Tag: Iran

China steps up, a new era has dawned in world politics

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Saturday, 11 March 2023 — Indian Punchline

by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

Under Chinese mediation, Saudi Arabia and Iran have reached an agreement to resume diplomatic relations, Beijing, March 10, 2023

The agreement announced on Friday in Beijing regarding the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran and the reopening of their embassies is a historic event. It goes way beyond an issue of Saudi-Iranian relations. China’s mediation signifies that we are witnessing a profound shift of the tectonic plates in the geopolitics of the 21st century.

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Catherine Perez-Shakdam: The “Israeli Spy” Who “Infiltrated” MintPress

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Thursday, 15 December 2022 — MintPress News

Catherine Perez Shakdam

A storm of controversy erupted earlier this year in Iran, after local media outlets announced that a “Mossad spy” and “Israeli infiltrator” had gained the trust of the country’s senior leadership, penetrated into the highest halls of power, and had even been employed as a writer for  Ayatollah Khamenei himself.

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Israel’s Pyrrhic victory in Gaza, Netanyahu is real winner

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17 May 2021 — Indian Punchline

by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

Building housing the offices of Associated Press and other media collapses after Israeli airstrike, Gaza City, May 15, 2021.

Egypt has once again been thrust onto the forefront of brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi remarked on Monday that a ceasefire might still be within reach.

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Russia takes charge of Nagorno-Karabakh

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16 January 2021 — Indian Punchline

M.K. Bhadrakumar

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) met Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev (C) and Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan (L), Moscow, Jan. 11, 2021

The trilateral meeting of the leaderships of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Kremlin on January 11, exactly two months after the ceasefire in the 44-day Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, can be seen as a robust push by Moscow to consolidate its diplomatic achievement so far. The ceasefire has gained traction and this is the opportune moment for Russia to flesh out other aspects that were agreed upon between the three countries on November 10 in Moscow.

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Pompeo’s Diabolical Diplomacy

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29 November 2020 — Global Justice in the 21st Century

By Prof. Richard Falk

[Prefatory Note: The following interview devoted to Pompeo’s three day visit to Israel and Occupied Palestine conducted by Eshrat Mardi, was published in the Tehran Times Interview Nov. 28, 2020.]

1: On November 19, Mike Pompeo toured the West Bank and the Golan Heights. How do you analyze the visits to these two occupied lands in terms of international law?

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Historical undercurrents in Nagorno-Karabakh

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18 November 2020 — Indian Punchline

M.K. Bhadrakumar

Armenian cemetery (1579) in Surat, India. 16th century onwards, Armenians from Iran formed an important trading community in Surat port city which had sea borne trade with Bandar Abbas.

The analysts focusing on the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis through the prism of regional politics fail to factor in that the Caucasus comprises ancient peoples. The Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted this in remarks to the media in Moscow yesterday when he brushed aside the perception that Moscow could be harbouring a grudge against Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power through a ‘colour revolution’ in 2018.

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The Hariri Assassination Verdict: A Billion Dollar Trial Ended after 15 Years

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19 August 2020 — American Herald Tribune

Hariri Assassination Verdict b52a9

On February 14, 2005, an explosion rocked Beirut killing and injuring hundreds of people chief among them the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafik al-Hariri. The West was quick to blame Hezbollah and Syria. In 2006, Israel and its tanks rolled into Lebanon.

15 years later, on August 4th, another explosion rocked Lebanon.  This time, the fingers were again pointed at Hezbollah and its ‘Iran backers’. And once again,  Israeli tanks crossed into Lebanon.

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Twitter spreads paid US gov’t propaganda while falsely claiming it bans state media ads

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10 August 2020 — The Grayzone
Twitter VOA Persian US state media ads propaganda
Twitter says it bans ads from state-affiliated media outlets. However, US government propaganda organs like Voice of America’s VOA Persian pay the social media corporation huge sums of money to spread disinformation against Iran and other foreign adversaries.

By Ben Norton

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Washington’s Utterly Failed Diplomacy

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9 August 2019 — Strategic Culture Foundation

The Bully on the Block

There seems no longer any attempt, or semblance, of seeking diplomacy by Washington. Sanctions and aggression are wielded with reckless abandon. Russia, China, and even America’s own supposed European allies are subject to sanctions by Washington in a high-handed dismissal of any mutual dialogue to resolve alleged grievances.

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Secret tripartite summit in Jerusalem by Thierry Meyssan

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11 June 2019 — Voltaire Network

A summit of the national security advisors from the USA, Israël and Russia has been announced in Jerusalem. The aim of this conference is to untangle the imbroglio around the Axis of Resistance, guarantee the security of all the States in the Middle East, and establish a shared suzerainty of the United States and Russia over all the actors, including Israël.

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Nikolaï Patrouchev and John Bolton meet in Jerusalem, in the presence of Meir Ben-Shabbat.

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Will Trump’s Hawks Dare to Risk Israel? By Alastair Crooke

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11 March 2019 — Strategic Culture Foundation

It was the eleventh, and perhaps the most important meeting between President Putin and PM Netanyahu on 27 February, writes the well-informed journalist, Elijah Magnier: “The Israeli visitor heard clearly from his host that Moscow has no leverage to ask Iran to leave – or, to stop the flow of weapons to Damascus … Moscow [also] informed Tel Aviv about Damascus’s determination to respond to any future bombing; and that Russia doesn’t see itself concerned [i.e. a party to such conflict] ”.

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The U.S. Has Venezuela in Its Crosshairs By VJ Prashad

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17 January 2019 — Independent Media Institute

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro addresses international observers at the presidential palace in Caracas. (Ariana Cubillos / AP)

Last Thursday—on January 10—Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for his second term as president of Venezuela. “I tell the people,” Maduro said, “this presidential sash is yours. The power of this sash is yours. It does not belong to the oligarchy or to imperialism. It belongs to the sovereign people of Venezuela.”

These two terms—oligarchy and imperialism—define the problems faced by Maduro’s new government.

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Decoding the Hypersonic Putin on a Day of Remembrance By Pepe Escobar

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13 November 2018 — Asia Times

Sitting alongside French President Macron during the 100th anniversary to commemorate the end of World War I, Putin and Trump stole the show in Paris

The Elysee Palace protocol was implacable. Nobody in Paris would be allowed to steal the spotlight away from the host, President Emmanuel Macron, during the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day marking the end of World War I.

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John Bolton Wins “Defender of Israel” Award from Zionist Lobby Group that Helped Appoint Him By Whitney Webb

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14 November 2018 — Mint Press News

The ZOA, Bolton’s enthusiastic sponsor, led the campaign to remove former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster from his post after railing against McMaster’s “anti-Israel” positions, most notably his support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal.

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Media Lens: How To Be A Reliable ‘Mainstream’ Journalist

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8 November 2018 — Media Lens

There are certain rules you need to follow as a journalist if you are going to demonstrate to your editors, and the media owners who employ you, that you can be trusted.

For example, if you write about US-Iran relations, you need to ensure that your history book starts in 1979. That was the year Iranian students started a 444-day occupation of the US embassy in Tehran. This was the event that ‘led to four decades of mutual hostility’, according to BBC News. On no account should you dwell on the CIA-led coup in 1953 that overthrew the democratically-elected Iranian leader, Mohammad Mossadegh. Even better if you just omit any mention of this.

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Is the Saudi War on Yemen a Proxy War by the US? Selected Articles

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15 August 2018 — Global Research News

US Provided “Intelligence” and Bomb Used in Massacre of Yemeni Schoolchildren

By Whitney Webb, August 15, 2018

The involvement of U.S. military intelligence in “fine-tuning” the targets of coalition airstrikes is likely the main factor explaining why the U.S. government has refused to condemn the strike and has refused to support an independent investigation into the atrocity.
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Media Lens: ‘Skirmishes’ – Israel’s Syria Blitz

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23 May 2018 — Media Lens

A key ‘mainstream’ media theme in covering the Israeli army’s repeated massacres of unarmed, non-violent Palestinian civilians protesting Israel’s military occupation in Gaza – killing journalists, a paramedic, the elderly and children – has been the description of these crimes as ‘clashes’.

This has been a clear attempt to obfuscate the fact that while two groups of people are involved, only one group is being killed and wounded.

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‘A Suffocating Groupthink’: Sampling The Corporate Media On Israel, Iran, Syria And Russia

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16 May 2018 — Media Lens

The gaping chasm between reality and unreality is exemplified by recent contrasting statements about journalism from two veteran reporters. On the one side we have Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East editor, who enjoys a public image of principled honesty and a supposedly fierce commitment to news balance and impartiality. But, when he was challenged recently on Twitter about the blatant bias in BBC News reporting, he responded just as one would expect of a well-rewarded, high-profile employee of the national broadcaster:

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