APRIL 2017

Latest WikiLeaks release shows how the

CIA uses computer code to hide the
origins of its hacking attacks and
'disguise them as Russian or Chinese
activity'
By Mail Online Reporter
Published: 12:02, 31 March 2017 | Updated: 19:17, 31 March 2017

WikiLeaks has published hundreds more files today which it claims show the CIA went to great lengths to
disguise its own hacking attacks and point the finger at Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
The 676 files released today are part of WikiLeaks' Vault 7 tranche of files and they claim to give an
insight into the CIA's Marble software, which can forensically disguise viruses, trojans and hacking
attacks.
WikiLeaks says the source code suggests Marble has test examples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic
and Farsi (the Iranian language).
WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange (pictured), claims its Vault 7 files come from the CIA's Center for
Cyber Intelligence

It says: 'This would permit a forensic attribution double game, for example by pretending that the spoken
language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese.'
This could lead forensic investigators into wrongly concluding that CIA hacks were carried out by the
Kremlin, the Chinese government, Iran, North Korea or Arabic-speaking terror groups such as ISIS.
WikiLeaks, whose founder Julian Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, said
Vault 7 was the most comprehensive release of US spying files ever made public.
Earlier this month WikiLeaks published thousands of documents claiming to reveal top CIA hacking
secrets, including the agency's ability to infiltrate encrypted apps, break into smart TVs and phones and
program self-driving cars.
It also claims the CIA can bypass the encryption of Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and
Cloakman by hacking the smart phones the applications run on.
The CIA was also looking at hacking the vehicle control systems used in modern cars and trucks,
WikiLeaks claims.
Wikileaks said the release of confidential documents on the agency already eclipses the total number of
pages published over the first three years of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks.
Experts who've started to sift through the material said it appeared legitimate - and that the release was
almost certain to shake the CIA.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4367746/WikiLeaks-says-
CIA-disguised-hacking-Russian-activity.html
Moscow slams NATOs traditional anti-
Russia ritual dance featuring debutant
Tillerson
1 Apr, 2017 / Virginia Mayo / Reuters / RT
Rex Tillerson arrived in Brussels to an expectant crowd of NATO foreign ministers, who eagerly waited to
hear the US approach to maintaining the future of the alliance. Besides urging NATO members to
contribute 2 percent of their GDP on collective defense, the US's top diplomat reassured colleagues that
Washington will back NATO against Russia.
The US commitment to NATO is strong and this alliance remains the bedrock for trans-Atlantic security,
Tillerson said at his first ever meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The NATO alliance is also
fundamental to countering both nonviolent, but at times violent, Russian agitation and Russian
aggression.

During his debut speech, the newly appointed US Secretary of State also emphasized that the United States
is committed to supporting NATOs capabilities in the collective defense. Separately, Tillerson also met
with the NATO-Ukraine Commission, where he promised to maintain the Russian sanctions.

Tillerson's remarks prompted a strong reaction from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which said it was
baffled by the Secretarys rhetoric, especially considering the timing of the remarks which came a day
after the ambassadorial meeting of the Russia-NATO Council the first such contacts in almost three
years.
They always have one thing on their mind: the Russian threat myth, Russian aggression slander and
endless mantras about the need to confront it collectively, the Ministry said.

The ministry expressed disappointment that NATO decided to perform the traditional anti-Russia ritual
dance a day after Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the talks with Moscow frank and
constructive.
During the meeting in Brussels, NATO members agreed on a dual track approach to Russia. Such an
approach, according to Stoltenberg, means maintaining a strong NATO with credible deterrence and
defense as a platform for engaging with Russia in a political dialogue.
Stoltenberg acknowledged during the press conference on Friday that the military alliance implemented
the biggest re-enforcement to our collected defense since the end of the Cold War, by tripling the size
of the NATO response force in Europe, which saw the deployment of four battle groups to Poland and the
Baltic countries.

We have established eight new headquarters in the eastern part of the Alliance and we are increasing
defense spending. So, we are delivering on deterrence and defense, the strength pillar, said the
Norwegian.
Commenting on the two-tier approach, Moscow said that it's essentially being forced to assume a
confrontational stance in relations with NATO.

We have a legitimate question: can we expect any constructive approaches in the Russian-NATO relations
when the alliance is stubbornly sticking to its old patterns, when the United States and its allies are
obsessed with building up their military presence at our borders justifying it with the necessity of
containing Russia?, the ministry noted.
In fact, we are being drawn into a confrontational paradigm of relations based on the logic of military
confrontation, the ministry said.
Furthermore, the ministry noted that it sees no signs that NATO is willing to resume practical
cooperation in areas where common interests overlap, such as security challenges and terrorist threats.
The foreign ministry statement summarized all the Russian concerns voiced on Thursday leading up to and
following the NATO-Russia Council meeting, where the issues of Ukraine, NATO's military buildup, and
wider European security were discussed.
Moscow, for instance, briefed NATO on the deployment of two divisions in the Western Military District
in addition to a mechanized infantry division in the Southern Military District. NATO for its part provided
information on the implementation of the plan concerning the forward deployment on NATOs eastern
flank.

Last month, NATO member nations also agreed to expand the alliances presence in the Black Sea. At the
same time, apart from deploying troops to Eastern Europe and Poland, the US and NATO have actively
built up anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems in Europe and on warships patrolling Russias borders.

Moscows envoy to NATO insisted that building bilateral confidence in such an environment is not
possible until the alliance stops threatening and drops its policy of restraining Russia.
It is not possible to build confidence until NATO abandons its military domination policy, Russias
Permanent Representative to NATO Alexander Grushko said on Thursday, according to TASS.
NATO members were unable to answer the question how to combine that [security confidence-building
measures] with their policy aimed at restraining Russia and demonstrating their military capabilities near
our borders, the envoy said.
Dialogue for the sake of dialogue will not produce any results if no specific decisions are made and no
steps are taken, he added.
Prior to the meeting, Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Brussels might use the
Councils platform to engage in confrontational games with Moscow.
However, if our counterparts in the alliance tell us every time, Yes, we will gather in the NATO-Russia
Council, but we will only discuss Ukraine, that will be a continuation of this paranoid aggressive policy.
NATO has nothing to do with efforts on the Ukrainian settlement, Lavrov said according to TASS. If the
essence of these ideas is using the NATO-Russia Council for another confrontation, we do not want to
indulge in such games.
https://www.rt.com/news/383037-moscow-nato-ritual-
dance/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_c
ampaign=chrome

Syria 'chemical attack' down to Assad, US

says
Syria's war

The White House says it is "confident" Bashar al-Assad's government was behind an apparent chemical
attack that killed at least 58 people in north-west Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that strikes on Khan Sheikhoun by Syrian government
or Russian jets had caused many people to choke.
Later, aircraft fired rockets at local clinics treating survivors, medics and activists said.
Syria's army denied the government had used any such weapons.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer condemned what he called "these heinous actions by the Bashar al-
Assad regime", and said it was in the best interests of the Syrian people for President Assad to leave.
He was joined in his condemnation by the UK, United Nations and France, among others.
If confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest chemical attacks in Syria's civil war.
What witnesses saw
Media captionVictims were treated for injuries, including asphyxiation
The warplanes are reported to have attacked rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun, about 50km (30 miles) south of
the city of Idlib, early on Tuesday, when many people were asleep.
Hussein Kayal, a photographer for the pro-opposition Edlib Media
Center (EMC), told the Associated Press that he was awoken by
the sound of an explosion at about 06:30 (03:30 GMT)
When he reached the scene, there was no smell, he said, and he
found people lying on the floor, unable to move and with
constricted pupils
Mohammed Rasoul, the head of a charity ambulance service in
Idlib, told the BBC his medics had found people, many of them
children, choking in the street
The UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights (SOHR), quoted medics who had treated people for
fainting, vomiting and foaming at the mouth
An AFP news agency journalist saw a young girl, a woman and
two elderly people dead at a hospital, all with foam still visible
around their mouths
The journalist also reported that the same facility was hit by a
rocket on Tuesday afternoon, bringing down rubble on top of
doctors treating the injured.
The source of the projectile was not clear, but the EMC and the opposition Local Co-ordination
Committees (LCC) network said warplanes had targeted several clinics.
The spectre of nerve agents in Syria - again
Why is there a war in Syria?
Pro-government journalists later cited military sources as saying there had been an explosion at an al-Qaeda
chemical weapons factory in Khan Sheikhoun that was caused either by an air strike or an accident.
The defence ministry of Russia, President Assad's ally, insisted it had not carried out any air strikes in the
vicinity.
How many victims are there?
The SOHR put the death toll at 58, including 11 children, but Mr Rasoul reported that 67 people had been
killed and 300 injured.
The pro-opposition Step news agency said 100 had died.
One aid agency, the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM), put the death toll at more
than 100.
The EMC said it had stopped counting the victims because there were so many.
What substance was used?
Media captionThe BBC spoke to one witness and a pro-Assad MP about
the alleged attack
The SOHR said it was unable to say what exactly was dropped.
However, the EMC and LCC said it was believed to be the nerve agent Sarin, which is highly toxic and
considered 20 times as deadly as cyanide.
Chemical weapons expert Dan Kaszeta said that determining whether Sarin was involved simply by
examining video clips is problematic.
He added that Tuesday's attack could have been the result of one of any number of chemical agents as they
tend to "behave the same in terms of their physiological effects on the human body".
Sarin is almost impossible to detect because it is a clear, colourless and tasteless liquid that has no odour in
its purest form.
Syria's army, in a statement posted on state news agency Sana, said it never had and never would use
poison gas.
Read more: Why Sarin is so deadly
Has Sarin been used in Syria before?
Image copyright Reuters Image caption A Syrian military source insisted
it "does not and has not" used chemical weapons
The government was accused by Western powers of firing rockets filled with Sarin at rebel-held suburbs of
Damascus in August 2013, killing hundreds of people.
President Assad denied the charge, blaming rebel fighters, but he did subsequently agree to destroy Syria's
chemical arsenal.
Despite that, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has continued to
document the use of toxic chemicals in attacks in Syria.
In January 2016, it said blood samples taken from the victims of one unspecified attack showed victims had
been exposed to Sarin or a Sarin-like substance.
Other reported use of chemical agents:
A joint investigation with the UN concluded in October that
government forces had used chlorine as a weapon at least three
times between 2014 and 2015
It also found Islamic State militants had used the blister agent
sulphur mustard
Human Rights Watch also recently accused government
helicopters of dropping bombs containing chlorine on rebel-held
areas of Aleppo
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Human Rights Watch said
helicopters dropped chlorine bombs over rebel-held Aleppo last year
What has been the reaction?
"Today's chemical attack in Syria against innocent people,
including women and children, is reprehensible" - White House
spokesman Sean Spicer
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said it was a "horrific" attack
and that there should be a "clear identification of responsibilities
and accountability" for it; the UN Security Council is to hold an
emergency meeting on Wednesday
"Once again the Syrian regime will deny the evidence of its
responsibility for this massacre," French President Francois
Hollande said
UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that President Bashar al-
Assad would be guilty of a war crime if it were proved his regime
was responsible
The OPCW said it was "seriously concerned", adding that it was
"gathering and analysing information from all available sources".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39493854

WSJ: Susan Rice Was Not Alone In

"Unmasking" Team Trump
by Tyler Durden
Apr 5, 2017
As part of its daily wrap of the Susan Rice newsflow, which focused on her first media appearance since
she was "outed" as the persona responsible for "unmasking" members of team Trump, the WSJ provides
two new pieces of incremental information: i) in addition to Michael Flynn, at least one more member of
the Trump transition team was "unmasked" in intelligence reports due to multiple foreign conversations
that weren't related to Russia; and ii) Rice wasn't the administration official who instigated Mr. Flynns
unmasking, confirming there is at least one more high-level official giving "unmasking" orders.
But first, a brief detour.
"Unmasking" is a term used when the identity of a U.S. citizen or lawful resident is revealed in classified
intelligence reports. Normally, when government officials receive intelligence reports, the names of
American citizens are redacted to protect their privacy. But officials can request that names, listed as U.S.
Person 1, for example, be unmasked internally in order to give context about the potential value of the
intelligence. Unmasking is justified for national security reasons but is governed by strict rules across
the U.S. intelligence apparatus that make it illegal to pursue for political reasons or to leak classified
information generated by the process.
It is the accusation that Rice unmasked members for purely political reasons - ostensibly in coordination
with president Obama - that has gotten Republican smelling blood in the water. Republicans have for
weeks signaled that they saw unmasking as the key to investigating the source of media leaks damaging to
the Trump administration such as the exposure of former Trump national security adviser Michael
Flynn, who was forced to resign in February after media reports revealed that he misled Vice President
Pence about the contents of his discussions with the Russian ambassador.
To that end, earlier this month, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) pressed FBI Director James Comey in a public
Intelligence Committee hearing: "It would be nice to know the universe of people who have the power to
unmask a U.S. citizens name... because that might provide something of a roadmap to investigate who
mightve actually disseminated a masked U.S. citizens name.
He went on to press Comey on whether specific Obama officials, including Rice, would have had the
authority to request that a name be unmasked. Yes, in general, and any other national security adviser
would, I think, as a matter of their ordinary course of their business, Comey answered.
Shortly thereafter, The Hill notes Nunes made his shocking announcement that he and he alone had
viewed documents that showed inappropriate unmasking by Obama-era officials.
Today, Susan Rice came out to defend herself and told MSNBC that the allegation is that somehow,
Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes, Rice told Mitchell. Thats
absolutely false."
She added that The notion, which some people are trying to suggest, that by asking for the identity of the
American person is the same is leaking it thats completely false. There is no equivalence between so-
called unmasking and leaking.
And yet, that is precisely what many republicans are suggesting because otherwise there is no explanation
for how the WaPo and NYT received, on a virtual silver platter, stories about Mike Flynn's
communications with intel-level detail.
Perhaps Rice is simply lying as she lied on March 22 when in a PBS interview she said "I know nothing"
about unmasking Trump officials. Less than two weeks later, we learn that she did.
But perhaps there is more to the story than what we know so far.
***
And this is where the WSJ comes in, with the new info that according to a Republican official familiar with
deliberations by GOP lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee said that the names of two U.S.
citizens who were part of Mr. Trumps transition team have been unmasked in intelligence reports.
One is Mr. Flynn and the other hasnt been identified. The report involving Mr. Flynn documented phone
conversations he had in late December with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
The WSJ then reports that Rice had requested the unmasking of at least one
transition official not Mr. Flynn who was part of multiple foreign
conversations that weren't related to Russia.
And the punchline: "The Republican official and others said Ms. Rice wasn't the administration official
who instigated Mr. Flynns unmasking."
In other words, the story that Susan Rice is the unmasker is incomplete as there is at least one more person
exposing the identities of people in Trump's circle, and that the NSA and other intel agencies have been
surveiling, accidentally or otherwise, at least one, so far unnamed individual, from Trump's circle. It may
well be someone that the WaPo and NYT have already published about, or it may be someone who has yet
to hit the newswire, delivering the latest twist of the ongoing intelligence-fed news cycle.
For now the answer is unknown, although when Rice testifies under oath before the House Intel
Committee, we hope that all outstanding questions will finally get answers.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-04/wsj-least-one-more-
previously-unnamed-member-team-trump-has-been-unmasked

Reviving the Chemical Weapons Lie:

New US-UK Calls for Regime Change,
Military Attack Against Syria
April 4, 2017
Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
Here it comes again. As the enemies of peace continue to pressure a new US President into deeper
war commitments overseas, and as Washingtons Deep State works relentlessly opposing Russian
moves in Syria at every turn, the war drums have started again beating harder than ever now,
clamouring for a new US-led attack on Syria. This morning we saw the familiar theme emerge, and
just in time to provide a convenient backdrop to this weeks Brussels Peace Talks and conference
on Syrias Future.
The US-led Coalition prepares to make its end-run into Syria to Retake Raqqa, and impose its Safe
Zones in order to partition Syria, more media demonization of the Syrian government appears to be needed
by the West.
On cue, the multi-billion dollar US and UK media machines sprung into overdrive this morning over
reports based primarily from their own activist media outlets. Aleppo Media Center and
others embedded in the Al Nusra-dominated terrorist stronghold of Idlib, Syria, alongside their media
counterpart the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) funded by the UK and EU, are
all now claiming that the Syrian and Russian Airforces have launched a chemical weapons airstrike killing
civilians in Idlib.
In their report today entitled, Syria conflict: Chemical attack in Idlib kills 58, the BBC is also alleging
in their report that Sarin gas was used.
The alleged chemical airstrikes are said to have taken place in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, about 50km
south of the city of Idlib.
Predictably, the BBC and other similar reports by CNN, have triggered a wave of consensus
condemnation and indignation by the usual voices, the UNs Staffan de Mistura, Francois Hollande, and,
of course, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who said that President Bashar al-Assad would be guilty
of a war crime if it somehow be proven that his regime was responsible.
Bombing your own civilians with chemical weapons is unquestionably a war crime and they must be
held to account, he said (reported by BBC).
But is the mainstream medias version of events what actually happened?
The BBC claims in their article that, Opposition activists said Syrian government or Russian warplanes
carried out the strikes. This claim should be checked against any Russian air sorties scheduled for the
same period. As of this morning, Russias defence ministry has stated that it had not carried out any air
strikes the area.
The problem here is that the BBC and others are not only taking opposition activists reports of a chemical
attack at face value, they are also elevating claims that the Syrian and Russian airforces were then later
hitting the medical clinics who were treating the survivors:
Later, aircraft fired rockets at local clinics treating survivors, medics and activists said.
Expectedly, as with past claims of chemical attacks, the notorious US-UK funded NGO, the White
Helmets have already played a central role in scripting the narrative for this latest chemical attack.
As with so many other previous reports on Syria, the BBC, CNN and APs reporting relies exclusively on
opposition activists and opposition media agencies, including the pro-opposition Step News agency,
the Edlib Media Center (EMC), and opposition journalists like photographer Hussein Kayal, as well
as an unnamed AFP news agency journalist.
The unnamed AFP journalist is particularly interesting, as it seems to be the source of a key portion of
the BBCs version of events:
An AFP news agency journalist saw a young girl, a woman and two elderly people dead at a hospital, all
with foam still visible around their mouths.
The journalist also reported that the same facility was hit by a rocket on Tuesday afternoon, bringing down
rubble on top of doctors treating the injured.
However, as you read further down the BBC report, the story gets less certain, as the story becomes very
loose:
The source of the projectile was not clear, but the EMC and the opposition Local Co-ordination
Committees (LCC) network said warplanes had targeted several clinics.
After their source the SOHR refused to say which chemical was supposedly dropped, the BBC quickly
moved in to fill in the blanks by framing the story that the Syrian-Russian Airforces had launched a Sarin
Attack.
The SOHR said it was unable to say what exactly was dropped. However, the EMC and LCC said it
was believed to be the nerve agent Sarin, which is highly toxic and considered 20 times as deadly as
cyanide.

At no point in its reporting does the BBC ever express any skepticism that maybe their activist sources
could be providing false or misleading information. Ultimately, these reports can be used to trigger
renewed calls by Western officials for military strikes against the Syrian Regime which was exactly
what happened today after these news stories were circulated. Within a few hours after these reports
circulated, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R, Illinois) came on CNN with Wolf Blitzer who asked
Kinzinger point blank: What can be done to remove this regime? Kinzinger then replied by calling outright
for US airstrikes to Take out the Assad Regime in Syria, including cratering their airstrips so no planes
can take off and creating a No Fly Zone over Syria.
These statements, as bombastic as they may sound, are serious and should not be taken casually. The
problem is they are based on a series of lies. Of course, Kinzinger was followed on-air by John McCain
protesting against US Secretary of State Rex Tillersons recent comments this week that, The Syrian
people should be able to choose their own (political) future effectively holding the overwhelming
majority of Syrian in contempt for supporting their government.
CNN Senior Middle East correspondent Arwa Damon also chimed in with Blitzer from New York, and
without any real evidence presented as to what has happened and who is to blame, she swiftly concluded
that the Idlib chemical attack was the work of the regime and that America cannot stand back idly and
do nothing, and how this would show a lack of humanity,
The BBC does briefly mention an alternative report, but carefully tried to discredit it in the court of
political opinion by labelling it as from Pro-Government journalists, stated here:
Pro-government journalists later cited military sources as saying there had been an explosion at an al-
Qaeda chemical weapons factory in Khan Sheikhoun that was caused either by an air strike or an
accident.
As expected, the UN affiliated chemical weapons watchdog, the OPCW, quickly announced they were
seriously concerned about the alleged chemical attack, and that they were now gathering and analysing
information from all available sources. One hopes that this will entail more than just looking at activist
or White Helmets material being circulated on the US and western media.
Incredibly, Kinzinger also said on national TV with CNN that people should ignore any stories which DO
NOT implicate the Syrian government waged chemical attacks against its own people in East Ghouta in
2013 and that these should be dismissed as fake news put out by the Russians and the FSB. By this
statement, Kinzinger is essentially saying that award-winning American journalists Seymour Hersh and
Robert Parry are akin to being Russian agents. In fact, Kinzinger is wrong and lying in his capacity as a
high-ranking House Committee member.

In 2013, the US and UK went on an all-out propaganda blitz to try and implicate the Syrian Government in
advance of war votes in both Washington and London. The campaign failed.
Watch this video analysis by Syrian commentator Kevork Almassian of Syrianna Analysis:
.
The following are links to a small sample of factual reports publicly available which clearly show that the
alleged Sarin Attack in 2013 was in fact the work of western and Gulf-backed opposition rebels
(terrorists) and not the Assad government, and all of these reports have been more or less ignored by CNN,
BBC and the entirety of the western mainstream media because they do not fit into the western regime
change and US-led military intervention narrative:
Seymour M. Hersh
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
Peter Lee
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/23/hersh-vindicated-turkish-whistleblowers-corroborate-story-on-
false-flag-sarin-attack-in-syria/
C.J. Chivers
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/world/middleeast/new-study-refines-view-of-sarin-attack-in-
syria.html
Alex Newman
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/17443-mit-report-obama-used-bogus-
intelligence-to-push-syria-war
Carla Del Ponte, UN Inspector
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/uns-carla-del-ponte-says-there-is-evidence-rebels-
may-have-used-sarin-in-syria-8604920.html
Carmen Russell-Sluchansky
http://www.mintpressnews.com/the-failed-pretext-for-war-seymour-hersh-eliot-higgins-mit-professors-on-
sarin-gas-attack/188597/
Swedish Doctors for Human Rights
http://theindicter.com/swedish-doctors-for-human-rights-white-helmets-video-macabre-manipulation-of-
dead-children-and-staged-chemical-weapons-attack-to-justify-a-no-fly-zone-in-syria/
Patrick Henningsen (2013 chlorine incident)
http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/03/27/iraq-2-0-west-will-now-lean-on-un-to-delivery-a-wmd-verdict-in-
syria/
Robert Parry
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/08/un-team-heard-claims-of-staged-chemical-attacks/
More on the MIT study debunking West theory on Ghouta:
http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/01/20/mit-study-further-destroys-washingtons-syria-chemical-weapons-
claim/

http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/04/04/reviving-the-chemical-
weapons-lie-new-us-uk-calls-for-regime-change-military-attack-
against-syria/
Rebel warehouse with chem weapons hit
by Syrian airstrike in Idlib Russian
MOD
Published time: 4 Apr, 2017

The Syrian Air Force has destroyed a warehouse in Idlib province where
chemical weapons were being produced and stockpiled before being
shipped to Iraq, Russias Defense Ministry spokesman said.
The strike, which was launched midday Tuesday, targeted a major rebel ammunition depot east of the town
of Khan Sheikhoun, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in a
statement.
The warehouse was used to both produce and store shells containing toxic gas, Konashenkov said. The
shells were delivered to Iraq and repeatedly used there, he added, pointing out that both Iraq and
international organizations have confirmed the use of such weapons by militants.

The same chemical munitions were used by militants in Aleppo, where Russian military experts took
samples in late 2016, Konashenkov said.
The Defense Ministry has confirmed this information as fully objective and verified, Konashenkov
added.
According to the statement, Khan Sheikhoun civilians, who recently suffered a chemical attack, displayed
identical symptoms to those of Aleppo chemical attack victims.

Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, rejected Russias version of the incident,
saying the rebels had no military positions in the area.
Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas, he told Reuters.
Likewise, all the civilians in the area know that there are no military positions there, or places for the
manufacture [of weapons]. The various factions of the opposition are not capable of producing these
substances, he added.
At least 58 people, including 11 children, reportedly died and scores were injured after a hospital in Khan
Sheikhoun was targeted in a suspected gas attack on Tuesday morning, Reuters reported, citing medics and
rebel activists. Soon after a missile allegedly hit the facility, people started showing symptoms of chemical
poisoning, such as choking and fainting.
The victims were reportedly also seen with foam coming out of their mouths. While the major Syrian
opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, and other pro-rebel groups put the blame on the attack
onto President Bashar Assads government, the Syrian military dismissed all allegations as propaganda by
the rebels.

"We deny completely the use of any chemical or toxic material in Khan Sheikhoun town today and the army
has not used nor will use in any place or time, neither in past or in future," the Syrian army said in a
statement.
The Russian military stated it did not carry out any airstrike in the area either.
However, EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, commenting on the incident, was quick to point to
the Syrian government as a culprit, saying that it bears responsibility for the awful attack.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson echoed Mogherini, accusing the Syrian government of perpetrating the
attack calling it brutal, unabashed barbarism. He argued, that besides the Syrian authorities, Iran and
Russia should also bear moral responsibility for it.
https://www.rt.com/news/383522-syria-idlib-warehouse-strike-
chemical/
haaretz.com
Israel strongly condemns Syria chemical
attack, calls on world to intervene
Barak Ravid, Jonathan Lis and Gili Cohen Apr 04, 2017 10:49 PM
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu severely condemned the usage of chemical weapons against innocent
civilians in Syria. "The horrible images in Syria should shock any human," Netanyahu said at a memorial
for Israel's former president Chaim Herzog held in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
"Israel calls on the international community to complete its commitment from 2013 and remove the
chemical weapons from Syria. The cruel war there highlights our great commandment forever to protect
ourselves against any enemy and against any threat."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said a suspected chemical attack
by Syrian government or Russian jets killed at least 58 people, including 11 children, in the rebel-held
northwestern province of Idlib.
Chairman of the Habayit Hayehudi party and Education Minister Naftali Bennet urged Netanyahu to
convene a security-cabinet meeting on Syria's chemical attack and its possible ramifications for Israel.
Bennett's bureau said that the education minister wants to hold a discussion on humanitarian aspects of the
conflict, the security-related implications on the region, and the systematic massacre taking place in Syria.
A member of the security cabinet, Interior Minister Arye Dery, tweeted that Israel must intervene on the
situation in Syria. "A heartbreaking horror in Syria this morning," he wrote, adding that "dozens of children
killed by chemical weapons. As a power and the sole democracy in the region, Israel must lead the world in
putting an end to this horrible massacre."
Israel's President Reuven Rivlin also condemned the incident, calling it a "stain on humanity," and urging
the international community to "join together to bring an end to this murderous insanity and make sure
these types of images will never again be seen anywhere in the world. I call on world leaders and the heads
of the world powers to act now and stop the criminal murdered taking in place in Syria at the hands of the
Assad regime and act to have chemical weapons removed from the Syrian territory."
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon called events in Syria a "genocide," saying that the "massacre of children
requires unwavering action by the world to curb Assad's regime. Israel, as the nation of the Jewish people,
must make good on its moral commitment and open its gate to give the children victims medical care. This
type of action will not be lacking in resources or in moral resolve.
The condition in Syria is a testimony to Obamas failure, chairman of the opposition, MK Isaac Herzog
told Israel's Army Radio. [The Americans] were sure they're cutting down chemical weapons, but now we
discover there are in fact other units of chemical weapons, Herzog said.
Im sure President Trump is in the situation room and he'll have to face this test. I think that he should lead
a coalition to neutralize the use of chemical weapons.
Coalition whip, MK David Bitan, from Netanyahu's Likud party also blamed Obama, saying he had been
duped by the Assad regime. "An agreement [to see chemical weapons removed from Syria] was reached,
but not we learn that Assad fooled Obama. This is especially concerning in wake of the nuclear deal that
administration signed with Iran and casts a long shadow on that president's achievements with the [Iranian]
ayatollahs."
Echoing Netanyahu, he said "Assad will stop at nothing to survive, we can only trust ourselves in
protecting Israel.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said Tuesday that "We must never remain silent in the face of
the criminal massacre in Syria and allow these shocking images to repeat themselves. The UN must act
immediately to prevent any use of chemical weapons. This is the true purpose of the UN and it must fulfill
its responsibility."
Former head of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, said Tuesday that Assad should be sent to
the International Criminal Court as a war criminal.
Yadlin, who currently serves as head of the Institute for National Security Studies, wrote on his Twitter
account that it's time for Assad to pay for the war crimes he had committed. In an interview with Army
Radio, he said that these were acts that, as Jews, Israel cannot allow to continue and claimed that "the right
thing that should happen tonight is that the same planes that attacked in Idlib in Khan Sheikhoun should
disappear and be destroyed."
Yadlin, who formerly served as a senior officer in the air force, also said that Israel cannot remain silent
after the use chemical weapons that crossed red lines. Yadlin said earlier that "Israel must lead a clear
moral front against the war crimes of Iranian-Assad-Hezbollah forces" and to formulate a more active
policy against such events in Syria.
Living with Assad
Condemnations and calls for action poured in from across the world, with Turkey calling the incident a
"crime against humanity" and France calling the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting.
The condemnations come a week after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said that it
"was no longer our priority to sit and focus on getting Assad out." Haley explained that "you pick and
choose your battles."
>> Indifferent to Assad, anti-Iran: Trump's Syria policy baffles experts <<
The following day, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that "with respect to Assad, there is a
political reality that we have to accept." He added that "the United States has profound priorities in Syria
and Iraq, and weve made it clear that counterterrorism, particularly the defeat of ISIS, is foremost among
those priorities."
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.781439

Syria Chemical Weapons Red Flags and False Flags

By Mark Taliano
Global Research, April 06, 2017

There are too many red flags about the chemical weapons attack in northern Syria to believe the official
version of events that immediately assigned guilt to the Assad government.
Each of the red flags, on the other hand, strongly suggests that the incident was (yet another) false flag
operation perpetrated by the terrorists with a view to destroying the peace process and prolonging the war.
A key consideration would be Cui bono?
Does the Assad government benefit from a chemical weapons attack on innocent people when he is
winning the war and a just peace is on the horizon? No. The Assad government in no way benefits.
Do imperial terrorist proxies benefit from demonizing Assad and hastily accusing him of killing his own
people? Yes they do.
Was there foreknowledge of the event? Apparently so.
Reporter Feras Karam announced before the event, that it was going to occur.

And what about the chemical agent itself? The hasty conclusion that the gas was sarin is unreasonable, not
only because the conclusion was reached almost immediately, but also because videos of the alleged
victims contradict symptoms that would normally be associated with sarin gas exposure.

In an interview conducted on April 5, 2017, Damian Walker, a former army bomb disposal officer, made
these observations:
When I initially read that sarin nerve agent had been used in an attack on Idlib, I was surprised that the
chemical warfare agent had been identified so quickly.
On watching the video of the incident, I quickly concluded that it was unlikely a sarin attack. If it was the
first responders would also have been killed, and the victims symptoms appeared to be the result of a
choking agent, and not a military grade agent.
At the very least, the totality of these red flags demands an independent investigation, which would likely
take weeks, rather than hours. Failing this, the reasonable conclusion would be that the incident was a false
flag event.
In matters of war and peace, thorough investigations should be a matter of importance and priority, but
accusations are already infesting mainstream media narratives, so the more likely outcome is that the
incident will be used to falsely blame the Assad government, with a view to prolonging the war, and
destroying Syria and her people.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-chemical-weapons-red-flags-and-
false-flags/5583616

rt.com
Turkey grabbing Syrian land by moving
border fence Syrian ambassador to
Russian media
Published time: 5 Apr, 2017 09:12
Turkey has unilaterally moved a border fence deeper into Syrian territory in an apparent land grab
violating Syrias sovereignty, Syrias ambassador to Russia has told RIA Novosti.
Speaking to RIA Novosti, Syrian ambassador Riad Haddad said Turkey has moved the barbed-wire
[border fence] deeper into our territory, exploiting the drying up of Afrin River southeast of the town of
Jandaris, as if it is now Turkish lands.

This is how land grab is being done on Syrian soil, the ambassador stated, stressing we consider such
actions a violation of our countrys sovereignty.
Haddad also said the Turkish army has occupied Idlib governorates Qirbat and Atma districts, while
sending heavy armor to seize territory near the town of Afrin. According to Syrias ambassador, the Turks
have begun preparations to build a wall that would split the captured lands off from Syrian territory.
Turkish troops, tanks, and combat aircraft first crossed into Syria on August 24, 2016. According to the
Turkish government, the offensive dubbed Operation Euphrates Shield was launched to first suppress a
Kurdish insurgency and move it away from the Turkish border, and then fight IS militants in northern
Syria.
In recent months, the Turkish Army and allied Syrian rebels have seized the strategic towns of Jarablus and
al-Bab, while advancing deeper into Syrian territory. Damascus has been adamantly against the Turkish
invasion from the beginning, pointing to it as a complete violation of Syrias territorial integrity.
Last week, Turkey declared Operation Euphrates Shield over, but warned that similar operations are likely
to continue on Syrian soil under different names if Turkeys security is endangered.
Ankaras claims that its military activities in Syria have ended contradict the reality on the ground,
however, ambassador Haddad said, warning that Syria has legitimate reason to repel Turkeys aggression
by any means if its actions in Syrias north do not cease.
https://www.rt.com/news/383557-turkey-land-seizure-syria-
border/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_
campaign=chrome

presstv.ir
PressTV-May gets Saudi honor as UK
bombs rain on Yemen
Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has presented visiting British Prime Minister Theresa
May with the kingdoms highest civilian honor as UK-supplied bombs keep raining on Yemenis
during Riyadh's war on the impoverished Arab country.
Salman presented the Order of King Abdulaziz to May on Wednesday during talks held in the al-Yamamah
palace in Riyadh.
The order is named after the founder of the kingdom, Abdulaziz Al Saud, and is bestowed to citizens of
Saudi Arabia and foreigners for meritorious service.
During the meeting, current bilateral relations and ways the increase ties in all fields were discussed.
Salam also held a luncheon banquet for the visiting British premier which was also attended by several
Saudi dignitaries and the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia Simon Collis.
On Tuesday, May met with Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef after arriving in the
kingdom following a trip to Jordan, where she discussed the expansion of bilateral ties with King Abdullah
II.

Mays visit comes at a time when the UK is under pressure to halt its arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which is
engaged in a military aggression against Yemen.

According to Amnesty international, since the onset of the war in 2015, the US and the UK have sold over
$5 billion worth of weapons to the Riyadh regime, more than 10 times the $450 million they have allegedly
spent to help save Yemeni civilians.
Saudi Arabia -- backed by a number of African and Persian Gulf Arab states -- launched the massive
aggression against neighboring Yemen on March 26, 2015, in an attempt to reinstate former president Abd
Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a close ally of the despotic kingdom, and to crush the popular Houthi
Ansarullah movement. The offensive has so far left over 12,000 Yemeni civilians dead, according to the
latest tallies.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/04/05/516897/salam-may-
riyadh-yemen-order-honor

naturalblaze.com
Microwave Radiation Should Be
Regulated On A Precautionary Basis,
Study Suggests
By Catherine J Frompovich
PubMed published the Abstract of a 2011 science paper titled Long-term exposure to microwave radiation
provokes cancer growth: evidences from radars and mobile communication systems (Yakymenko I1,
Sidorik E, Kyrylenko S, Chekhun V.), which originally was published in Experimental Oncology, 2011
Jun;33(2):62-70. It discusses the alarming epidemiological and experimental data on possible carcinogenic
effects from long term exposures to low intensity microwave radiation.
The paper cites model studies in which rodents indicated a significant increase in carcinogenesis [cancer]
after 17 to 24 months of microwave exposure. Heres a most significant statement taken directly from the
Abstract:
It is now becoming increasingly evident that assessment of biological effects of non-ionizing radiation
based on physical (thermal) approach used in recommendations of current regulatory bodies, including the
International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) Guidelines, requires urgent
reevaluation.
Urgent reevaluation is needed and still ICNIRP refuses to acknowledge non-thermal radiation waves
adverse health effects as of late 2016. In testimony presented during my AMI Smart Meter refusal hearing
before the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissions Administrative Law Court in November 2016, PECO
Energy Company expert witnesses testified they were citing ICNIRP as the expert they rely upon for
EMF/RF/ELF radiation knowledge and industry information. Yet, ICNIRP has been cited for conflicts of
interest, which I introduced into the court record in the first Brief I filed with the court.
Furthermore, Yakymenko, et al stated a clear and most important caveat, which utilities that retrofit AMI
Smart Meters operating on microwaves and emitting all sorts of wavelengths and dirty electricity, aka
sinusoidal waves that can radiate 6 to 8 feet away from the house wiring they travel on:
We also emphasize that the everyday exposure of both occupational and general public to MW
[microwave] radiation should be regulated based on a precautionary principles which imply maximum
restriction of excessive exposure.
Regarding excessive exposure(s), AMI Smart Meters provide 24/7/365 exposures that cannot be turned off
like a microwave oven, cell phone or other electrical appliances. The ZigBee radios in AMI SMs operate at
gigahertz frequenciessimilar to microwave ovens!
And yet, U.S. public utility commissions nationwide are not doing their due diligence in mandating
consumer and environmental protections from utility companies and cell/mast/stingray towers that generate
tremendous microwave exposures! Why arent the PUCs doing their job to protect citizens?
Independent smart meter researcher Warren Woodward produced a video, Nerve Disrupting Frequencies
Radiating from Smart Meters, which documents in sound and visuals the RF wave forms coming off a
Landis+Gyr Focus AXR smart meter.
I think everyone ought to watch the video below and then question whats going on their homes, especially
if their utility meters (electric, natural gas and water) have been retrofitted with AMI Smart Meters. If you
dont know if you have an AMI Smart Meter, call your utility companies and ask them. They have to tell
you if they retrofitted one on to your home without your permission.
Heres Warrens exceptional and timely 16 minute video.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/4NTSejgsjTc?t=8
http://www.naturalblaze.com/2017/04/microwave-radiation-should-
be-regulated-precautionary-basis.html

Atmosphere found around Earth-like

planet GJ 1132b
By Rebecca Morelle Science Correspondent, BBC News
Scientists say they have detected an atmosphere around an Earth-like planet for the first time.
They have studied a world known as GJ 1132b, which is 1.4-times the size of our planet and lies 39 light
years away.
Their observations suggest that the "super-Earth" is cloaked in a thick layer of gasses that are either water
or methane or a mixture of both.
The study is published in the Astronomical Journal.
Discovering an atmosphere, and characterising it, is an important step forward in the hunt for life beyond
our Solar System.
But it is highly unlikely that this world is habitable: it has a surface temperature of 370C.
Dr John Southworth, the lead researcher from Keele University, said: "To my knowledge the hottest
temperature that life has been able to survive on Earth is 120C and that's far cooler than this planet."
Chemical signatures
The discovery of planet GJ 1132b was first announced in 2015. It lies in the Vela constellation in the
southern hemisphere.
One possibility is that it is a 'water world' with an atmosphere of hot
steam
While it is a similar size to Earth, the star it orbits is much smaller, cooler and dimmer than our Sun.
Using a telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, the researchers were able to study the
planet by watching how it blocked some of the light of its host star as it passed in front of it.
"It makes the star look a little bit fainter - and it's actually a very good way of finding transiting planets -
it's how this one was found," said Dr Southworth.
But different molecules in a planet's atmosphere - if it has one - absorb light in different ways, allowing
scientists to look for their chemical signatures when the world transits its star.
The observations of planet GJ 1132b suggest that it has a thick atmosphere containing either steam and/or
methane.
"One possibility is that it is a 'water world' with an atmosphere of hot steam," said Dr Southworth.
The researchers say while it is unlikely that any life-forms could survive on this world, the discovery of an
atmosphere is encouraging in the hunt for extraterrestrial life.
Dr Southworth said: "What we have shown is that planets around low mass stars can have atmospheres and
because there are so many of those in the Universe, it makes it that much more likely that one might have
life."
Commenting on the research Marek Kukula, the public astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich,
said: "This is a nice proof of concept.
"If the technology can detect an atmosphere today, then it bodes well for being able to detect and study the
atmospheres of even more Earth-like planets in the not-too-distant future."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39521344

bbc.co.uk
Syria war: US launches missile strikes in
response to chemical 'attack' - BBC News
Dave Lee North America technology reporter

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionThe Pentagon has released video of missiles being
launched from US Navy ships, targeted at a Syrian airfield.
The US has carried out a missile strike against a Syrian air base in response to a suspected chemical
weapons attack on a rebel-held town.
Fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from two US Navy ships in the Mediterranean. Six people
were killed, the Syrian army said.
It is the first direct US military action against forces commanded by Syria's president.
The Kremlin, which backs Bashar al-Assad, has condemned the strike.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, called it "an act of aggression against a
sovereign nation".
The attack, at 04:40 Syrian time (01:40 GMT), comes just days after dozens of civilians, including many
children, died in the suspected nerve gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionRescue workers said many children were among those
killed or injured in the suspected chemical attack in Idlib
Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Mr Trump branded President Assad a "dictator" who had
"launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians".
Mr Trump said he had acted in America's "vital national security interest" to prevent the use of chemical
weapons.
"Tonight I call on all civilised nations to join us in seeking to end this slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and
also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types," he said.
President Trump's statement in full

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionTrump: "Assad choked out the lives of helpless men,
women and children"
The UK government called the US strike "an appropriate response to the barbaric chemical weapons
attack".
The Pentagon said the Russian military, which supports Syrian government forces, had been informed
ahead of the US action.
In a statement the Pentagon said missiles fired from Navy destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross had
targeted aircraft, aircraft shelters, storage areas, ammunition supply bunkers, air defence systems, and
radars at Shayrat airfield in western Homs province.
The Pentagon added that the strike was intended "to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again".
Analysis: Jon Sopel, BBC North America editor
Rarely has a policy changed so far and so quickly - and rarely has it been acted upon so swiftly.
When President Trump came to office the Syrian leader was seen as a useful ally in the fight against so-
called Islamic State. All talk of regime change stopped.
But the chemical weapons attack changed all that. Within two days, the US has reversed its view on
President Assad, identified targets and struck.
What we don't know is whether this is a one-off act of retaliation, or the start of something more prolonged
against the Assad government. Nor do we know where it leaves relations with Syria's strong ally, Russia.

A White House spokesman said it believed "with a high degree of confidence" that Tuesday's chemical
attack had been launched from the Shayrat airfield by warplanes under the command of President Assad.
He also said the White House believed the substance used was the nerve agent Sarin, which is highly toxic
and considered 20 times as deadly as cyanide.

A statement on Syrian state TV said "American aggression" had targeted a Syrian military base with "a
number of missiles".
The Syrian army spokesman later said the attack had left six people dead, a number of others wounded, and
caused significant damage. He did not say whether the people affected were civilian or military.
A BBC News producer has been sharing reports from people near to the base on social media, with one
describing "total devastation".
The US has led a coalition carrying out air strikes against jihadist groups in Syria since 2014 but this is the
first time it has targeted government forces.
The latest action was welcomed by Syrian opposition group the Syrian National Coalition.
"We hope for more strikes... that these are just the beginning," spokesman Ahmad Ramadan told AFP news
agency.
However, Russia said it was suspending a deal with the US designed to prevent clashes by their air forces
in response to the move.
President Trump had earlier warned that "something should happen" against the Syrian leadership
following the deaths in Khan Sheikhoun, but gave no details.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39523654

https://www.rt.com/news/
Russia suspends flight safety
memorandum over Syria after US missile
strike Foreign Ministry
7 Apr, 2017

Russia has suspended the memorandum of understanding on flight

safety in Syria with the United States amid the US missile strike on
Syrias Shayrat military airfield, according to the Russian Foreign
Ministrys statement.

Without bothering to investigate anything, the US went forward with a demonstration of force, a military
confrontation with a country that is fighting international terrorism, the Foreign Ministrys statement
reads.
The US launched some 60 Tomahawk missiles at the Syrian military airbase in the Homs governorate early
on Friday. The attack came after US President Donald Trump pinned the blame for an alleged chemical
attack in Idlib on Syrias government.
https://www.rt.com/news/383837-russia-syria-flight-safety/

activistpost.com
Chemical Weapons 2017: What Just
Happened In Syria?
By Brandon Turbeville
Yet again, on cue, the Western corporate press is on fire with stories of Assads brutality, and chemical
weapons attacks against civilians. Obviously, the United States, NATO, and their media mouthpieces are
united in condemnation of the Assad government and the Syrian military despite their being no evidence
that it committed the attacks. Indeed, the Western powers may blame Assad all they want but all the
available credible evidence suggests that the deployment of chemical weapons this time around, like all the
others before it, was the work of terrorists and their supporters.
But the evidence does not matter to propagandists and, despite the public appearance that the U.S. President
is battling the Deep State apparatus, it seems now that the Deep State and the head of the country are now
finally reading from the same page.
The Incident
According to a flurry of reports, an incident occurred on April 4, 2017 in Idlib, Syria in the village of Khan
Sheikhoun, where it has been reported that chemical weapons were used or detonated resulting in the death
of at least 58 people including 11 children. And that is all we know about the incident. We do not know it
was an attack. We do not know it was an accident. We only know that whatever happened has been turned
into an international incident aimed at demonizing the Assad government and testing Russia in Syria yet
again.
Assad and the Syrian Government Denies Using Chemical Weapons
For its part, the Syrian government has categorically denied launching chemical weapons against civilians
or terrorists in Idlib. Russia has reaffirmed that the Syrian military is innocent of the charges brought by the
West with a military source telling al-Masdar News that the army has not and does not use them, not in
the past and not in the future, because it does not have them in the first place.
But to listen to the Western corporate press, one would be excused in believing that there was
overwhelming and damning evidence to the contrary as both the press and Western governments continue
to hurl accusations at the Syrian government. Indeed, some outlets have even gone so far to blame Russia
for dropping chemical-laced missiles into Idlib, an impossibility since Russia was not conducting any
airstrikes over Idlib at the time.
The Weapons Depot
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the incident was not a chemical weapons attack but the result
of an SAA airstrike against a terrorist weapons depot that was also being used for the production of
chemical weapons. Major-General Igor Konashenkov, the Defense Ministry Spokesman, stated that the
facility was being used to produce these chemical weapons for shipment to terrorist forces inside Iraq. The
warehouse that was bombed, according to Konashenkov, was being used to both produce and store shells
that contained toxic gas which were then shipped to Iraq and used there. He pointed out that both the Iraqi
government and a number of international organizations have confirmed the use of these types of weapons
by terrorists operating in Iraq.
Konashenkov added that the terrorists used the same type of weapons in Aleppo, where Russian military
experts took samples in 2016. The Russian Defense Ministry claims to have confirmed this information as
being fully objective and verified. The Ministry also claimed that the victims of Khan Sheikhoun
exhibited identical symptoms to those shown by victims in the Aleppo attacks.
According to Russian airspace monitoring systems, yesterday between 11.30 and 12.30 local time the
Syrian aviation carried out an airstrike on the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhun, targeting a major
ammunition storage facility of terrorists and a cluster of military hardware. The territory of this storage
facility housed workshops to produce projectiles stuffed with toxic agents, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov
said.
From this major arsenal, chemical-laden weapons were delivered by militants to Iraq. Their use by
terrorists was confirmed on numerous occasions by international organizations and official authorities of
the country, he said.
Video footage from social networks shows that those affected in Khan Sheikhun demonstrate the same
symptoms of poisoning as the victims of the Aleppo attack had last fall, he added. We assure that this
information is completely unbiased and true.
The terrorists, however, disagree with the Russian statement. As RT reports,
Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, rejected Russias version of the incident,
saying the rebels had no military positions in the area.
Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas, he told Reuters.
Likewise, all the civilians in the area know that there are no military positions there, or places for the
manufacture [of weapons]. The various factions of the opposition are not capable of producing these
substances, he added.
This is false. Khan Sheikhoun is terrorist-held territory and it is held by force. Naturally, the Syrian people
in Khan Sheikhoun are no more interested in being ruled by Neanderthal freaks as any other town in the
country and thus terrorists must be present to maintain order and prevent Syrians from expressing civilized
behavior.
Second, terrorists in Syria have, for years, had the ability to manufacture, produce, and use chemical
weapons. Back in December of 2012, after the death squads managed to capture a chlorine factory inside
Syria, the Syrian government actually issued a warning that the death squads might attempt to use chemical
weapons of this nature in their battle to overthrow and oppress the government and people of Syria
respectively. The Syrian Foreign Ministry stated, Terrorist groups may resort to using chemical weapons
against the Syrian people after having gained control of a toxic chlorine factory.
Likewise, the chemical weapons attacks in Ghouta were initially blamed on Assad and the Syrian
government but later found to be the work of the Western-backed terrorists who had gone so far as to
capture civilians from Lattakia and use them as human stage props for video footage and propaganda
purposes.
It was also reported in August of 2012 that the death squads had managed to capture a missile site
belonging to the Syrian army which contained chemical weapons. The death squads erroneously claimed
that the reason for attacking the site was to prevent the Assad government from using the weapons against
members of the opposition. Regardless, one does not have to speculate very much as to the possibilities
available here in June, the death squads gain access to chemical weapons. In August, they gain access to a
delivery mechanism in the form of missiles.
It is just such a coincidence that should cause one to examine another event which occurred shortly before
the assault on the missile site. In July 2012, Tony Cartalucci of LandDestroyerReport, described reports of
so-called Free Syrian Army militants seen trying on gas masks, along with reports of Libyan chemical
weapon caches & equipment being discovered in Damascus.

Together with the acquisition of the missile delivery capability by virtue of the conquering of the Syrian
missile site and the possession of the chemical weapons themselves via Libya, the acquisition of gas masks
points to the preparation for the launch of an actual chemical attack, or at least the possibility of it, on the
part of the death squads.
As one of the death squad members stated to Reuters in April, 2012, The rebels are getting better at bomb-
making; as you know, desperation is the mother of invention. Reuters also commented that the death
squads were now able to develop more sophisticated bombs due to rare outside donations although
Reuters did not attempt to name those mysterious sources.
Moving forward to August 2012, a false flag plot was discovered which had been hatched between NATO
and Saudi Arabia that would have staged a chemical weapons deployment in Syria either by mercenary
firms or by the NATO-backed death squads, an attack that would subsequently have been blamed on the
Assad government, thus serving as a pretext for NATO intervention and the creation of a buffer zone in
the country.
The source reporting the impending attack stated to Syrian news channel Addounia that a Saudi Arabian
firm had fitted 1400 ambulance vehicles with anti-gas & anti-chemical filtering systems at a cost of
$97,000 dollars each, in preparation for a chemical weapons attack carried out by FSA rebels using mortar
rounds. A further 400 vehicles have been prepared as troop carriers.
Interestingly enough, the attack was set to make use of white phosphorous, sarin and mustard gas. It then
stands as yet another questionable coincidence that, among the weapons possessed by the Libyan regime
and now in the hands of the death squads, was large quantities of bulk mustard agent.
Nevertheless, the potential false flag attack reported by Addounia was set to be launched on densely
populated areas, most likely Daraa, a city on the Syria/Jordan border, after which the newly fitted
ambulances would pour into Syria under the guise of humanitarian aid. Although painted with the labels,
Syrian Peoples Relief, the ambulances would actually be nothing more than armored personnel carriers
designed to capitalize on a manufactured disaster for the purpose of deploying such personnel in order to
create the desired buffer zone.
Furthermore, the same company that manufactured and fitted the ambulances to be used in the attack is one
that is based in Riyadh and was negotiating a contract with the Yemeni government for the manufacture of
military vehicles for the Yemeni army.
In December 2012, a video was obtained by the Syria Tribune and subsequently released in their report and
posted on YouTube which allegedly shows the NATO-backed death squads testing chemical weapons on
lab rabbits.
As the Syria Tribune describes the video,
The video (see here) starts with several scenes showing chemical containers with Tekkim labels (Tekkim is
a Turkish chemicals company) and some lab equipment, while playing Jihadists chants in the background.
A glass box then appears with two rabbits inside, with a poster on the wall behind it reading The Almighty
Wind Brigade (Kateebat A Reeh Al Sarsar). A person wearing a lab mask then mixes chemicals in a beaker
in the glass box, and we see some gas emitting from the beaker. About a minute later, the rabbits start to
have random convulsions and then die. The person says: You saw what happened? This will be your fate,
you infidel Alawites, I swear by ALLAH to make you die like these rabbits, one minute only after you
inhale the gas.
The Syria Tribune also comments that Judging from the rabbits reaction, the gas must be a nerve agent.
The number of containers, if not a bluff, indicates ability to produce a considerable amount of this gas.
Deployment could be by means of a smoke generator placed in the target area, an explosion, possibly a
suicide one, of a chemmed car, or simply by using a humidifier.
In March, 2013, yet another YouTube video was released which contained a clip of a second test of
chemical weapons on captive rabbits by the death squads.
The video also contains an alleged audio recording of a phone conversation between two Free Syrian Army
fighters discussing the details of a plan to carry out a chemical weapons attack capable of impacting an
area the size of one kilometer.
The recording of the phone conversation is supposed to be between two FSA terrorists, one located in Syria
and the other outside of the country. The terrorist inside Syria, Abu Hassan, asks the one on the other end
of the line to send a message to Sheikh Suleiman, a then-terrorist-held military base in Aleppo, and asked
for two chemical bombs . . . . phosphoric so that they could finish this whole thing.
I want them to be effective, states Hassan, adding, The radius of the strike, or reach of the gases, has to
be 1km.
The video also contains a clip of the death squads openly announcing their plans to engage in chemical
weapons attacks, all the while surrounded by bottles of nitric acid and other substances.
Was It Sarin or Something Else?
Writer, journalist, and analyst, Brad Blankenship questions whether or not the attack was actually sarin gas.

First, it was not sarin gas that was used, but was most likely chlorine gas, he says. Victims reported a
smell from the exposure to whatever chemical was used, while sarin gas is colorless, odorless, and
tasteless. The Syrian opposition has had access to the means to produce chlorine gas for some time, has
used these weapons frequently as it is cheap to produce, easy to use, and they receive a steady supply of
chlorine agents from the Saudis, which have at times been ceased by the Syrian Arab army, particularly in
Aleppo where photographs have been released.
Indeed, as Blankenship points out, the terrorists have long had the ability to produce, manufacture, and
deploy chlorine gas as well as other chemical weapons since early on in the conflict.
Why Would The Syrian Government Use Chemical Weapons? Why At
Khan Sheikhoun?
Considering the hysteria over chemical weapons and the constant attempts by Western governments to use
them as an excuse to invade Syria, why on earth would the Syrian government use them even if the
government did indeed retain the weapons? Such an act would be absolutely foolish in terms of world
public opinion and in terms of the opinion of the United Nations. On top of that, Khan Sheikhoun is not
even militarily significant, so why would the Syrian government choose to use chemical weapons at this
location and not somewhere more important?
It is unlikely that such an attack was carried out deliberately by the Syrian armed forces, says
Blankenship. The Syrian Arab army is decisively winning the war at this point in the conflict on
essentially every front a resort to weapons of mass destruction would be not only militarily irrational
(considering Khan Sheikhoun is nowhere near the front line), but would be politically absurd considering
the new US admins statement last week that the Assad government would no longer be the primary target
in Syria. It is important to be skeptical of the idea that a government at war that relies on broad cross-
sectional support from its own people to maintain its sovereignty is willing to attack its own civilians.
Did Chemical Weapons Get Released At All?
To go a bit further down the rabbit hole, there might be a very real possibility that the chemical weapons
attack did not take place at all, even as an unknowing side effect to a Syrian Air Force strike against a
terrorist weapons depot. Only a day after the incident took place, a litany of holes are beginning to show up
in the story posed by Western governments, terrorists, and the corporate Western press.
Sources
One of the first red flags regarding the official story of this incident is the fact that the sole source of the
reports come from the opposition, i.e. the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, White Helmets, and
terrorists themselves.
The SOHR, of course, is a notorious pro-terrorist organization run by one man out of England and funded
by a nameless EU country. SOHR is, at best, only connected to Syria through its connections to terrorists
and Western intelligence agencies.
The White Helmets have been extensively exposed in my previous writings and even more so by Vanessa
Beeley of 21st Century Wire and The Wall Will Fall. One may read for days the treachery of the White
Helmets listed in the articles below. Suffice it to say, however, that the White Helmets are nothing more
than a terrorist support group as well as an ever-ready Hollywood propaganda video team. The group has
been known to stage a number of atrocities allegedly committed by the Assad regime only to be
revealed later as frauds. Indeed, White Helmets supporters even demonstrated how easy it is to fake such
tragic scenes when, during a street demonstration in Europe, the demonstrators painted themselves to look
like victims of the evil Bashar al-Assad. Any evidence produced by this group is completely
untrustworthy and should be regarded as propaganda. That being said, it should be noted that it was this
very group that produced the first videos of the incident which were disseminated throughout the Western
media as fact.

Of course, in this video, it does appear that whether or not the incident was staged or real, children were
actually killed, making the possibility of a staged incident even more gruesome on the part of any group
that may have staged it.
As Mimi al-Laham (aka Syrian Girl) writes,
Several children appear in the videos suffocating from an unknown chemical substance, while others
appear to have unexplained head injuries. It is known 250 people were kidnapped by Al-Qaeda last week
from the nearby city of Hama, which is the same number as the current body count of wounded and killed
civilians.
The Terrorist Doctor
One of the rock stars of this latest incident is alleged doctor, Shajul Islam, a Pakistani British doctor who is
being used as a source for many of the reports being used by Western media and is being represented as a
selfless hero saving innocent lives during this whole event. However, for a doctor in the middle of one of
the biggest gas attacks and atrocities of the war, Islam is quite active on social media and the media in
general. Indeed, one only need access Islams Twitter page to see that the young doctor is tweeting info in
real-time that patients and victims are pouring into the hospital. Shouldnt a doctor be treating these victims
instead of tweeting about them? In fact, at one point, Islam actually put out an offer to video chat with
anyone who wished to interview him. This from a doctor allegedly tending to hordes of emergency
chemical weapons victims.
But there is much more to Islam than meets the eye. In fact, Islam had faced terror charges in England for
kidnapping and torturing two British journalists in Syria. He was even struck off the British medical
register. Other sources, such as Dutch media, have even taken to describing Islam as a rebel, thereby
demonstrating his allegiance to al-Qaeda, an organization not known for its love of innocent civilians.
The organization that sent medical equipment to Islam, Prism The Gift Fund, is being criticized (slightly)
because it provided Islam with the material (which no doubt goes to terrorists and terrorist brigades) which
was supposed to be delivered to refugees.
Questionable Convenient Circumstances
It is also worth noting that the White Helmets, who were operating in the same area as the incident, were
provided with sarin-protective respirators and hazmat suits. Photos exist which show these terrorists trying
on the suits one month ago in the same location as the attack that took place on Tuesday. Despite the nature
of a Sarin attack (contact with skin can cause the same symptoms as inhalation), the photos show the heroic
White Helmets team handling the victims who had, apparently, just been gassed, without their suits and
with no gloves on their hands.
As Laham writes,
The al-Qaeda-linked rebels have claimed the chemical was sarin gas used by the Syrian government;
however, the OPCW has confirmed Syria no longer has chemical weapons and completely dismantled their
stockpiles in 2013.
In contrast, the rebels have not gotten rid of the chemical weapons at their disposal.
According to award winning journalist Seymour Hersch, intelligence reports show the rebels smuggled in
chemical weapons from Libya through Turkey with the approval of Hillary Clinton.
In 2013, so-called moderate rebels had filmed themselves killing rabbits with gas and threatening to kill
religious minorities. ISIS is also known to be in possession of chemical weapons having conducted attacks
on Syrian forces in Deir Ezzor.
However weaponized, sarin would have killed or at least injured unprotected first responders. Sarin can be
absorbed through skin and requires a full body suit; however, the White Helmets appeared to wear only
masks and no gloves while they handled exposed victims. Others in the vicinity appear not to be wearing a
mask at all and are yet unaffected.
Weaponized sarin is a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) capable of killing thousands. If sarin was
indeed used, it must have been a weak, non-weaponized form.
Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media and neo-con politicians have been quick to regurgitate the al-Qaeda-
linked rebels version of the events before any investigation takes place.
Laham also reports that a day prior to the attack, Gulf-based Orient TV ran a story where it stated that
Tomorrow we are launching a media campaign to cover the airstrikes on Hama country side including the
usage of chemical warfare against civilians. What is that but demonstration of foreknowledge of the
attack?
The attack also comes shortly after the United States suggests that it is no longer focused on forcing Assad
to step down. Within days, Nikki Haley and Rex Tillerson began to walk back on that statement and only a
few days after that, just as Steve Bannon is removed from the National Security Council, we have the
attacks at Khan Sheykhoun. Now, Trump himself is claiming that Assad has crossed many, many lines.
When asked about his plan to deal with Syria, he only responded cryptically, youll see.
Syria No Longer Has Chemical Weapons
Faced with one of the most apathetic, distracted, and ignorant populations in the world, the Western
corporate media is accustomed to making numerous ridiculous claims without evidence to back them up.
This time, the narrative is that the Syrian government has used sarin gas. The problem with that claim is
that the Syrian government does not have sarin gas to use. In fact, it gave up all its chemical weapons in
2014, as confirmed by the OPCW. As the BBC reported in June of that year,
The last of Syrias declared chemical weapons have been shipped out of the country for destruction, the
international watchdog OPCW says.
The ship has just left the port, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,
Ahmet Uzumcu, said in The Hague.
Conclusion
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the Syrian government is responsible for the attack in Khan
Sheikhoun. In fact, while an accidental discharge of chemical weapons from a facility bombed by the
Syrian government is possible, there is also the distinct possibility that the attack was actually staged from
the very beginning by Western intelligence agencies and their terrorist pawns operating on the ground in
Syria such as the White Helmets.
After the questionable chemical weapons attack, Western world leaders have reacted like little children on
Christmas day, virtually hopping up and down with excitement at the thought of finally being able to team
up against Syria. Israel has hypocritically condemned attacks on civilians despite the fact that, for Israel,
attacks on civilians is simply part of the national culture. Europes banana republic, France, has also
roundly condemned the Syrian government, sheepishly looking toward Britain and the United States with
wonder in its eyes that begets the question, Are you guys really going to attack Syria? If you are, can we
play to?

Of course, Englands Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and the real deal across the pond have
responded with their own ridiculous rhetoric, with Trump even stating that Assad has crossed a number of
lines for him. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has even threatened to act unilaterally if the
United Nations does not vote to invade and destroy Syria.
Russia, however, has reaffirmed its support for the Syrian government.
Regardless of any disagreement between Donald Trump and the Deep State apparatus which may or may
not have existed previously, it appears that the President and the intelligence community are finally on the
same page.
With Western Europe and Russia at odds over NATOs imperialist agenda in the Middle East, the world
once again faces a dire set of consequences if the confrontation goes from a Cold War to a hot one.
Brandon Turbeville
http://www.activistpost.com/2017/04/chemical-weapons-2017-what-
just-happened-in-syria.html

independent.co.uk
Syria 'fires missiles at Israeli forces'
17 March 2017 / Bethan McKernan Beirut
The Israeli military has said it has shot down one of several anti-aircraft rockets fired at its warplanes by
Syria in the most dramatic military skirmish between the two countries since the outbreak of the Syrian
civil war in 2011.
Air force officials said in a unusual acknowledgement Friday that Israel had struck several targets inside
Syria overnight.
The four Israeli planes operating in Syrian airspace were allegedly attacked by three Syrian surface-to-air
missiles, one of which was intercepted by the Israeli Aerial Defence System, known as Arrow.
Syria conflict: Six years of war in numbers
Rocket sirens wailed throughout the night in Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley. Residents said that an
explosion thought to be the deflected rocket was heard a few minutes later.
There were no reported casualties, injuries or damage to buildings during the nights events. The Jordanian
military also said that debris from the incident landed inside their borders.
It is extremely rare for the Syrian authorities to retaliate to Israeli operations. While Syrian state media
initially did not report on the altercation, a later statement said Syria had managed to shoot down an Israeli
jet over Palmyra a claim Israel immediately denied.
Israel had carried out strikes near Palmyra to help Isis terrorist gangs and in a desperate attempt to raise
their deteriorating morale and divert attention away from the victories which Syrian Arab Army is making
in the face of the terrorist organisations, a Syrian army statement read.
In Pictures: The crisis unfolding in Syria
Israel largely stays out of the complicated conflict next door, although the border region is restive and
authorities have retaliated to occasional stray rockets with reprisals.
Most Israeli air strikes in Syrian territory in the last few years have aimed to prevent weapons smuggling to
Iranian-allied Lebanese group Hezbollah, which fights alongside Bashar al-Assads government against
Syrias rebels, although the Israel Defence Force (IDF) does not comment on the nature of the missions.
Hezbollah, like Iran, is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to voice his
concerns that Moscows allies in Tehran are trying to establish a permanent military base in Syria.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-israel-
fires-three-missiles-idf-jets-serious-military-incident-2011-palmyra-
jordan-valley-a7634776.html

latimes.com
Nearly 300 died in Mosul airstrike,
making it one of the deadliest attacks on
civilians in recent memory
5 April 17 / Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Iraqi officials said Wednesday that they had removed nearly 300 bodies from the site of an apparent
airstrike in west Mosul, the largest civilian death toll since the battle against Islamic State began more than
two years ago and among the deadliest incidents in decades of modern warfare.
More bodies were being removed Wednesday as the U.S.-led coalition investigated whether it was
responsible, Iraqi officials blamed Islamic State, and the injured continued to suffer.
From Our Partners: President Trump Orders Military Strike on Syria
The attack came after government officials urged residents at the start of the Oct. 17 offensive to stay in
their homes. Responsibility for the deaths has been disputed, as has the number killed.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the top U.S. general commanding the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria, has said that there was at least a fair chance that the U.S.-led coalition was responsible for the
strike, but if so, it was an unintentional accident of war, and we will transparently report it to you.
The coalition has not released an estimated death toll. It is still investigating, with results expected by
months end, said U.S. Army Col. Joe Scrocca, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the coalition.
The Pentagon has acknowledged 229 civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since the
U.S. campaign against Islamic State began. Independent monitoring groups such as the London-based
nonprofit Airwars put the casualty figures much higher, at about 2,700 civilians killed in airstrikes in both
countries during that time.
Iraqi civil defense officials called to the scene of the apparent airstrike on March 17, in the Jadidah
neighborhood, initially said more than 200 people had been killed. At least 50 bodies were visible in the
area they were excavating a week after the attack.
As of Wednesday, they had removed 278 bodies, many of them children, and it was unclear how many
more were buried beneath the rubble, said Civil Defense Lt. Col. Taha Ali.
But Sabah Numan, a spokesman for the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service, which has led the push into the
city since the offensive began in October, insisted that far fewer bodies had been recovered 61 and
that the total death toll was likely lower, 100 to 130. He also raised questions about whether the damage
was caused by an airstrike at all.
He noted that Iraqs Defense Ministry released a statement this week saying field inspections by military
commanders at the site found no evidence of airstrikes
Coalition fighter jets had bombarded the neighborhood at the request of Iraqi commanders, Numan said,
but an expert team found no sign of holes that would prove it had sustained an airstrike.
Instead, Numan said they found walls had been booby trapped by militants, who parked a car full of
explosives nearby, forced civilians into their homes and then used the houses to fire at security forces.
ISIS planted IEDs in the houses, Numan said of Islamic State. We checked the walls.
He said three government committees investigated, one from Prime Minister Haider Abadis office, and
they all reached the same result.
When Abadi met with military commanders this week, he said, ISIS stores explosives in some buildings
and when a strike happens, it may cause an explosion and subsequent casualties. The prime minister said
he had instructed commanders to take greater precautions to avoid civilian casualties even as they
accelerate the campaign to recapture the city.
Access to Jadidah and other neighborhoods near the front line was restricted after The Times and others
visited the site a week after the alleged strike.
Numan said commanders only limited access for reporters and other civilians to ensure their safety.
Troops were still instructing residents to shelter in place, although sometimes, as the situation needs, we
evacuate people.
We took care of the civilians and tried to keep them alive, as troops advanced from east to west Mosul,
Numan said. We want to do our job and defeat ISIS soon, but not causing casualties to civilians. So we are
balancing the speed of the fighting and the safety of civilians.
He said troops have not slowed their pace in the wake of the strike, freeing Jadidah and several nearby
neighborhoods, including the Maghreb neighborhood Wednesday.
Jadidah is fully safe, he said. Its behind us.
But many of the injured are still reeling.
Suhaida Hussein was seven months pregnant with her first child, a boy, when the attack occurred.
Hussein, 19, and her husband were buried in the rubble. When relatives and neighbors rescued them, they
were unable to walk, both having suffered potentially crippling spine injuries.
Hussein later said her first thought wasnt about her back: It was about her pregnancy, which she thought
was over.
"When my husband came to me, I was crying and saying 'My son is gone,'" Hussein recalled from her
hospital bed this week. "He said, 'I don't care. I just want to see you.'" As it turned out, the fetus was fine.
But Hussein remains hospitalized, still unable to move her legs.
She and her husband are being treated at a hospital 50 miles east in Irbil, but doctors told them they will
have to leave in a few days. Theyre not sure where they will go, and hope help will arrive soon for the
injured.
I dont want to go back, said her husband, Khaled Aswa Jasim, 34, a vegetable vendor, from his bed next
to hers in their cramped hospital room. I lost my house, my car, even my back. Anywhere, just not
Mosul.
molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-mosul-casualties-20170405-story.html

bbc.co.uk
Libor: Bank of England implicated in
secret recording - BBC News
By Andy Verity BBC economics correspondent
A secret recording that implicates the Bank of England in Libor rigging has been uncovered by BBC
Panorama.
The 2008 recording adds to evidence the central bank repeatedly pressured commercial banks during the
financial crisis to push their Libor rates down.
Libor is the rate at which banks lend to each other, setting a benchmark for mortgages and loans for
ordinary customers.
The Bank of England said Libor was not regulated in the UK at the time.
The recording calls into question evidence given in 2012 to the Treasury select committee by former
Barclays boss Bob Diamond and Paul Tucker, the man who went on to become the deputy governor of the
Bank of England.
'Serious pressure'
Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate, tracks how much it costs banks to borrow money from each
other. As such it is a big influence on the cost of mortgages and other loans.
Banks setting artificially low Libor rates is called lowballing.
In the recording, a senior Barclays manager, Mark Dearlove, instructs Libor submitter Peter Johnson, to
lower his Libor rates.
He tells him: "The bottom line is you're going to absolutely hate this... but we've had some very serious
pressure from the UK government and the Bank of England about pushing our Libors lower."
Mr Johnson objects, saying that this would mean breaking the rules for setting Libor, which required him to
put in rates based only on the cost of borrowing cash.
Mr Johnson says: "So I'll push them below a realistic level of where I think I can get money?"
His boss Mr Dearlove replies: "The fact of the matter is we've got the Bank of England, all sorts of people
involved in the whole thing... I am as reluctant as you are... these guys have just turned around and said just
do it."
Mr Dearlove declined to answer questions from BBC Panorama.

Until recently a member of staff at each of the biggest banks, the Libor submitter, would say what interest
rate they thought the bank would have to pay to borrow money. An average would be taken to arrive at
Libor.
Banks have been fined more than 6bn for allowing submitters to be influenced by requests from traders or
bosses to take into account the bank's commercial interests, such as trading positions.
The phone call between Mr Dearlove and Mr Johnson took place on 29 October 2008, the same day that Mr
Tucker, who was at that time an executive director of the Bank of England, phoned Barclays boss Mr
Diamond. Barclays' Libor rate was discussed.
Mr Diamond and Mr Tucker were called to give evidence before the Treasury select committee in 2012.
Both said that they had only recently become aware of lowballing.
Panorama played the October 2008 recording to Chris Philp MP, who sits on the Treasury committee.
He told the programme: "It sounds to me like those people giving evidence, particularly Bob Diamond and
Paul Tucker were misleading parliament, that is a contempt of parliament, it's a very serious matter and I
think we need to urgently summon those individuals back before parliament to explain why it is they
appear to have misled MPs. It's extremely serious."
Mr Diamond told the BBC: "I never misled parliament and I stand by everything I have said previously."
Mr Tucker did not respond to our questions.
Peter Johnson, the Barclays Libor submitter, was jailed last summer after pleading guilty to accepting
trader requests to manipulate Libor.
Two traders who made requests for Mr Johnson to move Libors up or down, Jay Merchant and Alex Pabon,
were found guilty last June of conspiracy to defraud along with another submitter, Jonathan Mathew.
However, the jury could not reach a verdict on two other traders then on trial, Ryan Reich and Stelios
Contogoulas. The Serious Fraud Office requested a retrial which concluded last week. Both Mr Reich and
Mr Contogoulas were unanimously acquitted.
Panorama also played Mr Contogoulas the October 2008 recording. He said he believed that if it had been
played during the criminal trials it might have affected the outcomes.
He said: "That's the thing, you know in these trials that we went through they separated everything,
separated trading requests and lowballing. So anything that has to do with this they don't go in. So you're
asking me do I think that if all this was in would it make a difference? Probably, is the answer."
Lowballing
The Serious Fraud Office which brought the Barclays prosecutions told Panorama that evidence of
lowballing was provided to the defence.
They also say they are still investigating lowballing and that they follow the evidence "as high as it goes
and aim to charge the most senior people wherever there is a realistic prospect of conviction".
The Bank of England said: "Libor and other global benchmarks were not regulated in the UK or elsewhere
during the period in question.
"Nonetheless, the Bank of England has been assisting the SFO's criminal investigations into Libor
manipulation by employees at commercial banks and brokers by providing, on a voluntary basis,
documents and records requested by the SFO."
Panorama: The Big Bank Fix will be broadcast on BBC One on Monday 10 April at 20.30.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39548313

City regulators investigate Barclays boss

Jes Staley
10 April 17 / BBC Online
Jes Staley, the chief executive of Barclays, will lose his annual bonus after two regulators opened an
investigation into his conduct in a whistleblowing case.
He had tried to discover who wrote a whistleblowing letter to the bank.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) will investigate his
conduct.
Barclays will also dock Mr Staley's pay by as much as 1.3m, or all of his annual bonus.
He will also be issued with a formal written reprimand.
Mr Staley told the Barclays board he had been trying to protect a colleague who had experienced personal
difficulties in the past from what he believed to be an unfair attack. He has apologised to the board.
The board has accepted his apology and said that Mr Staley "continues to have the board's unanimous
confidence".
His attempt to uncover the author came to light early this year.
An investigation by external law firm Simmons and Simmons found Mr Staley "honestly, but mistakenly,
believed that it was permissible to identify the author of the letter".
In the event, the author of the letter was not identified and no further action was taken.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39551691

rt.com
Syria situation an international armed
conflict after US missile strike Red
Cross to RT
Published time: 9 Apr, 2017 17:24Edited time: 10 Apr, 2017 06:28
The Red Cross has characterized the current situation in Syria as an international armed conflict after the
US missile strike on Syrian Shayrat airfield near Homs, the ICRC regional spokesperson told RT.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesperson for the Near and Middle East region,
Ralph El Hage, spoke with RT about the shift in the organizations assessment of the ongoing Syrian
conflict. The ICRC previously regarded the conflict as an internal conflict.
When a military of a certain state attacks the military of another state on the territory of that state, and
there are legitimate military targets, that amounts immediately to international armed conflict, he told
RT.
The US attacked Syrian Shayrat Airbase near Homs on Friday night in retaliation to the suspected chemical
weapons attack in southern Idlib province. Washington immediately blamed the Assad government for the
incident, which reportedly killed dozens of civilians, claiming that Damascus used the airfield to launch the
attack. The accusations have not been supported by any conclusive evidence yet.
READ MORE: Experts should be sent to Syrian airbase attacked by US to carry out chemical probe
Russian MoD
The Syrian government has rejected the allegations. According to the countries military, the Syrian
airstrike hit a warehouse which terrorists used to produce and store weaponized chemicals.
Read more

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called the US strike a clear response on humanitarian
purposes. Speaking to RT, the ICRC spokesperson did not pass judgment on Americas intentions, but
stated that the humanitarian approach should include delivering humanitarian aid medical aid, water
aid, emergency food to people, who are in besieged areas, to people who are in the frontlines, as well as
protection to the people.
Any military operation by a state on the territory of another without the consent of the other amounts to
an international armed conflict, International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Iolanda
Jaquemet said on Friday.
El Hage also emphasized that in case of further airstrikes, the world will see only more human suffering,
civilians suffering in all over the country.
Although humanitarian organizations continue to provide humanitarian aid to Syria, it is not enough,
according to El Hage. Humanitarian aid that we and other humanitarian organizations together with the
Syrian Arab Red Crescent deliver to people is not enough. What is needed is that parties to the conflict,
that are warring parties in Syria today, respect international humanitarian law and all the principles of the
law in order to prevent human casualties, human suffering, unnecessary civilian suffering. And that is what
is important today.
https://www.rt.com/news/384127-us-strike-red-
cross/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_ca
mpaign=chrome
newsweek.com
Spain arrests suspected Russian hacker at
the request of U.S. authorities
By Isabelle Gerretsen On 4/10/17 at 11:07 AM
Spanish police have arrested a Russian hacker accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election at the
request of U.S. authorities.
Pyotr Levashov was arrested in Barcelona on 7 April on a U.S. computer crimes warrant, according to a
spokeswoman for Spains National Court who wished to remain anonymous, the Associated Press reported.
Levashovs wife, Maria, told Russian media that police stormed the apartment they were staying in on
vacation over allegations that her husband created a computer virus that was linked to Trump's election
win." She said her husband was being held at the request of the American authorities in connection with
cybercrime.
U.S. intelligence agencies claimed in January 2016 that Russian hackers had broken into the servers of the
Democratic National Convention and obtained emails from Hillary Clintons campaign manager, John
Podesta. The emails were later published by Wikileaks.
The FBI is currently investigating allegations of Russian influence on the result of the U.S. election, though
Moscow has denied the claims.
Cyber security expert Brian Krebs said on his blog that Levashov is believed to be one of the worlds most
notorious spam kingpins who uses the alias Peter Severa and is currently listed seventh on the Top 10
Worst Spammers list published by Spamhaus.
Vasily Nioradze, a spokesman for the Russian embassy, confirmed Levashovs arrest but would not
comment on any U.S. extradition order when contacted by the AP.
The U.S. Department of Justice said that the case was criminal rather than a national security concern;
however, Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Departments criminal division told Reuters he had
no information to provide and authorities have not said whether Levashov is being extradited. The U.S.
embassy in Madrid had not replied to Newsweeks request for comment at time of publication.
http://www.newsweek.com/russian-hackers-spain-pyotr-levashov-
arrest-us-election-581546?piano_t=1

rt.com
Lavrov: Avoiding Idlib attack probe
would mean intl community not looking
for truth
If an international inquiry into the chemical attack in Syria's Idlib is not instituted, it will mean that the
international community is not interested in establishing the truth about the matter, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his US counterpart in Moscow.
I would like to stress that we are 100 percent sure that, if our colleagues in the UN or in The Hague will
steer away from this investigation, it will basically mean that they do not want to find out the truth, the
Russian Foreign Minister said, adding, that Russia will insist on launching the investigation.
Read more

At the same time, Lavrov the official noted that Moscow that Washington is ready to support the idea of
launching an international inquiry into the alleged chemical weapons attack in Idlib. He also stressedthat
any UN Security Council resolution that focused on solely blaming Damascus and not on investigating the
Idlib incident would be counterproductive.
During the joint news conference, the US State Secretary Rex Tillerson repeated his claims that the US had
information which confirms that the US strikes against the Syrian troops were justified.
The perspective from the US supported by the facts that we have are conclusive that the chemical
weapons attack carried out in Syria was planned, directed and executed by the Syrian regime forces and
we are quite confident of that, the top US diplomat stated.
Tillerson underlined, however, that the US had no information that indicates that there was any
involvement by the Russian forces into this attack.
The Russian Foreign Minister went on to say that President Vladimir Putin is ready to return to
implementing the memorandum of understanding on flight safety in Syria with the United States; if
Washington reaffirms its commitment to the goal of fighting terrorism.
He emphasized, however, that Moscow still considers the US claims concerning the chemical weapons
being used by the Syrian government forces unfounded and lacking evidence.
Tillerson said the issue of sanctions was not raised during his discussions with Lavrov, but noted that the
US is "mindful" of the seriousness of Russian interference in the US elections.
As for the question of the interference with the elections, it is fairly well established. We are mindful of the
seriousness of that particular interference into our elections and I am sure that Russia is mindful of it as
well, the US Secretary of State said.
He also addressed that situation in Ukraine by saying that the lack of progress in resolving the Ukrainian
crisis could become another hurdle in bilateral relations between the US and Russia.
Until full progress is made under the Minsk Accords, the situation in Ukraine will remain an obstacle to
improvement in relations between the US and Russia, Tillerson said.
Read more

Lavrov countered, saying, as in case of the alleged chemical attack in Idlib, no solid evidence was ever
presented to the public to back up the claim.
The Russian Foreign Minister also noted that Moscow believes there are attempts to hamper cooperation
between Russia and the US and to increase tensions between the two countries, adding that it is a
shortsighted approach.
The two diplomats emphasized that Moscow and Washington are planning to work on improving bilateral
relations and announced the creation of a joint expert group tasked with analyzing the situation and
addressing sources of mutual concern.
We agreed to designate special representatives from both the Russian Foreign Ministry and the US
department of State to extensively [analyze] those sources of mutual concern that arose in our relations
over the recent years without any emotions or deliberate animosity, Lavrov said.
Tillerson said the two sides agreed to establish a working group to address smaller issues and make
progress towards stabilizing our relationship so that we can then address more serious problems.
The data which, according to the US, purports to be evidence is very flimsy and relies on mainly
open source materials, by which they [the US] mean evidence from jihadi sources, evidence from al Nusra
[Front] and what they called the social media, the former British ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, told
RT, commenting on discussions between Tillerson and Lavrov.
He also said that the evidence available so far to the US and its allies is very uncertain, if you read it
carefully. The former diplomat also said that the US lacks coherency in its policy on Syria, which has
no direction at all and makes the US a very difficult partner.
https://www.rt.com/news/384524-lavrov-tillerson-news-conference/

presstv.ir
PressTV-Two billion drinking
contaminated water: WHO
Dramatic improvements are needed in ensuring access to clean water and sanitation worldwide, the
World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday, warning that nearly two billion people currently
use fecal-contaminated water.
Hundreds of thousands of people die each year because they are forced to drink contaminated water, the
WHO said, urging large investments to help provide universal access to safe drinking water.
Today, almost two billion people use a source of drinking-water contaminated with feces, putting them at
risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio, Maria Neira, head of WHO's public health
department, said in a statement.
Contaminated drinking-water is estimated to cause more than 500,000 diarrheal deaths each year and is a
major factor in several neglected tropical diseases, including intestinal worms, schistosomiasis and
trachoma, she added.
In 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) -- a series of
aspirational targets for eradicating poverty and boosting human well-being, including vowing to ensure
universal access to safe and affordable water and sanitation by 2030.
But according to a fresh report Thursday, published by WHO on behalf of UN-Water, countries will fall far
short of this goal if they do not radically increase their investments.
The report welcomed the fact that countries had on average raised their annual budgets for water, sanitation
and hygiene by 4.9 percent over the past three years.

But 80 percent of countries acknowledge that their financing is still not enough to meet their nationally-set
targets for increasing access to safe water and sanitation, it found.
In many developing countries, current national coverage targets are based on achieving access to basic
infrastructure, which may not always provide continuously safe and reliable services, WHO warned in a
statement.
The World Bank has meanwhile estimated that investments in infrastructure will need to triple to $114
billion per year -- not including operating and maintenance costs -- in order to meet the SDG targets.
This is a challenge we have the ability to solve, said Guy Ryder, Chair of UN-Water and head of the
International Labor Organization.
Increased investments in water and sanitation can yield substantial benefits for human health and
development, generate employment and make sure that we leave no one behind, he added.
(Source: AFP)
http://presstv.ir/Detail/2017/04/13/517840/WHO-water-health-
cholera-UN-General-Assembly-budget-investment

Rise of the robots could spark fresh wave

of migration as jobs are automated,
warns World Bank chief
World Bank president Jim Yong Kim raised concern about
impact of automation
Low-skilled work providing millions of jobs in poorer
countries could fall away
Wider access to internet could also mean people can see what
they are missing
By James Tapsfield, Political Editor For Mailonline
Published: 09:46, 12 April 2017
The 'rise of the robots' could trigger a fresh wave of migration as jobs in developing countries are
automated, the head of the World Bank has warned.
More widespread access to the internet could also fuel flows as people will be able to see how wealthy
other parts of the globe are, according to Jim Yong Kim.
The economist made the grim prediction as he urged progress on stamping out poverty around the world.
In a speech at the London School of Economics last night, Dr Kim said low-skilled jobs such as making
clothes had traditionally provided millions of jobs in developing countries

However, a new generation of machines including robots and 3D printers meant far fewer staff would be
needed in future.
Dr Kim, president of the Washington-based organisation, said wealthier countries were also starting to 're-
shore' jobs as automation slashed costs.
Low-skilled jobs are going to go, and the traditional path to economic development where you go from
agriculture, to light manufacturing, to all-out industrialisation that path is probably not going to be open
to huge numbers of low-income countries, he said.
Were already seeing what people are calling re-shoring of light manufacturing because automation makes
things cheaper.
Dr Kim said broadband would give impoverished families a window into the developed world and make
them long to copy it.
That could mean millions coming to Europe in search of a better future and the frustration at not being
able to achieve their aims might even spark new wars.
He claimed that it was essential to help poorer nations improve before technology created a fresh crisis.
Keeping up with the Joneses used to be about keeping up with your neighbours, he said in his speech.
But its no longer only about the Joneses living around you because of connectivity, the Joneses could be
anywhere in the world.

Africa's population of around 1.2billion people had 226million smartphones at the end of 2015, but the
World Bank expects the figure to have tripled by 2020.
The world's poorest nations will get a view of how different their lives could be in countries such as
Britain, and they are likely to want to improve their own situation.
If migrating is proved impossible it could result in conflict and volatility.
I worry that if theres no opportunity to achieve those aspirations, frustration may very well lead to
fragility, conflict, violence, extremism, and eventually migration, Dr Kim said.
Were already seeing worrying trends two billion people live in countries affected by fragility, conflict,
and violence.
Because of rising aspirations, the task is much more urgent than we ever thought, and we have to move at
a greater scale than we ever have before.
Dr Kim said the toxic cocktail of problems made the World Banks mission to stamp out poverty even
more important.
He urged government agencies to work with the private sector to pump trillions of pounds into countries
that need help.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4404266/Rise-robots-spark-
fresh-wave-migration.html

Putin 'moves military forces' to North

Korea border as world prepares for WAR
18 April 17 / Express Online / Oli Smith
Eamonn Holmes discusses Amanda Holden's RACY outfit
Russia has reportedly moved military vehicles towards the city, which is within striking distance of North
Korea.
The dramatic move, unconfirmed by the Russian government, was spotted by residents in the border city
and posted on social media.
This comes as North Korea warned that they are prepared for all-out war with the US, while China pleads
for the two powers to back down from escalation.

Since the emergence of the Vladivostok footage, fears have grown that North Korea could become the
trigger for a conflict involving the US, China and Russia.
Both China and Russia consider North Korea as a necessary buffer state, which they need to keep stable for
their own national security.
According to the reports, a military convoy of eight surface-to-air missiles, part of Russian Air
Defence, were on the move.
The S400 anti-aircraft missiles were moved to Vladivostok, where Vladimir Putin already has a major navy
base.

North Korea has warned the US not to take provocative action, after holding a military parade that showed
off new intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Officials from the despotic regime have said that the country will "hit back with nuclear attacks" if
necessary.
There is mounting speculation that current leader Kim Jong-un will soon order a new nuclear test.
This comes after a US aircraft carrier group continues to move towards the region.

President Donald Trump has already pledged to remove the threat from the Korean peninsula.
China has pleaded for the US and North Korean to back down from the war-footing.
On Friday, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned that "conflict could break out at any moment".
He said: We call on all parties to refrain from provoking and threatening each other and not to let the
situation get to an irreversible and unmanageable stage."
Air China, owned by the Chinese government, decided to end its service between Beijing and Pyongyang,
amid fears of an escalation.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/792225/Russia-Putin-North-
Korea-nuclear-
Trump?utm_source=traffic.outbrain&utm_medium=traffic.outbrain&ut
m_term=traffic.outbrain&utm_content=traffic.outbrain&utm_campaign=
traffic.outbrain

rt.com
Did Theresa May time her snap election
to limit the damage of an expenses
scandal?
Published time: 18 Apr, 2017 16:09Edited time: 19 Apr, 2017 07:12
The snap election called for June 8 is likely to remove the need for the Tory government to face up to 20
potentially damaging by-elections linked to the fiddling of expenses in the last nationwide vote.
The fate of the 20 Tory MPs alleged to have lied about their past election expenses is still to be decided,
although unconfirmed reports suggest the Director of Public Prosecutions is set to announce they will face
legal action for reportedly breaking local spending limits in the 2015 general election.
But the new ballot date would bypass any need for by-elections in these constituencies, which could eat
into the governments current majority of 12 seats.
Critics suggest this could also act as a method of muffling the scandal.
All the constituencies under investigation for excess expenses at the last GE [general election] won't have
a by-election if there's merit in the allegations, former Conservative chairman Lord Ashcroft tweeted.
But barrister Francis Hoar corrected the Tory peer, arguing that any MP convicted of an election expenses
offence [would] lose his seat regardless of how many elections he had won in the interim.
It is unclear whether the unnamed 19 MPs plus Thanet South MP Craig Mackinlay will face deselection
ahead of the June 8 ballot.
Mackinlay has been interrogated by police and is not yet in the clear after his 2,000-vote majority was
allegedly won in part thanks to the prime ministers joint chief of staff, Nick Timothy, being stationed at
the constituency in an undeclared role.
The case has been outstanding since the May 2015 election, with a dozen police forces passing on
information to the Crown Prosecution Service. The 10-month investigation is now nearing an end, with
time for police action expiring two years after an election.
Most of the complaints refer to the RoadTrip 2015 battlebus, which was recorded under national spending
but mostly supported marginal seats, with individual candidates using it as part of their local campaigns.
The Electoral Commission recently fined the Tories 70,000 ($89,000) for significant failures in their
2015 general election spending declarations.
https://www.rt.com/uk/385198-tory-expenses-scandal-
election/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm
_campaign=chrome

rt.com
Hard to say no: Johnson hints
parliament vote against Syria invasion
may be ignored at US request
It will be very difficult for the UK government to refuse military assistance to the US in Syria if they
expressly ask for it, British FM Boris Johnson has said, responding to an MPs question on if he intends to
heed parliaments vote against the incursion.
British Foreign Secretary Johnson was on Tuesday briefing MPs on the situation in Syria and North Korea,
when he was posed with a question by former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office and Conservative MP, Alistair Burt. Burt asked what the UK governments reaction
would have been if, instead of just hitting Syrias Shayrat airfield on April 7, Washington decided to first
enlist military help from Britain.

When asked if he and the British government consider themselves to be bound by the past decision not to
intervene in Syria and plan to reinvigorate the parliamentary debate or if not, what might the United
Kingdom be able to do to demonstrate its force and resolve, Johnson hinted that the UK is ready to back
Washington not only politically but also militarily.
We were not asked for specific support, but it is my beliefI stress that no such decision has yet been
takenthat were such a request to be made in future and were it to be a reasonable request in pursuit of
similar objectives, it would be very difficult for the United Kingdom to say no, the top British diplomat
said, without elaborating.

Johnsons Tuesday comments seem to indicate a departure from a previous UK policy on Syria that has
been in place since a dramatic House of Commons vote on the issue in 2013, which ended in a crushing
defeat for interventionist bid championed by former Prime Minister David Cameron.
Alistair reminded Johnson of the Parliaments decision to vote down the motion that would have authorized
military involvement into Syria back in August 2013 under fairly similar circumstances. At the time, the
rebels accused the Syrian government of perpetrating a sarin gas attack in a Damascus suburb. The
allegations were strongly denied by the Syrian authorities, which, in turn, blamed the militants, claiming it
was a false-flag operation. Later, former US Secretary of State John Kerry confessed that British MPs lack
of support for the mulled US airstrikes in Syria at the time led to delay in decision-making in Washington
and thus derailed the operation.

While the defeat in Parliament dealt a heavy blow to Camerons foreign policy ambitions, he conceded,
saying that although he strongly believes in the need for military intervention in Syria, it is clear that
the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military
action.
Johnson reiterated that in attacking Syria the United States has acted with the full support of the British
Government, adding that the only one conclusion that could be reached based on the known evidence of
the alleged chemical attack in rebel-held Idlib province is that the Assad regime almost certainly gassed
its own people.

Weighing in on the implications of the US strike, which he praised as an emphatic message by the US
administration, he alleged that it has changed the terms of trade in Syria and lay foundation for
political change.
Americas determined response creates an opportunity to break the deadlock and pave the way for a
political settlement of Syrias tragedy, Johnson said, adding that Moscow should pursue the Syrian
authorities to launch this process.

Johnson also commanded UKs own efforts in investigating the chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun,
claiming that it is thanks in large measure to UK diplomacy, the United Nations now has a joint
investigative mechanism with a mandate to identify any party responsible for chemical attacks in Syria.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov cast doubt on the impartial character of the OPCW fact-
checking missions, entrusted with investigation of the alleged chemical attack, calling it a very strange
coincidence that they are both chaired by the British citizens.
Lavrov argued that composition of the missions runs contrary to the principles of an international
organization, the structures of which must be maximally balanced.
https://www.rt.com/uk/385239-johnson-syria-us-military-support/

French election: Emmanuel Macron and

Marine Le Pen to fight for presidency
24 April 2017 / BBC Online

Centrist Emmanuel Macron has gone through to the second round of the French election, where he will
face far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Mr Macron, a former banker, is seen as a political newcomer - and ran without the backing of an
established party.
After topping Sunday's vote, he is now favourite to win the run-off on 7 May.
It is the first time in six decades that neither of France's main left-wing or right-wing parties has had a
candidate in the second round.
How tight is the race?
Mr Macron won 23.8% of votes in the first round, while Ms Le Pen took 21.5%. The turnout was high, at
almost 79%.
The nearest challengers, centre-right Franois Fillon and hard-left Jean-Luc Mlenchon, fell behind with
just over 19% each.
But several political rivals are now expected to unite behind Mr Macron in the run-off vote, in a bid to keep
Ms Le Pen's Front National (FN) from power.
What does Mr Macron stand for?
At 39, Mr Macron could become the youngest president France has ever had - and the first president in the
Fifth Republic who does not belong to a major party.
Mr Macron was current President Francois Hollande's economy minister but quit to create his own party,
En Marche, which pushes a liberal, pro-EU agenda.

Macron: "I hope to become your president"

His campaign promises include:
A 50bn (43bn; $53bn) public investment plan to cover job-
training, exit from coal and shift to renewable energy,
infrastructure and modernisation
Big cut in corporation tax and more leeway for companies to
renegotiate 35-hour week
Cut in jobless rate to 7% (now 9.7%)
Ban on mobile phone use in schools for under-15s and a 500
culture pass for 18 year olds
In a victory speech to supporters, Mr Macron borrowed language favoured by his rival to describe himself
as the patriotic choice for France.
"I hope that in a fortnight I will become your president. I want to become the president of all the people of
France - the president of the patriots in the face of the threat from the nationalists," he said.

What about Ms Le Pen?

Ms Le Pen took over the FN leadership from her father in January 2011 and helped her party secure big
gains in regional elections.

Her party wants to slash immigration, clamp down on free trade, and overturn France's relationship with
Europe.

Her campaign has called for:

Negotiation with Brussels on a new EU, followed by a referendum
"Automatic" expulsion of illegal immigrants and legal immigration
cut to 10,000 per year following an immediate total moratorium
"Extremist" mosques closed and priority to French nationals in
social housing
Retirement age fixed at 60 and 35-hour week assured
Following the first round results, Ms Le Pen made an "appeal to all patriots", saying a vote for her was the
key to the "survival of France".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39689385

theguardian.com
MH370: independent experts mistrust
'confidence' about plane's location |
World news
Elle Hunt
3-4 minutes

Independent investigators looking into the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have expressed
scepticism about the Australian authorities statement they are newly confident about the planes location.
On Friday Australias national science agency, CSIRO, published its modelling of the drift of a Boeing 777
flaperon consistent with the one from MH370 that was found washed up on La Runion in July 2015.
CSIRO said the findings reaffirmed the Australian Transport Safety Bureaus conclusion that the crash site
of MH370 was to be found in the new search area the ATSB identified at the end of last year.

Modelling by the CSIRO reaffirms the Australian Transport Safety Bureaus conclusion that the wreck is
probably north of the search area
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/21/australias-
science-agency-more-confident-it-knows-mh370-crash-location
The ATSB said in a statement that the 25,000 sq km area identified at its First Principles Review summit in
December had been validated by the new CSIRO report as the most likely location of MH370.
It went so far as to narrow it down to the south end of that, near 35 deg S latitude.
Pointing to the CSIRO report, the ATSB said it was more confident than ever about the planes final resting
place.
But members of the independent group of experts following the search for MH370 have accused the ATSB
of using the research to bolster its preconceived ideas about where the plane is.
Victor Iannello and Richard Godfrey, of the so-called Independent Group, interrogated the CSIRO data and
how it had been interpreted in a blog post published on Sunday.
Much of the area at 35 deg S latitude had in fact been scoured by the ATSB in its search of the southern
Indian Ocean that concluded without success in January, they said.
Godfrey, an aerospace engineer based in Frankfurt, said the data had been put forward by the ATSB as
supporting a preconceived idea as to the planes location reached at the First Principles Review summit.
A MH370 endpoint at 35 deg S latitude does not fit the fact that the underwater search has already
discounted this location to a 97% level of certainty.
Godfrey noted that the analysis had been prepared for and funded by the ATSB.
Both CSIRO and the ATSB have been contacted by Guardian Australia for their response.
Godfrey said he believed a crash at 30 deg S latitude, well north of the seabed search, fit the available
data published by CSIRO as well as the timing and location of debris that had been found.

Australias multimillion-dollar search effort for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight tested the limits of
human endeavour and failed. Where did it go wrong?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/19/why-hasnt-
mh370-been-found
The zone from 30.5 deg S to 32.0 deg S was discounted by the CSIRO report, owing to unspecified other
evidence.
Iannello said the modelling by both Godfrey and CSIRO indicated that recent claims about the most likely
crash site of MH370 should be carefully reviewed by independent investigators.
But there is no indication that the search for the missing plane will be renewed, it being dependent on
credible new evidence coming to light as to its location.
Australias transport minister, Darren Chester, said on Friday the findings of the CSIRO report were not
specific enough to warrant a new search effort.
Malaysia holds primary responsibility for the investigation.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/25/mh370-
independent-experts-mistrust-confidence-about-planes-location

bbc.co.uk
France elections: Le Pen steps aside as
National Front leader
5-6 minutes

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionThis video has been removed for right reasons
Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced that she is stepping aside as leader of
her National Front (FN) party.
The move comes just a day after she reached the second round of the French election, where she will face
centrist Emmanuel Macron.
Ms Le Pen told French TV she needed to be above partisan considerations.
Opinion polls suggest Mr Macron is firm favourite for the second round but Ms Le Pen said: "We can win,
we will win."
The French term she used signalled that the move to step aside would be temporary.
She told France 2 that France was approaching a "decisive moment".
Ms Le Pen said her decision had been made out of the "profound conviction" that the president must bring
together all of the French people.
"So, this evening, I am no longer the president of the National Front. I am the candidate for the French
presidency," she said.
The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says this is a symbolic act intended to show her concerns are for the
country as a whole and not for her party, and that she is reaching out for the voters of candidates defeated
in the first round, particularly those of the Republicans' Franois Fillon.
Meanwhile, also on Monday, Mr Fillon told party leaders that he "no longer had the legitimacy" to take the
party into legislative elections that will follow next month's presidential run-off.
He said he would become "an ordinary activist like any other".
Ms Le Pen took over the FN leadership from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in January 2011.

'Hollande's baby': BBC's Hugh Schofield on the Le Pen interview

Marine Le Pen has gone straight on to the attack. If the polls are to be believed, she has a lot of ground to
make up - and she wants to hit Emmanuel Macron hard and early.
The ideological battle lines are clear. From now until 7 May, she will portray her rival as representing a
kind of anti-France. Nothing in his programme, she said in her TV interview, suggested he had one iota of
love for France; she, by contrast, is the patriot.
The other line of attack is to play up his past associations with President Franois Hollande. Mr Macron is
"Hollande's baby", she said in the interview. This is clever politics, because the same argument was used
before the first round by Franois Fillon's Republicans, whose votes she now needs.
If Mr Macron was unacceptable then, she is saying, then he is still unacceptable now. So vote for me.
She won 7.6 million votes on Sunday - the strongest ever result for a FN candidate, and 2.8 million more
than her father won in 2002.
Her party wants to slash immigration, clamp down on trade, and overturn France's relationship with
Europe.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionHollande: "What's at stake is our idea of France"
Her campaign has called for:
Negotiation with Brussels on a new EU, followed by a referendum
"Automatic" expulsion of illegal immigrants and legal immigration
cut to 10,000 per year following an immediate total moratorium
"Extremist" mosques closed and priority to French nationals in
social housing
Retirement age fixed at 60 and 35-hour week assured
Mr Macron, a former economy minister, is widely expected to win the run-off vote on 7 May.
On Monday, he won the backing of President Hollande, to go with that of two defeated candidates.

President Hollande said the far right would threaten the break-up of Europe, "profoundly divide France"
and "faced with such a risk, I will vote for Emmanuel Macron".
He said his former economy minister would "defend the values which will bring French people together".
Mr Fillon and Socialist Benot Hamon both urged their supporters to vote for Mr Macron.
Mr Macron, 39, has never stood for election before, and if he wins would become France's youngest-ever
president.
His campaign promises include:
Cut 120,000 public sector jobs and bring down the budget deficit
A 50bn (43bn; $53bn) public investment plan to cover job-
training and shift to renewable energy
Slash corporation tax from 33% to 25% and let companies
renegotiate 35-hour week. Unify the pension system
 Bolster EU ties and the eurozone, higher tariffs to protect
European industry, common border force

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionVoters take our yellow chair challenge
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39696861

Arkansas executes murderers Jack Jones

and Marcel Williams
25 April 2017
Image copyright AFP Image caption Jack Jones (L) and Marcel Williams
have both been on death row since the mid-1990s
The state of Arkansas has executed two prisoners on death row after the US Supreme Court rejected their
last-minute appeals.
Jack Jones and Marcel Williams were both sentenced to death for rapes and murders committed in the
1990s.
Arkansas controversially scheduled eight sudden executions when it found out its supply of a drug used in
lethal injections expires in late April.
It is the first double execution on the same day in the US for 17 years.
The state's decision to plan eight executions in just 11 days was prompted by the realisation that its
stockpile of midazolam - one of three drugs used together in lethal injections - would expire at the end of
the month.
Human rights groups, defence lawyers, and drug companies all objected to the decision.
But on Thursday, Ledell Lee became the first person to be executed in Arkansas since 2005, after the US
Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the scheduling of the executions and the Arkansas Supreme Court
overturned a ruling blocking the use of a different drug.
'Inhumane' executions
Both Jack Jones and Marcel Williams had filed their own legal challenges before their executions on
Monday night.
Attorneys for Jones had argued he could suffer from a "torturous death" because he may be resistant to
midazolam.
Lawyers for Williams had said it might be difficult to find a vein on their client for the lethal injection
because of his 400lb (180kg) weight.
Media captionThe widower of Jack Jones' victim has no sympathy for
him. "My wife suffered big time," says James Phillips
Williams was sentenced to death in 1997 for kidnapping, raping and murdering Stacy Errickson. He also
abducted and raped two other women.
His execution was put on hold minutes before he was scheduled to die, as his lawyers raised concerns that
Jones' execution had been "inhumane".
But a district judge allowed the execution to go ahead after a brief hearing.
Media captionLedell Lee maintained his innocence until his death
Williams' lawyers said that Jones was still moving more than five minutes after he received the injection
that was supposed to make him unconscious.
But other witnesses quoted by local media disputed their version of events, arguing that Jones had showed
no signs of distress.
Jones was convicted in 1996 of raping and strangling Mary Phillips and attempting to murder her 11-year-
old daughter.
In his final utterance, he apologised to the girl he nearly killed, who is now an adult.
"I hope over time you could learn who I really am and I am not a monster," witnesses quoted him as saying.
Ledell Lee: First execution in Arkansas in 12 years
US death sentences fall to 40-year low
Crowdfunding to witness son's execution
The two men were among eight that the state wanted to execute over the course of 11 days in April before
its supplies of midazolam expired.
Four of the scheduled executions have been delayed by the courts. Another is scheduled for Thursday 27
April.
Like many US states, Arkansas has struggled to find the drugs it needs to carry out executions.
One of the legal challenges to the series of executions was lodged by McKesson Corporation, which makes
the drug vecuronium bromide - part of the three-drug lethal injection cocktail.
The company claimed that the state had intentionally misled them, saying the drug would be used in health
clinics for medical purposes. When McKesson found out it would be used in executions, it said it issued a
refund and demanded the chemical be returned - which it never was. The state made no comment on the
claims.
"We believe we have done all we can do at this time to recover our product," the company said in a
statement after the state Supreme Court overturned a brief injunction.
Human rights groups have been heavily critical of the accelerated pace of executions.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The eight men that
Arkansas plans to execute
Amnesty International said Arkansas' decision was a "shameful backslide against prevailing trends away
from the death penalty".
Ahead of Monday's executions, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union had called for them, and
the execution scheduled for Thursday, to be cancelled.
"Carrying out these three executions on this schedule will violate the individualized consideration that the
constitution and justice require and further overstep the bounds of basic human dignity," Cassandra Stubbs
wrote.
But earlier in April, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said he was fulfilling his responsibilities.
"I have a responsibility to the voters, I have a responsibility to my oath of office, but I also have
responsibility to a higher power, God and eternity, and I understand that," he said.
"I feel comfortable in my understanding of my responsibilities both in terms of faith and scripture and in
terms of as governor."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39695668

Johnson: Difficult to say 'no' to Syria

strike
27 April 2017 / BBC Online
Boris Johnson says it would be very difficult for the UK to refuse the US if it asked for support in another
military strike on Syria.
The foreign secretary said MPs would not necessarily have a vote on any proposed joint action.
The US carried out a missile strike against a Syrian air base days after a chemical attack that left 80 people
dead and hundreds wounded.
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad denied his forces were responsible.
Mr Johnson claimed the Assad regime had "unleashed murder upon his own citizens with weapons that
were banned almost 100 years ago".
In recent years the convention has been that MPs get a vote on military action, but with Parliament about to
dissolve ahead of a general election that could be put in doubt.
"I think it would be very difficult if the US has a proposal to have some sort of action in response to a
chemical weapons attack," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"And if they come to us and ask for our support - whether it's with submarine-based cruise missiles in the
Med... in my view - and I know it's also the view of the prime minister - it would be difficult for us to say
'no'."
Asked if the Commons would need to be consulted ahead of any military strike, Mr Johnson commented: "I
think that needs to be tested.
"It would be very difficult for us to say no - how exactly we were able to implement that would be for the
government, for the prime minister to decide - but if ... the Americans choose to act again and they ask us
to help, as I say I think it would be very difficult to say 'no'."
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said Mr Johnson's comments were "very significant", especially
given he had said that this was "in his and the prime minister's view".
She said Mr Johnson had suggested the attack on civilians in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun had
been, to use his phrase "unquestionably carried out by President Assad" and that "it would be very difficult"
for the UK government "to refuse" a request to back an American strike "and potentially without going to
the Commons".
The law does not require the government to win a Commons vote before launching military action.
In deploying its armed forces, the government acts under the royal prerogative but because the UK's
constitution is largely unwritten, nobody is quite sure how far that extends.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39730685