READ MORE: Putin: The world is getting more chaotic, but we hope that common sense will prevail

“We don’t do Twitter diplomacy. We are proponents of a serious approach,” Peskov told the media in Moscow. “We still think it is important to avoid steps that could harm what is already a fragile situation.”

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/423855-peskov-trump-twitter-diplomacy/

Alexander Zasypkine is the Russian ambassador to Beirut and Russia’s regional head in the Middle East. In the night of 10 April 2018, he was interviewed by the Hezbollah’s TV station, Al-Manar and made a bold declaration: every Western missile fired against Syria will be destroyed as will the base from which they are launched.

Zasypkine made this declaration to the Al-Manar following the announcement made by the White House, Downing Street and the Elysee that an attack on Syria was on the table. His intention was to make crystal clear Russia’s position.

Westerners do not accept that they have failed in Syria and are seeking out any pretext to disintegrate – smash into smithereens - the Republic of Syria.

Although Westerners will be seeking to retain control of the region with the use of force, the Kremlin is ready for war on a far grander scale. Doesn’t sound good.

Translation 
Anoosha Boralessa

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article200663.html

Meanwhile:

An apparent false flag chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7 has served as a pretext for the United States to threaten the Middle Eastern country with a missile strike; Russia has been calling for a transparent investigation while local doctors have said no one has requested any medical treatments for poisoning.

The Russian Defense Ministry held a press briefing on what the Western narrative describes as an alleged chemical attack in Syria's Eastern Ghouta. No evidence has been presented to support the claim. A Russian chemical corps commission that has been sent to Douma reported that no traces of chemical poisoning were found. On April 12, the US defense secretary acknowledged that the Pentagon had no evidence of chlorine or sarin use in Douma.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/russia/201804131063516609-russia-douma-chemical-...

By firing missiles on Syria with its French and British allies, the strange President Donald Trump has managed to force the Western powers to accept the end of their unilateral domination of the world. The insignificant result of this demonstration of force drags NATO back to reality. Without having made use of its weapons, Russia now succeeds the Soviet Union in the balance of world power.

Over the last few weeks, and for the first time in their history, the United States and Russia have mutually threatened one another with a World War. The totally disproportionate character of the crisis in terms of the subject of the dispute demonstrates that what is at stake here today no longer has any connection with what has been happening in the Greater Middle East since 2001, but exclusively with an attempt to maintain the current World Order.

After the gigantic massacre of millions of people over seventeen years, from Afghanistan to Libya, the manner in which about fifty people in East Ghouta (Syria) are said to have died seems almost ridiculous. And yet on 14 April, this was the pretext chosen by Washington, Paris and London to launch a three-party aerial attack.

Let’s avoid getting distracted by the circumstances, and get straight to the heart of the matter – the Western powers are attempting to maintain their domination over the rest of the world, while Russia and China are breaking free of it.

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, did not hesitate to tweet to Russia that he was going to fire missiles of a new generation on its soldiers in Syria. The Russian ambassador, Alexander Zasypkine, immediately responded that these missiles would be intercepted and the planes and ships that fired them would be destroyed. The Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yıldırım, expressed his astonishment at this « street brawl » and called the participants to reason. All of the actors then began to back-pedal.

The naval group of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman left its base in Norfolk, apparently to take position facing Syria. It will take several weeks before it is operational. The question of the confrontation between the United States and Russia, in other words the Third World War, will then be raised again.

It goes without saying that the preparation of this naval unit and its 6,500 soldiers began well before the affair of the Ghouta which serves as a pretext for its deployment.

The question is therefore to understand whether, by firing a deluge of missiles on a few abandoned buildings, Washington and its allies have postponed the confrontation in order to occupy a more efficient position, or, on the contrary, have given up on direct warfare and are preparing for a new form of conflict.

The result of the bombing on 14 April is astonishing - 103 missiles are said to have been fired by the Allies. 71 of these are said to have been destroyed in flight by Syria. A decommissioned military laboratory was apparently destroyed, and the installations of two aerodromes were damaged. This deluge of fire allegedly wounded only three people and killed none. If Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May had intended to show their power, they in fact showed themselves to be powerless.

Seen from Damascus, the message was clear - Syria is in the process of freeing itself from the jihadists, but will not enjoy peace for all that, and will not be able to count on any help from the West for its reconstruction.

The Allies pretend that Syria kept stocks of chemical weapons, despite its membership of the Convention which prohibits them. They claim that they targeted only areas linked to these weapons. And yet, for example, they fired four missiles at the international commercial airport in Damascus, an exclusively civilian target. Happily, the Syrian Arab Army managed to intercept them all.

In total, the Syrian Arab Army, which was only in possession of S-125’s, S-200’s, Buk’s, Kvadrat’s and Osa’s, managed, single-handed, to shoot down two thirds of the Western projectiles. Finally, despite themselves, the Allies had just fought the first battle of their history in which they killed not one enemy. France, which tested its new naval Cruise missile for the first time in a combat situation, was unable to boast of a success to its potential clients.

Of course, the Allies limited themselves. They carefully avoided hitting Russian or Iranian targets, and these two states did not participate in the operation. Nonetheless, the Western armada no longer has the capacity to impose its will on middle powers as long as they are protected by Russia.

Everyone has understood that, as from now : 
 the United States and Russia – just as in earlier times the USA and the USSR – will refrain from any direct confrontation in order to avoid nuclear war ; 
 and that the middle powers allied with Russia will not be significantly damaged by the West. 
 The only military superiority possessed by Washington, London and Paris resides in their capacity to manipulate armed groups and use them as proxies.

By bringing France and the United Kingdom into the fray, President Trump has forced them to accept the reality they were refusing to see.

This grand show, then, was no more than a futile gesture. After a quarter of a century of unilateral domination by the West, its three main military powers have just been down-graded. The world has returned to a bipolar situation like that of the Cold War, although the new rules still need to be defined. The Third World War will have to wait.

Translation 
Pete Kimberley

I personally am not as optimistc as Thierry in his last words here....

I will let this go the keeper, and let it run without interruption, and only comment after. To say it straight, this article is a bit bullshitic and sardonistic, while being patronising, because we all should know the USA is the angel in the schoolyard, and don't you forget it:

Senator Marco Rubio calls him a “gangster” akin to Don Corleone in the epic film The Godfather. Senator John McCain refers to him as “an evil man…intent on evil deeds.” Hillary Clinton blasts him as “world-class misogynist” who takes joy in making women feel uncomfortable. Even Michael McFaul, a diplomat who’s supposed to be cautious with his words, thunders about this man’s constant paranoia and all-consuming suspicion of the United States.

The individual in question, of course, is Russian President Vladimir Putin—a guy who supposedly spends every waking moment as though the notorious KGB were still the power behind the throne in the Kremlin. And for the millions of Russians who are living in economic destitution, for Europeans increasingly alarmed by Moscow’s aggressive maneuvers along NATO’s eastern frontier, for Americans who learned early last year that Putin directed an operation to interfere in their presidential election, there is a lot that is disturbing about that picture.

If there’s a foreign policy issue that unites Republicans and Democrats in Washington, it is Putin’s Russia. Every word out of his mouth is analyzed by the U.S. intelligence community for clues about his state of mind. Putin was a household name in the United States even before he authorized a quasi-invasion of his Ukrainian neighbor, bailed out Syria’s Bashar al-Assad from almost certain death, likely ordered or at least condoned the assassination of over a dozen Russian dissidents in the United Kingdom, and unleashed an army of trolls, English-language fake news sites, and falsified social media accounts to divide the American electorate. In 1999, when Boris Yeltsin handed power to his younger lieutenant from St. Petersburg, Putin was at best an unknown commodity. Nineteen years later, he is practically embedded in the American psyche as a double-crosser, a trickster, a liar, an aggressor, a war criminal, and a despot.

It is hard to argue with all that. 

read more crap:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/washington-melts-down-over-prospect-of-trump-putin-meeting/

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

It's not hard to argue with any of this crap. 

"Senator Marco Rubio calls him a “gangster” akin to Don Corleone in the epic film The Godfather. Senator John McCain refers to him as “an evil man…intent on evil deeds.” Hillary Clinton blasts him as “world-class misogynist” who takes joy in making women feel uncomfortable. Even Michael McFaul, a diplomat who’s supposed to be cautious with his words, thunders about this man’s constant paranoia and all-consuming suspicion of the United States."

ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT DONALD TRUMP? EACH OF THESE CHARACTERS, FROM RUBIO TO HILLARY HAVE SAID THE SAME THING ABOUT DONALD TRUMP...

The individual in question, of course, is Russian President Vladimir Putin—a guy who supposedly spends every waking moment as though the notorious KGB were still the power behind the throne in the Kremlin. And for the millions of Russians who are living in economic destitution, for Europeans increasingly alarmed by Moscow’s aggressive maneuvers along NATO’s eastern frontier, for Americans who learned early last year that Putin directed an operation to interfere in their presidential election, there is a lot that is disturbing about that picture.

YOU WOULD THINK THAT THE ENCROACHMENT OF THE WEST UPON FORMER SOVIET STATES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH PREPARING SELF-DEFENCE — DESPITE THE AGREEMENT MADE BETWEEN GORBACHEV AND RONALD REAGAN THAT THE WEST WOULD STAY CLEAR OF FORMER SOIET REPUBLICS? THE USA LIED. IS NATO DOING FAR MORE MANOEUVRES IN EASTERN EUROPE THAT THE RUSSIANS (ON THEIR OWN TERRITORY), EVEN THE USA BRINGING NUKES TO POLAND? FAR MORE? YES. WHO STARTED THIS CAPER? THE USA AND NATO.

HAS PUTIN INTERFERED IN THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS? NO. PEOPLE IN THE USA WERE ABLE TO MAKE A CHOICE OF WHOM THEY WANTED TO BE 'THEIR" PRESIDENT. HERE, IN AUSTRALIA, WHEN CNN HELD AN ELECTION PARTY FOR JOURNALISTS, THE RICH KIDS ON THE BLOCK CHEERED FOR TRUMP. SOME FAIR MINDED "LEFTY" PEOPLE THOUGHT THIS WAS "UGLY" AS THEY WERE HOPING FOR THEIR FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT. TOUGH LUCK. YOU WERE NOT FIGHTING THE RUSSIANS, BUT THE MURDOCH EMPIRE. MURDOCH RARELY LOOSES...

If there’s a foreign policy issue that unites Republicans and Democrats in Washington, it is Putin’s Russia. Every word out of his mouth is analyzed by the U.S. intelligence community for clues about his state of mind. Putin was a household name in the United States even before he authorized a quasi-invasion of his Ukrainian neighbor, bailed out Syria’s Bashar al-Assad from almost certain death, likely ordered or at least condoned the assassination of over a dozen Russian dissidents in the United Kingdom, and unleashed an army of trolls, English-language fake news sites, and falsified social media accounts to divide the American electorate. In 1999, when Boris Yeltsin handed power to his younger lieutenant from St. Petersburg, Putin was at best an unknown commodity. Nineteen years later, he is practically embedded in the American psyche as a double-crosser, a trickster, a liar, an aggressor, a war criminal, and a despot.

THERE WAS A "REVOLUTION" COUP D'ETAT, CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT, IN UKRAINE, MOSTLY PAID FOR BY THE USA (US$6 BILLIONS), PRE-MASSAGED AND POST-MAINTAINED BY THE SOROS MEDIA, ITSELF PART OF THE CONSPIRACY TO DESTABILISE SO CALLED "NON-DEMOCRATIC" COUNTRIES. PUTIN DID NOT INVADE UKRAINE. THE USA DID BY DEFAULT. THERE ARE MANY RUSSIANS LIVING IN UKRAINE WHO DID NOT LIKE WHAT KIEV HAD DONE (USING NAZI GANGS — PAID BY THE USA — TO ASCENT TO POWER FOR EXAMPLE). THE LARGE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE, RUSSIANS IN THE EAST OF UKRAINE WANT SECESSION FROM UKRAINE. THEY FIGHT FOR THIS. CRIMEA, POPULATED WITH MORE THAN 90 PER CENT RUSSIANS  DEMOCRATICALLY VOTED TO JOINED RUSSIA RATHER THAN REMAIN IN UKRAINE WHICH WAS PART OF THE USSR. SIMILAR VOTING WAS HELD IN SCOTLAND IN REGARD TO STAY IN THE UK OR NOT.

SO FAR THERE IS NOT A SINGLE PROOF THAT PUTIN'S RUSSIA ORDERED THE "ASSASSINATION OF A DOZEN DISSIDENTS" IN THE WEST. NONE. ZERO. NADA. THE LATEST INSTALMENT, THE SKRIPAL "INDUSTRY" IS SHOWN FOR WHAT IT IS: A "SADDAM HAS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" LIE BY MI6. AND BY THE WAY, THE USA HAS NEVER (LAUGHTER IS ALLOWED) ASSASSINATED ANY US CITIZEN OVERSEAS.

AN ARMY OF TROLLS? MIDGETS, LEPRECHAUN, AT THE BOTTOM OF OUR GARDEN?

DIVIDE THE AMERICANELECTORATE? YOU'RE KIDDING! THE ELECTORATE WAS MORE POLARISED BY EVANGELICALS AND MR MURDOCH'S HAND-WAVING, THAN EVEN AN ARMY OF A MILLION TROLLS COULD EVER DO MORE POLARISATION. AND THE EXAMPLE OF "TROLLING" WAS SO REMARKABLE THAT UNLESS ONE HAS THE MIND OF A FIVE YEAR OLD, ONE COULD BE AND I MEAN COULD BE SWAYED BY THE RIDICULOUSLY PISSY AND SMALL AMOUNT OF "TROLLING". AS WELL IT WAS PROVEN THAT THE TROLLING DID NOT COME FROM RUSSIA, DESPITE MUELLER CHARGING 13 RUSSIAN PEOPLE (I MEAN TROLLS) FOR IT.

IF PUTIN IS embedded in the American psyche as a double-crosser, a trickster, a liar, an aggressor, a war criminal, and a despot THIS IS MOSTLY DUE TO THE WEAPONISED WESTERN MAD MEDIA (OR MMMMM) THAT HAS BEEN FED A LOT OF BULLSHIT BY THE US GOVERNMENT AND IS A MEDIA IN NEED OF BIFFO IN ORDER TO SELL ITS ROTTEN NEWS WHILE HAVING A PUNCHING BAG.   

It is hard to argue with all that.

YES IT'S HARD TO ARGUE THAT THE ARTICLE BY Daniel R. DePetris — a foreign policy analyst, a columnist at Reuters, and a frequent contributor to The American Conservative — IS A LOT OF BIASED BULLSHIT.

The level of communication between Germany and the US is now so low that Berlin has to employ Twitter to know what the White House is up to, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas lamented in a comment to DPA news agency. And this is not because Washington is overdoing it on the microblogging service, he hinted.

“We learn of certain [American] decisions via Twitter,” Maas offered before embarking on a visit to the US. The top diplomat has an impression that “people in the United States also learn about White House’s decisions from Twitter,” and that such “does change cooperation [between the countries].”

President Donald Trump frequently resorts to Twitter lash out at political opponents or hail own achievements. Some of his rants make headlines both nationwide and internationally, and his Twitter account provides an unfiltered insight into what Trump is thinking in real time. His administration officials try to follow the lead, also using the platform on day-to-day basis.

On the latest occasion, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has lambasted Trump’s decision to renege on the G7 joint statement this summer. “The withdrawal by tweet is, of course, sobering and a bit depressing as well,” she told Germany's Anne Will talk show at the time.

Maas, a Social Democrat, had recently taken to Twitter to offer his own thoughts on Trump. Many believe they can “out-sit” Trump in hope that life will return to normal after his era comes to an end. The minister disagreed on this, saying there are “structural changes in the Transatlantic relations” which must be “strategically addressed” by Germany and the rest of Europe.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/439164-germany-us-decisions-twitter/

Read from top

French President Emmanuel Macron responded to President Trump’s recent attacks on Twitter, saying in an interview that he does not spread policy or diplomacy over Twitter.

“I do not do policy or diplomacy by tweets,” the French president said in an interview released Wednesday on French TV network TF1. 

When addressing French-U.S. relations, Macron told the network: “At each important moment in our history we have been allies, and between allies there is respect and I do not want to hear the rest.”

Read more:

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/416918-macron-i-do-not-do-po...

Read from top.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted he was offered the use of a body double for public appearances, but says he declined the offer.

Mr Putin – a 67-year-old former KGB agent who has dominated Russian politics for more than two decades – said the offer was made in the early 2000s, for security reasons when Russia was fighting a war against separatists in Chechnya.

It is not the first time Mr Putin has been asked about whether he uses a body double – or even a small army of them.

One of the more elaborate theories compares photographs of Mr Putin over the years, claiming to have identified several individuals posing as him.

The idea has also been fuelled by numerous “action man” photos of the Russian leader riding horses and going hunting – all the while looking remarkably trim for a man in his 60s.

This week, in an interview with TASS news agency, journalist Andrei Vandenko showed Mr Putin a list of popular Internet searches purportedly associated with his name, one entitled “Putin body double evidence”.

“Are you real?” Vandenko asked.

“Yes,” said Mr Putin, going on to denying using lookalikes for public appearances. He said he had turned down all such offers.

“I declined these body doubles. This [the offer] was during the most difficult periods of the fight against terrorism,” Mr Putin said, adding that he was referring to the beginning of the 2000s.

Mr Putin didn’t elaborate on his motives for rejecting the suggestion to use body doubles.

In the same interview, he also reaffirmed his opposition to mobile phones. Mr Putin said he does not have a personal mobile, and feels “more comfortable” relying on protected communications – although he sometimes used aides’ phones.

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/people/2020/02/28/vladimir-putin-body-do...

Read from top.

Steffan Seibert said on Monday that it was right for social media companies not to “stand back” when content inciting violence was posted online, such as by ‘flagging’ it, as Twitter has previously done to several of the US president's tweets.

Merkel’s spokesman stressed, however, that the right to freedom of opinion is a “fundamental right of elementary importance,” which can be interfered with through the law and legislation, “not according to the decision of the management of social media platforms.”

“From this point of view, the chancellor considers it problematic that the accounts of the US president have been permanently blocked,” he told reporters in Berlin.

Twitter permanently suspended Trump's account last week, citing the “risk of further incitement of violence” after thousands of the outgoing president's supporters stormed the US Capitol building in Washington last week as Congress met to certify his successor to the presidency.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/512162-merkel-trump-twitter-ban/

Read from top.