The tensions reached a peak on March 13, when Gerasimov personally stated that Moscow is ready to retaliate in case the lives of its servicemen, stationed in Syria, are put in danger as a result of a US attack. He also warned that “there are many” Russian military personnel at the governmental forces’ facilities in Damascus.

That was one of the harshest statements Russia ever made in relation to the situation in Syria. It was also the first time it openly admitted a possibility of a direct clash between Russia and the US in the Middle Eastern country.

The prospect of an armed conflict, which seemingly already was looming large on the horizon, appeared to have cooled the hotheads as the top military of the two countries held a phone conversation on the evening of that same day. At that time, Gerasimov and Dunford agreed to maintain regular contact, which is what they appear to be doing, thus averting the danger of a real violent confrontation and keeping things under control.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/422072-russia-us-top-generals-syria/

See also: 

Liberals often laud the Enlightenment as the moment when faith was replaced by reason. The new moral vision was, however, also rooted in faith, though of a different kind – faith that humans were capable of acting rationally and morally without guidance from beyond. It was that faith upon which Frankl drew. It was expressed not just through science and technology but also through politics that helped overthrow tyranny and bring about democracy. That faith, too, has eroded, as have the movements in which it was embodied.

Religion once helped provide meaning and identity through sublimating human agency to God’s will. Not only is it less capable of doing so these days, but when it does so, it often takes sectarian or bigoted forms. Equally, as the optimism that once suffused the humanist impulse has ebbed away, politics, too, is less capable of providing a means through which people can express agency. The politics that today seeks to do this is also often sectarian or bigoted.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/01/lost-faith-god-rel...

------

These are strange forlorn words in a weird spruik coming from Kenan Malik, who, as I can make out has long campaigned for equal rights, freedom of expression, and for a secular society, even communism. He is an advocate of rationalism and humanism against what he has called "a growing culture of irrationalism, mysticism and misanthropy".

His tirade was derived from the possibility that Pope Francis denied the existence of Hell, in private. The Catholic church quickly published a denial of this proposition, that the "friend" of the Pope, a ninety-sumpthin' old man had misunderstood what had been said by the Pope.

Here on YD, we maintain with scientific certainty that hell and heaven do not exist — and that, like Malik professes, humans need to find better ways to live harmoniously without irrationalism, mysticism, racism, misogyny nor misanthropy. It's big ask when most of our "leaders" have reached a greater level of "psychopathy" and are armed beyond the unthinkable. 

So, apparently, after 200 years of enlightenment, we are still searching for a moral compass. As mentioned many times before, there is none, just the one set of rules we can fabricate to achieve peace and trust between all of us. We can make planes that fly, bombs that go boom, why can't we make a "new" moral code that creates nice fireworks and minimise the pain and the hurt we can inflict on others while protecting the planet from our ruthless exploitation? I know why... Greed is in the way. Deceit is in the way. Greed and deceit are the main engines of our present economies. Greed, guns and god still rule, unfortunately.

Reason? We can and we will. We have to.

Read from top. See also: The Bleeding Nun of Lindenberg

Completely independent film, about what happens when a British person, Les Scott, goes on holiday to Crimea. Totally funded by crowdfunding.

A life-affirming and (somewhat) non-political video for the holiday weekend. British freelance reporter Graham W. Phillips takes a longtime friend on an exploration of Crimea, getting a personal perspective on life there 4 years after its “annexation” by Russia following the 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine. Phillips rose to prominence for his brave frontline reporting of the Washington-sponsored “Anti-Terror Operation” and subsequent civil war in Ukraine. Here he is in lighter mode. We hope he gets the chance to make more such films in the future, and that we get the chance to watch them.

This film was to be shown at a British film festival this year, but the invitation to a public screening was withdrawn, apparently in response to the Skripal event.

See:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/04/01/watch-a-brit-in-crimea-on-his-holida...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Adw8_d-05o

Read from top... Obviously this documentary won't be shown on "our" ABC though it should, but maybe SBS could squeeze it in its schedule...

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack is urging Australians to reconsider travelling to Russia, with government officials warning of anti-Western sentiment.

• Two Russian spies have left Australia after being expelled as part of an international diplomatic row
• Two Australian diplomats have been expelled from Moscow in retaliation
• Michael McCormack says Australians should think carefully before travelling to Russia

Two Russian spies expelled by Australian Government as part of a diplomatic row with the Kremlin have now left the country.

The Federal Government said the two officials were working as unregistered intelligence officers, under the pretence of diplomatic duties.

Their expulsion was part of a concerted UK-led effort to punish the Russian Government for a nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent living in England.

More than two dozen countries and NATO have expelled Russian diplomats in support of the UK, including the US, which expelled 60 Russian diplomats over the weekend.

• The United States expelled 60 Russian diplomats from Washington and New York
• Australia has directed two "undeclared intelligence officers" to leave within seven days
• Britain has booted out 23 Russian diplomats and is shrinking its own Moscow embassy
• NATO is expelling seven diplomats from Russia's mission and blocking the appointment of three others
• Canada said it was kicking out four diplomats and denying applications to three
• Ukraine, a non-EU country with its own conflicts with Moscow, will expel 13 diplomats
• Germany, Poland and France each plan to boot four diplomats
• Lithuania and the Czech Republic will expel three
• Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and Albania will expel two each
• Sweden, Croatia, Romania, Hungary, Ireland, Macedonia, Norway,  Finland, Latviaand Estonia will expel one each 

Russia has repeatedly denied any role in the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, but the UK Government and its allies are convinced of its involvement.

Read more crap at:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-02/russian-travel-warning-amid-diplom...

Read from top especially:

a brit in crimea (on his holidays) 2018... 

Note: THRE IS NOT A SINGLE PROOF RUSSIA WAS INVOLVED IN THE "SO-CALLED" Sergei Skripal POISONING. NONE.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack IS AN IDIOT.

Independent Italian journalist Marco Fontana shares with Sputnik his views on the Skripal case.

by Marco Fontana

I feel a deep shame at the behavior of the West today. In this behavior, I see the crash of the last remains of what Europe always declared to be its ideals and values. The expulsion of Russian diplomats from a number of EU countries on March 26, a day of national mourning, showed that, for my generation, there are only ruins of morality left on the Old Continent. One can state that the expulsion was unacceptable for four reasons.

First, the choice of date: they chose exactly the day when Russia was mourning those died in the Kemerovo fire, despite that even in the Middle Ages there were days set aside to pick up the injured during wars, and our politicians, while constantly referring to human rights, have no idea of pity.

Second, along with the expulsion of the Russian ambassadors, the EU has allowed the arrest of Catalonian independence fighter Carles Puigdemont on obviously political reasons, after his car was bugged. An episode worthy of any totalitarian regime! Catalonians supported a party that speaks in favor of independence despite pressure from the Spanish and international press; but now, in 2018, anyone who does not obey the ‘eurocracy' becomes an enemy that must either be lynched or be castigated by the political police. All the while those in Washington DC, Strasburg and Brussels dare to speak of ‘freedom.'

Third, March 26 was the day when the Facebook/Cambridge Analytic scandal was powering up. Who knows, maybe the diplomats were expelled to distract readers from contemplations on whether Trump won his presidency thanks to social networks and the purchase of personal data of millions of US voters.

Finally, the investigation of former French President Nikolas Sarkozy alongside protests against current French President Emmanuel Macron — two incidents of a rather scandalous nature which ‘respected' media has tried to downplay, probably, aiming to avoid the discrediting of those countries responsible for the atrocities of the so-called Arab spring.

The Russian diplomats were expelled and on March 26. This makes me feel loathing, anger and shame. The UK has provided no proof that it was Russia who poisoned Skripal. And even if proof is presented, how much would those who remember the stories of WMDs used to justify the disastrous invasion of Iraq believe it? Back then it was enough for Tony Blair to simply apologize for that ‘inconvenience.' It looks like the Brits are at it again: lying and looking for another villain.

It's time to be done with anti-Russian propaganda, because social anger in Europe is growing and it will blow away those who flame this fire.

Someone failed to comprehend that by expelling Russian diplomats under false pretences, sacrificing another piece of our future on the altar of hypocrisy and personal interest.

Being a son of a bygone century, I watch in despair how everything has turned to the worse: the Western values I grew up with have become useless junk and a stark lack of simply humanity.

READ ALL:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201804021063128357-italian-journalist-fontana-skripal-opinion/

Gus: I would not be surprised to learn soon that the West is warning about tourists going to Russia (see article above this one), because some secret service boffins are actually planning some "surprise terrorist attack" on Russian soil. Say, revive a few Chechen mobs and some Sunnis from Daesh to blow up something, then the West can announce that Russia is "not safe"... At this level, so is France (Nice, etc), the UK (Westminster), most of Europe and even the USA (anytime) where the locals (and the police) can shoot you. 

Read from top.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were discovered on a bench in Salisbury on March 4, with the UK claiming a Soviet-designed nerve agent had been used against them. For several weeks, British authorities described their condition as "stable but critical." The news that Yulia was feeling better and even "improving rapidly" came this Thursday.

However, the status bar of her page on Russia's most popular social network site VK.com (VKontakte) states that she "last visited on March 7" – just three days after the chemical attack, when Yulia was reportedly fighting for her life.

READ MORE: Yulia Skripal ‘improving rapidly,’ no longer in critical condition after Salisbury chemical attack

There is no telling whether Yulia somehow accessed her page herself, since her password could be known to other people, such as a friend or family member, or an investigator.

Like many other VK.com users, Yulia Skripal mostly uses her page for reposting memes, including those that have love and life advice, pictures of animals, as well as loads of dark humor. Her latest post, dated March 3, was a gif of a dog walking on its hind legs, with a caption in Russian that reads: "Dance like no one is watching."

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/422931-skripal-yulia-social-media/

Maybe I've see too much of the bumbling spies in "Berlin Station"...

Yeltsin was prepared to follow instructions and having persuaded the Russian Parliament at the end of 1991 to give him extraordinary powers, put a mix of Russian and American Chicago-school economists in charge of economic reform and let them run riot.

Price controls were to be scrapped, financial markets were to be set up, government was to be cut back and most of all, the thousands of state-owned enterprises were to be privatised very quickly — when the country was still in shock and without giving ordinary Russians any opportunity to stop the gutting of the Russian state, and the stripping of its assets.

The privatisations could have involved giving the businesses to their employees, or to the people generally, or they could have been sold for the highest prices, but this is not what happened. Instead, a small group of people in the elite – backers of Yeltsin and former communists, in most cases – were given businesses worth, in some cases, billions of dollars. The government actually lent money to these new oligarchs to allow them to "buy" government-owned assets for virtually nothing. Thus was a billionaire class formed in Russia, which Western multi-nationals then profited from immensely — by providing them with financial and other services, or buying shares in these newly privatised businesses.

All for the promise of a few billion dollars of aid from the West, which once Yeltsin had taken the Chicago path, the West saw fit to withhold in any case.

Russia’s economy crashed. Russia’s elected Parliament rebelled against Yeltsin’s dictatorial and corrupt rule. Yeltsin eventually used the military to attack the Russian Parliament. Russian democracy died, along with hundreds of ordinary Russians who tried to defend it. The West, Western politicians and the Western media sided with Yeltsin.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/from-perestro...

Read from top and see also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/34276

...

Eventually, another doctor came and told him that his wife had died. The man said that he could see her if he wanted to. 

She lay there. Her hand was cold. He sobbed. He didn't know how long he sat there. 

The doctors wrote the discharge summary: Intoxication with Ecstasy. Multiple organ failure. Acidosis. Rapid disseminated coagulation. Kidney failure. Liver failure. Coma. Hypertension. Spontaneous, massive bleeding from the lungs and stomach. Exceedingly fast hemoglobin decline. Full range of emergency life-saving measures. Massive transfusion. Attempted coagulation stabilization. Died from the complications of her critical condition. Signed by the hospital director, senior physician and an assistant physician. 

The time of death was 10:33 am. Jennifer was 30 years old.

Carlo left his dead wife's side. They asked him to wait for the police. He sat in the waiting room. It was a Sunday in June. He heard voices and things, but later wouldn't know if they had actually existed. Eventually, two plainclothes police officers arrived and asked him a few questions. He barely remembers what they said, only how poorly dressed they were. Later, he returned to the hotel. He was now alone. Rob was in the Netherlands, Jenn was dead. He called his parents, then hers. It was 6:00 in the evening in Berlin, early morning in California. Jenn's father was on the phone. He let out a wail. He didn't ask any questions -- he just wailed. It wasn't a human cry, Carlos says. It was the cry of a wounded animal. 

Jenn was her parents' only daughter. As first-generation Asian immigrants, many of their expectations of life in America had to be fulfilled by their daughter, and she had not disappointed them. They remembered her as an ambitious, straight-A student. Jennifer always did her best to maintain this impression. When they visited her parents, it seemed to Carlo that his wife was another person. Her parents didn't see her as someone who would go to a techno club in Berlin and couldn't imagine how their daughter would end up there. They didn't know that their daughter occasionally attended techno parties in California.

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/silence-surrounds-overdose-d...

Read from top

Read also:

disgraceful toads and reptiles called journos...

Now in its fifth week since the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury on March 4, the bits that cannot be flushed away are producing an odour whose obviousness is embarrassing for  Salisbury Hospital and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The hospital is treating the Skripals for their medical welfare and is required by hospital policy and  UK law to be accountable to their next of kin. Their rights of access to and from the hospital are also required by  European Human Rights Convention.  The evidence now accumulating is that the hospital is detaining and isolating the Skripals against their will, preventing contact with their family. Requested to explain this and identify her legal authority, the response of the hospital’s chief executive, Cara Charles-Barks, is to stonewall.

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/04/06/the-empire-strikes-backwards/

---------------------------

If you were not a conspiracy theorist, you may not understand what follows.

Imagine you are an "ordinary" US person, whose hate of Russia has been frothed up by the general media, the governments and the Democrats, in the same manner as the hate of Saddam Hussein, but for a much longer time. Saddam was our friend till about 1988, but Russia is a big bear and "never was our friend" especially since WW2. Saddam was a pushover. But the conspiracy (it was a conspiracy of "intelligence agencies — CIA, MI6, ASIO plus all the US sub-agencies etc) to oust Saddam was still a very complicated affair. See : http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/1686. In order to make a case for war, there had to be some fabrication of dossiers and penning of reasons such as the Weapons of Mass Destruction which was a total crock but reasonably well constructed despite some obvious fauts in the system (the Valerie Plame Affair, the Anthrax Affair, The David Kelly Affair, the "blame Saddam for 9/11 concoction, etc). A few of these were exposed but dismissed quickly by the media that, as ever eager, was after whatever biffo could be concocted, so they could sell more "news".

With Russia, the demonisation is a bit easier because "we all remember" (it's a bit like the Holocaust — 6 million jews etc) the Cold War, though we have no clue as what were the dynamics of it, except that we had to fear the Soviets  (around 20 million dead during WW2) and that the USA were the good guys — the American way. This last premise was bullshit of course but eventually, the Soviets "decided" to be "more reasonable" and we accepted them with open arms, so we could place our hands in their pockets to rob them. This did not go very well. And of course today, we've got that idiot US woman, Nikki Haley, more than a disgrace of a dirty toilet bowl at the United Nations claiming that "Russia will “never be America’s friend". Moscow can try to behave “like a regular country,” but the US will “slap them when we need to.”

So Russia is the pits of hell while the USA is smelling heavenly. Not a single sin, nor problem ever exists in the USA. Everythink is hunkydory like a paradisiac illusory sanitised chicken coop. 

So to keep the heavy shit flying towards the Russians, despite the US having reneged on all the commitments made to Gorbachev, when the Ruskies "decided" to become civilised, we throw unbelievable conspiracies against them. The Skripals is one of them. And of course, sceptical social journalists asked more and more questions to what could be a simple case — say, "a former Russian spy, who has already spilled the beans to MI6, is so hated by the Russians that he deserves to die". Simple. Comes in the most dangerous nerve poison on the planet, and tada, you've got a simple plot that should make headlines around the world to bash the Russians on the head. Bad Ruskies.

But we know that things are never simple, especially when the story has a few holes of uncertainty that demands to be filled like cracks on the road. Can we trust the police and the secret services of the UK? The simple answer to this is NO. No we can't. Why not? Questions arise simply from "how the Skripals were found hunched on a park bench"... Who discovered them? Who knew WHO they were to alert the authorities? Were they "under surveillance"? How people found out that they ate at a restaurant some time earlier? How come the poison was more concentrated at their home? How come a poison that can kill in minutes with only a few milligrams could be found in so many various places, including the restaurant? How come it took so long for the Skripals to be "affected"?

If I was a conspiracy theorist (which I am), I would say that the Skripals had a bad case of indigestion and that their "surveillance officer" saw an opportunity to lay the blame on Russia. Yeepee! Another hypothesis is that the Skripals are in on the hoax... But like Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, the case had to be made "believable" though because quick decisions had to be made, some "evidence" would be "organised later". First the trumpetting through the media! "The Russians have poisoned... blah blah blah!" Magic.

Quickly, the secret services had to organise people with ballooning suit, tents, all "under" secrecy to make the case appear genuine. We're scared! "The Ruskies have used an illegal poison as they would". FEAR! So far one could assume that It's possible that there was no poison found at the locations mentioned but samples of poison were sent (FROM THEIR OWN ENGLISH LABS, with a smeared sample of locations to make them "genuine") to the lab to create hubris. Restaurant patrons are sick as well and sent to hospital to find out they are not sick with poison, but FEAR... To add a bit to the sauce, a complicit or an unsuspecting policeman is given a laxative (as a counter-poison) becomes also sick like a dog. No one told him it was a laxative for dogs... He recovers. 

From there on you can fill in the blanks. No Russian government has been involved but we blame Putin for whatever, including being Putin.

Gus Leonisky

former local local.

..

In 1921 a British Parliamentary Committee produced a report which included the following perceptive passage:

"There is evidence to show that, up to the time of military intervention the majority of the Russian intellectuals were well disposed towards the Allies, and more especially to Great Britain, but that later the attitude of the Russian people towards the Allies became characterised by indifference, distrust and antipathy." [Report (Political and Economic) of the Committee to Collect Information on Russia; (Russia (No.1), 1921, Cmd. 1240]

American Historian William Henry Chamberlin, who was the Moscow correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor in the 1920-30s, wrote that the consequences of the intervention "were to poison East-West relations forever after, to contribute significantly to the origins of World War II and the later Cold War, and to fix patterns of suspicion and hatred on both sides which even today threaten worse catastrophes in time to come." 

God forbid his prophecy comes true…

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201804041063216326-uk-russia-interven...

Poisoned Dialogue

Skripal Case Descends into a Propaganda War

In its rush to assign guilt to Moscow for the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, the British government now finds itself on the defensive. Some German politicians have their doubts. By DER SPIEGEL Staff

....

The findings of the British investigation thus far apparently continue to rely heavily on indications rather than solid evidence. According to media reports, investigators believe that the toxin was smeared on the door handle of Skripal's home. According to British sources cited by the New York Times, the operation is considered to be "so risky and sensitive that it is unlikely to have been undertaken without approval from the Kremlin." Only a professional trained in handling chemical weapons, the British authorities told the paper, could have applied the toxin to the door handle in such a manner that they could be reasonably certain that it would poison their target.

According to The New York Times, the British also believe that the perpetrators intentionally used a toxin that would clearly point to Russia as a way of sending a message to other would-be defectors or informants.

....

This is complete bullshit. This Skripal case is designed more to "embarrass Russia" than to "send a message to other would-be defectors or informants...". Would-be defectors or informants always know in advance that playing the double agent game is a risky adventure from the onset. Few survive as they are targets from BOTH SIDES. See Mr Masterman, the master of the double-cross system during WW2... At this level, Ukrainian agents, as well as CIA agents or MI6 agents would be more likely to be involved in this set up, to "embarrass Russia". But most likely, there was NO POISONING... A "professional" trained in handling chemical weapons WOULD HAVE MADE SURE THE SKRIPALS WOULD HAVE DIED a few MINUTES after having been in touch with the so-called poison.

The analysed conjecture points to a massive false flag set up by the UK to yet blame the Russians for whatever...

The expert also stressed that if pure Novichok was indeed present in the substance found on the handle of the front door of Skripal's home, Sergei and Yulia would have died right on the spot after exposure to the chemical.

Furthermore, Rink said that the OPCW report contradicted the words of Vil Mirzayanov, who referred to himself as one of the creators of the Novichok-class nerve agents. Mirzayanov said that the toxin did not kill Skripals since the substance is vulnerable to humidity, and there was fog in the United Kingdom on March 4, the day of the poisoning attack on Skripals.

"This is a fair remark, because the Novichok is a very unstable substance, which depends on [exposure to] water, on alkalis, on everything. But then the experts would have found the products of hydrolysis, and certainly not a pure substance," Rink emphasized.

According to Rink, Skripals could have been poisoned by fentanyl that is used in the production of narcotic substances. He added that symptoms of recovery of Skripals were similar to those of fentanyl poisoning.

Rink noted that Skripals might have been sprayed with fentanyl while sitting on the bench where they were found unconscious.

"Fentanyl immediately brings a person down. He falls immediately. The effect of fentanyl is instant," Rink said.

Moreover, the fact that no one has seen Skripals in person after the attack indicated that allegations of exposure to Novichok were false, he said. Rink added that Novichok affects the victim's eyes, but the UK authorities had never mentioned such a symptom in any of their statements on condition of Skripals.

Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on March 4 on a bench at a shopping center in the UK city of Salisbury. London accused Moscow of orchestrating the poisoning of the former intelligence officer with the A234 nerve agent. The UK side insists that this substance is similar to the Novichok-class nerve agents developed in the Soviet Union. Russia refuted the allegations.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201804151063573543-novichok-creator-opcw-...

The world’s oldest known spider has died at the ripe old age of 43 after being monitored for years during a long-term population study in Australia, researchers say.

The trapdoor matriarch comfortably outlived the previous record holder, a 28-year-old tarantula found in Mexico, according to a study published on Monday in the Pacific Conservation Biology Journal.

The spider did not die of old age but was killed by a wasp sting, researchers said.

Read from top...

Reddit user ‘space_monster’ posted the gruesome photo on the messaging board site, commenting that they had just arrived back at their Sydney home to find the pair in situ. The post generated 38.9k overall upvotes and 3.5k comments within a day.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/476394-wasp-huntsman-spider-fight-photo/

See image at top...

Gus has many pictures of such fight to the death... The so-called "tarantulas" are locally-known as "huntsman spiders". Both the wasp and the huntsmans are very common in Sydney... Both are "harmless" to humans...

See also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/9177