure" on Russia to try and end the Syrian conflict and pressed for council action even if it faces a veto by Moscow. "They are the ones who could stop this if they wanted to," Haley said of Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during his country's six-year-long civil war. "We need to put pressure on Russia." Russia has vetoed eight resolutions on Syria to shield Assad's government from action, most recently blocking a council condemnation of a deadly chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of people, many of whom were children. China has backed Russia and vetoed six resolutions. "I will continue to press the Security Council to act, to do something, regardless of if the Russians continue to veto it because it is our voice that needs to be heard," Haley told a Security Council meeting on aid access in Syria...Responding to Haley's remarks, Deputy Russian U.N. Ambassador Petr Iliichev told the council that Russia, Iran and Turkey were working to ensure compliance with a cessation of hostilities to allow delivery of humanitarian aid."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-un-idUSKBN17T2T7?il=0

--- "Three suspicious packages containing "white powder type substances" were sent to political offices between April 25 and 26, the Scottish parliament said in a statement. Separately, on Thursday two suspicious packages were also intercepted at police offices. One, in Glasgow was still being investigated. The second, in Fife, was not a threat, Police Scotland said in a statement. It was not clear if the political security incidents earlier in the week were related and officials at Police Scotland were not available to comment. The Scottish parliament said packages were sent to an elected official, a political party headquarters and a local council building. Police were investigating and further advice has been issued to elected representatives across Scotland, the devolved assembly said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security-scotland-idUSKBN17T2H1?il=0

--- "Italy's justice minister said on Thursday it was "a lie" to paint humanitarian ships saving migrants in the Mediterranean as criminals, responding to a Sicilian prosecutor who has repeatedly suggested some are colluding with Libyan smugglers. Carmelo Zuccaro, the chief prosecutor of the Sicilian port city of Catania, has said he has evidence of phone calls between people smugglers and aid groups, but he has not opened a criminal investigation or presented his evidence. The Catania court opened a fact-finding probe in February, saying traffickers may be funding non-governmental organizations involved in rescuing migrants who attempt the dangerous crossing from North Africa to Europe. NGOs have forcefully denied any wrongdoing and said their only objective is to save lives. "I hope the Catania prosecutor's office will speak through its investigations because I think it's the best way to clarify things," Justice Minister Andrea Orlando said in a live-streamed interview on la Repubblica newspaper's Web site."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-ngo-idUSKBN17T21G?il=0

--- "Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday called on North Korea and other countries to avoid behaviour or rhetoric that could increase tensions around Pyongyang's nuclear programme. Speaking at a news conference in Moscow after holding talks, Putin and Abe said they had agreed to cooperate closely to try to help defuse tensions around the secretive Asian state and that both wanted to see a resumption of six-party international talks with North Korea. "In my opinion, and in the opinion of the prime minister, the situation on the Korean peninsula has unfortunately got a lot worse," said Putin. "We call on all governments involved in regional matters to refrain from using belligerent rhetoric and to strive for peaceful constructive dialogue." North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threat is a major security challenge confronting U.S. President Donald Trump, who has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile, a capability experts say Pyongyang could have some time after 2020. Abe told the same news conference that he wanted Pyongyang to refrain from taking any actions that could be perceived as provocative by other countries."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-japan-northkorea-idUSKBN17T2CF?il=0

--- "The number of Ethiopians who need food aid owing to drought has surged by more than two million from 5.6 million at the beginning of the year, an official said on Thursday. In January, the United Nations appealed for more than $900 million in aid for the Horn of Africa country, which has been hit by repeated droughts. Some areas of Ethiopia's Oromiya, Amhara, and SNNP regions are now facing severe water shortages, in addition to areas where the main harvests had failed this year, said Debebe Zewdie, head of public relations at the National Disaster Risk Management Commission. "The number has risen to more than 7.7 million people. 432,000 tonnes of food is needed until the end of the year," he told state-owned Ethiopian News Agency. Although it has one of the highest growth rates in Africa, Ethiopia's economy still depends heavily on farming, which employs three-quarters of the workforce in the nation of over 90 million people. Last year, failed spring and summer rains worsened by the El Nino weather phenomenon affected 10.2 million people. Altogether, almost 13 million people across the Horn of Africa region currently require aid, including 2.7 million in Kenya, 2.9 million in Somalia and 1.6 million in Uganda, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-africa-drought-ethiopia-idUSKBN17T2LD?il=0

--- "After long seeking to distance itself from Yemen's brutal civil war, the United States under Trump now appears increasingly to see the conflict through the Gulf's prism of Iranian meddling, even as Washington prioritizes a parallel fight against al Qaeda. Detailed discussions are under way within the Trump administration that would offer greater aid to Gulf allies fighting Iran-aligned Houthi rebels. Officials say that could included expanded sharing of U.S. intelligence. In Saudi Arabia last week, Mattis compared Tehran's backing for the Houthis to its support for Shi'ite ally Lebanese Hezbollah, a view long espoused by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states who see links between the two groups. "Everywhere you look, if there is trouble in the region, you find Iran," Mattis told reporters in Riyadh. Iran rejects Saudi accusations that it is giving financial and military support to the Houthis in the struggle for Yemen. Cooperation between the United States and the Gulf is already on the rise in the fight against America's top priority there: al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. U.S. officials see that broader civil war as an obstacle to a sustained military campaign against the militants, as well as a threat to the Bab al-Mandab strait, a strategic waterway."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gulf-yemen-idUSKBN17T37T?il=0

Domestic & International News:

--- "Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke on Thursday about the NAFTA trade deal and agreed there was an opportunity to update the accord to the mutual benefit of all signatories, the Mexican government said. In a statement, Pena Nieto's office said he and Trudeau had spoken on Thursday afternoon and were ready to begin the process of dialogue between Mexico, Canada and the United States, the members of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "Finally, they agreed to remain in close contact to ensure the process of (NAFTA) modernization is successful for the benefit of both nations," Pena Nieto's office said. U.S. President Donald Trump rattled Mexico and Canada on Wednesday when his administration said he had been considering an executive order to withdraw from NAFTA. On Thursday, Trump said that he aimed to renegotiate the deal with the two."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-nafta-mexico-idUSKBN17U079?il=0

--- "Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday he had urged U.S. President Donald Trump not to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement because it would cause a lot of pain on both sides of the border. The White House said earlier that Trump told the leaders of Canada and Mexico in separate calls on Wednesday that he would not terminate the NAFTA treaty at this stage, but would move quickly to begin renegotiating it with them..."He (said on the call) he was very much thinking about canceling and I highlighted quite frankly ... that a disruption like canceling NAFTA, even if it theoretically eventually might lead to better outcomes, would cause a lot of short and medium-term pain," said Trudeau. "That's not something that either one of us would want so we agreed that we could sit down and get to work on looking at ways to improve NAFTA," Trudeau told a televised news conference in Gray, Saskatchewan. Any move to break up NAFTA would cause great economic damage to Canada, which sends 75 percent of all its exports to the United States."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-canada-idUSKBN17T2MZ?il=0

--- "The United States issued about 40 percent fewer temporary visas in March to citizens of seven countries covered by President Donald Trump's temporary travel bans than it did in an average month last year, according to a Reuters analysis of preliminary government data released on Thursday. At the same time, the data showed that the total of U.S. non-immigrant visas issued to people from all countries was up by nearly 5 percent in March compared to the 2016 monthly average. Citizens of the seven Muslim-majority nations under the bans - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - received about 3,200 non-immigrant visas in March 2017, compared to about 5,700 on average per month during the 2016 fiscal year and more than 6,000 on average per month in 2015 and 2014. Trump's travel bans were later blocked by the courts. The State Department released the data to comply with a directive from Trump asking it to publish monthly breakdowns of the number of visas issued around the world. The department did not release data on the total number of all types of visa applications, so it is unclear whether the lower number of temporary visas for citizens of the seven countries is because of a higher rate of rejections or other factors, such as fewer applicants or slower processing times."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-visas-analysis-idUSKBN17T34G?il=0

--- "Migrants who applied for asylum in the United States but then fled north, fearing they would be swept up in President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, may have miscalculated in viewing Canada as a safe haven. That is because their time in the United States could count against them when they apply for asylum in Canada, according to a Reuters review of Canadian federal court rulings on asylum seekers and interviews with refugee lawyers. In 2016, 160 asylum cases came to the federal courts after being rejected by refugee tribunals. Of those, 33 had been rejected in part because the applicants had spent time in the United States, the Reuters review found. Lawyers said there could be many more such cases among the thousands of applicants who were rejected by the tribunals in the same period but did not appeal to the federal courts. The 2016 court rulings underscore the potentially precarious legal situation now facing many of the nearly 2,000 people who have crossed illegally into Canada since January. Most of those border crossers had been living legally in the United States, including people awaiting the outcome of U.S. asylum applications, according to Canadian and U.S. government officials and Reuters interviews with dozens of migrants. Trump's tough talk on illegal immigration, however, spurred them northward to Canada, whose government they viewed as more welcoming to migrants. There, they have begun applying for asylum, citing continued fears of persecution or violence in their homelands, including Somalia and Eritrea. But Canadian refugee tribunals are wary of "asylum-shopping" and look askance at people coming from one of the world's richest countries to file claims, the refugee lawyers said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-canada-courts-insight-idUSKBN17T1C6?il=0

Domestic News:

--- "The head of the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday released a 58-page draft plan to reverse the landmark 2015 "net neutrality" order and disclosed the agency may withdraw "bright line" rules barring internet companies from blocking, throttling or giving "fast lanes" to some websites. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, named by Trump in January, disclosed his intent Wednesday to repeal the Obama era rules that reclassified internet service and tightly regulated providers as if they were utilities. The FCC also plans to scrap the 2015 internet conduct standard and an ombudsman position created to hear complaints of net neutrality violations. The plan asks if network disclosure requirements should remain in force for internet providers. Pai's plan faces an initial May 18 vote. He wants public comment on whether the FCC should keep its "bright line" rules, and said his decision on the rules would depend partly on the comments the agency receives."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-fcc-idUSKBN17T34W?il=0

--- "R. Alexander Acosta was confirmed on Thursday by the U.S. Senate to head the Labor Department, making him the first Hispanic member of President Donald Trump's cabinet. Acosta, a former member of the National Labor Relations Board and dean of the Florida International University College of Law in Miami, was nominated as labor secretary by Trump in mid-February. The Senate confirmed Acosta by a 60-38 vote. Acosta was expected to have a smooth confirmation process despite objections from some Democrats and workers groups that he is too friendly to business. Acosta has had a decades-long career in the public sector, including multiple Senate vettings for past appointments, making it unlikely any surprises in his background would derail his nomination. Acosta served on the NLRB under former Republican President George W. Bush, who also appointed him to be assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-labor-idUSKBN17T3D1?il=0

--- "U.S. House leaders have decided against holding a vote on a reworked healthcare system overhaul this week after failing to find the necessary support, congressional aides said on Thursday. White House officials had urged a floor vote on the legislation before President Donald Trump's 100th day in office on Saturday, hoping to follow through on a campaign promise to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Advocates had hoped to raise enough support for the measure after a group of hard-line Republican conservatives endorsed an amended version on Wednesday. But by Thursday evening Republican leaders still had not collected enough votes from moderate Republicans whose backing was also needed for passage in the House, given united Democratic opposition. "We won't vote this week," said one House Republican aide, who asked not to be named. Next week was not ruled out, another indicated. "We'll call a vote when we have the votes.""

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-idUSKBN17T2H3?il=0

--- "The Republican-dominated Texas House of Representative approved on Thursday a bill to punish so-called "sanctuary cities" over criticism from Democrats that the measure could lead to unconstitutional racial profiling. The bill comes as Republican U.S. President Donald Trump has made combating illegal immigration a priority. Texas, which has an estimated 1.5 million undocumented immigrants and the longest border with Mexico of any U.S. state, has been at the forefront of the immigration debate. Texas' Republican leaders have embraced Trump's calls to punish localities they believe are shielding immigrants in the country illegally. Any anti-sanctuary city measure may face a tough road after a federal judge this week blocked Trump's executive order seeking to withhold funds from local authorities that do not use their resources to advance federal immigration laws. On a party line vote after about 16 hours of emotional debate, the Texas House approved the bill that would punish local authorities who do not abide by requests to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Police who do not cooperate with immigration authorities could be subject to fines and prosecution for a Class A misdemeanor, which can bring up to a year imprisonment. The bill also allows police to ask people about their immigration status during a lawful detention, even for minor infractions like jay-walking."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-texas-idUSKBN17T2DD?il=0

--- "The Pentagon inspector general has launched an investigation into whether Michael Flynn, U.S. President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, accepted money from foreign entities without the required approval, according to a letter released by House Democrats on Thursday. The new probe compounds the legal problems Flynn faces for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state-run Russia Today (RT) television network and a firm owned by a Turkish businessman after the former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) director retired as an Army lieutenant general in 2014. Senior lawmakers said this week that Flynn likely broke the law by failing to request and receive permission to accept $45,000 to speak at a 2015 RT gala dinner at which he sat with Russian President Vladimir Putin. If substantiated, such a failure would violate regulations rooted in the Constitution that bar current and retired military officers from accepting "emoluments" from foreign powers, the letter said. White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on Thursday that the inspector general's probe was "appropriate." "If they think there's wrongdoing, then the department's inspector general should look into that," he said. Spicer said Flynn did not undergo a security review before he was named Trump's first national security adviser."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-flynn-idUSKBN17T26Q?il=0

--- "Trump administration officials will likely meet in May to reach a final decision on whether the United States should stay in the Paris climate deal, after holding an initial meeting on Thursday at the White House, an administration source said. The group of advisers, which includes Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, was on track to make the decision before a Group of Seven summit on May 26, the source said. President Donald Trump made canceling the Paris agreement part of his 100-day plan for energy policy. He later said he was open to staying in the pact if Washington got better terms. Tillerson, the former head of Exxon Mobil Corp and Perry have said the country should remain in the agreement. McMaster shares that view, a source outside the administration said. Opponents of the pact include Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, the former attorney general of oil-producing Oklahoma, and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon...Many companies such as BP Plc and Microsoft Corp have urged the United States to stay in the agreement to protect their competitiveness. In addition, a group of nine Republican lawmakers urged Trump to stick to the pact, but to weaken the U.S. pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-climate-idUSKBN17T2JS?il=0

--- "Ten Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives said on Thursday they want Congress to vote on a formal authorization for the use of military force against al Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Taliban. The group introduced an authorization, known as an AUMF, that would last three years and replace authorizations passed in 2001 and 2002 that have been used by both Republican and Democratic presidents for military action against the groups. Some members of Congress have contended for years that those measures, approved in 2001 to retaliate against al Qaeda for the Sept. 11 attacks and in 2002 to pave the way for the Iraq War, were outmoded. Those arguments intensified when President Donald Trump ordered air strikes against an airfield in Syria this month, although Republicans, who control Congress, and many Democrats said they did not feel that a single action like that required formal approval by Congress. But a small, mostly Democratic, group of lawmakers has argued for years that Congress should stop abdicating its responsibility to consider an AUMF that would govern U.S. military action, whether against Islamist militant groups or the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "As deployments to Iraq and Syria increase, and with complicating factors like the recent cruise missile strike against the Assad regime in response to the use of chemical weapons, Congress cannot stand on the sidelines any longer and must debate and vote on any new war," said Representative Adam Schiff, who introduced the bill with nine co-sponsors."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-congress-idUSKBN17T2L3?il=0

#international affairs #domestic affairs #source: reuters

0 notes

itsfinancethings · 5 years

Link

John Cantlie with a Free Syrian Army fighter in in Aleppo, Syria, on Nov. 06, 2012. The photo was taken by the author.

As told to Joseph Hincks. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

newsintodays-blog · 6 years

Text

U.S., British, French air strikes target Syrian chemical capabilities

New Post has been published on http://newsintoday.info/2018/04/14/u-s-british-french-air-strikes-target-syrian-chemical-capabilities/

U.S., British, French air strikes target Syrian chemical capabilities

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S., British and French forces launched air strikes on Syria in response to a suspected poison gas attack that killed dozens of people, aiming to degrade its chemical weapons capabilities in the biggest intervention yet in the conflict by Western powers.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the military action from the White House, saying the three allies had “marshalled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality.”

As he spoke, explosions rocked Damascus.

British Prime Minister Theresa May described the strike as “limited and targeted” and said she had authorized the British action after intelligence indicated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for an attack using chemical weapons in Douma last Saturday.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the strikes had been limited so far to Syria’s chemical weapons facilities.

With more than 100 missiles fired from ships and manned aircraft, the allies struck three of Syria’s main chemical weapons facilities, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford said.

The targets included a Syrian center in the greater Damascus area for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weaponry as well as a chemical weapons storage facility near the city of Homs. A third target, also near Homs, contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and a command post.

Mattis called the strikes a “one time shot,” but Trump raised the prospect of further strikes if Assad’s government again used chemical weapons.

“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” the U.S. president said in a televised address.

The Syrian conflict pits a complex myriad of parties against each other, with Russia and Iran giving Assad military and political help while fractured opposition forces have had varying levels of support at different times from the West, Arab states and Turkey.

The strikes risked raising tensions in an already combustible region, but appeared designed not to trigger a military response from Russia and Iran.

Nevertheless, Assad’s government and Russia responded angrily.

“Again, we are being threatened. We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences,” Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, said on Twitter.

Syrian state media said the attack would fail and called it a “flagrant violation of international law.”

Russia was likely to call for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the air strikes, lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov, the deputy head of Russia’s foreign affairs committee, was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying.

The strikes seemed unlikely to have much impact on the balance of power in Syria’s seven-year-old civil war, in which Assad’s government has steadily gained the upper hand against armed opponents since Russia intervened in 2015.

‘ABSORBED THE STRIKE’

At least six loud explosions were heard in Damascus and smoke was seen rising over the city, a Reuters witness said. A second witness said the Barzah district of Damascus had been hit in the strikes. Barzah is the location of a major Syrian scientific research center.

A senior official in a regional alliance that backs Damascus told Reuters the Syrian government and its allies had “absorbed” the attack, and that targeted sites were evacuated days ago thanks to a warning from Russia.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the U.S.-led attacks and said Washington and its allies would bear responsibility for the consequences in the region and beyond, state media reported.

State-controlled Syrian TV said Syrian air defenses shot down 13 missiles fired in the attack. The Russian defense ministry said none of the rockets launched had entered zones where Russian air defense systems are protecting military facilities in Tartus and Hmeimim.

The combined U.S., British and French assault appeared more intense than a similar strike Trump ordered almost exactly a year ago against a Syrian air base in retaliation for an earlier chemical weapons attack that Washington attributed to Assad.

At a Pentagon briefing, Dunford said the air strikes on Saturday were planned to minimize the risk of casualties among Russia’s forces in Syria.

May said the missile strike was designed to minimize any civilian casualties and was not an attempt to change the Syrian government. Britain’s defense ministry said initial indications were that the precision weapons and meticulous target planning had “resulted in a successful attack”.

A missile is seen crossing over Damascus, Syria April 14, 2018. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

Mattis acknowledged that the United States conducted the air strikes only with conclusive evidence that chlorine gas was used in the April 7 attack in Syria. Evidence that the nerve agent sarin also was used is inconclusive, he said.

Allegations of Assad’s chlorine use are frequent in Syria’s conflict, raising questions about whether Washington had lowered the threshold for military action in Syria by now deciding to strike after a chlorine gas attack.

But a U.S. official familiar with the military planning said there could be more air strikes if the intelligence indicates that Assad has not stopped manufacturing, importing, storing or using chemical weapons, including weaponized chlorine.

The official acknowledged that could require a more sustained U.S. air and naval presence in the region, as well as intensified satellite and other surveillance of Syria.

TRUMP STILL WANTS TO EXIT SYRIA

Trump has been leery of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, and is eager to withdraw roughly 2,000 troops who are in Syria as part of the battle against Islamic State militants.

The air strikes, however, risk dragging the United States further into Syria’s civil war, particularly if Russia, Iran and Assad opt to retaliate.

“America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria, under no circumstances,” Trump said in his eight-minute address.

“The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons,” he said.

The U.S. president, who has tried to build good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, had sharply critical words for Russia and Iran over their support of Assad.

“To Iran and to Russia, I ask, what kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?” Trump said.

Last year, the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the guided missile destroyers USS Porter and the USS Ross that struck the Shayrat air base.

Slideshow (11 Images)

The targets of that strike included Syrian aircraft, aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage facilities, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems and radar. At the time, the Pentagon said that a fifth of Syria’s operational aircraft were either damaged or destroyed.

The U.S.-led attack on Syria will be seen as limited if it is now over and there is no second round of strikes, said a senior official in the regional alliance that has supported Assad in the Syrian war.

“If it is finished, and there is no second round, it will be considered limited,” the official told Reuters.

Reporting by Steve Holland and Tom Perry; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Tim Ahmann, Eric Beech, Lesley Wroughton, Lucia Mutikani, Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick and John Walcott in Washington; Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam Ellen Francis in Beirut; Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge in London; and Jean-Baptiste Vey, Geert de Clerq and Matthias Blamont in Paris; Polina Ivanova in Moscow; Writing by Yara Bayoumy, Warren Strobel and Nick Tattersall; Editing by Kieran Murray, Clive McKeef, Robert Birsel and Mike Collett-White

Source link

0 notes