Iran's intel minister holds Israel responsible for Hamas leader's assassination

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed by Israel after getting the green light from the US, Iranian intelligence minister Esmaeil Khatib said.

Haniyeh was killed in an airstrike on his residence in Tehran, Iran, after attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

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Spy swap with West shows ‘Russia is in the driver's seat’ - political scientist

The unprecedented prisoner exchange mainly agreed between Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and the CIA is a testament to Moscow’s “great return to power politics,” Professor Joe Siracusa, political scientist and dean of Global Futures, Curtin University, told Sputnik.

No matter how Washington tries to tout the swap as a triumph of US diplomacy and human rights, Siracusa argued, “nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Washington couldn't get the release agreed without the consent of the Russian president. What this tells me is that Russia is indispensable to international relations, to European-American relations. And frankly, it suggests to me that Russia is back in the driver's seat,” said the political scientist.

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Gulf of Tonkin incident and the art of American false flags PART 1/PART 2

The Gulf of Tonkin incident, marking its 60th anniversary, was a false flag that triggered a series of US wars in Southeast Asia. On August 2 and 4, 1964, the US Navy falsely reported attacks on the USS Maddox by North Vietnamese boats. President Johnson used this to gain Congressional approval for military action, sparking the Vietnam War. In 2003, ex-Secretary of State Robert McNamara admitted the attack never occurred, and in 2005, declassified files showed the NSA distorted intelligence to justify intervention.

Here are some other notorious examples of US false flag incidents:

◾️ In late 1898, Spain was forced to hand its colonies in Latin America and Asia to the US after a short war triggered by the explosion of the USS Maine on February 15 of that year in Havana harbor. Washington blamed Madrid for the Maine incident to justify its aggression. A 1976 investigation by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover revealed that the explosion may have been caused by spontaneous combustion of the ship’s coal bunkers. In Cuba, many believe the US deliberately blew up the Maine to justify seizing Spain’s territories.

◾️ On April 28, 1965, the US invaded the Dominican Republic, citing the safety of US citizens as a pretext. In reality, Ambassador W. Tapley Bennett Jr. admitted that the goal was to prevent the rise of another independent Caribbean nation like Cuba.

◾️ On October 25, 1983, the US invaded Grenada to overthrow a Cuba-friendly government, citing the supposed “danger” to 600 American medical students. It was later revealed that the students were never hostages or in danger and that the Reagan administration had blocked their departure from the island.

◾️ On December 20, 1989, the US invaded Panama to depose General Manuel Noriega, wanted on drug charges, and secure the Panama Canal. The invasion, dubbed Operation Just Cause, followed the questionable shooting of a US Marine. Some historians say this was a false flag to install a more compliant leader.

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YouTube restrictions around the world

Russia has significant grounds to take legal action against YouTube, citing repeated instances of Russian channels and videos being blocked on the platform, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik on Friday.

Russian YouTube users have recently faced traffic issues due to authorities reducing download speeds and playback quality in response to YouTube's censorship of alternative views and blocking accounts critical of US propaganda. Since 2020, YouTube has restricted 207 Russian accounts and ignored demands to remove over 60,000 extremist materials, including calls for illegal actions against Russian citizens.

Where else is YouTube restricted or permanently banned and why?

◾️ Iran blocked both YouTube and its owner Google in 2012 in response to a movie trailer mocking Prophet Mohammed;

◾️ South Sudan temporarily limited access to the platform first in 2010 for videos depicting alleged election fraud, and made the ban permanent in 2012 in response to the video about Prophet Mohammed;

◾️ North Korea banned the platform in 2016 due to “its concern with the spread of online information”;

◾️ China blocked YouTube in 2009 after videos of Tibet protests surfaced. The government has not explained the ban but it usually encourages internet use for education and business, while filtering content it deems inciting violence or pornography. The platform remains accessible in Hong Kong, Macau, and the Shanghai free trade zone;

◾️ Turkmenistan suspended YouTube and other social media sites in 2009 without an official statement for the public;

◾️ Eritrea blocked the access to the platform in 2011;

◾️ YouTube has been temporarily restricted in various countries, primarily due to concerns over copyright issues, anti-terrorism measures, and monitoring of adult content. These countries include Germany, Finland, Turkiye, the UAE, Thailand, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Armenia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Tajikistan.
In addition, several countries have developed their own alternatives to YouTube. Russia has platforms like RuTube, Ruptly, Kinopoisk, IVI, and Okko. China offers Youku, iQiyi, LeTV, Tencent Video, 56.com, and Funshion. Iran has Aparat and Mehr, while Germany has Alugha. France uses Dailymotion, and Turkmenistan offers Belet Video.

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What are the top 'trans cases' in sports?

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Italian boxer Angela Carini quit seconds into her match after being battered by Algeria's Imane Khelif, who was previously disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for failing a gender eligibility test.

What were some other ‘trans’ rows in the world of sports?

🔸 Pennsylvania trans swimmer Lia Thomas, who competed on the men's team until 2019, won the 500-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Championships. Soon after, World Aquatics restricted transgender athletes in elite women's competitions, and Thomas lost her case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

🔸 New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, born male, was the first trans woman to compete at the Olympics. She came out as transgender in 2013 and qualified for Tokyo 2020 thanks to rule changes. Despite meeting testosterone level criteria, critics argued her participation was unfair to female-born athletes.

🔸 South African runner Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the women's 800 meters, is a hermaphrodite who was assigned female at birth but is sidelined due to World Athletics' regulations requiring lower testosterone levels to compete. Semenya's masculine build and high testosterone are due to a genetic variant (46, XY DSD), typical of males.

🔸 Canada's Quinn became the first openly transgender and non-binary athlete to play in a FIFA World Cup in 2023 and the first openly transgender athlete in the Tokyo Olympics. Permission to continue playing professional women's football was based on their sex assigned at birth.

🔸 Brazil's Tifanny Abreu became the first transgender player on a professional women's volleyball team. In the US, Kye Allums, born female, played women's basketball before coming out as a trans man in 2010, becoming the first openly transgender NCAA Division I athlete. Canadian Veronica Ivy, born male, won the UCI Women's Masters Track World Championship in 2018, making her the first transgender cycling champion.

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Bill and Hillary Clinton supported Harris presidential run for their own benefit - report

Former US president Bill Clinton and his wife, ex-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, backed Kamala Harris because of the desire to make their daughter Chelsea ambassador to the UK, the New York Post writes, quoting sources.

The Clintons were "working on this idea for a long time," according to the newspaper's source.

"I can well imagine that the UK ambassadorship is an aspiration for Chelsea, although she is a bit junior still — and London usually goes to a massive donor or fundraiser,” a British embassy official stated, noting that Chelsea Clinton is currently serving as the Clinton Foundation’s vice chair.

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What sort of US support can Netanyahu count on after kicking Mideast hornet’s nest?

Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Biden spoke by phone Thursday to discuss “efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats, including against ballistic missiles and drones,” in the wake of Israel’s killings of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. The discussion reportedly included “new defensive US military deployments.”

Here’s the “support” the US has already given over the last ten months:

⚡️ Two carrier strike groups, other warship and aircraft squadrons sent to the region to shield Israel against large-scale conventional risks (and later, against the Houthis’ guerilla blockade of the Red Sea). 2,000 US troops put on alert, and new Patriot and THAAD sites set up.

⚡️ Over $12.5 billion in arms aid commitments, including a $8.7 bln supplemental approved in April, plus the usual $3.8 bln in annual support. Israel has spent the money on Iron Dome interceptors, guided missiles, bunker buster bombs, 57,000+ 155-mm artillery shells, 14,000+ tank shells, and more. The US greenlit a $3 bln Israeli acquisition of 25 more F-35 jets in June.

⚡️ Washington briefly paused 500 and 2,000-pound bomb deliveries in May amid global outrage over how Israel uses them, but resumed shipments of the former in July. The US has sent over 14,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, and 6,500 500-pound bombs since October.

⚡️ In April, after Iran launched a missile and drone barrage at Israel in response to the bombing of its Embassy compound in Damascus, the US, UK, France and Jordan deployed jets and other assets to try to foil the attack. Israel escaped with light damage, but a military base used to mount the Damascus strike was hit, proving Iran’s deterrent power.

⚡️ Netanyahu has carefully lobbied to try to pull the US directly into the fray. Last week, during a visit to Washington, he proposed the creation of a new NATO-style bloc against Iran involving Israel, the US, and friendly Arab countries.

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Who is Vadim Krasikov, released in Russia's prisoner swap with the West?

Among the eight Russians released from custody in a number of NATO countries was 58-year-old Vadim Krasikov.

⚡️ According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, Krasikov is an FSB officer who served in the elite ‘Alfa’ counterterrorism task forces along with some current employees of the Presidential Security Service, who – alongside with President Putin – greeted him at the airport.

⚡️ Krasikov was referred to as a Russian “patriot” by Putin in his exclusive interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. When asked about negotiations to release the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, convicted in Russia for espionage, Putin stopped short of naming Krasikov as part of a potential swap.

But he said: "That person, due to patriotic sentiments, eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals. During the events in the Caucasus, do you know what he [the bandit] was doing? I don’t want to say that, but I will do it anyway. He was laying down our soldiers who had been taken prisoner on the road and then he drove his car over their heads."

Putin added that Russia's requests to extradite Krasikov had gone unheeded.

⚡️ During a visit to Washington on February 9, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed to set in motion the swap including Krasikov. “For you, I will do this,” Scholz told Biden, the FT reports, citing a US administration official.

⚡️ Krasikov was arrested in Germany in 2019 and accused of killing terrorist Zelimkhan Khangoshvili – an ethnic Chechen with Georgian citizenship – on German soil.
On August 23, 2019, Khangoshvili was shot in the head in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten Park on his way back from a mosque by a man on a bicycle.

⚡️ Khangoshvili was a commander of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria – a militant group in Russia's south – which fought against the country's government in the Second Chechen War. He committed numerous war crimes. According to Russian authorities, Khangoshvili was involved in organizing the attack on a school in Beslan in 2004 which resulted in the deaths of 334 people, including 186 children, as well as deadly explosions in the Moscow metro. Considered a terrorist by the FSB, Khangoshvili fled Russia after the Chechen war and moved to Germany, living under a fake identity.

⚡️ German police claimed the detained suspect was Russian national "Vadim Sokolov," whose real name was Vadim Krasikov. Investigators claimed that the suspect had been ordered to murder Khangoshvili by "Russian government agencies". The Kremlin has described allegations of its role in the affair as “absolutely groundless”.

⚡️ On December 15, 2021, the Berlin High Court found Sokolov, alias Krasikov, guilty of the murder of Khangoshvili and sentenced him to life imprisonment. His defense insitsed there was insufficient evidence to convict him.
The killing of Khangoshvili set off a diplomatic row between Russia and Germany, with tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.

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