Die venezolanischen Behörden haben sechs Ausländer aus den USA und Europa wegen angeblicher Pläne zur „Destabilisierung“ des Landes festgenommen und der US-Regierung eine Beteiligung an Umsturzplänen vorgeworfen. Wie die Regierung in Caracas mitteilte, wurden drei US-Bürger, zwei Spanier und ein Tscheche festgenommen.
Die Verdächtigen hätten „Gewaltakte“ gegen Präsident Nicolás Maduro und dessen Regierung geplant, sagte Innenminister Diosdado Cabello bei einer Pressekonferenz
“They went with this tropicalized character,” Cabello said in relation to the US intentions to use a person with the same Latin American phenotype, seeking not to repeat the gringo mercenaries of Caucasian morphology.
“It is important to know that this person worked in special Navy SEAL units focused on Latin America, because they are made up of people who speak Spanish perfectly, like this person,” he explained.
The Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace added that two citizens of Spanish origin, a Czech citizen and an American expert in computer hacking are also in custody.
„We know that the United States Government is linked to this operation because during the investigation we have found out how, in Orlando, Florida, in one of these parcel services, in the warehouses, the FBI was there and we have that video (…) they allowed that operation to continue,“ he said.
(…)
“A few days ago we captured some people who were talking about throwing grenades and explosives at the Argentine Embassy, where some terrorists and criminals from the opposition are taking refuge. This perfectly reversed the fact that if the Argentine Embassy, where some gentlemen and ladies from the opposition are, were attacked, it was immediately obvious that the person who would be blamed would be the Government of Venezuela,” he warned.
“The CIA is at the forefront of this operation,” Cabello said in the news conference, claiming that Spain’s National Intelligence Center was also involved. “That does not surprise us at all,” he said.
He alleged that the operation had “very clear objectives of assassinating President Nicolás Maduro” and other high-ranking Venezuelan politicians including himself and the vice president.
The State Department denied the claims. A spokesperson confirmed on Saturday a member of the US military had been arrested in Venezuela, and that the department was “aware of unconfirmed reports of two additional US citizens detained” in the country.
“There are many tools that are available to the United States, not simply harsh talk, which seems to have gotten us nowhere. But is America ready to do that?”
“I’m not too optimistic,” he said, answering his own question.
On Britain, Prince Turki said the country had “a special responsibility for what is happening in Palestine” due to its role in the “ill-begotten Balfour Declaration in 1917”.
(May 29, 2024)
The drone that targeted the radar station near Orsk, in Russia’s Orenburg region along Kazakhstan’s northern border, traveled more than 1,100 miles, making it one of the deepest attempted strikes into Russian territory. The Ukrainian official declined to say whether the strike, on May 26, caused any damage.
(May 28, 2024)
Ukraine began its nascent campaign against Russia‘s early warning radar network in April, with successive drone strikes on the 590th separate radio engineering center of military unit 84680 in the city of Kovylkino, in the Mordovia Republic around 360 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Wenn am nächsten Sonntag Landtagswahl wäre …
10,712 views Feb 12, 2024
In einem Interview mit der Deutschen Welle fordert CDU-Kriegsexperte Roderick Kiesewetter: „Der Krieg muss nach Russland getragen werden. Russische Militäreinrichtungen und Hauptquartiere müssen zerstört werden. Wir müssen alles tun, dass die Ukraine in die Lage versetzt wird, nicht nur Ölraffinerien in Russland zu zerstören, sondern Ministerien, Kommandoposten, Gefechtsstände.“
Das ganze Interview kann man hier finden:
MOSCOW, September 10. /TASS/. At least 14 drones were shot down by air defense forces during an attempt to attack Moscow and the Moscow Region. A 46-year-old woman died in Ramenskoye, while earlier information about the death of a 9-year-old child was not confirmed. Several people were injured.
The effects of the fall of UAV fragments in the area of Zhukovsky airport are being eliminated.
Moscow and Kyiv have both sought to buy and develop new drones, deploy them in innovative ways, and seek new ways to destroy them – from using shotguns to advanced electronic jamming systems.
Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their own production and assembly to attack targets including tanks and energy infrastructure such as refineries and airfields.
Announcing the move on Monday, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the decision to suspend 30 of 350 licenses did not amount to a blanket ban or an arms embargo, but only involved items with concerns over their use during the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
(August 28, 2024)
I appreciate Ms. Harris’s broken heart. What I’d appreciate more is a direct naming of who is killing and starving Palestinians, acts that are neither inevitable nor without a perpetrator. I’d appreciate the upholding of international law through sanctions and an arms embargo.
Corbyn told Middle East Eye on Monday: „We were elected to Parliament to represent our communities – and today‘s announcement is about making sure their demands are properly represented.
„A collective voice is a stronger voice. We will ensure the government knows the true scale of public disgust over its continued, shameful refusal to end arms sales to Israel.
The suspension, announced by Foreign Secretary David Lammy in parliament on Monday, is understood to cover components for military aircraft, including fighter aircraft, helicopters and drones.
“Facing a conflict such as this, it is this government’s legal duty to review export licences,“ Lammy told MPs.
During the DNC in Chicago, we made our demand for an arms embargo on Israel clear. Time and time again, we heard politicians — including Sen. Tammy Duckworth who told us back in October that she would continue sending weapons to Israel — posing as advocates for women and reproductive rights while arming Israel. They can’t hide from one undeniable fact: Genocide is not feminist.
Send a letter to the women of the Senate below and tell them: We Need an Arms Embargo on Israel NOW!
The president’s announcement that he was prepared to condition American weaponry on Israel’s actions amounts to a turning point in the seven-month conflict between Israel and Hamas. And his acknowledgement that American bombs had been used to kill civilians in Gaza was a stark recognition of the United States’ role in the war.
The president has come under extraordinary pressure, including from members of his own party, to limit shipments of arms amid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In dem CNN-Interview wurde Biden gefragt, ob mit dem Typ an US-Bomben, deren Lieferung vorerst auf Eis liege, Zivilisten in Gaza getötet worden seien. Biden sagte dazu: „Zivilisten wurden im Gazastreifen infolge dieser Bomben und anderer Methoden, mit denen sie Bevölkerungszentren angreifen, getötet.“
Biden machte zugleich deutlich, die US-Regierung werde weiter sicherstellen, dass Israel ausreichend militärische Ausrüstung zur eigenen Verteidigung habe, etwa das Raketenabwehrsystems Iron Dome.
(31.03.2024)
The arms packages included more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials.
This month, the State Department also authorized the transfer to Israel of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth roughly $2.5 billion, U.S. officials said.
The White House last week paused a shipment of weapons to Israel, as Israeli leaders closed in on a decision to launch an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a senior administration official said Tuesday.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed Wednesday in testimony to Congress that „we paused one shipment of high payload munitions.„
(30.04.2024)
Nicaragua hatte als vorläufige Massnahmen den sofortigen Stopp deutscher Rüstungslieferungen an Israel gefordert. Das zentralamerikanische Land begründete dies damit, dass Deutschland durch Waffenlieferungen an Israel einen Genozid ermögliche und damit gegen internationales Recht verstosse. Nicaragua hatte zudem eine Wiederaufnahme von Zahlungen eingefrorener Beiträge für das Palästinenserhilfswerk UNRWA im Gazastreifen gefordert.
Nicaragua hatte mit der Klage auch einen Eilantrag gestellt und fordert im Schnellverfahren eine Anordnung der Richter, dass Deutschland die Lieferungen von Rüstungsgütern an Israel stoppt.
Germany has been most prominent in this regard. In 2023 30% of Israel’s military equipment purchases totalling US$326 million came from Berlin. The Scholz government has also been a firm public supporter of Israel’s offensive. “There is only one place for Germany at this time, and that is by Israel’s side,” proclaimed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to German lawmakers on October 12 last year. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock curtly stated that “It was not the job of politicians to tell the guns to shut up.
Baerbock’s remarks were all the more jarring given the 2006 views of Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was then serving as Germany’s foreign minister. With puffed up confidence, he claimed then that Europeans and Germans had played a seminal role in ending the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon in “silencing of the guns.”
(13.04.2024)
„This morning, at 10 o‘clock, I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine, where I had been asked, along with many others … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals,“ he said.
Abu Sittah said he was escorted from the passport office to the basement of the airport, where he was questioned for three-and-a-half hours.
„At the end of three-and-a-half hours, I was told that I woud not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April,“ he said.
812.04.2024)
Die Organisatoren hatten den Tagungsort erst am Vormittag bei einer Pressekonferenz im Stadtteil Wedding und auf der Webseite des Kongresses bekannt gegeben. In der Ankündigung für den Kongress und in der Pressekonferenz warfen sie Israel unter anderem „Apartheid“, „Kolonialismus“ und „Völkermord“ (Genozid) im Gazastreifen vor. Deutschland trage eine „Mitschuld“, weil es Waffen an Israel liefere.
Staunch allies calling themselves friends of Israel are beginning to realise they are also friends of the murderers of western aid workers, friends of genocide and friends of fascism
(Nov. 26, 2010)
In the aforesaid period Netanyahu served as deputy to Moshe Arens, when he was Israel‘s ambassador to Washington, D.C. (1982-83 ).
(…)
The recently revealed documents deal with an operation dubbed „Tipped Kettle,“ involving weapons the Israel Defense Forces looted from the Palestine Liberation Organization during Operation Peace for Galilee in Lebanon, and their transfer to the Contras – opponents of the socialistic Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
(…)
Part II was patently illegal – a blatant effort by the White House to violate a Congressional order and to cook up a strange deal involving the sale of American weapons (originally supplied to the IDF ) to anti-American Iran, for use in its war with Iraq; the release of Western hostages being held in Lebanon by Iranian-controlled Hezbollah; and the financing of Contras‘ activities thanks to the difference between the sum paid by the Iranians and the true value of the weapons – minus a profit for those engaged in the deal.
(…)
The CIA had direct intelligence connections with the Mossad, but in the affair of the captured weapons the American agency preferred to hide behind the Pentagon.
(18.11.2021)
An exiled Iranian arms dealer named Manucher Ghorbanifar claimed to have contacts with a moderate faction inside Iran, and further alleged that weapons sales would improve that faction’s standing. Ghorbanifar collaborated with Israel, which proved to be an important intermediary. While Israel was no ally of Iran, it was also no ally of Iraq, and the ongoing war between the two countries kept them both distracted. Israel began selling U.S.-made weapons to Iran in 1981, even after the U.S. State Department began an effort to end arm sales, known as Operation Staunch, in 1983.
(April 7, 2024)
In a statement titled „Readiness for the Transition from Defense to Offense,“ the military said the phase completed centred on logistics „for a broad mobilization of IDF (Israel Defence Forces) troops“.
„The commanders of the regular and reserve units are prepared to summon and equip all the required soldiers in just a few hours and transport them to the front line for defensive and offensive missions,“ the military said.
(April 7, 2024)
The Israeli army on Sunday said it had reached „another phase“ of preparation for war on its northern border with Lebanon, where it has spent months exchanging fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
(April 7, 2024)
The prime minister’s office declined to comment on the exchange. The White House declined to comment for this story.
(02.04.2024)
While Israel has used the F-15s it already owns to strike Gaza, its request for the planes appears to reflect longer-term concern about regional threats, including from Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Iran-backed militias in Syria, and Iran itself. The Israel Defense Forces would probably employ F-15s in any potential attack on Iran’s nuclear program.
In a resolution (A/HRC/55/L.30) on the Human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and the obligation to ensure accountability and justice, adopted by a vote of 28 in favour, 6 against and 13 abstentions (as orally revised), the Council demands that Israel, the occupying power, end its occupation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem; also demands that Israel immediately lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip and all other forms of collective punishment; calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, for immediate emergency humanitarian access and assistance, and for the urgent restoration of basic necessities to the Palestinian population in Gaza; calls upon all States to take immediate action to prevent the continued forcible transfer of Palestinians within or from Gaza; calls upon all States to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel; urges all States to continue to provide emergency assistance to the Palestinian people and calls upon all States to ensure that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East receives predictable sustained and sufficient funding to fulfil its mandate; invites the General Assembly to recommend that the Government of Switzerland promptly convene the Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Convention on measures to enforce the Convention in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem; requests the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel to report on both the direct and indirect transfer or sale of arms, munitions, parts, components and dual use items to Israel, the occupying power, and to analyse the legal consequences of these transfers, and to present its report to the Council at its fifty-ninth session; requests the Secretary-General to ensure the availability of all additional resources, including through voluntary resources, necessary to enable the Commission of Inquiry to carry out its mandate; requests the Office of the High Commissioner to deploy the additional necessary personnel, expertise and logistics to the occupied Palestinian territory country office to document and pursue accountability for violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law committed in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem; and requests the High Commissioner for Human Rights to report on the implementation of the present resolution to the Council at its fifty-eighth session, to be followed by an interactive dialogue; and decides to remain seized of the matter.
The results of the vote are as follows:
In favour (28): Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Burundi, Chile, China, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Eritrea, Finland, Gambia, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Qatar, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Viet Nam.
Against(6): Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany, Malawi, Paraguay and United States.
Abstentions (13): Albania, Benin, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, France, Georgia, India, Japan, Lithuania, Montenegro, Netherlands, and Romania.
(05.04.2024)
The UN’s top human rights body adopted a resolution on Friday condemning the alleged “use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in Gaza”, while also calling for an arms embargo on Israel.
(04.04.2024)
The Biden administration has continued to provide weapons at a rapid pace despite the overwhelming evidence that war crimes are being committed by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip using U.S.-made munitions. While Palestinians in Gaza remain at risk of genocide and an imminent Israeli government-engineered famine, President Biden last week authorized the transfer of 1,800 MK84 2000-pound bombs that one senior administration official said, “can destroy entire blocks.” opens in a new tab According to news reports, the President is also getting close to greenlighting a sale of $18 billion for American-made F-15 fighter jets. opens in a new tab
– Israeli forces unlawfully attacked a residential building in Gaza on October 31, 2023, absent any apparent military target, killing at least 106 civilians, including 54 children.
– Scores of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza since October 7 have caused thousands of civilian casualties, underscoring the greater risk of unlawful attacks from explosive weapons in populated areas.
– Governments should suspend arms transfers to Israel, support the International Criminal Court investigation in Palestine, and impose targeted sanctions on officials responsible for laws-of-war violations.
(04.04.2024)
The inquiry was based on testimonies from 16 people the group spoke to between January and March, satellite images, dozens of photographs and videos from the site, as well as those shared on social media, the international rights group said on Thursday as it released the findings of its investigation.
It called on governments to suspend weapons transfers to Israel and support the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) investigation in Palestine, saying the attack was among the “deadliest single incidents for civilians” since Israel’s war on Gaza started in October.
(16.02.2024)
In the case of South Africa v. Israel, two violations in particular have been raised: complicity in genocide and failure to prevent genocide. For complicity, the ICJ has explained that it includes “the provision of means to enable or facilitate the commission of the crime,” such as furnishing “aid or assistance.” The state needs at least to have acted knowing that the perpetrator of the genocide had a special intent, or dolus specialis, “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” The ICJ left open the possibility that the complicit state would also need to share this special intent. However, courts have not required complicit parties to share the special intent in international criminal cases, suggesting that the ICJ might not require it.
(January 15, 2024)
The United States must now be held accountable for the crimes it committed,‘ says Van Rensburg, who is leading the 47-lawyers team.
“We intend to bring legal proceedings against the U.S. Government based on overwhelming evidence that the U.S. Government has, and is, aiding, abetting and supporting, encouraging or providing material assistance and means to Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces. This conduct by the U.S. Government has enabled and continues to enable Israel to engage in international crimes against the Palestinian people,” the South African lawyers said in a letter sent to US President Joe Biden on January 2.
The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
„It‘s very, very important,“ Ziv said of U.S. military aid to Israel. Placing conditions on it, he said, „creates a dangerous precedent for Israel because it just wasn‘t in the cards up until now.“ (…)
The U.S. could continue to abstain or even support United Nations resolutions that Israel finds unfavorable, as it did this week.
Unidentified people who conducted a terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in the Moscow Region were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and had plenty of munitions, according to a video by Russia’s Investigative Committee released by the press service.
The shots show that security forces have collected a customized Kalashnikov assault rifle, a lot of rounds and munitions to automatic weapons and a belt kit with a filled charger used by the terrorists.
(19.03.2024)
US Secretary of Defenсe Lloyd Austin, opening the Ramstein meeting on Tuesday, promised that the United States will continue to support Ukraine‘s military efforts against Russia. In practice, however, the US Congress continues to obstruct funding for Kyiv.
In his opening remarks, Austin said Russia paid a staggering price for the war, echoing estimates that at least 315,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded during the war, which has cost Russia up to US$211 billion.
Germany has been one of Israel’s staunch allies in its war against Hamas.
In a manner akin to the Biden administration, Scholz has a stern message for Netanyahu about the IDF’s conduct during the war, particularly its failure to ensure the distribution of aid, which has led to a hunger crisis in Gaza.
„We cannot stand by and risk Palestinian women and men starving. Much more humanitarian aid must reach Gaza, a way must be found to improve the means of distribution,“ Scholz said, as Western nations increase their criticism of ally Israel.
Still, Scholz reaffirmed his belief that Israel „has a right to defend itself“ without addressing whether that same right is extended to Palestinians.
It is recalled that Nicaragua filed an Application instituting proceedings against Germany concerning alleged violations by Germany of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols, “intransgressible principles of international humanitarian law” and other norms of general international law in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly the Gaza Strip (see press release 2024/19).
The hearings will be devoted to the request for the indication of provisional measures contained in Nicaragua’s Application. Nicaragua asks the Court to indicate provisional measures as a matter of extreme urgency, pending the Court’s determination on the merits of the case, with respect to Germany’s “participation in the ongoing plausible genocide and serious breaches of international
humanitarian law and other peremptory norms of general international law occurring in the Gaza
Strip”.
Am 8. und 9. April wird der Internationale Gerichtshof (IGH) im Verfahren gegen Deutschland verhandeln. Nicaragua wirft der Bundesrepublik Beihilfe zum Völkermord im Gazastreifen vor, indem sie Israel politisch, finanziell und militärisch unterstützt sowie die Mittel für das UN-Palästinenserhilfswerk gestrichen habe.
Im Gazastreifen bestehe seit Oktober 2023 „die anerkannte Gefahr eines Völkermordes am palästinensischen Volk“. Deutschland habe durch seine Unterstützung für Israel gegen seine Verpflichtungen aus der Völkermordkonvention verstoßen, heißt es in der Klage Nicaraguas.
Top UN judges will start listening to submissions next month in the case filed by Nicaragua accusing Berlin of facilitating “genocide” in Gaza because of its support for Israel in the war against Hamas, officials say.
Two weeks ago Nicaragua filed a case against Germany before the International Court of Justice, saying Berlin was “facilitating the commission of genocide and… failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide,” in Gaza.
(07.02.2023)
In the early 1990s, the U.S. government sanctioned Bigio, his wife, son and others for their support of a military coup that ousted Haiti’s first democratically elected president. Years later, a member of a Haitian militia ‒ or private army ‒ accused Bigio and another businessman of paying for the 1993 assassination of a prominent democracy activist, according to Jeb Sprauge, author and University of California Riverside research associate. Authorities in Haiti did not charge Bigio with or accuse him of wrongdoing.
(16.12.2022)
For years, Haitians have said Bigio and other oligarchs are complicit in the violence strangling the nation: This year 1,448 people have been killed, with another 1,005 kidnapped for ransom. Until now, however, the international community has stayed mostly silent about Haiti’s corrupt elite. (…)
Daniel Foote, the former U.S envoy to Haiti who resigned in September 2021 to protest against the disastrous American policy, told me that he thinks Canada and the U.S. State Department are working together to economically punish Bigio and the others. But he suspects that the United States cannot follow Canada’s example by imposing stiff sanctions, possibly because Bigio may be a U.S. citizen and thus entitled to due process. In theory, however, U.S. prosecutors could bring cases against Bigio and other oligarchs for funding the vicious gangs whether these defendants have U.S. citizenship or not. As things stand, inaction is much more likely.