The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant has begun removing nuclear fuel from a building housing one of the reactors that melted down after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Remotely controlled equipment is lifting fuel rods from a storage pool near reactor number three.

The delicate work at the contaminated site is expected to take two years.

The next phase of the huge clean-up at reactor three will be to remove molten nuclear fuel that remains deep inside.

A spokeswoman for the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said the operation to remove the fuel had been delayed by earthquake debris inside the building as well as other technical issues.

Reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant were damaged by hydrogen explosions caused by the earthquake and tsunami. Three reactors melted down.

EXCLUSIVE: AWAY FROM THE PUBLIC EYE, THE CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (CSIS) THINK TANK HOSTED A TOP-LEVEL, OFF-THE-RECORD MEETING TO EXPLORE US MILITARY OPTIONS AGAINST VENEZUELA.
BY MAX BLUMENTHAL

The Washington, DC-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted a private roundtable on April 10 called “Assessing the Use of Military Force in Venezuela.” A list of attendees was provided to The Grayzone and two participants confirmed the meeting took place. They refused to offer any further detail, however.

A WHO’S WHO OF TRUMP ADMINISTRATION COUP ADVISERS

The CSIS check-in list not only confirms that the Trump administration and its outside advisors are mulling options for a military assault on Venezuela; it also outlines the cast of characters involved in crafting the regime change operation against the country.

This charge is premised on a fraudulent and manipulative distortion of reality, and you may be one hundred percent certain of it. Let me explain.

Iran has strongly condemned the latest deadly airstrikes by Saudi warplanes in Yemen that killed more than a dozen civilians, most of them schoolchildren, saying countries that are arming the aggressors are complicit in the crimes.

"Countries that have caused the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen by providing arms to the aggressors are accomplices in these crimes and must be held accountable for their support," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Monday.

He criticized the international community for remaining silent and indifferent to the atrocities committed by the Saudi-led coalition in its military campaign against Yemen and expressed sympathy with the families of victims.

The Iranian spokesperson called on the United Nations and countries involved in the Yemeni crisis to ramp up their efforts in order to put an immediate end to the attacks and adopt necessary measures to protect civilians, particularly women and children.

Libya is back in the headlines after one of its two competing governments sent troops towards Tripoli. If another bloodbath happens there, it will be the inevitable result of the 2011 NATO bombing campaign, an expert told RT.
The Northern African country was once stable and quite prosperous thanks to large revenues from oil trade. But since 2011, when NATO supported a militant uprising and helped topple, then kill, longtime strongman leader Muammar Gaddafi, it remains a fractured failed state. Last week, the unending feuds between rival factions escalated, with Khalifa Haftar, a powerful military commander, launching an offensive against his rivals from the UN-recognized government in Tripoli.

The general is unlikely to immediately heed calls for a political settlement, believes US political commentator and historian Gerald Horne. This may escalate into a major battle in the capital.

Sirhan did not kill Robert Kennedy, yet he remains in jail to this very day. Robert Kennedy, Jr., who was 14 years old at the time of his father’s death, has visited Sirhan in prison, claims he is innocent, and believes there was another gunman. Paul Schrade, an aide to the senator and the first person shot that night, also says Sirhan didn’t do it. Both have plenty of evidence. And they are not alone.

There is a vast body of documented evidence to prove this, an indisputably logical case marshalled by serious writers and researchers. Lisa Pease is the latest. It is a reason why a group of 60 prominent Americans has recently called for a reopening of, not just this case, but those of JFK, MLK, and Malcom X. The blood of these men cries out for the revelation of the truth that the United States national security state and its media accomplices have fought so mightily to keep hidden for so many years.

A wrongful death case was filed against Boeing on the same day that a preliminary investigation into last month’s Ethiopian Airlines crash revealed damning details about the aircraft manufacturer and raised new questions about whether it gave pilots proper instructions for navigating new software. The findings were released Thursday in Ethiopia, based on the analysis of a team of 18 investigators, less than a month after the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash killed all 157 people on board.

The report found similarities in the technical issues experienced by pilots on both the Ethiopian Airlines flight and October’s Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which also crashed just minutes after takeoff, killing all 189 people on board. Both flights were on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft.

The official story is that a single man, James Earl Ray, was staying at a rooming house located at 422 South Main Street.

In the back of this rooming house was a shared bathroom with a window that looked out onto the swimming pool of the Lorraine Motel.

According to the government, James Earl Ray shot Dr. Martin Luther King from that window. There is, needless to say, no physical evidence to prove this charge. James Earl Ray spent his life in prison based solely on a coerced confession which he immediately retracted. None of the ballistics tests, which were performed on the rifle James Earl Ray allegedly used, were able to link that rifle to the actual bullet that killed Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King's family does not think James Earl Ray was the killer, and recently won a civil court case proving there was a conspiracy.

Nipsy Hussle, the popular rapper who vowed to expose Big Pharma and was responsible for educating generations of young people about the series of holistic doctor deaths, has been shot dead in Los Angeles. He was 33.

The Grammy nominated rapper had recently announced he was producing an investigative documentary into the life and death of Dr. Sebi, the legendary holistic doctor, who died in suspicious circumstances in 2016 after making powerful enemies in the world of Big Pharma.

Pop quiz: name the two largest (by far) recipients of U.S. foreign military aid and one other country which recently negotiated the biggest American arms sale deal in world history. Let’s call them the Big three (beneficiaries of largesse, that is).

Ready for the (not-so) shocking answers? So, the military dictatorship is Egypt – recipient of $1.3 billion in military aid per annum. The nation that conquered and annexed adjacent territory is Israel – the donee of some $3.1 billion in military aid each year; and, ironically, the state that US leaders regularly (if incorrectly) tout as the “only democracy in the Mideast.” And the charming, child-starving, woman-beheading regime: that’s the theocracy and absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia – future owner (maybe) of a record $110 billion in US military equipment. Now that’s a proud lot!

n a further blow to US-Saudi ties, reports emerged this weekend on the October murder of Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi kill team. The kill team’s leader, Maher Mutreb, and other members, had apparently been trained by the US government in the past.

It’s a familiar story, heard often enough when the US aligns itself with a country with a flimsy human rights record. The trainees were part of ongoing routine training operations meant to increase the ties of rank and file Saudi figures with the US security state.

During his training Mutreb, a colonel in the Saudi apy agency, apparently went so far as to try to befriend Khashoggi, likely gathering more intelligence on him, but likely also making his murder all the more uncomfortable.

According to US Central Command, at least six airstrikes were carried out by US forces over the past week in Yemen. The strikes were intended to targeted the local al-Qaeda affiliate in al-Bayda Province.

As usual, Centcom offered no casualty data or any details of who was hit, or who was even the intended target. Bayda is known as a major haven for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) but strikes into the province aren’t necessarily productive to that US air war.

The reason Centcom discussed the matter at all seems to have been to clarify that this was part of an anti-al-Qaeda campaign, and not in any way related to the Saudi invasion of Yemen. Despite that, Centcom says that the operation was coordinated with the Saudi-backed government.

Some members of the Saudi hit team that killed Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in his country's consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul received training in the United States, according to a new Washington Post column.

Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), entered the building on October 2, 2018, to obtain documents necessary for his forthcoming marriage. He was killed inside the consulate by a team of Saudi operatives in what has been described as a "premeditated murder".

His body is yet to be found.

According to the reporting by Washington Post's David Ignatius, which included interviews with more than a dozen US and Saudi sources who requested anonymity, some of the special-operations training that members of the hit team received in the US might have been conducted by Tier 1 Group, an Arkansas-based company.

Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night of incitement that led to the assassination of then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

Speaking with Channel 12’s Meet the Press program, Gantz was asked about a taped conversation revealed by Channel 13 last week, in which he said Netanyahu would harm him physically if he could.

A senior journalist writing for the Washington Post has revealed more details about the gruesome killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a diplomatic mission in Turkey in October, saying those who carried out the assassination had been trained in the United States.

David Ignatius cited US and Saudi sources in his column published on Friday as saying that some members of the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group that was sent to Istanbul to deal with Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in the city had received training in the US on special-operations capabilities.

“The CIA has cautioned other government agencies that some of this special-operations training might have been conducted by Tier 1 Group, an Arkansas-based company, under a State Department license,” said Ignatius while citing the sources.

A 10-year-old girl has died two days after she was injured in a fight with a fellow pupil at her primary school.

RaNiya Wright was found unresponsive by staff at the Forest Hills Elementary School in the South Carolina of Walterboro, after she got into an altercation with another Year 5 student on Monday.

They called the emergency services and RaNiya was taken to hospital where she remained alive, until she passed away on Wednesday.

The other student involved in the fight, who has not been identified, has been suspended from the school, according to NBC News.

“Because this is an ongoing investigation, we ask that the community understands that the information we can share is limited,” district officials said in a statement.

With 43 people already executed in Saudi Arabia in the first few months of 2019, the kingdom is well on its way to setting a new record for the greatest number of executions in a year, according to reports.

Of the 43 executed so far, 21 were beheaded for drug offenses, while the remainder were put to death for crimes including treason, renouncing Islam, adultery, murder, burglary, rape, espionage and terrorism, according to the Gulf Times.

Should the Riyadh maintain its present rate, experts have projected that a whopping 172 executions will have taken place by the end of 2019 — the highest total recorded in Saudi Arabia since human rights groups first began tracking the data in the early 2000s.

?According to Business Insider, the 43 recorded executions in 2019 took place between January 1 and March 13, with the most recent beheading involving a Syrian man who was condemned to death for smuggling amphetamine pills.

According to the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, a series of Saudi-led airstrikes targeted the Maarib Province on Monday, killing at least 50 members of the Shi’ite Houthi movement.

The attacks centered on Serwah District, the last district in oil-rich Maarib that is under the control of the Houthis. It’s unclear who the targeted Houthis were, and there is no report of substantial fighting in Maarib recently.

This once again reflects the general Saudi military strategy in Yemen, which is to fall back heavily on an air war. Using airstrikes anywhere and everywhere has often meant a substantial increase in civilian casualties.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday said the country's special forces have thwarted a plan to assassinate him, directed by the opposition’s leader Juan Guaido, reported Agence France-Presse.

"The North American imperialism wants to kill me. We have just exposed a plan to kill me, which was personally led by the devil’s puppet [Guaido]," Maduro told thousands of supporters in Caracas, noting that government prosecutors had made significant progress in investigating the "terrorist plot."

Authored by Wayne Madsen via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Under the directorship of torture and black site maven Gina Haspel, Donald Trump’s Central Intelligence Agency has returned to its traditional roots of conducting “black bag” operations and disrupting electrical grids through cyber-attacks.

Hamas yesterday celebrated the 15th anniversary of the assassination of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the founder of the movement, vowing to continue the path of resistance until the liberation of Palestine.

In a statement issued yesterday, Hamas said: “We will continue the resistance path of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Resistance is a legitimate right guaranteed by all religious and international law, in the forefront of which is armed resistance, which is a strategic choice to protect and regain Palestinian rights.”

The statement also said that Yassin put the issue of prisoners on top of Hamas’ agenda and exerted much effort to liberate them.

“Hamas now bears this responsibility and will not let the Israeli occupation continue to inflict suffering on our prisoners,” the statement said, stressing that it would use all means necessary to liberate those prisoners held by Israel.

Eight months before an idiot son of the Bush crime family “won” election for president…

A year before Osama bin Laden became famous for 9-11…

Mark Lombardi, who had just achieved a major breakthrough in his career as an artist, reportedly hanged himself in his Brooklyn studio.

His art form?

Drawing intricately detailed diagrams of the relationship between the Bush family and its allies, the Bin Laden family, and other global criminals.

If there are people who commit political murders and then stage them to look like suicides – and there are – don’t you think that it’s quite a coincidence than Aaron Swartz – a very positive, resourceful, and intelligent young man who was co-owner of a major social media network – died the very same way, “suicide” by hanging in New York City.

It’s all just a big coincidence.

Imane Fadil was a Moroccan ex-model who became a celebrity after becoming a key witness in the 2013 “Rubygate” trials which accused the media mogul and ex-Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi of “child prostitution”. Fadil was also looking to be a witness in a related investigation (dubbed “Ruby ter”) that is still ongoing.

In 2018, Fadil claimed in an interview that Berlusconi’s infamous “parties” lead to dark, satanic rituals. She was also in the process of writing a tell-all book about Rubygate and the dark secrets of Berlusconi. The name of the projected book was quite evocative: I Met the Devil.

Though Facebook's AI-powered censors managed to "mistakenly" flag Zero Hedge as a repeat violator of the social network's "community standards", when it comes to livestreamed videos depicting horrific and extreme violence, the company is still working out some kinks in its ability to immediately identify and remove livestreams depicting horrific acts of terror and violence like the video published Friday by the Christchurch Shooter.

In a blog post mea culpa published Thursday, Facebook's VP of Integrity Guy Rosen explained why the company failed to immediately remove the horrifying livestream of the attacks that the shooter, a 28-year-old Australian who also published a manifesto laying out his violent, islamophobic ideology, posted to Facebook Live, and which was viewed 4,000 times before being taken down.

MOST OF THE Americans arrived in Port-au-Prince from the U.S. by private jet early on the morning of February 16. They’d packed the eight-passenger charter plane with a stockpile of semiautomatic rifles, handguns, Kevlar bulletproof vests, and knives. Most had been paid already: $10,000 each up front, with another $20,000 promised to each man after they finished the job.

A trio of politically connected Haitians greeted the Americans when their plane landed around 5 a.m. An aide to embattled Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and two other regime-friendly Haitians whisked them through the country’s biggest airport, avoiding customs and immigration agents, who had not yet reported for work.

It was too good a deal for the band of semi-employed military veterans and security contractors to turn down.

Last week Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ordered the last of the US diplomats out of Venezuela, saying their presence was a “constraint” on US policy toward the country. The wording seemed intended to convey the idea that the US is about to launch military action to place a Washington-backed, self-appointed politician to the presidency. Was it just bluster, designed to intimidate? Or is the Trump Administration really about to invade another country that has neither attacked nor threatened the United States?

The suicide of Alan Krueger, a former Obama and Clinton adviser who killed himself this weekend, has shocked the worlds of politics and business where he was universally revered.

Krueger, 58, had a new book coming out in June and was still a member of faculty at Princeton University in New Jersey.

He lived at home with his wife Lisa, with whom he has two children, Benjamin, 28, and Sydney, 26. He is survived by them, his elderly parents and siblings.

The family confirmed that he killed himself in a statement that was released by Princeton on Monday but no further details surrounding his death have emerged.

Another 10 Christians were killed by jihadists in Nigeria last weekend, bringing the total number of Christians killed in the country to 140 since February 10.

Reports indicate that another 10 Christians were murdered in Nigeria on Saturday, March 16, as religious violence in the country continues to reach fever pitch. This brings the total number of Christians murdered to 140, with an additional 160 homes destroyed in the violence.

Morning Star News reported:

Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed 10 Christians in southern Kaduna state, Nigeria on Saturday (March 16), bringing the lives lost in the past five weeks to 140 with 160 houses destroyed, sources said.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford issued a statement Monday denying weekend media reports that the US plans to leave around 1,000 troops in Syria, saying the reports are “factually incorrect.”

Dunford presented the current planned “residual force” as 200, saying that this hadn’t changed since February. The US announced 200 would stay on February 21, but on February 22 officially increased that number to 400.

It’s not clear from Dunford’s statement where the “incorrect” aspect of the new report, which came out of a Wall Street Journal, exists. That report suggested that the 1,000 figure was not yet finalized, but was being discussed. Dunford’s comments didn’t include any details on what is actually being discussed, but just that nothing was finalized.

US General on #Maduro refusing to leave Venezuela: “He needs to understand that a bullet to the forehead may be his way out of #Venezuela. and we have that capability”

The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has issued red notices to locate and provisionally arrest 20 nationals of Saudi Arabia, who are believed to be linked to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the NTV broadcaster reported on Thursday.

The red notices were issued on 1 March at the request of the Istanbul Prosecutor's Office, the Turkish media specified.

The journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who worked as a columnist for The Washington Post newspaper and was a vocal critic of Saudi policies, went missing on 2 October after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

In the latest bizarre story to come out of the US "endless war" in Afghanistan, American warplanes obliterated an allied Afghan military post in an act of "self defense" on Wednesday.

The incident took place in the tribal Uruzgan province of south-central Afghanistan and reportedly began when a joint convoy of US troops and Afghan Special Forces came under fire by another unit of Afghan ground troops in what appears a major instance of accidental friendly fire resulting in a devastating two dozen total casualties on the Afghan side.

A white man in his 20s was taken into custody after killing 49 and wounding dozens more at two Christchurch mosques, reports the BBC. Authorities described him as an "extremist right-wing terrorist"; he live-streamed one of the attacks on the internet.

The attack, which came around the time people were attending the mosques for Friday prayers, was the deadliest in the nation's history.

A gunman live-streamed footage of his rampage to Facebook, filmed with a head-mounted camera. The footage showed him firing indiscriminately at men, women and children from close range inside the Al-Noor mosque.

Police called on the public not to share the "extremely distressing" footage online. Facebook said it had removed the gunman's Facebook and Instagram accounts and was working to remove any copies of the footage.

He's been named by some media as Brent or Brenton Tarrant. A 74-page anti-immigration manifesto posted online and attributed to the killer rants about "white genocide".

Neighbors on Staten Island recalled on Thursday hearing the terrifying spray of gunfire that took down Gambino crime boss Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali.

The reputed mobster, 53, was shot dead just outside his Todt Hill mansion around 9:20 p.m. Wednesday — as his wife and young children were inside.

“About 9 last night, we were watching TV and we heard, ‘Pop! Pop! Pop!’ I thought it was fireworks,” said Fred Guinta, who lives directly behind Cali’s home in the quiet, upscale neighborhood. “My wife said, ‘Those are gunshots!’ It was six or eight shots.”

The gunman ran over the bleeding Cali — who was still alive — with his blue pickup truck before fleeing, sources said.

Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, has hailed the nation’s armed forces for its loyalty and defeat of a US-led coup. Sputnik has discussed this with Alfred de Zayas, a former UN rapporteur to Venezuela and professor of law.

SOURCE: THE GRAYZONE
THE US-FUNDED CANVAS ORGANIZATION THAT TRAINED JUAN GUAIDO AND HIS ALLIES PRODUCED A 2010 MEMO ON EXPLOITING ELECTRICITY OUTAGES AND URGED THE OPPOSITION “TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE SITUATION…TOWARDS THEIR NEEDS”
BY MAX BLUMENTHAL
A September 2010 memo by a US-funded soft power organization that helped train Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaido and his allies identifies the potential collapse of the country’s electrical sector as “a watershed event” that “would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate.”

The memo has special relevance today as Guaido moves to exploit nationwide blackouts caused by a major failure at the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri dam – a crisis that Venezuela’s government blames on US sabotage.

Following the decision in Siti's case (the two women are facing separate cases though they are jointly on trial), a lawyer for Huong also requested an acquittal. The trial has been suspended until Thursday to allow time for the Malaysian attorney general to make a decision.

After her release, Siti, clad in a black traditional Malay dress and headscarf, was rushed to the Indonesian embassy, where she gave a brief statement to the media.

"I feel so happy. I did not expect that today I would be released,” she said, adding that she had been treated well in prison.

The two women told authorities that they thought they had been hired to participate in a reality TV show prank, and that they didn't realize what they had been tricked into doing until it was too late.

Senior US Congressmen have called for the Saudi Arabian authorities to release dual citizen Walid Fitaihi, who has been detained and tortured in Saudi prisons.

In a joint statement issued on Thursday by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, lead Republican Michael McCaul and Chairman Eliot Engel said that Fitaihi must be released. “We are deeply concerned by reports that Dr Walid Fitaihi, a dual US-Saudi citizen in Saudi custody, has been tortured,” the statement read.

They added: “Allegations like this are stunning and the reported lack of due process [in Saudi Arabia] is completely unacceptable. Torture and coercion of all prisoners must end.”

Concluding their statement, the Congressmen said: “We call on Saudi Arabia to immediately release Dr Fitaihi and allow him to travel outside Saudi Arabia.”

A Beverly Hills-based talent agency, Endeavor, has returned a $400m investment fund to Saudi Arabia and cancelled its contract with the kingdom over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the New York Times reported.

The fund was given to the firm's chief Ariel Emanuel during a high-profile Hollywood party last spring, which brought together Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), Disney chief executive Robert Iger and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, among others.

The money was meant to fund the growth of Endeavor and diversify the kingdom's economy through the agency's work in various industries, including sports and film production.

But following the murder of Khashoggi, the firm returned the fund, protesting the murder, and effectively ending its relationship with Saudi Arabia, according to two NYT sources with knowledge of the deal.

Two Palestinian infants were killed in a fire after the Israeli military prevented fire brigades from reaching them on time in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

The two children, a toddler believed to be 18 months old and his younger sister burned to death after a fire that broke out in their homes.

The Mayor of Hebron said the Israeli military is responsible for the death of the infants.

Hebron’s fire chief said a call was received at 10:35 on Thursday night of a fire breaking out in a house in the old town of the occupied city.

Ayman Nasser Eddin said two fire trucks were immediately dispatched to the scene but were kept from passing through two different army checkpoints.

After the the fire trucks were finally allowed through the checkpoints 20 minutes later the 18-month old boy was already dead and his younger sister was unable to be saved.

We all know that this coup attempt by the US and Guaidó failed because we all saw the anti-Maduro thugs on the Colombia-Venezuela border throw a tantrum when they realized their error. Once these CIA stooges realized the trucks of aid weren’t crossing the border they just decided to burn them and blame it on Maduro (which has also failed).

But why did it fail?

In the weeks leading up to the latest coup, multiple US officials spoke publicly (and privately) to members of the Venezuelan military urging them to turn on the Bolivarian Revolution. For the sake of simplifying this argument, let’s focus in particular on the promises made by the Vice President of the US, Mike Pence.

The victim is the brother-in-law of prominent Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy, media reported.

Pakistani professor, educationist and philosopher Javed Bhutto was assassinated in Washington DC on March 2, according to a report by Washington Post.

The 64-year old philosopher was reportedly shot by a neighbor, 45-year-old Hilman Jordan, just outside a convenience store in southeast Washington.

Authored by Emma R. via The Voice Of Europe,

The Finnish Police investigates a video published recently in social media by the vigilante group ‘Soldiers of Odin’ that announces a “hunt” for rapists and pedophiles.

The video, which is subtitled in English and Arabic, and has since been deleted from both Facebook and Vimeo, shows a group of masked men dressed in dark, armed with bats and chains march onwards to the camera amid winter darkness, accompanied by heavy metal music.

One of them, who acts as a spokesperson, announces that “The pedophile hunting season has been opened!”

The speaker points out that their target are the “sex tourists who have invaded our country” and “hunt our children”. And explains that the Soldiers of Odin are going to take justice into their own hands, since “the authorities and the politicians do nothing”.

Elected Presidents Assad and Maduro are not the brutal dictators. We are.

We are the ones imposing economic warfare, and regime change wars on non-belligerent countries. We are the ones supporting terrorists who impose the death penalty on hundreds of thousands with our weapons, our command and control, our mercenaries, our air support and our terror bombings.

We are dictating our will by destroying these and other countries, by changing “regimes”, by setting up non-democracies throughout the world.[1]

Officials say killings are part of Israel's 'obligation'

Israel is furious at the UN Human Rights Council most of the time, but they are particularly furious whenever the body offers a report, as Israel tends to violate a lot of human rights. In this case, the council has announced an “independent inquiry” into the protests at the Gaza border.

Every Friday, for months now, Palestinian protesters have rallied near the Gaza border to protest the Israeli blockade. Every Friday, Israel shoots a large number of people. The investigation ruled that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel violated international law.

The report noted that 154 out of 183 people killed by Israel in that time were entirely unarmed. They noted Israel had repeatedly, deliberately shot children and journalists, as well as disabled protesters. International law, needless to say, frowns upon those sorts of deliberate killings.

An Indian minister claimed that the country’s aircraft made a successful bombing run against terrorists on the Pakistani-controlled side of Kashmir. Pakistan said the Indian jets “released a payload” while fleeing.
“Air Force carried out aerial strike early morning today at terror camps across the LoC [Line of Control] and Completely destroyed it,” the minister of state of agriculture, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, tweeted on Tuesday.

Israeli Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian revealed yesterday that the Israeli occupation authorities issues permits to large pharmaceutical firms to carry out tests on Palestinian and Arab prisoners, Felesteen.ps reported.

The Hebrew University lecturer also revealed that the Israeli military firms are testing weapons on Palestinian children and carry out these tests in the Palestinian neighbourhoods of occupied Jerusalem.

Speaking in Columbia University in New York City, Shalhoub-Kevorkian said that she collected the data while carrying out a research project for the Hebrew University.

“Palestinian spaces are laboratories,” she said. “The invention of products and services of state-sponsored security corporations are fueled by long-term curfews and Palestinian oppression by the Israeli army.”

In her talk, entitled “Disturbing Spaces – Violent Technologies in Palestinian Jerusalem”, the professor added:

Ahed Tamimi to be Honoured in South Africa by Mandela’s Grandson

In a series of tweets posted in her twitter account a few hours ago Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed that the US government is moving special forces to the borders of Venezuela along with military equipment.

She also alerted that the same US government (and US companies) with the help of some NATO allies is seeking to buy arms and ammunition in east European countries to arm the Venezuelan opposition.

For more than a decade Venezuela has aided the governments of Haiti and the Dominican Republic through a preferential system known as Petrocaribe, and the people of those nations are not taking their governments’ support for the US coup in Venezuela lightly.

As Judas betrayed the Son of Man with a kiss for 20 pieces of silver, the institutionally corrupt governments in Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo have written another sad chapter in their nation’s history.

Ironically, it was Venezuela that helped to develop the island’s energy infrastructure in recent years. A key part of this is the REFIDOMSA oil refinery in the Dominican Republic which the Venezuelan government helped to develop and partially owns, and which has also been used to help alleviate increased fuel demands and shortages in Haiti.

Jamal Khashoggi was working to promote reconciliation between the Saudi and Iranian people prior to his murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October, Middle East Eye can reveal.

In an unfinished opinion article drafted early in 2018 by the exiled Saudi journalist in collaboration with a leading Iranian human rights activist, Khashoggi called for civil society organisations in both countries to be “voices of reason and moderation” even as their governments risked open conflict.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) just inked billions in deals to secure new weapons from top Pentagon contractor Raytheon a week after an Amnesty International investigation further implicated the Gulf nation in war crimes for transferring Western weapons to unaccountable militia groups, thereby deepening the humanitarian crisis and fueling carnage in war-ravaged Yemen.

"Emirati forces receive billions of dollars' worth of arms from Western states and others, only to siphon them off to militias in Yemen that answer to no-one and are known to be committing war crimes."

Shipp explains, “Hillary Clinton was running and is running a global financial criminal syndicate. She was using these secret servers to conduct Clinton financial money laundering business."

"The shocking thing about that is all the former directors of the CIA that have come out to support her, from Clapper to Brennan to Morell to Robert Gates supporting her being elected, knew about this criminal syndicate. Comey was protecting it. Lynch was protecting it. Weissmann was protecting it. And that is the big why. What’s she got on these people? Are they financial ties? They had to be aware of this, especially the counter-intelligence units. We know it was hacked into by foreign intelligence services because it was just hanging out there. Hillary Clinton was running a secret server outside the Department of State for the purposes of laundering money through the criminal Clinton Foundation.”

Haiti continues to be gripped by civil unrest and mass protests demanding that President Jovenal Moise step down over charges of corruption and and rampant inflation under his watch — yet unlike similar unrest happening hundreds of miles due south of the small Caribbean country in Venezuela, Washington has stood in support of the president. Starting Thursday the US State Department urged all American citizens out of the country and issued a no-not-travel advisory due to "crime and civil unrest".

Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir - At least seven people, including two armed rebels and four Indian army soldiers, have been killed in an ongoing gun battle in India-administered Kashmir.

The gun battle on Monday in Pinglan village of Pulwama district comes days after 42 Indian security personnel were killed in a suicide blast - the worst such attack in 30 years of Kashmir conflict, which has raised fears of confrontation with archenemy Pakistan.

A senior Indian army official told Al Jazeera that the operation against the rebels was launched early on Monday following intelligence inputs about their presence in a house in Pinglan village.

"In the encounter, two militants and four army soldiers have been killed. The operation is still in progress," the official said, adding that the identity of the rebels was being ascertained.

"Among the slain soldiers is a top army officer," he added.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Pakistan on Friday to expect a strong response to a suicide attack that killed 44 paramilitary policemen in Kashmir, ratcheting up tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The car bomb attack on a security convoy on Thursday was the worst in decades of insurgency in the disputed region. India said it had “incontrovertible evidence” of Pakistani involvement, a statement quickly rejected by Islamabad.

“We will give a befitting reply, our neighbour will not be allowed to de-stabilise us,” Modi said in a speech, after meeting security advisers to discuss options.

The attack comes months before national elections in India.

The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility soon after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a bus carrying police personnel.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Pakistan on Friday to expect a strong response to a suicide attack that killed 44 paramilitary policemen in Kashmir, ratcheting up tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The car bomb attack on a security convoy on Thursday was the worst in decades of insurgency in the disputed region. India said it had “incontrovertible evidence” of Pakistani involvement, a statement quickly rejected by Islamabad.

“We will give a befitting reply, our neighbour will not be allowed to de-stabilise us,” Modi said in a speech, after meeting security advisers to discuss options.

The attack comes months before national elections in India.

The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility soon after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a bus carrying police personnel.

Two executives at the company that chartered the U.S. plane that was caught smuggling weapons into Venezuela last week have been tied to an air cargo company that aided the CIA in the rendition of alleged terrorists to “black site” centers for interrogation. The troubling revelation comes as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has rejected a U.S. “humanitarian aid” convoy over concerns that it could contain weapons meant to arm the country’s U.S.-backed opposition.

Last Tuesday, Venezuelan authorities announced that 19 rifles, 118 ammo magazines, 90 radios and six iPhones had been smuggled into the country via a U.S. plane that had originated in Miami. The authorities blamed the United States government for the illicit cargo, accusing it of seeking to arm U.S.-funded opposition groups in the country in order to topple the current Maduro-led government.

Syrian media have repeatedly reported on US-led coalition strikes, which have led to countless civilian casualties and damage to crucial infrastructure in the Arab Republic. The coalition has been bombing targets in Syria since 2014 despite never obtaining a UN mandate and not obtaining Damascus’ approval.

At least 70 civilians were killed or wounded as a result of air strikes launched by a US-led international coalition on the Syrian village of Baghuz in the south-east of the country, Syria state television reported, citing local sources.

Syrian media have continually reported on the death of civilians which were killed in US-led coalition strikes. The coalition regularly carries out airstrikes in Deir ez-Zor region.

A curious but very credible Internet document called “The Mardi Gras Secrets“ states that Illuminati agents poisoned and killed Presidents William Henry Harrison (1773-1841) and Zachary Taylor (1784-1850). They also poisoned James Buchanan in 1857 but he survived. All three were obstructing Illuminati- House of Rothschild plans for the US Civil War (1860-1865).

The document also describes the Illuminati role in the murders of Abraham Lincoln (1865) and Senator Huey Long (1935). We know they also killed Presidents Garfield (1881), McKinley (1901) and Kennedy (1963) and probably Warren Harding (1923) and possibly FDR (1944).

The Mardi Gras Secrets website was created in Dec. 2005 by Mimi L. Eustis, the daughter of Samuel Todd Churchill, a high level member of the secret New Orleans Mardi Gras Society called “The Mystick Crewe of Comus.”

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen launched a targeting operation in the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa, Saudi state TV reported on Saturday.

The operation targeted a location for storing and preparing drones and launch vehicles in Sanaa.

The coalition added that the operation conformed to international law and that measures were taken to protect civilians.

AFRICOM claims al-Shabaab was trying to 'illegally tax' civilians
Jason Ditz Posted on February 8, 2019Categories NewsTags AFRICOM, Somalia
US African Command (AFRICOM) has reported that airstrikes against targets in Somalia have killed at least 15 “fighters” from al-Shabaab. Both strikes were in the Lower Shabelle region, with 11 killed Wednesday and 4 killed Thursday.

These are the latest in an ever-growing number of strikes inside Somalia. The US strikes have increased substantially in the past few years, and this year’s bombings have been even more frequent than the last year.

Following the strikes, AFRICOM head Gen. Thomas Waldhauser warned the Senate that despite the escalations, airstrikes were “not enough” to defeat al-Shabaab, and that Somalia’s local forces need to get more deeply involved in the conflict.

Saudi Arabia appears to have been systematically helping its US-based citizens to evade American justice for serious crimes, possibly by providing fake passports and private planes.

Late last year, the Oregonian reported five cases of suspects successfully fleeing charges in the state of Oregon, which was temporarily home to about 1,000 students from Saudi Arabia. But the same news outlet has now discovered a total of 17 cases across eight states and even Canada, suggesting the ploy is an established practice.

Most of the cases involve a similar scenario: after an arrest, the Saudi consulate hires a legal team and eventually posts bail, which in two cases constituted $1 million and $500,000. Once the suspect is released, even if they had surrendered their international travel passport, they somehow manage to leave the country, before then appearing back in Saudi Arabia.

Now we have a bit more evidence the CIA and the FBI connived with reactionary elements to not only briefly overthrow Chávez, abolish the constitution and the National Assembly, but later assassinate the Venezuelan State Prosecutor, Danilo Anderson. He was killed by a car bomb in Caracas on November 18, 2004, while investigating those who were behind the coup. Giovani Jose Vasquez De Armas, a member of Colombia’s right wing paramilitary group called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, claims he was in charge of logistics for the plot to kill Danilo Anderson. Vasquez De Armas told the Attorney General’s office that those planning the killing, “all discussed the plan with the help of the FBI and CIA.”

Calls for the assassination of several major figures in the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), including detailed instructions on how to do so, have been found on a web platform linked to Antifa far-left extremists.

The post was made on the infamous “Indymedia” web platform that has long been used by far-left extremists in Germany and called for the murder of several AfD MPs, including co-chairs Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel, Tichys Einblick reports.

Under the title ‘The AfD and the election campaign!’ the post calls on Antifa members to examine the dates of AfD public appearances and study maps of venues to escape once they have finished their assassination.

The Saudi-led coalition provided US-made weapons to al-Qaeda-linked fighters, Salafi militias and other factions taking part in the intervention in Yemen, in violation with their agreements with the US, according to a CNN investigation.

The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels battling the coalition for control of the country, exposing some of America’s sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other conflict zones,” CNN reported.

According to the investigation, Saudi Arabia and the UAE used the US-made weapons to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape.

However, by handing off the military equipment to third parties, the Saudi-led coalition is in breach of its agreements with the US, according to the US Department of Defense.

The Taliban has killed at least 47 people in separate attacks in Afghanistan, despite the beginning of peace talks with Afghan officials in Moscow.

The armed group launched a pre-dawn attack on an army base in northern Kunduz on Tuesday, killing 26 members of the security forces, Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, head of the provincial council said.

There were at least 23 soldiers and three members of the local police force among those slain.

According to Ayubi, 12 troops were wounded in the Taliban onslaught, which lasted for over two hours until reinforcements arrived at the besieged base and the attackers were repelled.

"Day by day, the security situation is getting worse in and around Kunduz city," said Ayubi, adding there are fears the city could again fall into the hands of the Taliban as it did briefly on two occasions in recent years - in September 2015 and in October 2016.

Israel’s Prime Minister said on Sunday that the General Election campaign would not stop his government from bombing the Gaza Strip or Iran, Anadolu has reported. The election is due to be held in April.

“If calm is not maintained in Gaza, Israel will not hesitate to move against it even during the election period,” Benjamin Netanyahu told his weekly Cabinet meeting. “I [also] have a message to the tyrants in Tehran: Israel will continue moving overtly to protect its future.”

The Israeli occupation authorities continue to fear any Palestinian retaliation for the Israel Defence Forces’ ongoing aggression and killing of unarmed demonstrators taking part in the Great March of Return protests along the nominal border between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu yesterday accused Western countries of covering up for the killers of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in return for arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

Speaking at a municipal gathering in Istanbul, Cavusoglu said the Saudi authorities had to admit to the murder because of the transparent policies followed by Turkey.

“But where is the body? This person was killed but his body cannot be found? What did they do with it? The Saudi attorney-general spoke of a local collaborator; who is the local collaborator?” Cavusoglu said.

“If you have a local collaborator, what is his name?” he added, noting that the Saudi attorney-general had said that the Saudi authorities will send a portrait of what the collaborator is suspected of looking like to Turkey.

A Hong Kong-Based training company launched by Blackwater founder Erik Prince is reportedly building a training center in the controversial Western Chinese region of Xinjiang according to Reuters, citing a company statement from Prince's Frontier Services Group (FSG).

While the exact details of the $600,000 (4 million yuan) project weren't disclosed, a state media report said that the facility will be able to train 8,000 people a year.

Despite being the founder, Executive Director and Deputy Chairman of FSG, Prince says he had "no knowledge or involvement" in the preliminary memorandum for the base, according to Reuters.

A Hong Kong-based spokesman for FSG told Reuters on Friday that the statement was “published in error by a staff member in Beijing” and had been taken off FSG’s website.

The removed statement had said that FSG signed a deal with the Kashgar Caohu industrial park in Tumxuk city in southern Xinjiang to build a training center.

Lest anyone be tempted to believe that President Trump and other U.S. interventionists are intervening in Venezuela because of some purported concern for the Venezuelan people, let’s examine just a few examples that will bring a dose of reality to the situation. This latest intervention is nothing more than another interventionist power play, one intended to replace one dictatorial regime with another.

Egypt comes to mind. It is ruled by one of the most brutal and tyrannical military dictatorships in the world. The U.S. government loves it, supports it, and partners with it. There is no concern for the Egyptian citizenry, who have to suffer under this brutal tyranny and oppression.

Saudi Arabia also comes to mind. It too is a brutal and tyrannical dictatorship, also a murderous one. The U.S. government loves it too, supports it, and partners with it. There is no concern for Saudi citizens who have to suffer under this brutal tyranny and oppression.

On Friday, The New York Times continued its long, predictable tradition of backing U.S. coups in Latin America by publishing an editorial praising Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. This will be the 10th such coup the paper has backed since the creation of the CIA over 70 years ago.

A survey of The New York Times archives shows the Times editorial board has supported 10 out of 12 American-backed coups in Latin America, with two editorials—those involving the 1983 Grenada invasion and the 2009 Honduras coup—ranging from ambiguous to reluctant opposition. The survey can be viewed here.

A FEDERAL JUDGE in Washington, D.C. has ordered the Syrian government to pay $302 million in damages for the murders of journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik in a 2012 artillery strike. The decision, issued on Wednesday, marks the first time in the seven-year conflict that a court has declared Syrian forces loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad responsible for deliberately attacking civilians.

“A targeted murder of an American citizen, whose courageous work was not only important, but vital to our understanding of warzones and of wars generally, is outrageous, and therefore a punitive damages award that [multiplies] the impact on the responsible state is warranted,” wrote Judge Amy Berman Jackson.

A Colombian Campesino leader Dilio Corpus Guetio, 44, who was a member of Asocordillera (Mountain Area Association of Campesino Workers) and also a member of the local Campesino Guard militia was shot to death Tuesday.

Corpus Guetio left his home in the municipality of Suarez in the department of Cauca, in southwest Colombia, at around six in the morning for work. On the way armed men from a car shot him several times.

“The murderers were in a van which hit him and made him lose control of his bike. At that point, they got out of the car to get close to Dilio, who was already injured and he was shot repeatedly, killing him,” said a representative from the United National Federation of Agricultural Unions (FENSUAGRO).

Studies for Development and Peace, Indepaz, say that within the 29 days of 2019, 16 social leaders have been killed in Colombia, excluding Corpus Guetio.

More than two weeks after a projectile struck Mohammad An-Najjar’s right eye during a Gaza border protest, the 12-year-old boy has only just learnt that he will never see through it again.

Lamia Abu Harb said that Palestinian medics told her that her son may need a glass eye.

The doctor who treated Najjar told Reuters that his retina was damaged beyond repair in the Jan. 11 incident, the aftermath of which was captured on camera by Reuters photographer Ibraheem Abu Mustafa.

As the clashes between Gaza protesters and Israeli troops intensified, Palestinians said Israeli soldiers fired towards protesters, who hurled stones at them and rolled burning tires at the border fence.

Switching between lenses for distance shots and close-ups, Abu Mustafa began taking images. Some protesters covered their faces with T-shirts to protect against tear gas as some others ran away.

Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.

But after a single phone call from from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself as president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.

In a way that almost sounds ridiculous.

But oil thieves have been drilling holes in Mexico’s extensive network of oil and gas piplelines across the country to steal fuel and sell it on the black market.

State-owned oil company PEMEX found more than 12,500 illegal holes in the pipelines last year.

And these oil thieves went as far as building a 2-mile long pipe themselves to divert oil directly from the refineries.

Selling oil on the secondary market is a highly lucrative business in Mexico. And some farmers who take up a job as lookouts for the thieves can earnmore than five times their regular income doing so.

The work is also incredibly dangerous… more than 80 people recently died in a pipeline explosion north of Mexico City when they were trying to siphon off gas.

But Mexico’s new president has decided to do something about this.

And in typical, political brilliance, he ordered the pipelines to be shut down.

The researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found.

Twice in the past two months, men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance and the details of their personal lives. In both cases, the researchers believe they were secretly recorded.

Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert described the stunts as “a new low.”

Since the decision of the Trump administration on Wednesday to recognize a member of the Venezuelan opposition, Juan Guaidó, as an unelected “interim president,” the situation in the South American country has become increasingly tense, with efforts to force the current government of Venezuela — led by Nicolás Maduro — out of power having grown in intensity over the past few days.

Despite the enormous pressure his government faces from both local and international sources, Maduro has managed to maintain his position thanks to a combination of factors. These include the loyalty of the country’s well-armed military, in addition to popular support from Venezuelans who recently voted for Maduro, as well as Venezuelans who may not like Maduro but prefer him to a politician hand-picked and foisted upon them by the United States.

These tweets are very big news. The mysterious murder of Seth Rich had been almost forgotten in Western Media, and Kim’s statements raise it back from obscurity, reminding everyone there remain several unanswered questions about the killing.

In light of the absurd arrest of Roger Stone, it might be time for President Trump to take action. Trump, after all, seemed to reference Kim’s role with a Tweet back in 2018: