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Russian FM Lavrov: All Foreign Troops, Including Iran’s, Must Leave Syria Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday said all non-Syrian forces should withdraw from southwestern Syria as soon as possible, echoing his calls from earlier this week in an attempt to cool tensions between Israel and Iran. The Times of Israel  reported  that Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is scheduled to travel to Moscow on Wednesday afternoon for talks with his Russian counterpart on a possible settlement governing the presence of Iranian troops in Syria. Israel’s Channel 2 reported the agreement would have Israel consent to Syrian regime forces taking positions in southwestern Syria and, in return, Russia would supervise the removal of Iranian and Hezbollah forces from the region near the Golan Heights. Russia would also accept Israel’s “freedom of action against Iranian consolidation in all of Syria.” Lavrov told reporters earlier this week that only Syrian troops shoul

The Dark Side of Roger Waters: A Review of Wish You Weren’t Here by   David Gerstman  |  05.30.18 5:50 pm Somewhere in the middle of the movie Wish you Weren’t Here, Ian Halperin’s devastating critique of Roger Waters and the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz noted that Waters not only targets Israel, but also uses blatantly anti-Semitic imagery, and concludes that Waters is “a good singer and a horrible bigot.” This is one of the themes running through the film: the contrast between the artist and his beliefs. Waters’ artistry is an important part of this story as David Renzer, the CEO of Spirit Music and co-founder of Creative Community for Peace said, “We have to take him seriously in that he is still one of the top-drawing artists in the world, he comes from a legendary band, Pink Floyd, and, so he comes with a lot of credibility in terms of his track record in music.” Whenever an artist annou

No Longer Addicted to Oil Money, Russia Wants End to Production Cuts, Lower Price Russia does not need the oil money as much as it used to. It would prefer a stable price to another boom and bust. Chris Weafer  Moscow, rather than a US Presidential tweet, is the initiator of the expected revised Russia-OPEC production deal. The Kremlin has made it clear for some time that it is a lot less happy with high, and rising, oil prices of late than it used to be. The ruble is no longer a volatile petro-currency and the economy is being weaned off its previous addiction to annually rising oil wealth. The government learned the lesson of oil dependency the hard way – twice – and does not want a third lesson. It would, however, be wrong to say that Russia’s stance has nothing to do with the White House. The 2014 sanctions regime is directly responsible for putting the Kremlin in a position where it had no choice but to deal with oil dependency and vulnerability, and with greater determinati

US Sanctions On Iran: The Unraveling Of Pax Americana Christopher Wood Amid current news headlines about North Korea and related nuclear issues, it is important not to ignore the potential schism that could occur in the G7 world as a consequence of the practical fallout from Donald Trump’s decision on May 8 to exit the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. One practical issue is what is going to happen to European investments in Iran. The most high profile example is French energy company Total’s investment in a giant Iran gasfield. Total said this month it would pull out of Iran and its development of the giant South Pars gasfield unless it is specifically protected from US penalties and related sanctions (see Financial Times article “Total threat to pull out of Iran dents EU hopes of saving accord”, May 17, 2018). Obviously, some form of compromise may be negotiated. But if Washington takes a hard line, such as claiming US jurisdiction as regards dollar transfers between two sovereign countr

Reuters A photo of leader Kim Jong-un crying during his father's funeral Activists videotape North Korean leader as he cries BEIJING (Reuters) - Japanese activists and media circulated a video of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as he mourned the "shattered economy" of his country. Kim Jong-un appears in the video standing on one of his country's coasts, without identifying the location, staring at the horizon as tears pour down his cheek. One of the North Korean regime's dissidents described the video as "a very strange development and may point to major changes coming in the country. US observers said that if Kim was crying over North Korea's economy, it was the result of "the effectiveness of the effective sanctions regime on Pyongyang adopted by US President Donald Trump." Source: "Besnz Insider"

US Warns India Finalizing S-400 Purchase Would Jeopardize US-India Defense Ties Washington has warned New Delhi that procurement of Russian advanced military systems may jeopardize defense cooperation and technology sharing between the US and India, as well as “interoperability” between their armed forces. “There is a lot of concern in the US administration and Congress with the S-400,” House Armed Services Committee chairman Mac Thornberry told India’s Economic Times daily, urging New Delhi not to rush and carefully consider all potential consequences of purchasing advanced Russian weapons. “There is concern that any country that acquires the system will complicate the ability of interoperability (with US forces).” “The acquisition of this technology will limit, I am afraid, the degree with which the United States will feel comfortable in bringing additional technology into whatever country we are talking about,” Thornberry said in a separate interview with NDTV. The decision to

  President Bashar Assad. © SANA / Reuters No answer to ‘Animal Assad’: Syrian leader tells RT he does not have insulting nickname for Trump US President Donald Trump infamously called his Syrian counterpart ‘animal Assad’ in one of his tweets. When asked whether he has a nickname for Trump, Assad told RT he does not use such language. “This is not my language, so, I cannot use similar language. This is his language. It represents him,”  Bashar Assad said in an exclusive interview with RT, which will be shown in full on Thursday at 11:30am GMT. I think there is a very known principle, that what you say is what you are. So, he wanted to represent what he is, and that’s normal,”  he added. He said Trump’s invention of an insulting nickname didn’t really matter for what happens in Syria. “The only thing that moves you is what people that you trust, people who are level-headed, people who are thoughtful, peop