2020-03-01: News Headlines

RT (2020-03-01). Putin says Russia should be ready for any scenario as oil market suffers steep decline. rt.com The current crude prices are acceptable for the Russian economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after the price of oil dramatically fell to the lowest point in more than a year. | "Today it is difficult to predict how long-term this trend [the drop in oil prices] will become, but in any case, we need to be prepared for different scenarios," the Russian leader said during a meeting with finance and energy officials as well as the heads of Russian oil and gas majors on Sunday. | Putin said that although last week was the worst for global markets since the 2008 financial crisis, Russia has enough reserves…

sputniknews (2020-03-01). Starting Nuclear War May Be 'Devastating' for US Even If No One Retaliates, American Scientist Says. sputniknews.com In September 2019, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned of an increasing risk of a nuclear war due to the deterioration of global stability.

sputniknews (2020-03-01). US, Russian Scientists to Resume Search for Grand Duke Michael Romanov's Remains. sputniknews.com WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Scientists from Russia and the United States plan to resume the search for the remains of the Grand Duke Michael Romanov and his secretary Nicholas Johnson killed in 1918 by Bolsheviks near the Russian city of Perm, the group leader Peter Sarandinaki said.

yenisafak (2020-03-01). Iraqi city shuts religious shrines over coronavirus. yenisafak.com Authorities in the Iraqi city of Babel on Sunday ordered all religious shrines shut to visitors over fears of coronavirus.In a statement, the media office of the city's governor Hassan al-Mandeel said the move was taken as a "precautionary measure to preserve the safety of citizens".On Saturday, health authorities in the city confirmed the first case of coronavirus.So far, 13 cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Iraq.Babel is home to dozens of Shia shrines.The coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, has spread to more than 30 other countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Singapore, France, Russia, Spain…

yenisafak (2020-03-01). Turkey continues to destroy regime targets in Syria. yenisafak.com The Turkish Armed Forces continued Sunday to destroy regime targets in Syria, as part of an operation launched in the wake of deadly regime attack on Turkish troops in Idlib.According to the new footage shared by Turkey's National Defense Ministry, tanks, armored personnel vehicles and anti-tanks, as well as regime soldiers were neutralized in Saraqib district, a gateway to northwestern Idlib province, and some other near regions.Idlib, near Turkey's southern border, falls within a de-escalation zone laid out in a deal between Turkey and Russia in late 2018.The Syrian regime and its allies have consistently broke…

yenisafak (2020-03-01). Turkey announces Operation Spring Shield in Syria's Idlib. yenisafak.com Turkey launched a fresh Syria operation in the wake of the recent regime attack on Turkish troops in Idlib, said the country's defense chief on Sunday.Akar also said Turkey seeks to end Assad regime's massacres in Syria so that migration and radicalization could be stopped."Our expectation from Russia at this point is to fulfill its commitments as the guarantor country, and in this context, to use its influence on the regime to make it halt its attacks and withdraw to the borders set with the Sochi agreement."The minister went on to say that Turkey has no intention of confronting Russia in Syria.Turkey expects Ru…

RT (2020-03-01). Sputnik Turkey editor-in-chief detained by police, becomes 4th Russian news agency staffer in custody after nationalists' attacks. rt.com Russian news agency Sputnik has reported that police have entered its Istanbul office. Meanwhile, it is confirmed that Sputnik Turkey's editor-in-chief has been detained. | The arrest of Mahir Boztepe, the head of Sputnik's Turkish branch, was confirmed by RT and Sputnik editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan. The agency said its chief was taken to the Istanbul Police Department's main office. | This new development brings the number of detained Sputnik employees in Turkey to four. Earlier three agency staff members, who had been targeted by Turkish nationalists on Saturday and turned to police for help, ended up…

RT (2020-03-01). OSCE condemns harassment of Russian agency journalists in Turkey amid reported detention over 'professional activity'. rt.com The OSCE's media freedom spokesman condemned the harassment of three employees of Sputnik Turkey in Ankara. Contact with the journalists was lost as they went to the police after being accosted by nationalists. | Three Sputnik employees were confronted in their apartments in Ankara on Saturday night by groups of angry people who accused them of being traitors to the country. Nobody was hurt in the altercations, but after they turned to the police to investigate the incident, they went missing and have not been heard from since. | Sources in Ankara's legal organizations as well as relatives of the journalists t…

RT (2020-03-01). Contact lost with Russian Sputnik news agency journalists who sought police help after Turkish nationalists attacked their homes. rt.com Three employees of the Turkish branch of Sputnik News, whose apartments were attacked by Turkish nationalists on Saturday night, have been missing since going to file complaints about the incident to Turkish police. | "We have not been able to contact our employees in Ankara for nine hours now," Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT and Sputnik, said in a The three employees of the Russian news outlet were apparently targeted in coordinated attacks on Saturday evening. Their home…

RT (2020-02-29). Still the best despite the international ban: Russian athlete Anzhelika Sidorova sets new WORLD-LEADING pole vault result. rt.com Russian world champion pole vaulter Anzhelika Sidorova, who is not eligible to take part in international athletics events due to a ban imposed by World Athletics, has set a new world-leading result at a competition in Moscow. | The 28-year-old cleared a height of 4.95m, posting a new season-best result at the Russian pole vault festival in Luzhniki. | Inspired by her incr…

Alan MacLeod (2020-02-29). Media Stoop to 'Russian Assistance' to Explain Sanders' Rise. fair.org For over three years, Russia has been an issue of great concern, if not panic, in our media. Back in 2018, FAIR (

RT (2020-02-29). VIDEO shows how Moscow Instagram blogger's deadly pool party with DRY ICE went HORRIBLY WRONG. rt.com Three people have died and more are in hospital after a birthday surprise at a Moscow party had unforeseen consequences. Video shows dry ice being poured into a pool for effect, inadvertently creating a carbon dioxide gas chamber. | The chilling incident occurred at a Moscow sauna late on Friday. Ekaterina Didenko, an Instagram blogger with over a million subscribers, was celebrating her 29th birthday with her family and friends. | No-one expected the festivities to turn into a tragedy when the blogger's husband Valentin presented the guests with a surprise treat. The man brought out a large amount of dry i…

WSWS (2020-02-29). War tensions mount in wake of strike on Turkish troops in Syria. wsws.org Russia has sent two cruise missile warships to the Syrian coast as Moscow and Ankara continue to dispute the facts surrounding a strike that killed three dozen Turkish soldiers.

RT (2020-02-29). Thugs break into homes of 3 Sputnik employees in Ankara, shout anti-Russian & nationalist slogans. rt.com Groups of people broke into the homes of three staffers from Russia's Sputnik news agency in Ankara, Turkey, chanting "Turkey for the Turks" and accusing the journalists of treason, RT's editor-in-chief tweeted. | What appears to be a coordinated attack on Sputnik employees in the Turkish capital was first reported by Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT and Sputnik on Saturday, and later confirmed by Sputnik news agency itself. | Simonyan tweeted that three separate groups, each numbering about 10, swooped in on the apartments of three of the news agency's employees, hurling threats and accusing them…

Staff (2020-02-28). Catastrophic Humanitarian Crisis in Idlib as Syrian Troops Advance & Children Freeze to Death. democracynow.org In Syria, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike by Russia-backed Syrian forces in rebel-held Idlib in a major escalation on Thursday. Turkey has vowed to respond in kind, as U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying "the risk of even greater escalation grows by the hour." Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly spoke by phone on Friday to discuss the crisis, as NATO urged rapid deescalation. The all-out offensive by the Syrian government is the single largest displacement in a nine-year war that has forced 13 million t…

M.K. Bhadrakumar (2020-02-28). A World no longer shaped by Atlantic powers. mronline.org The annual Munich Security Conference that took place February 14-16 this year turned out to be an iconic event, drawing comparison with the one held in the same Bavarian city on February 10, 2007, where in a prophetic speech Russian President Vladimir Putin had criticized the world order characterized by the United States' global hegemony […] |

RT (2020-02-28). Article 5 or 'Oh my gosh'? What will US do after Turkish troops die in Syrian strike. rt.com Turkey has reached out to NATO and the US following the deaths of its troops in Syria's Idlib province, fueling speculation that it might invoke Article 5 and get the alliance involved in a shooting war with Damascus — and Russia.

Thomas Knapp (2020-02-28). Election 2020: Those Meddling Kids … counterpunch.org According to selected members of the "US intelligence community" ("selected" for their loyalty to, and willingness to promote the line of, the Democratic Party establishment) Vladimir Putin and the Russian government just love them some Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Can't get enough of 'em. If November is a Trump/Sanders shoot-out, the Kremlin wins either

Paul Antonopoulos (2020-02-28). Washington Ponders Imposing Sanctions on Serbia for Russian Weapon Purchases. globalresearch.ca With Russia delivering another round of the Pantsir S1 anti-missile defense system to Serbia on Tuesday, EU and U.S. officials have reacted. Both Brussels and Washington have sent their warnings to Serbia, with Washington even threatening sanctions against the Balkans …

T.J. Coles (2020-02-28). The Space Force Becomes a Weapons System, Arms Companies Profit. counterpunch.org As the world gets used to what the US military calls "Full Spectrum Dominance," the complex uplinks/downlinks, spurious RADAR returns, cyber glitches, and misinterpretations of big data bring the world closer to its ends, especially as US systems—including possibly nuclear—are orbited or put into the loop of the new Space Force. But the news isn't

WSWS (2020-02-28). Turkey bombs Syria after losing dozens of troops to Syrian-Russian airstrike. wsws.org The danger is growing that all-out war could erupt between the NATO alliance and the Syrian government's major international backers, Iran and Russia.

news.un (2020-02-28). Syria: UN urges Russia and Turkey to secure 'fresh ceasefire' as risk of military escalation grows. news.un.org With the Security Council meeting in emergency session on Syria following the death on the battlefield of dozens of Turkish troops, the UN strongly urged Russia and Turkey on Friday "to build on previous agreements to secure a fresh ceasefire" across the war-torn northwest.

Reza Marashi (2020-02-28). Pandemics, Politics, and Peace — Episode 11. iranian.com Episode Description: This week, Reza breaks down Trump's dangerous response to the Corona Virus, why it's bananas for the DC establishment to criticize Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's call to drawdown US troops in the Middle East, and how Iran nuclear deal opponents have boxed themselves in. Sune Engel Rasmussen, Correspondent for The Wall Street …

M. K. Bhadrakumar (2020-02-28). Turkey, Russia tiptoe toward 'unnecessary war'. iranian.com A military confrontation between Turkey and Syria has erupted in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib. Latest reports say that at least 34 Turkish soldiers were killed on Thursday in a Syrian air attack. A Turkish retaliation commenced last night itself. The Syrian airstrike in Idlib took place in an area between the towns Baluon and …

Global Research News (2020-02-28). Selected Articles: Assad's Victory in Syria War? globalresearch.ca A future without independent media leaves us with an upside down reality where according to the corporate media "NATO deserves a Nobel Peace Prize", and where "nuclear weapons and wars make us safer" | | | If, like us, this is a …

Anne Khodabandeh (2020-02-27). America's Iran Policy Backed Into a Corner By MEK in Albania. iranian.com Since well before President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, the U.S. and Iran have been in a de facto state of non-military warfare with sanctions, economic sabotage, cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns and social media attacks the weapons of choice. Both countries have exploited conflict in the region, especially after the rise …

news.un (2020-02-26). UN disarmament chief hopes upcoming conference will address current nuclear challenges. news.un.org With division and distrust rife among countries that possess nuclear arsenals, the UN disarmament chief is hopeful that the issue will be addressed during an upcoming conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Iran Project (2020-02-26). JCPOA Members Remain Committed to the Deal: Russian Official. iranian.com The Permanent Representative of Russia to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said on Wednesday that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is regarded as an important part of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Mikhail Ulyanov made the remarks in tweet about the meeting of the Joint Commission of the …

Aaron Maté (2020-02-25). The Russiagate Racket targets Bernie Sanders' surge. thegrayzone.com With a familiar playbook of evidence-free, anonymously sourced red-baiting, the forces behind Russiagate try to stop Bernie Sanders' primary success….

Aaron Maté (2020-02-23). Russiagate 3.0 drowns out Trump's reckless escalation of US-Russia nuclear arms race. thegrayzone.com Amid new fear-mongering about "Russian interference," former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter on Trump's overlooked, reckless escalation of the US-Russia…

Staff (2020-02-21). Headlines for February 21, 2020. democracynow.org Roger Stone Sentenced to 40-Month Prison Term, Trump Lashed at Intel Chief over Warning of Russian Meddling in 2020 Election, Germany Mourns Victims of Right-Wing Terror Attacks, Suspect Arrested in Stabbing at London Mosque, U.K. to Close Borders to "Unskilled" and Non-English-Speaking Immigrants, Protests Erupt as Acting ICE Director Challenges New York Pro-Immigrant Laws, Mexican Radio Journalist Murdered in Ciudad Juárez, February Flowers Bloom in Moscow Amid Record-High Winter Temperatures, 28 Arrested in Seattle Protesting Chase Bank Fossil Fuel Ties, Rail Blockades Continue as Protests Grow Against Coastal…

Jason Ditz (2020-02-20). Turkey Kills Over 50 Syrian Troops, Russian Warplanes Intervene to Halt Offensive. theantimedia.com Russia called the situation a "worst case scenario."

Jason Ditz (2020-02-17). DOJ Investigating Former CIA Director's Role in Russiagate. theantimedia.com The Justice Department is investigating the role of John Brennan in the assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

Strategic Culture (2020-02-08). US Deploys 'Mini-Nukes' in Deplorable Threat to World Peace. theantimedia.com These so-called "mini-nukes" represent—despite the diminutive-sounding name—an increased risk of nuclear war.

Tyler Durden (2020-02-08). Iraq and Russia Prepare to Boost Military Ties as US Threatens Sanctions. theantimedia.com Iraq and Russia are preparing for deepening military coordination.

Middle East Eye (2020-02-07). Russia Says Israel Used Civilian Plane as Human Shield During Syria Strikes. theantimedia.com Russia accused Israel of "making a total mockery of the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians."

Lawrence Wittner (2019-12-22). Americans Are Ready for a Different Approach to Nuclear Weapons. zcomm.org Although today's public protests against nuclear weapons can't compare to the major antinuclear upheavals of past decades, there are clear indications that most Americans reject the Trump administration's nuclear weapons policies. Since entering office in 2017, the Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from the nuclear agreement with Iran, scrapped the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces

Jon Rainwater (2019-11-07). Take Action — Some actual, SANE legislation. peaceaction.org Trump has plans to spend nearly $2 TRILLION over the next 30 years on unneeded and unnecessary nuclear weapons and delivery systems. This makes no sense. This is insane. That's nearly $100 million wasted every day for thirty years on weapons we are supposed to be getting rid of. To put that amount in perspective, …

Peace Action (2019-06-25). Peace Action Endorses Ilhan Omar for Congress. peaceaction.org Washington, DC — June 25, 2019 — Peace Action has announced its endorsement of Ilhan Omar for Congress in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District. Peace Action is a national grassroots organization working to advance nuclear disarmament, promote government spending priorities that support human needs, encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights, and support nonmilitary …

Peace Action (2019-06-24). Peace Action Endorses Kara Eastman for Congress. peaceaction.org Washington, DC — June 24, 2019 — Peace Action has announced its endorsement of Kara Eastman for Congress in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. Peace Action is a national grassroots organization working to advance nuclear disarmament, promote government spending priorities that support human needs, encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights, and support nonmilitary …