Die US-Regierung drohte nach der Doppelwahl von Sonntag mit weiteren Sanktionen gegen die Regierung von Präsident Maduro. Washington werde die wirtschaftliche und diplomatische Hilfe für das Guaidó-Lager verstärken, hieß es von dieser Seite. „Die USA werden mehr unternehmen, um der Nationalversammlung und ihrer legitimen Führung durch verstärkten Druck gegen die Diktatur, ihre Führer und Verbündeten innerhalb und außerhalb Venezuelas zu helfen“, sagte der US-Sondergesandte für Venezuela Elliott Abrams.
Daily Archives: 7. Januar 2020
Sat. Jan. 25 – Global Day of Protest – No War On Iran!
The Trump administration is dragging the United States into a war with Iran that could engulf the whole region and could quickly turn into a global conflict of unpredictable scope and the gravest consequences.
The people of the world need to rise up and stop it. For all who believe in peace, for all who are opposed to yet another catastrophic war, now is the time to take action. On Saturday, January 25 in cities across the globe, there will be protests against a new war in the Middle East. Please join us.
A coalition of anti-war groups around the world has just issued a call for a Global Day of Protest for #NoWarOnIran. The Feb. 15 2003 Global Protest against war on Iraq was the biggest day of protest in history. Let’s build. Get involved:
Mike Prysner Speech: No War on Iran! Troops Out of Iraq!
(04.01.2019)
Mike Prysner gives a powerful anti-war speech at the demonstration against Trump’s bombing of Iraq and potential war against Iran on January 4 in downtown Los Angeles at Answer Coalition’s National Day of Action.
Mike Prysner Protests Obama‘s Wars
Iraq War Vet Mike Prysner
Protests Obama‘s Wars
Veterans for Peace
White House
December 16, 2010, 10 am
News Analysis: Importing Qatari gas helps Kuwait cut expense, pollutants: experts
Kuwait and Qatar signed on Sunday a long-term sale and purchase agreement for the annual supply of up to 3 million tons of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to Kuwait.
Pelosi‘s move to boost moderate Elissa Slotkin, who will „lead“ the House resolution to restrict Trump‘s war powers, is a dismissal of progressives @RoKhanna, @BernieSanders & others who have already passed legislation to restrict Trump‘s ability to go to war with Iran.
Pelosi to Introduce War Powers Resolution to “Limit the President’s Military Actions Regarding Iran”
„This week, the House will introduce and vote on a War Powers Resolution to limit the President’s military actions regarding Iran. This resolution is similar to the resolution introduced by Senator Tim Kaine in the Senate. It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days.
The House Resolution will be led by Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. Congresswoman Slotkin is a former CIA and Department of Defense analyst specializing in Shia militias. She served multiple tours in the region under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.“
Yeah, I don’t know why people are up in arms about this. Many other countries have multiparty democracies, where several parties come together in a coalition to govern. In another country, I’d be in a Labor Party like Jacinda Ardern. Our primary field would cover 2-3 parties.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Already Changed D.C. It Hasn’t Changed Her Much.
She isn’t especially interested in compromising with those who don’t share her values, and isn’t afraid to be the lone “no” vote, as she was last January, when she was the only Democrat to vote against funding the government because it meant continuing to fund ICE. Twelve months later, it is clear she isn’t trying very hard to amass power in Congress. Her heroes are Bernie Sanders, who withstood party pressure decade after decade in the Senate, and Howard Thurman, a mentor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s who believed in merging the spiritual and political.
Is this Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s Democratic Party now?
„Since 2014, the percentage of Democrats identifying as liberal has increased at an even faster rate of two points per year on average,“ wrote Gallup‘s Lydia Saad of the numbers.
The Gallup data is consistent with more recent polling conducted by CNN, too. In CNN‘s mid-December national poll, 50% of respondents called themselves liberals as compared to 36% who chose the term moderate and 10% conservative.
Presidential candidate @BernieSanders hammers Joe Biden for his Iraq War, NAFTA votes. “I just don’t think that that kind of record is going to bring forth the kind energy we need to defeat Trump.”
AOC: ‚In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party‘
Asked for a profile by New York Magazine about what role she might play as a member of Congress should Biden capture the White House, the freshman House Democrat from New York responded with a groan.
“Oh God,” she said. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.”
After 16 years of war in Iraq, trillions of dollars, the deaths of 4,500 U.S. troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the Iraqi government is now trying to throw us out of their country. All that suffering, all that death, all that huge expenditure of money, for what?
Pompeo again declines to present evidence of ‚imminent‘ threat that led to strike against Iranian general
Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, is pushing for the declassification of Trump‘s formal notification to Congress over Soleimani‘s killing, which has sparked a dangerous escalation between the two longtime foes.
Several sources have told CNN that the notification was brief, contained few operational details and essentially laid out the President‘s authorities to carry out the strike.
It’s no laughing matter ?
(05.01.2020)
George Carlin: „We Like War!“
(recorded 1992)
Song: Rockets and Penises in the Persian Gulf
Artist: George Carlin
Album: Jammin‘ in New York
George Carlin: We Like War
(1992)
I’d like to talk a little bit about the war in the Persian Gulf… biiiiiig doings in the Persian Gulf. You know my favourite part of that war? It’s the first war we ever had that was on every channel plus cable… and the war got good ratings too, didn’t it? Got good ratings! Well, we like war!!! We like war! We’re a war-like people! We like war because we’re good at it! You know why we’re good at it? Cause we get a lot of practice. This country’s only 200 years old and already, we’ve had 10 major wars. We average a major war every 20 years in this country so we’re good at it! And it’s a good thing we are; we’re not very good at anything else anymore! Huh? Can’t build a decent car, can’t make a TV set or a VCR worth a fuck, got no steel industry left, can’t educate our young people, can’t get health care to our old people, but we can bomb the shit out of your country all right! Huh? Especially if your country is full of brown people; oh we like that don’t we? That’s our hobby! That’s our new job in the world: bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya, you got some brown people in your country, tell them to watch the fuck out or we’ll goddamn bomb them! Well when’s the last white people you can remember that we bombed? Can you remember the last white— can you remember ANY white people we’ve ever bombed? The Germans, those are the only ones and that’s only because they were trying to cut in on our action. They wanted to dominate the world! BULLSHIT! THAT’S OUR FUCKING JOB!!!
ABC der Offenheit: Was ist Open Government?
„Wissen ist offen, wenn jede:r darauf frei zugreifen, es nutzen, verändern und teilen kann – eingeschränkt höchstens durch Maßnahmen, die Ursprung und Offenheit des Wissens bewahren.“
Regierung will weniger gefragt werden
Es sei wünschenswert, »wenn wir zu einer gemeinsamen und für alle Seiten tragfähigen Übereinkunft kommen könnten, die auch eine Reduzierung des Frageaufkommens einschließen sollte«. Kleine Anfragen sind ein wichtiges Instrument im Rahmen der Kontrollfunktion des Bundestages gegenüber der Regierung.
Defence secretary Ben Wallace makes statement in the Commons on Iran – watch live
Defence secretary Ben Wallace updates MPs – returning to the House of Commons after their Christmas break – on the latest in the Middle East, following the assassination of Iran military leader Qassem Suleimani last week. He makes the statement in place of Boris Johnson, who is chairing a meeting of the UK national security council to discuss the crisis.
Jeremy Corbyn accuses Boris Johnson of providing ‚cover‘ to Trump over assassination of Iran general
Mr Corbyn branded the drone strike on the leader of Iran’s feared Quds Force an “assassination” and told the House of Commons that it was widely regarded as illegal.
And he accused the prime minister of hiding away from scrutiny after Mr Johnson sent defence secretary Ben Wallace to answer MPs’ questions on the 3 January killing in Baghdad.
Die Kulturzerstörer
Die Bundesregierung schweigt dazu. Klar Position bezieht sie hingegen zu Maßnahmen Irans. So erklärte etwa Außenminister Heiko Maas nach der Mitteilung der iranischen Regierung, man werde die Beschränkungen des Atomabkommens erst dann wieder in vollem Umfang akzeptieren, wenn alle anderen Vertragsparteien ihre Verpflichtungen einhielten: „Das, was Iran jetzt angekündigt hat, werden wir nicht einfach so achselzuckend hinnehmen können“. „Achselzuckend nimmt die Bundesregierung freilich nicht nur die Ankündigung des US-Präsidenten hin, im Falle eines iranischen Gegenschlags mit der Zerstörung iranischen Kulturguts mutwillig ein Kriegsverbrechen zu begehen. Schon den völkerrechtswidrigen Mord an Soleimani und an weiteren hochrangigen Militärs hatte Berlin nicht als Verbrechen klassifiziert.
‘US entitled to defend itself’ Britain backs Trump over Iran strike that killed Soleimani
(05.12.2019)
In the absence of Mr Johnson, who is on a Caribbean holiday with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, Defence minister Ben Wallace said Washington has a right to respond to earlier attacks from Iran that resulted in an assault on the US embassy in Baghdad.
I‘ve written to Boris Johnson requesting an urgent Privy Council briefing and answers to questions following the US assassination of Qassem Suleimani.
(03.01.2019)
EU HR Borrell meets Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, France, Italy and United Kingdom: roundtable
Josep BORRELL, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, meets with Heiko MAAS, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany; Jean-Yves LE DRIAN, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France; Luigi DI MAIO, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Italy; Dominic RAAB, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State of the United Kingdom, on 7 January 2020, in Brussels.
Foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy are meeting to discuss Iran and Libya. Journalist Lucy Hough reports from Brussels
Iran FM vows proportionate response to US terror act after assassination of General Soleimani
Elsewhere in his interview, Zarif responded to a question if it was worth speaking to Trump and said, „It doesn‘t need speaking. He has to realize that he has been fed misinformation. And he needs to wake up, and apologize. He has to apologize, he has to change course.“
Israeli defense officials told security cabinet ministers that the likelihood of an Iranian response against Israel is low as of now
“I was supposed to meet Soleimani at the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi to Iran” Iraqi PM said.
(05.01.2019)
Iraqi PM reveals Soleimani was on peace mission when assassinated, exploding Trump’s lie of ‘imminent attacks’
According to Abdul-Mahdi, he had planned to meet Soleimani on the morning the general was killed to discuss a diplomatic rapproachment that Iraq was brokering between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Abdul-Mahdi said that Trump personally thanked him for the efforts, even as he was planning the hit on Soleimani – thus creating the impression that the Iranian general was safe to travel to Baghdad.
Russia‘s Putin Travels to Syria to Meet With Assad
The Russian President‘s visit to Syria on Tuesday marked the second time ever that he has traveled to the Arab Republic.
NATO chief: Strike that killed Soleimani was a ‚U.S. decision‘
No evidence that guided the strike has been made public.
“We had several briefers from the United States, from the State and from Pentagon and they briefed and explained to other allies why they took this action against General Soleimani,” Stoltenberg said without going into detail.
The alliance chief was asked several times by reporters about whether the U.S. action had been criticized by other NATO members during the meeting. But he didn‘t provide a clear answer,
Iran pedals Hormuz Peace Endeavour for regional trade, economic cooperation
Consul General of the Islamic Republic of Iran
With full understanding of the existing threats and challenges, and in order to reduce tensions and insecurities and control the soaring chain of crisis which may result into an indescribable tragedy, the Islamic Republic of Iran has proposed three initiatives: Hormuz Peace Endeavor, regional negotiation forum and non-aggression pact, for providing ground for the beginning of establishment of coalitions for trade, economic and cultural approaches among the regional countries in place of coalitions for military and security approaches, because we believe that the fate of the public and nations of the region are intertwined together and regional security is not divisible, so security or insecurity affects the whole region.
US has no right to be part of HOPE initiative: Deputy FM
Tehran Dialogue Forum, which will run through Wednesday, Jan. 8, aims at reviewing the latest developments in the Persian Gulf region and evaluating regional cooperation plans, including the Iranian-proposed peace initiative dubbed ‘Hormuz Peace Endeavor’ (HOPE).
US-led coalition temporarily relocates headquarters from Iraq to Kuwait: Report
Iraq’s Arabic-language al-Forat news agency reported that the alliance took the decision on Tuesday to move its command center from the Iraqi capital Baghdad to Kuwait City.
The Qatar-based and Arabic-language al-Jazeera news network, citing a report published by German DPA news agency, later confirmed the account.
„Teilabzug ist international koordiniert“
Die Bundeswehr verlegt einen Teil ihrer Soldaten aus dem Irak nach Jordanien und Kuwait. „Ich halte den Abzug aus Sicherheitsgründen für unsere Soldaten vertretbar“, so der CDU-Außenpolitiker Roderich Kiesewetter.
Iran crisis: Germany to withdraw troops in Iraq over security fears after general Soleimani killed by Trump-ordered airstrike
Germany is moving some of its military personnel from Iraq to neighbouring countries over security concerns, the government told lawmakers, days after the killing of a top Iranian military commander in a US drone strike.
About 30 of the 120 German soldiers in Iraq who mainly train Iraqi security forces will be redeployed to Jordan and Kuwait, the government told parliament in a letter on Monday.
Letter saying US troops will pull out of Baghdad was ‚an honest mistake‘
Our own sources in Baghdad confirmed that the letter was genuine and that they too had seen it.
One source said their understanding of the US position was that a partial withdrawal or repositioning of some troops to Kuwait was taking place.
The president didn’t threaten just Iran’s culture sites. He threatened culture.
Will my country lay waste to the great mosques and bridges of Isfahan and the remains of Persepolis? Will we destroy the last stones of the Achaemenid and Sasanian empires? If we are to be a barbarian nation, what are our new limits? Do we have any?
Iranian foreign minister: Trump prepared to commit war crimes
Iran‘s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif says President Donald Trump doesn‘t care about international law and is prepared to commit war crimes by threatening to destroy Iran‘s cultural sites.
Deadly stampede erupts at General Soleimani‘s funeral in Kerman
Millions of mourners carried Soleimani‘s body from Kerman‘s Azadi Square to his final resting place in the martyrs‘ cemetery.
Rand Paul: Trump ‚got bad advice‘ on killing of Soleimani
He also said he considers killing the general an act of war that requires permission of Congress.
UN cultural agency chief meets with Iran ambassador amid current tensions
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and Iranian Ambassador to the UN agency, Ahmad Jalali, met in Paris against a background of mounting threats between his country and the United States.
Rep. Khanna: Article of impeachment ‚on the table‘ after Iran strike
Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) joins Hallie Jackson to discuss an upcoming war powers resolution in the House to prevent President Trump from escalating the conflict with Iran. Khanna describes any further action by the President that is not sanctioned by Congress as a „potentially impeachable offense.“
Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The Hague, 14 May 1954.
Recognizing that cultural property has suffered grave damage during recent armed conflicts and that, by reason of the developments in the technique of warfare, it is in increasing danger of destruction;
Being convinced that damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind, since each people makes its contribution to the culture of the world;
Considering that the preservation of the cultural heritage is of great importance for all peoples of the world and that it is important that this heritage should receive international protection;
Guided by the principles concerning the protection of cultural property during armed conflict, as established in the Conventions of The Hague of 1899 and of 1907 and in the Washington Pact of 15 April 1935;
Being of the opinion that such protection cannot be effective unless both national and international measures have been taken to organize it in time of peace;
Being determined to take all possible steps to protect cultural property;
Have agreed upon the following provisions:
Esper contradicts Trump on targeting Iranian cultural sites: We ‚follow the laws of armed conflict‘
„Nothing rallies people like the deliberate destruction of beloved cultural sites. Whether ISIS‘s destruction of religious monuments or the burning of the Leuven Library in WWI, history shows targeting locations giving civilization meaning is not only immoral but self-defeating,“ one of the officials told CNN.
„The Persian people hold a deeply influential and beautiful history of poetry, logic, art and science. Iran‘s leaders do not live up to that history. But America would be better served by leaders who embrace Persian culture, not threaten to destroy it,“ they added.
Pentagon Rules Out Striking Iranian Cultural Sites, Contradicting Trump
The defense secretary acknowledged that “the laws of armed conflict” prohibited attacking antiquities and said the military had no plans to do so, even though the president declared them targets.