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Iran Shuts Off Oil Tanker Tracking System As US Sanctions Start 

November 6, 2018

Iran Shuts Off Oil Tanker Tracking System As US Sanctions Start 

The US on Monday (Nov 5) is reimposing disciplinary measures targeting Iran’s oil, shipping, insurance, and banking sectors in what US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called “the toughest sanctions ever placed” against Iran. In response, Tehran has reportedly turned off all oil tanker tracking systems as the sanctions take effect today.

Analysts at TankerTrackers.com, a watchdog that monitors production, refinement, shipping, and trading of crude oil on a global scale, revealed in late October all Iranian tanker vessels turned off their transponders to avoid international tracking for the first time since 2016.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen a blanket black-out. It’s very unique,” TankerTrackers co-founder Samir Madani told Sputnik News.

Madani said with the transponders turned off, the vessels can only be monitored using private satellite imagery. He believes that such a shift to lesser transparency is a ploy by Iran’s leadership to keep the international supply chains open amid US sanctions.

“Iran has around 30 vessels in the Gulf area, so the past 10 days have been very tricky, but it hasn’t slowed us down. We are keeping watch visually,” said co-founder Lisa Ward.

The analysts suggested that going dark could pose significant problems in pinpointing the date when a tanker loaded its crude cargo.

Between 2010 and 2015, when Iran was slapped with international sanctions, its oil industry discovered that it could keep crude on tankers off the Gulf coast to avoid supply chain disruptions.

According to TankerTrackers.com’s research, there are currently six tankers with a total capacity of 11 million barrels moored offshore as floating storage, which allows Iran to continue deliveries.

Iran is the third-largest oil producer in OPEC, and the country’s First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri revealed in late October that Tehran had been exporting 2.5 million barrels per day over the past few months, said Sputnik.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Assad Explains Why He is Not Ruling Out Turkish, Saudi Invasion of Syria

February 16, 2016

Assad Explains Why He is Not Ruling Out Turkish, Saudi Invasion of Syria

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad spoke to AFP news agency in an exclusive interview on the developments in Syria and the region.
Members of Saudi Special Forces (File)
© AFP 2016/ FAYEZ NURELDINE
Sweet Dream? Saudi Arabia Mulls Removing Syria’s Assad by Force

Talking about a possible foreign ground invasion in Syria, Assad did not rule out the possibility of a Saudi, Turkish intervention saying, “Logically, intervention is not possible, but sometimes reality is at odds with logic, particularly when there are irrational people leading a certain state. That’s why I don’t rule that out for a simple reason: Erdogan is a fanatical person with Muslim Brotherhood inclinations. He is living the Ottoman dream. For him, the collapse which took place in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria is something personal.””This threatens his political future on the one hand, and his fanatical Islamist ambitions on the other. He believes that he has an Islamist mission in our region. The same applies to Saudi Arabia. The collapse of the terrorists in Syria is a collapse of their policies. I tell you that this process is surely not going to be easy for them, and we will certainly confront it,” Assad said in an interview as cited by Syrian official agency SANA.

Talking about the current situation in Syria and the coverage of the Syrian crisis by Western media, Assad said, “The cause of this suffering is the terrorists, not the Russian shelling, as claimed by Western media, and when one cause for migration is the almost five-year-old embargo against the Syrian people, naturally my, and every Syrian official’s first task, is to fight terrorism essentially using Syrian capabilities, but also using our friends’ support in the fight against terrorism.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Former Defense Secretary Warns US is Pushing Towards Nuclear Apocalypse

December 7, 2015

Former Defense Secretary Warns US is Pushing Towards Nuclear Apocalypse

The United States is on the brink of a new nuclear arms race that will elevate the risk of nuclear apocalypse to Cold War levels, former Secretary of Defense William Perry warned on Thursday.

Perry, who from 1994 to 1997 served as Pentagon chief under President Bill Clinton, delivered his remarks at an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group

“We’re now at the precipice, maybe I should say the brink, of a new nuclear arms race,” he said. “This arms race will be at least as expensive as the arms race we had during the Cold War, which is a lot of money.”

The Pentagon is starting a major overhaul of its nuclear triad, made up of bomber, submarine and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) nuclear options. Perry called for the breaking of the triad by dismantling the ICBM stockpile.

ICBMs, he said, “aren’t necessary … they’re not needed. Any reasonable definition of deterrence will not require that third leg.”

The guided missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) launches a Tomahawk cruise missile
© FLICKR/ U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
US’ New Nuke-Armed Missiles ‘Inherently Destabilizing’

In an August assessment, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments projects that it will cost more than $700 billion over the next 25 years to recapitalize the nuclear triad.

Perry said spending that money is foolish considering the United States is both short of cash for other programs and capable of a robust nuclear deterrence already, Defense News reported.

The risk of nuclear war is exacerbated by the deterioration of the relationship between Moscow and Washington that had been formed after the fall of the Soviet Union. Without clear military-to-military communication between those two nations, the risk of an accidental conflict increases, Perry said.

“Today – probably I would not have said this 10 years ago – but today we now face the kind of dangers of a nuclear event like we had during the Cold War, an accidental war,” he said.

“I see an imperative: to stop this damn nuclear arms race from accelerating again.”

 

The Myth of a Russian ‘Threat’

September 2, 2015

The Myth of a Russian ‘Threat’

Pentagon

Not a week goes by without the Pentagon carping about an ominous Russian “threat”.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey entered certified Donald “known unknown” Rumsfeld territory when he recently tried to conceptualize the “threat”; “Threats are the combination, or the aggregate, of capabilities and intentions. Let me set aside for the moment, intentions, because I don’t know what Russia intends.”

So Dempsey admits he does not know what he’s talking about. What he seems to know is that Russia is a “threat” anyway — in space, cyber space, ground-based cruise missiles, submarines.

And most of all, a threat to NATO; “One of the things that Russia does seem to do is either discredit, or even more ominously, create the conditions for the failure of NATO.”

So Russia “does seem” to discredit an already self-discredited NATO. That’s not much of a “threat”.

All these rhetorical games take place while NATO “does seem” to get ready for a direct confrontation with Russia. And make no mistake; Moscow does view NATO’s belligerence as a real threat.

It’s PGS vs. S-500

The “threat” surge happens just as US Think Tankland recharges the notion of containment of Russia. Notorious CIA front Stratfor has peddled a propaganda piece praising Cold War mastermind George Kennan as the author of the “containment of Russia” policy.

The US intel apparatus don’t do irony; before he died, Kennan said it was now the US that had to be contained, not Russia.

Containment of Russia – via the expansion of the EU and NATO — has always been a work in progress because the geopolitical imperative has always been the same; as Dr. Zbigniew “The Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski never tired of stressing, it was always about preventing the – threatening — emergence of a Eurasian power capable of challenging the US.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20150825/1026161727/myth-of-russian-threat.html#ixzz3kaTYeiEE

Are the American Youth Ready for Conscription?

June 30, 2015

Are the American Youth Ready for Conscription?

The shining future that America once had is all but a page note in the history books now. Record unemployment, failed foreign policies and domestic strife is the new normal. And how is the brain trust in DC going to solve these problems? National service for all 18 – to 28-year-olds!

In America today, there are close to 50 million people living in poverty and there are more than 100 million people that get money from the federal government every month. As the middle class continues to disintegrate, poverty is climbing to unprecedented levels. Even though the stock market has been setting record high after record high, the amount of anger and frustration boiling just under the surface in our nation grows with each passing day.

As an example of just how bad off joe-sixpack is these days, the WSJ notes that — “Only 38% said they could cover a $500 repair bill or a $1,000 emergency room visit with funds from their bank accounts.” A person quoted in that article said — “A solid majority of Americans say they have a household budget, but too few have the ability to cover expenses outside their budget without going into debt or turning to family and friends for help.”

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/radio_connecting_the_pieces/20150626/1023889810.html#ixzz3eY7opQLD

Ron Paul Fears The CIA Is The Biggest Threat To Americans’ Liberty

June 3, 2015

Ron Paul Fears The CIA Is The Biggest Threat To Americans’ Liberty

As the Senate scrambled to pass the USA Freedom Act this evening, reinstating the agency’s ability to spy on Americans, Ron Paul points out that US intelligence organizations have always – and will continue – to operate outside the law; with Daniel McAdams noting the CIA “is sort of the President’s own Praetorian Guard.” As Sputnik News reports, before Americans applaud a minor step toward transparency, Paul warns that they should recognize the corrosive nature of the CIA, “They are a secret government,” operating way above the law, and are “way out of control.”

“[The CIA] is sort of the President’s own Praetorian Guard,” Daniel McAdams, from the Institute of Peace and Prosperity, said on the Ron Paul Liberty Report.  “We know…that he sent assassination squads, he sent people to monitor Martin Luther King, and all sorts of things like this.”

“This is like his own personal army which is accountable to no one,” McAdams adds:

As Sputnik News reports, according to Paul, the CIA could be an even bigger threat to liberty than McAdams suggests. A covert army that doesn’t answer to Congress, the Supreme Court, or even the president.

“That, to me, was the most frightening experience in Washington, is there were black budgets. We never knew exactly how much money was spent,” Paul says.

Those secret budgets have allowed the CIA to carry out some pretty shady practices over the years. Chiefly, assassinations.

…

“There are certainly a lot of theories about the CIA being involved in even domestic assassinations, and they certainly are now involved in presidential directed assassinations,” Paul says.

“The US has covertly and overtly influenced elections overseas a number of times,” McAdams says. “It’s a very open secret that the CIA infiltrates monitoring organizations like the OSCE with their personnel.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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