Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov talks about the upcoming convening of the Arab-Russian Cooperation Forum, and points out that "the Russian military operation in Ukraine continues"

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov talks about the upcoming convening of the Arab-Russian Cooperation Forum, and points out that "the Russian military operation in Ukraine continues"

    Sunday, July 24, 2022   No comments

Today, Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Russian military operation in Ukraine is "continuing", noting that the door to negotiations is also "open to the Ukrainian side."

"The Russian operation in Ukraine will continue and we have not closed the door to negotiations," Lavrov said, during a speech before the League of Arab States, during his visit to Cairo, adding that the Russian side "presented draft proposals regarding negotiations to the Ukrainian government, but did not receive a response."

Lavrov stressed that "the Ukrainian regime is carrying out operations to bomb hospitals and civilian infrastructure," stressing that Russian forces "secure corridors across the Black Sea for the passage of grain ships, but Ukraine fails to do so due to the spread of mines."

On relations with the League of Arab States, the Russian Foreign Minister indicated that there is a proposal being discussed with the League of Arab States aimed at "identifying additional plans to strengthen joint relations."

He continued, "We agreed with the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Aboul Gheit, to define additional plans to strengthen relations between the two sides in various fields," adding that "we plan to hold the Arab-Russian Cooperation Forum soon, in its sixth session, after it was held 5 times."

Lavrov: The Arab position on the crisis in Ukraine is balanced and the West ignores our concerns

 

Lavrov praised the moderate position of the Arab countries towards the course of the Ukrainian crisis, stressing that Russia is open to dialogue with the Arab world and with all countries of the world.

The Russian Foreign Minister stressed that Russian-Arab relations are based on friendship and cordiality.

Lavrov also explained the reasons that prompted Moscow to start the military operation in Ukraine, explaining: "We had legitimate concerns about our security, and our concerns about NATO expansion and Ukraine's acquisition of a lot of Western weapons were ignored."

He continued: "The Minsk Agreement was violated, Kyiv bombed areas rejecting it with artillery, while the European Union completely failed to fulfill its commitments."

Lavrov pointed out that the Kyiv regime deliberately banned the Russian language in eastern Ukraine, spread racism, anti-Russianism and support for Nazism, recalling that "the West obstructed the negotiation process", stressing at the same time that Russia does not close the door to negotiations with Ukraine.

He pointed out that the Europeans considered that NATO had the right to dominate and do as it pleased, stressing that Moscow "rejects this policy, as the NATO countries cannot maintain their security by threatening the security of another country."

Regarding the grain transport crisis, the Russian minister commented, "The Russian forces have secured passages across the Black Sea for the passage of grain ships, but Ukraine has failed in this because of its deployment of mines in the waters of the ports on the Black Sea."

   

Lavrov: Moscow Not Asking to Lift Sanctions, But West Must Resolve Self-Created Food Supply Issues

 

Earlier today, Lavrov said that "Egypt and Russia have basic agreements on a number of regional and global issues," adding: "We discussed the situation in Libya and the need to support the UN mission."

The Russian Foreign Minister called on Ukraine to remove the mines it planted in the ports, and said that "the West seeks to export Ukraine's wheat and ignores Russia's."

For his part, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry stressed the importance of reaching a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis, noting that the crisis "affected Egypt" with regard to food security.

Egypt accuses Qatar of providing sanctuary to individuals who financed the bomb attack on church in Cairo

Egypt accuses Qatar of providing sanctuary to individuals who financed the bomb attack on church in Cairo

    Friday, December 16, 2016   No comments

ISR comments: For the second time in days, Egyptian authorities accuse Qatar of a role in training groups threatening the security of the country. This time, the interior ministry explicitly stated that Qatar is providing sanctuary to individuals who are training and financing the terrorists who bombed the church in Cairo. Other Gulf Stated reacted by rejecting the charges against Qatar claiming that all Gulf States stand against terrorism.

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Egypt's interior ministry Monday accused fugitive Muslim Brotherhood leaders who have fled to Qatar of training and financing the perpetrators of the bomb attack on a Cairo church that killed 25 people.

The ministry said investigations revealed the group was led by a suspect who received financial and logistical support and instructions to carry out the attacks by Brotherhood leaders residing in Qatar.

The Muslim Brotherhood have denied any involvement with the explosion at the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church on Sunday.

The incident was the deadliest attack in recent memory on the Christian minority, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population.

The Interior Ministry said late Monday that Mustafa belonged to a terrorist cell founded by an Egyptian doctor and funded by Muslim Brotherhood leaders living in exile in Qatar, long accused by Egypt of supporting militants groups. It said the cell was tasked with staging attacks that would lead to sectarian Muslim-Christian strife. source

London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, says allies should join Assad and Russia against Isis

London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, says allies should join Assad and Russia against Isis

    Monday, December 07, 2015   No comments

London’s mayor says doubts about there being 70,000 ‘moderate’ fighters means allies cannot be picky if they want to defeat jihadis

Britain and its allies should accept that Bashar al-Assad’s forces are best placed to lead a ground assault against Islamic State in Syria because David Cameron’s claims about 70,000 moderate opposition forces are “exaggerated,” Boris Johnson has said.

On Wednesday MPs will vote on whether to extend the UK’s air campaign against Isis to Syria. Here are the issues that should inform their decision
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In remarks that may be seized on by Labour opponents of the airstrikes in Syria, Johnson says that “Assad and his army” may be the allies’ best chance of removing Isis because the 70,000 figure includes groups that are ideologically little different from al-Qaida.

The prime minister faced intense pressure in the House of Commons last week after claiming that 70,000 “moderate” fighters in Syria are prepared to join the UK and its allies in attacking Islamic State. Jeremy Corbyn questioned the figure as he spoke of a lack of “credible ground forces”.

Johnson waded into the row by saying that Britain and its allies, which cannot overthrow Isis without ground forces, cannot be picky about their allies in light of doubts over the 70,000 figure.

London’s mayor wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “We have the estimated 70,000 of the Free Syrian Army (and many other groups and grouplets); but those numbers may be exaggerated, and they may include some jihadists who are not ideologically very different from al-Qaida. Who else is there? The answer is obvious. There is Assad, and his army; and the recent signs are that they are making some progress.” source

UK could be prosecuted for war crimes over missiles sold to Saudi Arabia that were used to kill civilians in Yemen

UK could be prosecuted for war crimes over missiles sold to Saudi Arabia that were used to kill civilians in Yemen

    Saturday, November 28, 2015   No comments

Advisers to the Foreign Secretary step up legal warnings that the missile sales may breach international humanitarian law

Britain is at risk of being prosecuted for war crimes because of growing evidence that missiles sold to Saudi Arabia have been used against civilian targets in Yemen’s brutal civil war, Foreign Office lawyers and diplomats have warned.

Advisers to Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, have stepped up legal warnings that the sale of specialist missiles to the Saudis, deployed throughout nine months of almost daily bombing raids in west Yemen against Houthi rebels, may breach international humanitarian law.

Since March this year, bombing raids and a blockade of ports imposed by the Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Gulf states have crippled much of Yemen. Although the political aim is to dislodge Houthi Shia rebels and restore the exiled President, Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi, thousands of Yemeni civilians have been killed, with schools, hospitals and non-military infrastructure hit. Fuel and food shortages, according to the United Nations, have brought near famine to many parts of the country.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other NGOs, claim there is no doubt that weapons supplied by the UK and the United States have hit Yemeni civilian targets. One senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) legal adviser told The Independent: “The Foreign Secretary has acknowledged that some weapons supplied by the UK have been used by the Saudis in Yemen. Are our reassurances correct – that such sales are within international arms treaty rules? The answer is, sadly, not at all clear.”

source

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that the invasion of Iraq helped the rise of ISIS

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that the invasion of Iraq helped the rise of ISIS

    Monday, October 26, 2015   No comments

Speaking to CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired on Sunday, Blair said, "Of course you can't say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation [in Iraq] in 2015."

"There are elements of truth" in the fact that the invasion is responsible for the rise in ISIS, he said.

Asked whether the invasion was wrong, Blair failed to give a direct apology, saying that he could "apologize for some of the mistakes in planning and certainly our mistakes in our understanding of what would happen when you remove the regime. But I find it hard to apologize for removing Saddam. I think, even from today in 2015, it is better that he's not there than that he is there."

"I can say that I apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong because, even though he had used chemical weapons extensively against his own people, against others, the program in the form that we thought it was did not exist in the way that we thought," he said.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon responded by tweeting that Blair's comments were part of a "spin operation" ahead of the release of the long-awaited Chilcot Inquiry, which looks at the UK's role in the Iraq war. 

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The history of British slave ownership has been buried: now its scale can be revealed

The history of British slave ownership has been buried: now its scale can be revealed

    Monday, July 13, 2015   No comments

"The road to imperial glory is always paved by the blood, sweat, and skulls of the vulnerable and oppressed"

The past has a disconcerting habit of bursting, uninvited and unwelcome, into the present. This year history gate-crashed modern America in the form of a 150-year-old document: a few sheets of paper that compelled Hollywood actor Ben Affleck to issue a public apology and forced the highly regarded US public service broadcaster PBS to launch an internal investigation.

The document, which emerged during the production of Finding Your Roots, a celebrity genealogy show, is neither unique nor unusual. It is one of thousands that record the primal wound of the American republic – slavery. It lists the names of 24 slaves, men and women, who in 1858 were owned by Benjamin L Cole, Affleck’s great-great-great-grandfather. When this uncomfortable fact came to light, Affleck asked the show’s producers to conceal his family’s links to slavery. Internal emails discussing the programme were later published by WikiLeaks, forcing Affleck to admit in a Facebook post: “I didn’t want any television show about my family to include a guy who owned slaves. I was embarrassed.”

It was precisely because slaves were reduced to property that they appear so regularly in historic documents, both in the US and in Britain. As property, slaves were listed in plantation accounts and itemised in inventories. They were recorded for tax reasons and detailed alongside other transferable goods on the pages of thousands of wills. Few historical documents cut to the reality of slavery more than lists of names written alongside monetary values. It is now almost two decades since I had my first encounter with British plantation records, and I still feel a surge of emotion when I come across entries for slave children who, at only a few months old, have been ascribed a value in sterling; the sale of children and the separation of families was among the most bitterly resented aspects of an inhuman system.

Slavery resurfaces in America regularly. The disadvantage and discrimination that disfigures the lives and limits the life chances of so many African-Americans is the bitter legacy of the slave system and the racism that underwrote and outlasted it. Britain, by contrast, has been far more successful at covering up its slave-owning and slave-trading past. Whereas the cotton plantations of the American south were established on the soil of the continental United States, British slavery took place 3,000 miles away in the Caribbean.

That geographic distance made it possible for slavery to be largely airbrushed out of British history, following the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Many of us today have a more vivid image of American slavery than we have of life as it was for British-owned slaves on the plantations of the Caribbean. The word slavery is more likely to conjure up images of Alabama cotton fields and whitewashed plantation houses, of Roots, Gone With The Wind and 12 Years A Slave, than images of Jamaica or Barbados in the 18th century. This is not an accident.

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