Gagrule.net

Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide

Russia, Syria ink agreement on expanding Tartus naval base

By

In this file photo, Russia’s Pyotr Velikiy missile cruiser makes a port call at Tartus military installation of the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean port city of Tartus, Syria. (Photo by Sputnik news agency)

Russia and Syria have signed an agreement on the development and modernization of a leased military installation of the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean port city of Tartus, and extending operations there to the next decades.

Under the deal, which was struck in Damascus on Wednesday but made public on Friday, Syria has offered Russia free use of the Soviet-era naval supply and maintenance facility for 49 years. The term can be automatically extended for further 25-year periods if neither side objects.

The agreement allows Moscow to upgrade Tartus naval base so that it can immediately accommodate up to 11 Russian vessels, including those equipped with nuclear propulsion systems, provided that nuclear and environmental safety guidelines are taken into account.

The deal says the Tartus facility will help “support peace and stability in the [Middle East] region,” adding that “it has a defensive character and isn’t directed against any other nation.”

It also says the Russian military will ensure the seaborne and airborne protection of the base, while Syria will be responsible for its ground security.

Russia will have the right to renovate, rebuild and demolish the building, do construction work, including underwater, and set up offshore platforms.

The agreement also stipulates that Russia will help Syria restore its Soviet-built warships.

On October 7, 2016, the lower house of the Russian parliament ratified an agreement with the Damascus government that allows Russian troops to stay indefinitely in Syria as Moscow is battling foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants in the conflict-ridden Arab country.

The deal allows Russia to keep its forces at the Hmeimim air base in Syria’s western coastal province of Latakia for as long as it wants.

The accord was penned in August 2015, one month before the Russian air campaign against militant positions in Syria began at the request of the Damascus government. Russian President Vladimir Putin then submitted the agreement to the State Duma on August 9, 2016.

Under the deal, the Russian air force will operate inside Syria upon the orders of the air group commander and in coordination with Syrian authorities.

Russia also reserves the right to bring into or remove from Syria any munitions or military equipment necessary to accomplish the air force’s tasks and provide the safety of its personnel. The agreement would be terminated once one of the sides notifies the other of its desire to do so.

Harut Sassounian: Improved Russian US relations may be helpful to Armenia

By

Last November, Americans elected the unlikeliest presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump. He is not your typical politician. As a successful and prominent businessman, he is used to making off- the- cuff remarks and not subscribing to any particular direction. Given the controversial nature of the Trump Presidency, domestic and international relations may drastically change. President Trump has already revised his position on some major campaign promises: expelling illegal aliens, building a wall between Mexico and the United States, and not allowing immigrants from Islamic countries to visit the United States. President Trump has also altered his position regarding serious, international issues. President Trump may not be sure himself what positions he would take on a variety of foreign policy issues.

Here is a short list of major international decisions President Trump will have to make.
1. The most important realignment of relations will be between Russia and the United States. If these two major countries can get along, there is no reason to be at odds risking the stability of the world. Furthermore, cooperation between Russia and the United States will have a positive effect on reducing terrorism in Syria and Iraq. Many of the major international figures who are opposed to the prospect of the improved relations between Putin and President Trump are reverting back to the Cold War Era mentality. The biggest issue that has arisen in recent weeks was the accusation that Russia had hacked the US presidential election. However, Russians have not done anything extraordinary. China, Russia and even US allies have always tried to steal each other’s secrets.

2. Due to his discontent with current international agreements, President Trump will want to re-negotiate the terms, previously approved under the Obama administration. One of the most important changes President Trump wants to do is re-negotiate the nuclear deal with Iran, which involves several other countries besides Iran and the US. It remains to be seen if the Iranians will go along with any of the changes proposed by President Trump.

3. A major realignment desired by President Trump is the settling of the Israeli-Arab conflict. If President Trump goes along with his plans in moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, this could result in a major clash between the US and the Arab states leading to highly undesirable consequences.

4. The final issue that President Trump will confront is the newly improved relationship between the United States and Cuba. It remains to be seen whether Cuba will go along with any changes proposed by President Trump.
There is no guarantee that President Trump’s ideas will improve the previously negotiated agreements or if they be accepted by the rest of the world. Consequentially, there is a lot of uncertainty where the new world order is headed, and whether relations between various countries will improve. The entire world hopes that countries will get along better with each other and peaceful solutions will be found. Positive relations between Russia and the US will help recent challenges faced by the Armenian Republic.

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

Donald Trump: Russia never tried to use leverage over me “FAKE NEWS”

By

Russia has never tried to use leverage over me, Donald Trump noted.

“I have nothing to do with Russia – no deals, no loans, no nothing!” Trump tweeted.

He also noted that U.S. media had reported that Russia had a compromising evidence against him but Kremlin disproved existence of such a material.

“Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is “A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE.” Very unfair!” he tweeted.

 “I win an election easily, a great “movement” is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state!”
“Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to “leak” into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?”

Stephen Kinzer: We’ve been hacking elections for more than a century

By

By Stephen Kinzer

Outrage is shaking Washington as members of Congress compete to demonize Russia for its alleged interference in America’s recent presidential election. “Any foreign intervention in our elections is entirely unacceptable,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has asserted. Russian actions, according to other legislators, are “attacks on our very fundamentals of democracy” that “should alarm every American” because they “cut to the heart of our free society.” This burst of righteous indignation would be easier to swallow if the United States had not itself made a chronic habit of interfering in foreign elections.

Over a period of more than a century, American leaders have used a variety of tools to influence voters in other countries. We have chosen candidates, advised them, financed their parties, designed their campaigns, bribed media outlets to support them, and intimidated or smeared their rivals.

One of our first operations to shape the outcome of a foreign election came in Cuba. After the United States helped Cuban rebels overthrow Spanish rule in 1898, we organized a presidential election, recruited a pro-American candidate, and forbade others to run against him. Two years later, after the United States annexed Hawaii, we established an electoral system that denied suffrage to most native Hawaiians, assuring that only pro-American candidates would be elected to public office.

Source:http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/01/08/been-hacking-elections-for-more-than-century/okjziXPQDiegx53ABtpUOO/story.html

Russia: Armenian church in Moscow receives Gregory the Illuminator relic as gift from Russian-Armenian benefactor

By

The Christmas day celebration at the Armenian Cathedral in Moscow was marked by a solemn ceremony of accepting a unique gift, a relic of Gregory the Illuminator (the patron saint who, in 301, converted Armenia from paganism to Christianity, becoming the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church),

The relic was a gift by Artur Janibekyan, a Moscow-based Armenian businessman who now heads Gazprom Media Holding. He bought the item at an auction in Paris after finding out that it had for three years been under the possession of Giom Aral, a French-Armenian collector. The man had purchased the sacred piece from a Nepal antiquities store, acquiring all the necessary accompanying documents. The box bears a seal by a Roman Catholic bishop, which affirms the genuine origins of the relic, Armeniatv.am reports.

In his speech at the ceremony, Archbishop Yezras Nersisyan, the prelate of the Armenian Diocese of Russia and New Nakicevan, highly praised the benefactor for the generous move which he said would largely help to enrich the church’s collection.

“I am thankful to Lord for having this opportunity to bring the relic to our church to the benefit and in the interests of our people and our believers,” Janibekyan said in response.

The sacred relic will be put on display four times a year at the church feasts dedicated to the first patriarch.

Trump Escalates Standoff With U.S. Intelligence Over Russian Hacking Claims

By

RFE/RL

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has escalated his standoff with U.S. intelligence agencies over an alleged Russian cyber-campaign to meddle in the presidential election, ahead of congressional hearings and his scheduled briefing on the matter this week.

In a January 4 tweet, Trump repeated WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s assertion that Russia was not the source of leaked e-mails that were widely seen as having damaged Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the November 8 election.

“Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’ — why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!” Trump wrote, referring to Clinton campaign chief John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee, whose stolen e-mails were published by WikiLeaks before the vote.

Assange repeated his claim in a January 3 interview with Fox News, contradicting the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community, which has publicly accused the Russian government of directing the campaign to influence the U.S. electoral process.

Media reports quoted unidentified CIA and FBI officials as saying that intelligence assessments had concluded that the alleged Russian effort was aimed at tilting the election toward Trump.

The New York real estate developer has repeatedly said he wants to repair ties with Moscow that were badly strained over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.

Both the Russian government and Trump have dismissed that conclusion as absurd, and President Barack Obama’s administration has yet to release details backing up the allegation that Moscow tried to help Trump with the stolen e-mails.

‘Sycophant For Russia’

The Republican president-elect’s apparent endorsement of the WikiLeaks founder’s assertion was his latest — and to many in Washington, his most astounding — public challenge of the U.S. intelligence conclusions on the affair.

Trump has repeatedly cited the faulty CIA intelligence that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 as the basis for his skepticism about Russia’s alleged role in the hacks.

Defenders of Assange and Trump have deployed the same argument and said that the contents of the leaked e-mails — including ones that showed some Democratic officials favoring Clinton over primary rival Bernie Sanders — were more important than their provenance.

Senior Republican officials criticized Assange, whose organization has been under investigation by U.S. authorities for publishing classified government documents.

“I have really nothing [to say] other than the guy is a sycophant for Russia. He leaks. He steals data and compromises national security,” Paul Ryan, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, said in a January 4 radio interview.

Current and former U.S. officials have expressed increasing concern at Trump’s public dismissal of the conclusions of the intelligence agencies that he will oversee when he takes office on January 20.

Evelyn Farkas, who resigned last year as the Pentagon’s top Russia official and supported Clinton in the election, said career civil servants in the Defense and State departments were “really alarmed” by Trump’s approach to the U.S. intelligence establishment.

“The policy people who work in the Pentagon and in the State Department, they absolutely accept the intelligence assessments of their colleagues in part because they are also privy to some of the raw intelligence and other pieces of analysis that go into the ultimate findings,” Farkas told RFE/RL.

Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) told CNN in a January 4 interview that it was “very disturbing” that Trump was giving credence to Assange’s claims.

The WikiLeaks founder “has a history of undermining American interests,” said Graham, who has been a vocal critic of Trump’s hesitance to believe Russia was behind the cyberattacks. “I hope no American will be duped by him. You shouldn’t give him any credibility.”

Congressional Hearings And Trump Briefing

The dust-up over Assange comes a day before a hearing into the Russian hacking allegations by the Senate Armed Services Committee. In an interview with RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service last week, the committee’s Republican chairman, John McCain, urged tougher action against Moscow.

“There are a lot more stringent measures we should take,” McCain said. “After all, it was an attack on the United States of America and an attack on the fundamentals of our democracy. If you destroy the elections, then you destroy democracy.”

Also on January 5, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is set to brief a closed hearing of Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Obama administration’s newly announced sanctions in response to the hacking.

The White House also expelled 35 Russian diplomats in response to what Washington calls a campaign of harassment of its diplomats in Russia.

On January 6, Trump is slated to receive a formal briefing on Russia’s alleged effort to interfere in the election. Tensions over the meeting emerged between Trump and U.S. officials on January 3, when the president-elect suggested it had been postponed due to deficient evidence of Russian involvement.

“The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trump doubts Russia involved in hacking United States election

By

US President-elect Donald Trump once again said Russia was not involved in hacking the US presidential election. Trump also said he was open to meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.

US President-elect Donald Trump again denied Russia hacked the US presidential election before celebrating New Year at his Florida estate.

“Well I just want them to be sure, because it’s a pretty serious charge, and I want them to be sure,” said Trump.

Trump added US intelligence was incorrect when it said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, a part of what lead to a US invasion of Iraq in 2003. He called the invasion “a disaster, and they were wrong.”

Trump said it was unfair to accuse Russia of hacking if there is doubt, saying he knows “a lot about hacking” and “it could be somebody else.”

“I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation,” said Trump, telling reporters they would find out Tuesday or Wednesday what he knew about hacking.

US intelligence agencies CIA and FBI agree that Russia intervened in the November US presidential election. Trump secured the electoral college vote, while Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for vowing not to expel US diplomats after the US expelled 35 last week.

Hacking during the campaign hit the Democratic party hard, and the party blamed Russia for an attack in August.

Trump wishes happy NY to ‘enemies’

Trump noted he was open to meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. The two exchanged a controversial phone call after Trump’s victory, breaking more than three decades of the “one-China” policy.

“I’m not meeting with anybody until after January 20th because it’s a little bit inappropriate from a protocol standpoint. But we’ll see,” said Trump, who becomes president on January 20.

As for his New Year’s resolution, he harped on his campaign slogan: Make America great again.

Before the New Year’s celebration, Trump also took to Twitter to wish happy New Year “to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do.”

Breaking News: Obama Imposes Sanctions on Russia for Alleged Hacking of Election

By

Despite a glaring lack of evidence to support allegations that Russia interfered in the US presidential election, the White House has announced that they will be imposing sanctions on the nation.

On Thursday, the US sanctioned six Russian individuals, including the head of Russia’s main intelligence directorate, as well as five entities. The US is also expelling 35 Russian diplomats, who now have 72 hours to leave the nation.

The five entities sanctioned are the Autonomous Noncommercial Organization Professional Association of Designers of Data Processing Systems, the Federal Security Service, the Main Intelligence Directorate, the Special Technology Center. The Federal Security Service is comparable to the US FBI, meaning that this will effectively block any counter intelligence operations between the two nations. Sanctioned individuals include Igor Valentinovich Korobov, the current Chief of Russia’s main intelligence directorate, the GRU; Sergey Aleksandrovich Gizunov, Deputy Chief of the GRU; Igor Olegovich Kostyukov, a First Deputy Chief of the GRU; and Vladimir Stepanovich Alexseyev, also a First Deputy Chief of the GRU. Additionally, the US will be closing two Russian diplomatic compounds in Maryland and New York, which the US claims were used for intelligence related activities.

“These actions are not the sum total of our response to Russia’s aggressive activities. We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized,” the White House said in a statement. “In addition to holding Russia accountable for what it has done, the United States and friends and allies around the world must work together to oppose Russia’s efforts to undermine established international norms of behavior, and interfere with democratic governance. To that end, my Administration will be providing a report to Congress in the coming days about Russia’s efforts to interfere in our election, as well as malicious cyber activity related to our election cycle in previous elections.”

The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the hacks on the Democratic National Committee or Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The claims have also been disputed by veterans of both the CIA and the NSA. “If hacking were involved, the NSA would know about it, and so they would also know the sender and the recipient,” former CIA analyst Ray McGovern previously told Loud & Clear on Radio Sputnik. “There’s no reason in God’s world why they wouldn’t reveal that if they had it.”

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/us/201612291049119985-us-russia-sanctions/

Syria: Turkey’s Erdogan Surrender, Russia’s Putin declares victory accept Ceasefire

By

The Syrian government and Turkish Terrorist groups have agreed a nationwide ceasefire from midnight local time (22:00 GMT) on Thursday, followed by peace talks.

The deal was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin and confirmed by the Turkish foreign ministry.

Osama Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) Turkish supported terrorist, a loose alliance of several moderate rebel factions under the HNC, said the deal also did not include the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG).

The YPG, along with other Kurdish militias, controls a large area of northern Syria up the Turkish border. It is regarded by Turkey as a terrorist organisation and an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Paper Tiger Turkish military Stack in al-Bab Syria, Russian jets went for help

By

For the first time since launching its anti-terror aerial campaign in Syria, Russian warplanes have reportedly hit Daesh targets around the city of al-Bab, where Turkey and its allied militants are allegedly fighting the terrorist group.

On Thursday, Turkey’s Dogan news agency quoted military sources as saying that the Russian air raids took place on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the “strikes suspected to be Russian” had been hitting al-Bab for the last two days “in support of the Turkish operation.”

However, there was no official confirmation of the strikes.

Moscow launched its campaign against Daesh and other terror outfits in Syria at the Damascus government’s request in September 2015. Wednesday’s air raids were the first such strikes targeting al-Bab.

Turkey also began a major military intervention in Syria in August, sending tanks and warplanes across the border, in a move denounced by Damascus as a breach of its sovereignty.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation, dubbed “Euphrates Shield,” was aimed at “terror groups” such as Daesh and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a US-backed Kurdish group based in Syria.

However, the Turksih offensive has left a large number of civilian fatalities in al-Bab and elsewhere in Syria, without scoring any major victory against Daesh terrorists.

Ankara and Moscow have long been at odds over the conflict in Syria, where Russia supports the government of President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey backs anti-Damascus militants.

Syrian army makes gains

In another development on Thursday, the Syrian army managed to advance on the village of Hazrama in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta.

Syrian forces killed and wounded several Jaysh al-Islam militants who are in control of the village.

Elsewhere in Dara’a province, the Syrian troops killed a number of terrorist ringleaders and downed a radio-controlled airplane operated by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham militant group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

Another Syrian army unit also destroyed a vehicle belonging to Daesh terrorists in the suburbs of the Qaryatayn town in Homs Province, leaving six terrorists dead.