Russia has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution sponsored by the UK, France, and the US condemning the Syrian government for a suspected chemical weapons attack in the Arab country.

Kremlsprecher Dmitri Peskow hat ein Treffen von US-Außenminister Rex Tillerson mit dem russischen Präsidenten Wladimir Putin bestätigt. Eine Vertreterin der US-Botschaft bestätigte am Mittwoch in Moskau, das Gespräch mit Putin habe kurz nach 18.00 Uhr Ortszeit begonnen.

Critics of Team Trump‘s top white nationalist, Steve Bannon, have long suspected that Bannon was using his old right-wing propaganda outlet Breitbart to plant damaging stories about his White House contemporaries—mainly chief of staff Reince Priebus and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom are seen as not sufficiently far-right enough for Bannon‘s tastes.

Trumps Schwiegersohn Jared Kushner ist der Topberater des US-Präsidenten. Keiner hat so viele Aufgaben übernommen. Auch gegen Trumps Rechtsnationalisten geht er vor.

(31.8.2016) The former head of Breitbart has been hired by the troubled presidential campaign.
Donald Trump is losing and he knows it. The Republican presidential candidate now has just a 15 per cent chance of winning in November, according to the statistician Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight prediction model. Silver, who called every single state correctly in the 2012 election, has joined a chorus of commentators describing this as Trump’s “lowest moment” in his 15-month campaign.

(12.8.2016) There has been some speculation in GOP circles about whether Trump might drop out of the campaign. This is possible, but I doubt it. The more likely scenario, if Trump does not want to be elected president, is that he will keep saying and doing things that any freshman political science student in college would know will doom his candidacy, and that after he loses a potential landslide to Hillary Clinton, will shout from the rooftops: „I was robbed!“

“I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Trump said when asked by a New York Post reporter if he still felt confidence in Bannon.
“I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary,” the president said, seeming to hint that Bannon – who began working on the Trump campaign only a few months before the election – was less instrumental in orchestrating his surprise victory against Hillary Clinton in November.

In just a brief statement, he managed to portray Bannon as unimportant, ineffective, and on thin ice.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals für Sanity (V.I.P.S.) veröffentlichte am 11.April 2017 einen offenen Brief mit dem Titel: „Syrien: War es wirklich ein „Chemiewaffen-Angriff?“ an den Präsidenten der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. In zwölf Punkten werden die Ereignisse seit 2013 zum Einsatz von Giftgas in Syrien bis zur derzeitigen Eskalation mit den immer gleichen Vorwürfen der U.S.A. und ihren Alliierten, die syrische Regierung hätte Giftgas in Idlib eingesetzt, hinterfragt.

(2014) Auf Camp Stanley hat vor kurzem ein Bauboom eingesetzt. Neue Lager werden eingerichtet. „Der Stützpunkt lagert grosse Mengen von Waffen und Munition und hat empfindliche Missionen, die Anforderungen der Sicherheitsüberprüfung für langfristiges Personal sind viel restriktiver als die der meisten militärischen Anlagen“, hiess es.

Im Übrigen sei davor gewarnt, nach dem misslungenen Versuch, der syrischen Regierung den Einsatz von Chemiewaffen in die Schuhe zu schieben, diese Wiederholung in der Ukraine zu testen.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he would “not be surprised” if Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was assassinated in the country’s upcoming presidential election next month, in an interview published Monday.

In comments made to Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Lieberman appeared to allege that—like the proxy groups that Tehran backs in the Middle East, such as Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip—there are deep internal rivalries in the Iranian regime.

(6.4.2017) “The chemical attack in Syria — one of the worst atrocities we have seen in years — was made possible by Iran and Russia’s ongoing support of President Assad,” Joseph Lieberman, the current chairman of the United Against Nuclear Iran advocacy group, stated. “The IRGC is the main means of support — financial and otherwise — for the Syrian regime and terrorist organizations throughout the region.“

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Der Entwurf fordert allerdings detaillierte Angaben über die Lufteinsätze des syrischen Militärs, darunter auch Flugpläne und —bücher vom 4. April, dem Tag des angeblichen Giftgasangriffs in Idlib. Diese Informationen sollen bei der Ermittlung helfen, hieß es.

Wie am Dienstag aus US-Diplomatenkreisen am Sitz der Vereinten Nationen in New York verlautete, soll der Sicherheitsrat gegen 15 Uhr (Ortszeit, 21 Uhr MESZ) über den Resolutionsentwurf abstimmen, den die USA, Frankreich und Großbritannien in das mächtigste UN-Gremium eingebracht hatten.

Two dozen ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Trump to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib and to pull back from his dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President