Current world's political news: 2016

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

‘Take the threat seriously’: US, Russia, Europe need to fight ISIS together – ex-DIA chief Flynn

To defeat the “vicious enemy” that is Islamic State, US and Russia and the EU need to work together, share information, and stop the rampant political correctness, former head of US military intelligence General Michael Flynn told RT.

Bye Twagirimana Emmanuel

“What I’ve heard over the past 24 hours is a bunch of excuses” from Europe following the fatal Brussels airport and metro attacks, Flynn said in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. “We have to stop apologizing for the political correctness that I see just running rampant.”
Flynn, who led the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) between 2012 and 2014 and commanded US Special Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq before that, believes there is a direct link between migrant crisis and the Brussels and Paris terror attacks.
There is very little coordination between EU nations right now, even as border controls “absolutely” have to be tightened, Flynn warned, reminding that Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) has said it wanted to infiltrate Europe and the US through the refugee stream.

“There is a major problem how we vet these refugees that are coming in, where they come from, how we document them, how we share the documentation, how we then share the intelligence surrounding them,” Flynn said, adding that information-sharing between the law enforcement, security services and intelligence “has to get better, it must.”

EU was warned of global terror threat years agoTerror in the heart of EU: global threat demanding global response has been ignored for years. Could the tragic events happening in Europe now been prevented if the EU hadn’t been so deaf?
Posted by RT Play on Wednesday, March 23, 2016

It took the Belgian authorities months to act against the suspected ringleader of the terror attacks in Paris, and Tuesday’s bombings have been speculated to be a reaction to his arrest.
“This is not just authorities in Belgium, this is the leadership of Europe, of the EU,” Flynn said, arguing that the US, Russia and the entire international community have to stand together against what he described as a “vicious enemy, getting worse by the day.”
The first step would be to take the threat seriously, he argued, pointing out that the EU has not done so. While governments all over Europe preach multiculturalism, terrorists hide in “no-go areas,” where law enforcement is too afraid to go into.
“You can’t have that in one’s country, you just can’t have that,” Flynn said.
Commenting on reports about the existence of 400 IS fighters on the continent, Flynn said that there were probably even more. IS has a well-networked command and control structure in the EU, with the ability to make decisions rapidly and carry out terror attacks at will, according to the retired general.

Flynn pointed out that there have been at least 75 terrorist attacks outside of Iraq and Syria in the last 6 months.
“We’re going to see more of these attacks until we do more against this enemy.” he said. “We have to stop this rise of radical Islamism, and we have to go to the heart of it.”
Turkey will have to step up its border control, stop the flow of foreign fighters from anywhere between 80 and 120 countries into Syria and Iraq, and as a moderate Muslim country, “do much more to restrain this radical Islamic cancer,” Flynn added. “There should be some demands on them to do that.”
Sunni and Shia leaders in the Middle East and North Africa likewise need to do more to address the issue of the growing number of men under 30 with nothing to do, according to the general.
The US and Russia need to talk directly, behind closed doors, and work out a way to bring their national security strategies together in the fight against a common enemy, as they have done in the past.
“This is now a hot war, and we can’t try to think that it’s not. This enemy has declared war on us,” Flynn said. “We have to quit talking past each other.”
READ MORE: ‘Too dumb’: Ex-US intelligence chief blames Iraq War, poor strategy for rise of ISIS
“We cannot allow some enemy to take initiative away from the international community, which is exactly what they’re doing…We’re on our heels, if not on our knees.”
Ideally, the problem would have to be resolved at the source, by creating security and stability in Iraq and Syria so people there could stay in their homes. However, Flynn believes the problem is much bigger than just the region.
“ISIS is also leveraging the information domain, through cyber and through social media,” he said. “We’re not talking 30,000 guys in Syria anymore – we’re talking about potentially a million radicalized Muslims around the world.”
“ISIS is beatable, radical Islamism is beatable. It will take much more of an effort than what we’re currently involved in,” the former director of the US military intelligence concluded.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Egypt Aircraft hijacked by ‘love sick’ professor demanding to see Cypriot ex-wife

EgyptAir flight MS181 was hijacked and landed in Cyprus by a passenger on board named as Ibrahim Samaha. It is alleged that “personal motives” were behind his actions as he wanted to see his ex-wife, who is Cypriot.

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The Civil Aviation Ministry said that the pilot of the EgyptAir plane, Omar Al-Gammal, told the authorities he was threatened by a passenger with a suicide belt. However, it later emerged that information regarding explosives turned out to be false.
Egyptian state media say that the hijacker is an citizen of Egypt. He has been named as Ibrahim Samaha and was sitting in seat K38. According to the Greek television station Sky, the hijacker has demanded a translator and wants political asylum in Cyprus.
Witnesses said they saw the hijacker throwing a letter on to the apron of the airport, which was written in Arabic. The hijacker asked that it be delivered to his ex-wife, who is Cypriot, Reuters reports.
It is understood that Samha is a professor of veterinary medicine at Alexandria University, according the educational facility’s website.
Reuters, citing Cyprus State Radio, says there are 80 or 81 passengers on board.
EgyptAir says that the release of all the passengers on board the aircraft has been agreed, except for four foreigners and crew members on the plane. There are believed to be between 15 and 20 people still left on the plane.
"The negotiations with the hijacker have resulted in the release of all the plane passengers with the exception of the crew and five foreigners," the airline said in a statement, but it later changed the figure to four foreigners still held.
There have been reports that between 30 and 40 passengers have already been allowed to leave the plane, according the Cyprus state media.
The aircraft is an A320 belonging to EgyptAir. It landed in Larnaca at 08:46 local time, with 81 passengers on board.
Larnaca Airport has been closed, while ambulances have been sent to the scene.
This latest incident will be a bitter blow to the safety reputation of Egypt’s air industry, which is still reeling after a bomb on a Russian passenger plane on October 31, 2015, killed all 224 people on board.
Islamic State claimed responsible for bringing down the Russian A321 passenger jet over Sinai, which was bound for St. Petersburg.
Two employees at Sharm el-Sheikh Airport were arrested on suspicion of assisting those who planted the explosive device on the Russian jet that crashed in Sinai.
Earlier last November, an AP investigation found that Sharm el-Sheikh Airport had many gaps in security, such as lax searches at the entry gate and poor quality of scanning devices. Seven officials involved in security at Sharm el-Sheikh Airport, several with more than a decade’s service, told AP of the lapses, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A 10-year-old CTX scanner had broken down several times because operators didn't use it properly, an official at the airport said. "I have seen people unplug it to save power."
Another official added that the machine wasn’t working properly at all and only managed to scan a sample of the bags, and not all the contents that they contained.

Monday, March 28, 2016

British troops learn what it's like to face Russian forces as they train Ukrainians

British troops sent to train Ukrainian forces fighting battling Russian-backed separatists are also learning from their pup.

Diamonds are a man's best friend

While there's moonlight and love and romance, diamonds will always be special - as the men who founded the great jewellery houses knew.

By Twagirimana Emmanuel.

As the 10-man patrol picked its way down the lakeside track, the pine forest ahead suddenly erupted with gunfire.

The Ukrainian troops took cover and fired back at their unseen ambushers, throwing smoke grenades to cover their retreat, while bandaging up a wounded comrade writhing on the ground.

Moments later, as armoured personnel carriers sped to their rescue, the men clambered aboard and departed to be debriefed by British Army teachers watching the drill from a nearby rise.

In Western Ukraine, a small force of British trainers is trying to teach the beleaguered Ukrainian army battlefield skills that will keep them alive against more heavily-armed Russian-backed separatists.

But British soldiers of 1st Bn The Yorkshire Regiment and 4 Armoured Medical Regiment are finding they can also learn from their pupils. Troops who have spent a decade honing skills against lightly-armed Taliban fighters and their roadside bombs are learning from those who have spent a year facing the very different threat of Vladimir Putin’s tanks and heavy artillery.
WO2 Steven Harrison, company sergeant major, said: “We try to learn as much from them as we are trying to teach them.
“We have never been to war with an overmatched force before. Wherever we have been, we have always been the better equipped, better manpowered, better disciplined army, so some of the lessons that they have been learning are things that we can definitely understand ourselves and get back into our training cycle.”

Around 75 British troops have already trained 1,000 Ukrainians in life-saving battlefield medicine and basic infantry tactics. Courses are being widened to include new lessons in urban combat, dealing with mines and building stronger fortifications. The aim is to have taught 2,000 by the end of the year.
“It is relaxed but we have very sharply in mind that the guys that we are training are going to be at high end operations pretty soon after,” said the 38-year-old from Barnsley.
“They are in a pretty difficult fight.”
During their lessons, the British troops can point to years of hard-earned experience in Afghanistan, but the Ukrainians see that as a very different conflict.
He said: “They definitely see, rightly or wrongly, Afghanistan and Iraq as a peacekeeping mission. They don’t see it as how we see it, the sharp end.”
Kiev has asked without success for the West to supply arms including anti-tank weapons. The Ukrainian troops being taught at Zhytomyr, two hours drive west of Kiev and 500 miles from the heavy fighting around Donetsk, are also not content with defensive lessons.
“They have asked us to teach offensive tactics, but we are not in that field, it’s defensive tactics we are teaching and how to preserve life,” said Lt Col Paul Kinkaid, a training specialist with the Adjutant General’s Corps.

Drills honed in Afghanistan in the face of Helmand’s homemade bombs may not be suitable for eastern Ukraine, where the great threat is artillery and snipers, he said.
“The Ukrainians weren’t lacking anything, they are a credible armed force, but they want different ways of doing business.
“Some of our drills have been very deliberate because the threat that we focused on in Afghanistan was from improvised explosive devices, so they were slower than they need to be here.
“Obstacle crossing, for example a bridge, was very slow, very deliberate because in Afghanistan it would be a choke point where IEDs could be laid, whereas the Ukrainians don’t have that time.
“They say that at the front line if they are exposed for more than 11 minutes they can start to get hit by artillery.”

The Ukrainian soldiers learning these first courses will themselves become instructors for their comrades.
One Ukrainian officer, who said he went by the nom de guerre of Maj Zam, said: “The best thing is the methodical nature of the training. We want to see less theory and more practice.”
Asked about whether it would improve the Ukrainian forces, he said: “In terms of the whole country, I hope there should be an improvement, because it cannot get much worse.”

Britain signs new defence pact to help Ukraine in Russia confrontation

Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, says new 15-year defence agreement will see Britain help Ukraine defend itself

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon on the military base outside Zhitomir yesterday (AP)

Michael Fallon with Ukrainian troops last year at a military base outside Zhytomyr Photo: AP

Britain is to sign a new defence pact with Ukraine pledging to help the country with more military training and intelligence amid its confrontation with Russia.

Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, said the new agreement was a signal Britain would “stand firm” with the beleaguered eastern European nation.

The 15-year-long agreement will see British troops take part in more joint exercises and carry out more training with Ukrainian forces who have been battling Russian-backed separatists for two years.

The countries will also cooperate on sharing military intelligence and expertise.

Mr Fallon said: “The UK will stand firm with Ukraine as they defend their territorial integrity. This new defence agreement sets out that commitment as we enhance our training of Ukrainian armed forces.”
The new agreement revives an earlier pact that lapsed in 2006 because of the anti-EU stance of the then pro-Russian Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, officials said.

Ukrainian troops undergoing training from British soldiers in 2015
The overthrow of Mr Yanukovych in 2014 was the trigger for Russia to annex Crimea and for pro-Russian separatists to rise up and seize large swathes of the Donbass region including Donetsk and Lugansk.
Moscow has denied Nato accusations that it has sent large numbers of undercover troops and sophisticated equipment to support the separatists.
A year-old ceasefire has failed to stop fighting in the region and over 9,000 soldiers and civilians have been killed since the conflict began in April 2014.
Small teams of British troops have already carried out training missions in the country, trying to teach life-saving battlefield medicine and basic infantry tactics.
However the Kiev government has repeatedly called for more help.

Russia jets continue strikes in Syria, Moscow says

Terror group claims to have killed Russian soldiers in combat as generals announce a major offensive to push Isil out of Palmyra only days after Vladimir Putin ordered a withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria.

A Russian Sukhoi Su-24 takes off from Hmeimim airbase in Syria, to return to Russia, earlier this week Photo: Barcroft

A brief history of time

From Hans Wildorf's Rolex company to Ben Clymer's specialist online magazine over a century later, we remain fascinated with watches to this day

By Roland Oliphant, Moscow

6:53PM GMT 18 Mar 2016

Russian aircraft will contine to fly tens of missions a day against targets in Syria despite a pull out of forces announced by Vladimir Putin earlier this week, military officials in Moscow have said.

Russian airstrikes are supporting a regime offensive against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) around the ancient city of Palmyra, generals said on Friday, in an apparent signal that the Kremlin will not relinquish direct military support for Bashar Assad despite pulling out the bulk of its forces in Syria.

"Conditions have been created for the encirclement and definitive defeat of Isil armed formations in Palmyra,” Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, the head of Russia’s National Defence Control Centre, told journalists at a briefing in Moscow.

"Government troops and patriotic forces with the support of the Russian air force are carrying out a large-scale operation to liberate Palmyra," he said. "On average Russian planes are flying 20 to 25 combat sorties each day.”

Isil, which seized control of Palmyra in May last year, is not party to a ceasefire between regime forces and most rebel groups that came into force on February 27.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meet at the Kremlin in Moscow back in October last year
The announcement came as the terror group claimed to have killed five Russian soldiers fighting alongside regime troops near the city.
"The soldiers of the caliphate, by the grace of God, have killed five Russian soldiers and six members" of the Syrian army, as well as Hezbollah fighters, Isil said in a statement earlier on Friday.
A website linked to Isil, Aamaq, published a video showing the bloodied corpse of a man in military gear that it claimed was a Russian military advisor.
"Four of the Russian soldiers were killed in Qasr al-Halabat west of Palmyra during an attempt to storm the area that IS forces foiled, while the advisor whose corpse was shown in a video distributed by the agency died (Thursday) in the Dawa area," Aamaq claimed.
The footage also showed equipment apparent taken from the body, including a customised AK-74 rifle and a military first aid kit.

A boy inspects damage inside his school, after what activists said was an airstrike carried out by the Russian air force in Injara town, Aleppo countryside
Lt. Gen. Rudskoi did not address the terror group’s claims. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the chief spokesman for the ministry of defence, declined to comment when asked to respond to the claim.
Although Russia has not formally acknowledged sending ground forces into combat in Syria, it is widely believed to have deployed armour, artillery, and special forces alongside Syrian regime troops.
Vladimir Putin appeared to tacitly acknowledge that when he publicly decorated Maj. Gen. Yuri Yarovitsky, the deputy commander of the First Tank Army of Russia’s Western Military District, at a welcome home ceremony for veterans of the Syrian expedition in the Kremlin on Thursday.
Mr Putin also appeared to refer to the family of a previously unacknowledged casualty of the conflict, which would bring the number of Russian soldiers known to have been killed since the intervention began to five.
Russia launched a five-month bombing campaign in support of Bashar Assad’s beleaguered government forces on September 30 last year.
Mr Putin announced the formal end to the mission in Syria on Monday, and ordered “most” of the contingent there home by the end of the week.

Putin is no master of strategy – his Syria plan was a shambles

For now, Putin is the servant of Assad. Not the other way around.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Photo: EPA

As Russian pilots fly home from Syria, they can look forward to triumphant welcomes. Their commander-in-chief, Vladimir Putin, is the focus of almost as much fawning adulation – even from the supposedly hostile Western media. Once again, the Russian president is being portrayed as a strategic genius, adept at wrong-footing America and Europe.

Yet the self-congratulation conveniently ignores some awkward truths. Far from making a cool and calculated decision to intervene in Syria, Mr Putin was compelled to deploy his forces in order to rescue a feckless ally. His campaign has yet to achieve any of its stated goals. Worse, Russia has now invested so much in saving Bashar al-Assad that Mr Putin risks being manipulated by the trickster in Damascus.

Let’s begin with the original decision to use Russian firepower in Syria from Sept 30 last year. No one can prove a counter-factual, but without the sudden onset of Russian air strikes, Assad might well have been overthrown by now.

Last summer, a new rebel alliance mounted a lightning offensive which captured almost all of Idlib province and directly threatened Assad’s heartland around Latakia on the Mediterranean coast.

By July and August, Assad was compelled to withdraw his depleted forces from large areas of central Syria. In a remarkably candid speech – which might, in retrospect, have been interpreted as an appeal for help from Russia – Assad admitted that his army was suffering from “fatigue”, adding: “We are obliged in certain circumstances to abandon regions in order to move troops to regions that we want to hold on to.”

This left Mr Putin with a stark decision: intervene in Syria, or risk Assad’s downfall. The fact that he chose the former was not the result of success; rather it was the outcome of the failure of his earlier efforts to preserve Assad’s grip on power.

Once the expedition began, the Kremlin set out its aims. The first goal was supposedly to fight the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). As Russian planes flew their first missions on Sept 30, Sergei Ivanov, the Kremlin chief of staff, said the aim was “exclusively to provide air support to Syrian government forces in their struggle against Isil”.
From the beginning, however, most Russian air strikes were targeted against just about every rebel group except Isil. Assad has never fought Isil as a priority – and nor have his Russian allies. The latest study of Syria’s war by IHS, a consultancy, finds one anomaly: the only areas where Isil gained ground in 2015 were also the regions where Russian warplanes hammered the other rebels. Put simply, Russia obligingly bombed Isil’s enemies among the other armed factions, particularly around Aleppo, and the terrorists took the opportunity to advance. In some areas, the net result of Russia’s campaign was actually to help Isil.

Mr Putin’s defenders might respond by saying that fighting Isil was never the real goal: saving Assad was the campaign’s true objective – and, by that measure, it has succeeded. The problem is that Mr Putin himself consistently denied that he was interested in rescuing Assad.
Instead, the Russian president said the goal was to create a political “process” that would lead to a peaceful Syria. “I know that President Assad understands that and is ready for such a process,” said Mr Putin as the bombing started last September. “We hope that he will be active and flexible and ready to compromise.”
So Russia’s goal was to deliver a “flexible” Assad to a viable peace process. How is that going? Peace talks supposedly resumed in Geneva last week and by Friday – the fifth day of the meeting – Assad’s representatives had still refused to meet their opponents. Never mind being “flexible and ready to compromise”, Assad will not even allow his minions to negotiate.
From the dictator’s point of view, this is perfectly logical. Now that Russian firepower guarantees his rule in Damascus, why should Assad deal with his enemies? Instead of joining a peace process that would probably end with his departure, Assad prefers to sabotage the whole endeavour, safe in the knowledge that Russia will preserve his lock on power whatever he does.
For now, Assad is using Mr Putin, not vice versa.

General Sejusa’s supporters offer to clean Besigye’s compound

By Twagirimana Emmanuel.
General David Sejusa supporters in Sembabule say they will travel on Thursday to Kasangati in

SEMBABULE

General David Sejusa supporters in Sembabule say they will travel on Thursday to Kasangati in Wakiso District to clean Dr Kizza Besigye’s Kasangati property.

They say a section of Uganda Police Force, which has since February 18 camped on the former FDC president’s farm; ‘dirtied’ the environs.

The decision to go and clean Besigye’s home is also informed by the fact that Dr Besigye was Sejusa’s best man.

They have not yet informed the police of their intended ‘mission’, so it remains to be seen if the police will allow them to clean up after them.

The supporters said this on Easter Monday, as they cleaned Gen Sejusa Nkoma country home.

They arrived at the general’s home at 6:30am, carrying hoes, slashers, machetes and twigs.

During today’s cleaning at Gen Sejusa’s, the supporters hummed the ‘Toka kwa barara’ tune, picked from Dr Besigye's campaign song.

The group, which had been mobilised by Mr Dennis Agaba, a resident in the area, said decided to clean the general’s home because many of them water their animals at Sejusa’s valley dam.

Yet others get safe drinking water from him.

“General Sejusa was no nonsense but God-fearing man. He had a heart of gold; he helped others,” Mr Ronald Kasaija, resident of Nkoma village, said.

Mr Richard Kimanzi, a father of three, said his three children are no longer going to school because he has no money.

Like many other villagers who did some casual work at Gen. Sejusa’s home, they want the government to release Gen. Sejusa.

braial@yahoo.com

Former UWA boss Moses Mapesa is dead

The former executive director of Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Moses Mapesa is dead.
By Twagirimana Emmanuel

TESTIFIED: Mr Mapesa at Parliament yesterday. — The former executive director of Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Moses Mapesa succumbed to acute leukemia on Monday morning. File photo

The former executive director of Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Moses Mapesa has died.
Mapesa succumbed to leukemia on Monday morning.
“Moses died today at around 10 am at Nabulola Clinic where he had been admitted. He had myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) that progressed into acute leukemia,” said a relative who preferred to remain anonymous.

In May last year, Daily Monitor published a story of Mapesa seeking Shs299 million to undergo a bone marrow transplant surgery abroad in a bid to save his life.
Dr Henry Ddungu, a consultant in haematology and oncology at the Uganda Cancer Institute, who was attending to Mapesa then, said the former UWA executive director was suffering from myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a disorder that affects the bone marrow.

“MDS is usually a disease of those aged above 60 years. It is not an easy condition to detect because it doesn’t have symptoms and diagnosis usually takes place when the patient goes for a different medical problem,” Dr Ddungu explained.
Speaking on behalf of Mr Mapesa’s family, Mr Sam Mwandha then told the media that Mapesa had been diagnosed with the disease in 2008 when he travelled to South Africa for an operation.
“He has lived with the condition for eight years now but the situation got worse last year [2014] in May when he started getting more frequent blood transfusions. Doctors have now advised on a bone marrow operation to help his situation,” Mr Mwandha said then.
Mapesa has for the last nine years been getting regular blood transfusions and intensive medical care to manage the condition.

Dr Ddungu last year said Mr Mapesa’s condition was classified as high risk and has less than a year to have the immature blood cells to develop into leukemia or blood cancer. Indeed the condition progressed into acute leukemia like the doctor predicted.
Mr Mapesa was the executive director of UWA for five years (from 2005 to 2010) before becoming a tourism consultant.
He started his career as a researcher in 1988 and slowly rose through the ranks working as a warden at Queen Elizabeth National Park and as a chief warden at Kidepo National Park.
His career in administrative positions began in 2000 when he was promoted as the head of planning and as the deputy director, field operations at UWA, before becoming the executive director.

UK Foreign Office on Palmyra Victory: London Welcomes Action Against Daesh

The UK Foreign Office said Monday it welcomes action against Daesh amid the recent liberation of Palmyra by Syrian forces, supported by Russian aviation.

By Twgirimana Emmanuel

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, the Russian Embassy in London questioned FCO's reluctance to welcome the liberation of the ancient city on its official Twitter account.

"Whilst action against Daesh is welcome, it is the Syrian regime that is ultimately responsible for this conflict. It is deeply regrettable that the iconic site of Palmyra has become a pawn in the wider Syria conflict, the only way out of which is a political settlement," a Foreign Office spokesman told Sputnik.

Russia's Support in Palmyra Akin to WWII Victory - Syrian Opposition

The Syrian army confirmed Sunday that it had liberated the historic city of Palmyra from Daesh terrorist group with support of national aviation and Russian Aerospace Forces. Palmyra, located 210 kilometers away from Damascus, is considered key for advancing to the Daesh stronghold of Raqqa in eastern Syria. The town of Palmyra and its historic ruins have been under Daesh control since May 2015.

John Kerry: Knocking at the Kremlin’s Door

Secretary of State Kerry flew to Moscow from Habana to discuss Syria and Ukraine with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin following a breakthrough ceasefire agreement on Syria.

00:00 / 00:00

In an article entitled “Kerry off to Russia for Syria Talks After Brussels Attacks”, written by AP journalist Matthew Lee and carried by ABC News, the author claims that Obama administration “is seeking clarity from Putin and Lavrov as to where Russia stands on a political transition for Syria, particularly on the future of President Bashar Assad”. Matthew Lee is also addressing the issue of growing misunderstanding between Moscow and Washington over the basic terms and conditions of implementing cease-fire agreement on Syria.
“Russia on Monday warned the United States that it will start responding unilaterally to cease-fire violations in Syria if the U.S. refuses to coordinate rules of engagement against violators. The State Department, however, insisted that Moscow and Washington are working constructively to monitor the truce. The department also warned Russia against taking unilateral action in response to alleged violations”, — says Matthew Lee.
Fedor Voitolovsky, Deputy Director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Science (studio guest);
Fred Weir, head of Moscow bureau of Christian Science Monitor; and Anton Fedyashin, Director at the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History and Associate Professor, American University (Washington) commented on the topic.

Oops! Obama Makes Pentagon and CIA Clash in Syria

Clashes between militia groups trained by the CIA and the Pentagon are intensifying in Syria.

By Twagirimana Emmanuel

Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces

Kurds Account for 80% of US-Trained Syrian Democratic Forces

President Barack Obama is to blame for these incidents, journalist Rick Moran wrote in an article for American Thinker. He says that the US leader has demonstrated weakness in his policy on Syria.
According to the Los Angeles Times, in February a CIA-armed militia called Knights of Righteousness was run out of the town of Marea by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

"If anything demonstrates the incompetence, futility, and danger of the president's policy in Syria, it's this almost comic clash between fighters trained by two separate wings of our national security apparatus," the author wrote.

According to Moran, the embarrassing situation resulted from Washington’s unwillingness to support the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA). The US feared that supporting the FSA would require ground troops and would force Russia to intervene.

Fighters from Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front drive in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. (File)

'Moderate' Move: Free Syrian Army Partly Refuses to Participate in Ceasefire Deal Without al-Nusra Front

In late-2011, Syrian government forces were close to losing the war, and Daesh did not enter the conflict. If at the time, the US had supplied the FSA with weapons they would have been able to end the war, according to the author. "But Clinton-Obama played it safe and now we are presented with a Gordian Knot that appears hopelessly tangled. Each strand that is unraveled leads to another strand tightening," Moran underscored.

"I don't envy the next president who has to manage the slaughter to keep it from spilling over Syria's borders and further embroil the region in conflict," he concluded.

Russia considering sanctions against UK over tax evasion support - financial crime consultant

By Twagirimana Emmanuel

A financial crime consultant claims Moscow is seriously considering economic sanctions against the UK over its alleged support of tax evading Russian nationals. Ken Rijock of World-Check said he got the information from a reliable financial source in Moscow.

President Vladimir Putin.(RIA Novosti / Aleksey Nikolskyi)

According to Rijock, many affluent Russians are evading income tax. Russia intends to hold the UK responsible as the scheme involving British overseas territories, the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the Cayman Islands, he writes.
The extent of sanctions, and when they will be imposed upon the UK, is not known.
“Russia is blaming the United Kingdom for failing to terminate local legislation that allows companies with bearer shares to exist in the British Virgin Islands, and to allow non-UK nationals to form such entities.”
Russian nationals are purchasing BVI companies, he said, referring to individuals who are privy to the investigation. Using the total anonymity associated with a BVI company and its bearer shares, they then open corporate accounts in the Cayman Islands. As a result that cash is transferred and held by an entity whose ownership cannot be determined.
The British Virgin Islands is known as the world's biggest provider of offshore companies. The territory’s prosperity almost entirely depends on offshore cash injections.

In his blog Rijock claims a financial services firm in Road Town, Tortola refers all “corporate” clients to offices in Grand Cayman. A bank account is further arranged through a local financial services provider.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars have been hidden from view in this manner, and Russian law enforcement, and regulatory agencies, cannot ascertain beneficial ownership, even when they have the name of the corporation,” said Rijock.
A former banking attorney, money launderer and advisor to drug traffickers, Ken Rijock now consults with law enforcement and the financial services industry. He is a global provider of highly structured risk intelligence for banks, institutional lenders, lawyers, accounting firms and other regulated financial services.
Rijock has assisted in fighting money launderers on a global scale after he had been arrested and served time in a US federal prison for racketeering and money laundering.
World-Check is a source of structured intelligence on heightened risk individuals and organizations.

Obama rejects private meeting with Turkey’s Erdogan – US media

By Twagirimana Emmanuel

U.S. President Barack Obama (R) and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan © Kevin Lamarque

American President Barack Obama has no plans for a personal meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is heading to the US on an official visit this week to take part in the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.

President Erdogan had invited Obama to join him at the inauguration of a Turkish-funded mosque in Maryland, but the proposal has been turned down, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Instead, President Erdogan is expected to hold a face-to-face meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden, a White House official told the WSJ.
The official said that contact between the American and Turkish presidents is regular, since they had a personal meeting in November 2015 on the fringes of the G20 summit in Turkey, and held a phone conversation in February.
“The president has been in such regular contact with few other world leaders,” the senior administration official told the media. “When it comes to the [Nuclear Security Summit], there is not a robust [bilateral] schedule, so it’s not as if Erdogan is being excluded.”
The press service of the Turkish president said it has no information about a meeting between the two presidents being canceled, RIA Novosti reports. Reportedly, Turkish officials had been preparing a Washington get-together of the two leaders for months.
The Nuclear Security Summit, or NSS 2016, kicks off on March 31. President Erdogan will arrive in the US two days before that, and is planning to leave on April 2.
Relations between Obama and Erdogan have certainly seen better times, with Obama previously naming Erdogan among his closest allies. Back in May 2013, when then-Prime Minister Erdogan and his family paid an official visit to the US, he was most welcome, with President Obama inviting him for dinner.
That was at a time when Erdogan had announced historic peace talks with Kurdish fighters and praised the further development of the economic ties between Turkey and the US.
Yet already in 2013, relations between Ankara and Washington witnessed discord, first because of a violent police crackdown against protesters in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, allegedly staged by supporters of dissident Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who had found refuge in the US. The actions of the Turkish police drew criticism from the White House.
Then in December 2013 came the arrests of dozens of people in a political-corruption probe that exposed links to Erdogan’s family and closest associates.
Most recently, Turkey’s relations with key allies were strained by its military operation in the southeast launched against Kurdish armed militias, which then also spread to Kurds’ positions in neighboring Syria and Iraq.
The crackdown against internal critics of the Erdogan government has also put the existence of basic freedom of speech and press in Turkey under question.
Back in January, when Vice President Joe Biden visited Istanbul, he met with Turkish journalists critical of President Erdogan – a move that caused consternation among the Turkish leader and his allies.
Last week a senior aide to President Erdogan said Turkey needs no “external advice” from Washington when it comes to internal politics. “This is the behavior of a big brother giving lessons. We need friendship,” he stressed.
For the US, Turkey remains a key ally in fighting jihadists in Syria and Iraq, with the US Air Force using Turkish military airfields for operations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).