Month: July 2022

Cuba Should Be Removed From the U.S. List of State Sponsors of Terrorism

The United States maintains a list of countries that it considers as “state sponsors of terrorism.” There are currently four countries on that list: Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria. The basic idea behind this list is that the U.S. State Department determines that these countries have “provided support for acts of international terrorism.” Evidence about those “acts” are not provided by the U.S. government. For Cuba, there is not one shred of evidence that the government has offered any such support to terrorism activities, in fact, Cuba has—since 1959—been a victim of acts of terrorism by the United States, including an attempted invasion in 1961 (Bay of Pigs) and repeated assassination attempts against its leaders (638 times against Fidel Castro).

Washington Post Promotes New Adversary For Pentagon: The Middle East

For the past year, the news and editorial commentary of the Washington Post has favored a more aggressive posture on the part of the United States and the Pentagon. The Post favors a U.S. naval presence in the Black Sea to break the Russian blockade against Ukraine as well as a more aggressive U.S. posture in the Indo-Pacific to challenge China. The twin notions of challenging Russia and China in their “home waters” conjures up images of daunting challenges that lead to increased defense spending and international tensions. And now the Post has added another adversarial challenge: the Middle East.

Turkey looks to import gas from Turkmenistan, test exports to Bulgaria

Turkey and Turkmenistan are working on a gas deal that will likely extend to Europe in a bid to reduce Western dependency on Russian gas.

With fears mounting that Russia may cut off gas supplies to Europe, Turkey is working on plans to bring in gas from Turkmenistan and has started transiting gas to neighboring Bulgaria, which has already had its supplies of Russian gas cut.

Erdogan, Putin set to meet in Tehran

The Turkish, Iranian and Russian leaders are set to meet in Tehran next week amid lingering Turkish threats against Syrian Kurdish groups. Putin and Erdogan will separately discuss the Ukrainian grain crisis.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Tehran next week, with Ukrainian grain exports and a potential Turkish operation in Syria likely to top the agenda.

The Future WHO (World Health Organization)

“The alarming amendments offered by the Biden Administration to the WHO’s International Health Regulations would grant new unilateral authority to [WHO] Director-General Tedros to declare a public health crisis in the United States or other sovereign nations, without any consultation with the U.S. or any other WHO member. Specifically, the Biden Amendment would strike the current regulation that requires the WHO to ‘consult with and attempt to obtain verification from the State Party in whose territory the event is allegedly occurring in,’ ceding the United States’ ability to declare and respond to an infectious disease outbreak within the United States, dependent on the judgment of a corrupt and complicit UN bureaucracy.” — Rep. Chris Smith, ranking member of the House Global Health Subcommittee, May 18, 2022.

Does Iran take Israel-Gulf air defense cooperation seriously? – analysis

Iran has already been striking the US in the region in dozens of rocket and drone attacks over the past year.

Reports over the weekend said that Iran was upping its rhetoric against any sort of US-backed air defense pact that might link Israel and several Arab countries together. Ostensibly, such cooperation would be defensive, but Iran and its proxies are currently the only real threat to the region.

Europe’s Rush to Buy Africa’s Natural Gas Draws Cries of Hypocrisy

The EU wants to import as much African gas as it can, but doesn’t want to fund projects that would allow the world’s poorest continent to burn more of the fuel at home.

Near the tip of Nigeria’s Bonny Island, an arrowhead speck of land where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Niger Delta, a giant plant last year produced enough liquefied natural gas to heat half the UK for the winter. Most of it was shipped out of the country, with Spain, France and Portugal the biggest buyers.