More items mostly from writers in the alternative media

 
Blinken Ignores Impact of US Sanctions in Plea for Humanitarian Aid for Syria
US sanctions specifically target the energy and construction sectors to prevent rebuilding after 10 years of war
 

Dave DeCamp Posted on March 29, 2021Categories

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/03/29/blinken-ignores-impact-of-us-sanctions-in-plea-for-humanitarian-aid-for-syria/

Since the US implemented additional sanctions on Syria through a law known as the Ceasar Act last summer, Syria’s currency has plummeted, prices for basic goods have soared, and civilians have paid the price. According to the UN, the number of Syrians that are close to starvation is at 12.4 million, or 60 percent of the population.

The correlation between US sanctions and the suffering in Syria is clear. But in a speech to the UN Security Council on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken failed to acknowledge US sanctions and called for more border crossings into the country to alleviate the suffering instead.

Blinken said: “The question before us is: What can the Security Council do to help the millions of Syrians whose lives hang in the balance?” His answer is to open more border crossings into Syria to allow the delivery of aid. But the obvious answer is for US sanctions to be lifted, something the Biden administration has the power to do.

UN Special Rapporteur on sanctions Alena F. Douhan explained to The Grayzone’s Aaron Mate how US sanctions are impeding humanitarian aid deliveries in Syria. Douhan said humanitarian organizations have difficulty obtaining licenses from the US to deliver aid to government-held areas. Even if the license is granted, organizations could have their bank accounts frozen for making purchases inside Syria.........

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What was Steve Bannon planning on doing in one of Italy's 800 yr old monastery?  Start a new religion???
Start a new kind of bull fighting ring with Muslims in the ring instead of bulls???

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/italy-can-evict-steve-bannon-from-monastery-1952704

Taylor Dafoe, March 17, 2021

Italy Can Evict Steve Bannon’s School for Far-Right ‘Gladiators’ From an 800-Year-Old Monastery, the Country’s Top Court Rules

The decision effectively ends a years-long court battle between the former Trump strategist and the Italian Culture Ministry.



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Why Is Everyone in Texas Not Dying?
Jeffrey A. Tucker
– March 26, 2021

https://www.aier.org/article/why-is-everyone-in-texas-not-dying/

...........What’s striking about all the above predictions of infections and deaths is not just that they were all wrong. It’s the arrogance and confidence behind each of them. After a full year and directly observing the inability of “nonpharmaceutical interventions” to manage the pathogen, the experts are still wedded to their beloved lockdowns, unable or unwilling to look at the data and learn anything from them.

The concept of lockdowns stemmed from a faulty premise: that you can separate humans, like rats in cages, and therefore control and even eradicate the virus. After a year, we unequivocally know this not to be true, something that the best and wisest epidemiologists knew all along. Essential workers still must work; they must go home to their families, many in crowded living conditions. Lockdowns do not eliminate the virus, they merely shift the burden onto the working class.  ............

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Video at link.  There's also the transcript if you want to save time by reading instead of watching the show.


https://www.rt.com/op-ed/519273-muslim-batley-grammar-school/

...On the show this week, Chris Hedges discusses the realities of war, its appeal for young men and its destruction of them, with Salar Abdoh, novelist and essayist. Abdoh's new novel, 'Out of Mesopotamia', considered one of a handful of great modern war novels, tells the story of Saleh, a jaded, middle-aged Iranian reporter who accompanies Shia militias, as Abdoh did, in Iraq and Syria during the heavy fighting between 2014 and 2017.........



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The two suicide bombers were apparently newly wed and belonged to an organization known as JAD which is like ISIS and al Qaeda and follow the madness of the Saudi Arabia wahhabism sect of Islam.  



Indonesia: Several injured in church suicide bombing

Newlywed suicide bombers have struck outside a Catholic church in the Indonesian city of Makassar on Palm Sunday, injuring more than a dozen people. President Widodo said he "strongly condemned this act of terror."

https://www.dw.com/en/indonesia-several-injured-in-church-suicide-bombing/a-57029105


A Catholic church in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province was rocked by a suicide bombing on Sunday, authorities said.

The blast in the city of Makassar wounded at least 14 people including church workers and worshippers.

Police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo said the attackers were members of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an extremist group also blamed for a deadly church bombing in the Indonesian city of Surabaya in 2018................

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As usual, you will find plenty of information and informative  links at this week's "New World Next Week"
The vid and transcipt are at the link below.

Interview 1628 – New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato

https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1628-new-world-next-week-with-james-evan-pilato/



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Revealed: The UK supported the coup in Bolivia to gain access to its ‘white gold’

By Matt Kennard• 8 March 2021


https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-03-08-revealed-the-uk-supported-the-coup-in-bolivia-to-gain-access-to-its-white-gold/

After a coup in the South American country of Bolivia in November 2019, democratically elected president Evo Morales was forced to flee. Foreign Office documents obtained by Declassified show Britain saw the new military-backed regime, which killed 18 protesters, as an opportunity to open up Bolivia’s lithium deposits to UK firms. ...........

...............There is further evidence Britain was always priming the country for a change in government. In the year before the coup, the British embassy was promoting the UK cyber sector, bringing a company to Bolivia founded by the UK intelligence community, and with close links to America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In 2009, Morales had expelled a US diplomat who he claimed was a CIA asset heading an operation to infiltrate Bolivia’s state-owned oil company.

Eight months before the coup, the UK embassy spent more than £4,500 organising a “major event” in Laz Paz on cybersecurity for financial institutions, attended by 150 executives and senior officials from the Bolivian financial sector, according to the Foreign Office documents.

Delivered in coordination with the Bolivian Stock Exchange, Bolivian banks were said to “now be acquiring specialised services to protect their systems from cybercrime”. Further, the bankers were now aware that fighting cybercrime had to be “based upon adequate and state-of-the-art technology”.

Presentations were delivered by British company Darktrace, a cybersecurity firm set up by Britain’s domestic security service, MI5, and its signals intelligence agency, GCHQ. The company was incorporated the day after the first of whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s exposures was published in The Guardian..............


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Nearly 100 Killed in North Yemen Fighting, Saudis and Houthis Trade Attacks
Saudis hit Yemen capital, Houthis go after oil facilities

Jason Ditz Posted on March 7, 2021

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/03/07/nearly-100-killed-in-north-yemen-fighting-saudis-and-houthis-trade-attacks/

Fighting continues to rage in northern Yemen, with at least 90 combatants killed in Maarib Province in a 24-hour period. The fighters, loyal to the Saudi-backed government and the Houthi movement, are contesting the last government-held outpost in the area.

Daily fighting and ever-rising death tolls have left neither side closer to victory, and instead the two sides seem to be escalating away from Maarib and hitting one another in valuable targets nearby.

The Saudis, as usual, are falling back on airstrikes, hitting the capital city of Sanaa. The details of what they’re after aren’t clear, though they insisted that they hit “military sites in the capital” with several raids.............