UK: Nerve Agent Used in Assassination Attempt of Russian Spy

Posted on March 7, 2018March 7, 2018 by Denise Simon

Former foreign office minister Chris Bryant, who now chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, said: “I don’t think the Government will have any choice but to send a significant number of ‘so-called Russian diplomats’ back to Moscow if there is any evidence that the trail from Salisbury goes straight back to the Kremlin.” The Russian embassy in London has dismissed claims that the poisoning was an operation by Russian special services as “completely untrue” and said the allegations were “vilification” attempts on Russia. Theories over who was responsible grew today with one former KGB agent even claiming that the poisoning of Skripal was an operation by Western secret services to harm Vladimir Putin as he seeks re-election this month. More here.

Russian spy: Nerve agent ‘used to try to kill’ Sergei Skripal

A nerve agent was used to try to murder a former Russian spy and his daughter, police have said.

Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious in Salisbury on Sunday afternoon and remain critically ill.

A police officer who was the first to attend the scene is now in a serious condition in hospital, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing, said.

Mr Rowley would not confirm the exact substance identified.

He said: “Having established that a nerve agent is the cause of the symptoms leading us to treat this as attempted murder, I can also confirm that we believe that the two people who became unwell were targeted specifically.”

He said there was no evidence of a widespread health risk to the public.

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Guardian: The biggest question about Sergei Skripal’s suspected poisoning is the timing. Skripal had spent several years in a Russian jail after being convicted of espionage and had presumably been thoroughly debriefed by his former spy bosses. If the Russian security services had wanted him to have an “accident” during those years it would have been very easy to organise.

Sunday’s assassination attempt in Salisbury, if that is what it was, therefore appears to have a demonstrative nature. Suggestions that this could be some kind of vote-winning ploy, coming two weeks before presidential elections Vladimir Putin is certain to win, seem unconvincing. Many Russians are patriotic and have bought into the Kremlin’s aggressive new foreign policy, but it is unlikely that the assassination of a former spy of whom few had heard would do much to whip up popular passions.

More likely, the move is a deterrent, aimed at reminding other Russian operatives of the potential risks of working with foreign intelligence agencies. Every year Russia’s top security officials speak of active attempts by the CIA and other western agencies to recruit Russians. Part of this is propaganda for domestic consumption, but there is no doubt that western spy agencies are active in Russia.

Last January, two of Russia’s top cybersecurity officials were arrested and accused of aiding the CIA, in a case some have linked to US election hacking claims. The British, too, have been active in Russia, most memorably revealed by the “spy rock” scandal, in which a fake rock was used to pass messages back to British intelligence.

While there are fewer ideological reasons than during the Soviet period for Russian spies to become traitors, western agencies can provide financial incentives. Russian prosecutors suggested, during Skripal’s court case, that he was recruited with cash – according to Russian media. Many agents, working in structures in which their superiors are demonstratively corrupt, might be tempted into colluding with friendly foreigners offering cash for secrets.

As such, the demonstrative killing of a traitor could be a warning to junior officers not to follow the same path. Russian officials have often made it clear that traitors will meet a sticky end one way or another. Public threats were made against the officer in the SVR foreign intelligence service who betrayed the Russian sleeper agents swapped for Skripal and others, back in 2010.

“We know who he is and where he is,” a high-ranking Kremlin source told Kommersant newspaper at the time. “You can have no doubt – a Mercader has already been sent after him.” Ramón Mercader was the assassin tasked by the KBG to kill Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940.

It is unusual, however, to target spies after they have been swapped. One possible reason is that Skripal was being punished for a continuing relationship with British intelligence, or the suspicion of one.

“My presumption is that if the Russians were behind this, and it does look plausible, then it is because they assumed Skripal was still working for British or other western intelligence and not simply retired,” said Mark Galeotti, a Russia watcher and security analyst. “That is likely what tipped the balance with Litvinenko.”

Many hits on Russians abroad arise from financial warfare and do not necessarily come from the Kremlin – such as the shooting of the banker German Gorbuntsov in London, 2012, and the assassination of the Russian MP Denis Voronenkov in Kiev last year.

Yet the attack on Skripal looks more likely to belong to the category of hits organised and approved by the Russian state. And given the long political fallout of the Alexander Litvinenko murder, it is unlikely that intelligence agencies would risk such a gambit without a signoff at the highest level.

Since you’re here …

CFIUS, what is Worse than Uranium One?

Posted on March 6, 2018March 6, 2018 by Denise Simon

When Douglas Campbell, the FBI informant and Uranium One whistle-blower says that Obama himself approved the deal, he was right. Campbell has delivered in February, written testimony annexed with full evidence to three congressional committees. Further, he was provided an monetary award/reward for his remarkable work as an informant. For the full summary and details, go here.

Campbell’s lawyer of record, Victoria Toensing has sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to further investigate the matter and the media smearing of Campbell himself including committee leaks. That letter is found here.

AG Sessions has not responded at the time of this post.

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Meanwhile, looking deeper into Obama and CFIUS….

By law, CFIUS, Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, does not publicly disclose information provided to CFIUS by parties to a transaction, nor does it reveal the fact that the parties have submitted the transaction for review. If CFIUS determines that the transaction poses national security concerns that cannot be resolved, it will refer the transaction to the President which the President has 15 days after completion of CFIUS’s investigation to decide. The President must publicly announce his decision.

CFIUS provides an annual report to Congress, but the last report was dated 2015. This report is in accordance with section 721(m) of the Defense Production Act of 1950 and the amended section of the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007.

The Process

During the review period, CFIUS members examine the transaction in order to identify and address, as appropriate, any national security concerns that arise as a result of the transaction. CFIUS concludes action on the preponderant majority of transactions during or at the end of the initial 30-day review period. In certain circumstances defined in section 721 and at § 800.503 of the regulations, CFIUS may initiate a subsequent investigation, which must be completed within 45 days. In certain circumstances described at section 6(c) of Executive Order 11858, as amended, and § 800.506 of the regulations, CFIUS may also refer a transaction to the President for decision. In such case, section 721 requires the President to announce a decision with respect to a transaction within 15 days of CFIUS’s completion of the investigation. If CFIUS finds that a covered transaction presents national security risks and that other provisions of law do not provide adequate authority to address the risks, then CFIUS may enter into an agreement with, or impose conditions on, parties to mitigate such risks or may refer the case to the President for action.

Where CFIUS has completed all action with respect to a covered transaction or the President has announced a decision not to exercise his authority under section 721 with respect to the covered transaction, then the parties receive a “safe harbor” with respect to that transaction, as described in § 800.601 of the regulations and section 7(f) of Executive Order 11858, as amended.

Rejection

During the entire term of President, he only got one referral that he rejected. President Obama blocked a privately owned Chinese company from building wind turbines close to a Navy military site in Oregon due to national security concerns, and the company said it would challenge the action in court.

Ralls Corp, which had been installing wind turbine generators made in China by Sany Group, has four wind farm projects that are within or in the vicinity of restricted air space at a naval weapons systems training facility, according to the Obama administration.

“There is credible evidence that leads me to believe” that Ralls Corp, Sany Group and the two Sany Group executives who own Ralls “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” Obama said in issuing his decision.

Industry Sectors

From 2009-2015, 75% of the foreign transactions included finance, information, mining, utilities and transportation. From 2013-2015, China was the largest country with transactions by far with manufacturing being the majority of the transactions. If there are concerns with any part of the transaction, CFIUS will work on mitigation measures as they relate to national security such that CFIUS earnestly wants the transaction(s) to occur. CFIUS offers onsite compliance, assigns additional staff and offers tracking systems as well as instructions and procedures from in-house expertise to meet stipulations and standards where on other issues, waivers can be designated if compliance is too difficult or adverse to national security standards and law.

Review Concerns

Expanded conditions for national security considerations include vulnerabilities, cyber, sabotage and exploitation. Further, if any transaction leads to complications to critical infrastructure or energy production or would affect the U.S. financial system and would in some conditions have access to sensitive government information, classified material or in any manner threaten a government employee, involve activities related to weapons, munitions, aerospace, satellite or radar system(s), these items would impair the approval process or under the CFIUS review, mitigation procedures would be applied.

Little is of consequence when a foreign company that under cover is actually controlled by a foreign government which is a terrifying condition. A 2011 Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive report to Congress stated that the pace of foreign economic collection and industrial espionage activities against major U.S corporations and U.S. government agencies is accelerating.

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Are we sure we want China, Russia or any Middle Eastern country investing in any form or part in the United States when we have the likes of Warren Buffet or Bill Gates and those billions?

Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced legislation on Wednesday to prevent the U.S. government from using products from certain Chinese telecommunications firms.

The impetus for Cotton and Rubio’s legislation is concern over the Chinese government using hypothetical backdoors in ZTE and Huawei phones to spy on U.S. government officials.

“Huawei is effectively an arm of the Chinese government, and it’s more than capable of stealing information from U.S. officials by hacking its devices,” Cotton said in a statement. “There are plenty of other companies that can meet our technology needs, and we shouldn’t make it any easier for China to spy on us.”

Uranium One violated all conditions set forth in the CFIUS law. China is yet a larger security issue and all agency members of CFIUS are aware of this and the history of both Russia and China.

The risks and violations of law are well known in Congress and legislation has been introduced to address major concerns, yet still the United States is and has sold out to at least 2 rogue countries and no security assessments have been published.

DACA and the Temporary Protected Status Back in Play, Check Houston

Posted on March 5, 2018March 5, 2018 by Denise Simon

How about some White House officials visit Houston…

More than 100 countries are represented in Houston. Routinely ranked top in the country for job growth, with a school system where 80 percent of students are disadvantaged. For details, go here.

Lee High School for instance has 1700 students, a Vietnamese principal and student are from 40 different countries.

Illegal immigrant “Dreamers” said they staged a sit-in to block the entrance to the Democratic National Committee’s offices in Washington on Monday in order to show they blame Democrats as well as Republicans for missing President Trump’s March 5 deadline for action.

Immigrant-rights activists who are U.S. citizens and who are supporting the Dreamers will also cancel their membership in the Democratic Party in order to make their point, the organizations said.

Monday marked six months since Mr. Trump announced a phaseout of the Obama-era DACA deportation amnesty. The president had said Congress should use the phaseout period to approve a new plan, with full congressional authorization, to grant DACA recipients legal status.

Mr. Trump offered a middle-ground approach, but the security enhancements went too far for Democrats, while his proposed amnesty for illegal immigrants went too far for many Republicans, and the bill stalled.

While Democrats have blamed the GOP, activists made clear Monday they will pin some of the blame on Democrats.

“The Democrats made the calculation to kick the can down the road and allow hundreds of thousands of us undocumented youth to live in uncertainty. We are anxious and we are scared of being torn away from their homes and our community”, said Maria Duarte, one of 683,000 people covered by DACA.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez, though, said Mr. Trump is the problem, calling his phaseout “cruel and reckless.”

“Donald Trump’s decision to end DACA created an unnecessary crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of Dreamers uncertain about their future. And now his arbitrary deadline has passed without any action from the president or Republicans in Congress,” Mr. Perez said in a statement.

The protesters Monday were part of the Seed Project, which staged a march from New York to Washington late last month, in anticipation of the March 5 deadline.

The protesters said they expect Congress to pass a “clean” bill granting perhaps 2 million illegal immigrants citizenship rights — without agreeing to any other provisions such as Mr. Trump’s planned border wall or changes to legal immigration policy.

Work permits expiring March 31 are automatically extended through Sept. 27

WASHINGTON—Current beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under Syria’s designation who want to maintain their status through Sept. 30, 2019, must re-register between March 5, and May 4, 2018. Re-registration procedures, including how to renew employment authorization documentation, have been published in the Federal Register and on the USCIS website.

All applicants must submit Form I-821, Application for Temporary Protected Status. Applicants may also request an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) by submitting a completed Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, when they file Form I-821, or separately at a later date. Both forms are free on USCIS’ website at uscis.gov/tps.

USCIS will issue new EADs with a Sept. 30, 2019, expiration date to eligible Syrian TPS beneficiaries who timely re-register and apply for EADs. However, given the timeframes involved with processing TPS re-registration applications, USCIS is automatically extending the validity of EADs with an expiration date of March 31 for 180 days, through Sept. 27.

To be eligible for TPS under Syria’s current designation, individuals must have continuously resided in the United States since Aug. 1, 2016, and have been continuously physically present in the United States since Oct. 1, 2016, along with meeting the other eligibility requirements.

On Jan. 31, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen announced her determination that the conditions supporting Syria’s TPS designation continue. The secretary made her decision after reviewing country conditions and consulting with appropriate U.S. government agencies. Before the 18-month extension ends, the secretary will review conditions in Syria to determine whether its TPS designation should be extended again or terminated.

U.S. Embassy in Turkey Closed due to Security but no Threat?

Posted on March 5, 2018March 5, 2018 by Denise Simon

Sheesh….of course there was one. The first response was there was no imminent danger but U.S. personnel were to take all precautions and avoid crowded spaces.

Now, the truth comes out.

Police secure roads around U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Monday. Umit Bektas / Reuters

Turkish police foiled a planned Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on March 5, detaining suspects in the capital Ankara and the Black Sea province of Samsun.

The detentions came after the Ankara Governor’s Office stated late on March 4 that extra security measures had been taken in the city upon intelligence that “terrorist actions” could take place in areas where U.S. citizens are located.

“Upon intelligence coming to our units from U.S. sources that terrorist actions could be undertaken targeting the U.S. Embassy and where U.S. citizens are staying, security measures have been reviewed and extra measures have been taken,” the Governor’s Office said.

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Embassy closed on March 5, 6

The U.S. Embassy in Turkey announced that it has suspended operations on March 5 and 6 due to an unspecified security threat.

A statement posted on the embassy’s website on March 4 urged U.S. citizens to avoid the embassy in Ankara and large crowds, as well as to “keep a low profile.”

The statement said the embassy will be closed “due to a security threat. The Embassy will announce its reopening, once it resumes services.” It did not give details about the threat.

On March 5, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ said U.S. consulates in Turkey were “operating as normal.”

Four Iraqis detained in Samsun on charges of plotting attack

Meanwhile, four Iraqi nationals were detained in Samsun by the National Intelligence Agency (MİT) and local anti-terror authorities in an operation against ISIL, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on March 5.

Several digital documents were seized in the operation, the agency reported.

The suspects detained on charges of plotting an attack against the U.S. Embassy in Ankara were taken to the police station for formal legal proceedings.

Police detain 12 in Ankara over ISIL links

In addition, the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office said police have detained 12 suspected ISIL militants in Ankara and are searching for eight others.

A statement from the prosecutor’s office said the suspects were detained in a police operation on March 5. It added that all the suspects are foreigners but did not provide detail on their nationalities.

According to the statement, the detained suspects are accused of trying to recruit members for ISIL and were “in contact with people in conflict zones.”

In 2013, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive in front of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara. He killed himself and one Turkish security guard on duty. Turkish officials blamed the attack on domestic leftists.

***

(Reuters) – Turkish police arrested 12 people in Ankara in an investigation targeting Islamic State jihadists, state-run Anadolu news agency said on Monday, hours after the U.S. embassy there said it would remain closed for the day due to a security threat.

The 12 suspects were among 20 people for whom detention warrants were issued by the Ankara state prosecutors’ office, Anadolu said. It said they were foreign citizens and had been seeking to recruit new members to the group.

Turkish authorities regularly detain Islamic State suspects and it was not clear whether there was any connection between the arrests and the U.S. embassy move. Anadolu said the police operation was“planned previously”.

On Sunday evening, the U.S. embassy in Ankara said it would be closed to the public on Monday due to a security threat and only emergency services will be provided.

The Ankara governor’s office said additional security measures were taken after intelligence from U.S. sources suggested there might be an attack targeting the U.S. embassy or places U.S. citizens were staying.

Turkish police increased operations against Islamic State at the end of 2017 before the first anniversary of a New Year gun attack on an Istanbul nightclub in which 39 people were killed.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for that shooting, one of a series of attacks believed to have been carried out by the jihadists in Turkey in recent years.

UN Declares Sadness and Desperation in Venezuela is About Food

Posted on March 5, 2018March 5, 2018 by Denise Simon

Except for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley that is.

Amid growing food insecurity and rising malnutrition among children on the back of a protracted economic crisis in Venezuela, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Friday called on all actors for rapid and coordinated assistance efforts to reach those most in need.

“While precise figures are unavailable because of very limited official health or nutrition data, there are clear signs that the crisis is limiting children’s access to quality health services, medicines and food,” said the UN agency in a news release, Friday, underlining the severity of the situation.

According to UNICEF, national reports in 2009 (the most recent official figures) showed that the prevalence of wasting (low weight to height ratio) in children under five was, at the time, 3.2 per cent.

However, more recent non-official studies indicate “significantly higher rates” of as much as 15.5 per cent, and an additional 20 per cent of children at risk of malnutrition.

Similarly, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017 (a comprehensive report on the subject prepared by a number of UN agencies) suggested that undernourishment – a measure of hunger indicating the proportion of population with inadequate energy consumption – in Venezuela rose from 10.5 per cent in 2004-2006 to 13 per cent in 2014-2016.

In response, the Venezuelan Government has implemented measures to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the country’s children, including providing regular food packages at affordable prices to the most vulnerable families, cash transfers, and strengthening of nutritional and recuperation services.

“But more needs to be done to reverse the worrisome decline in children’s nutritional wellbeing,” said UNICEF, calling for the rapid implementation of a short-term response to counter malnutrition, based on disaggregated data and coordinated between the Government and partners.

On its part, the UN agency is working with the Ministry of Health, National Institute of Nutrition and the civil society to strengthen and expand nutritional surveillance at the community level and provide nutritional recuperation services through partners organizations.

The efforts are being implemented through activities such as nutrition screening days aiming to reach over 113,000 children, provision of supplementary and therapeutic foods when required, training programmes and communication campaigns, added UNICEF.

Venezuela has been mired in a socio-economic and political crisis since 2012 and has witnessed rising consumer prices even as the overall economy has contracted.

***

Some 3 million Venezuelans—a tenth of the population—have left Venezuela since late leader Hugo Chavez started his socialist revolution in 1999. More than 500,000 have fled to Colombia—many illegally—hoping to escape grinding poverty, rising violence and shortages of food and medicine in the once-prosperous nation.

Photographer Jaime Saldarriaga joined Reuters journalists at the Paraguachón border crossing to document the exodus from Venezuela, which is now on a scale echoing the departure of Myanmar’s Rohingya people to Bangladesh.

Venezuelans line the street at the border between Venezuela and Colombia, in the city of Cúcuta. Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters

Hundreds of migrants lugging heavy suitcases and overstuffed backpacks walk along the road to the Colombian border town of Maicao, beneath the blazing sun. The Venezuelans arrive hungry, thirsty and tired, often unsure where they will spend the night—but they are relieved to have escaped the calamitous situation in their homeland.

The broken line snakes back eight miles (13 km) to the border crossing, where more than a hundred Venezuelans wait in the heat outside the migration office.

Venezuelans walk along a highway in Colombia after crossing the border at Paraguachón. Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters

Money-changers sit at tables stacked with wads of bolívares—Venezuela’s currency—made nearly worthless by hyperinflation under President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government.

A money changer uses a calculator at the Paraguachón border crossing between Colombia and Venezuela. Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters

“It’s migrate and give it a try or die of hunger there. Those are the only two options,” Yeraldine Murillo, 27, who left her six-year-old son behind in the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, told Reuters. “There, people eat from the trash. Here, people are happy just to eat,” she said, adding she hopes to find work in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, and send for her son.

Migrants told Reuters they were paying up to 400,000 bolívares for a kilo of rice in Venezuela. The official monthly minimum wage is 248,510 bolívares—around $8 at the official exchange rate, or $1.09 on the black market.

Food shortages, which many migrants jokingly refer to as the “Maduro diet,” have left people noticeably thinner than in photos taken years earlier for their identification cards.

Mechanic Luis Arellano and his children were among the lucky ones who found beds at a shelter in Maicao run by the Catholic diocese with help from the U.N. refugee agency. The 58-year-old said his children’s tears of hunger drove him to flee Venezuela. “It was 8 p.m. and they were asking for lunch and dinner and I had nothing to give them,” he said, spooning rice into his 7-year-old daughter’s mouth. He raised his children’s spindly arms and said: “[These aren’t] the size they should be.”

Read More: Venezuela Must Stop Presidential Elections

The shelter, where bunk beds line the walls of the bedrooms, provides food and shelter for three days and, for those joining family already in Colombia, a bus ticket onwards. It will soon have a capacity for 140 people a night—a fraction of the daily arrivals.

At another shelter in the border city of Cucuta, some 250 miles (400 km) to the south, people regularly spend the night on cardboard outside, hoping places will free up. The largest city along the frontier, Cucuta, has borne the brunt of the arriving migrants.

About 30,000 people cross the pedestrian bridge that connects the city with Venezuela on daily entry passes to shop for food.

The mass migration is stirring alarm in Colombia. A migration official told Reuters as many as 2,000 Venezuelans enter Colombia legally through the border crossing at Paraguachón each day, up from around 1,200 late last year. But officials estimate as many as 4,000 people cross illegally every day.

Colombia is letting the migrants access public health care and send their children to state schools. Santos is asking for international help to foot the bill, which the government has said runs to tens of millions of dollars.

Under pressure from overcrowded frontier towns such as Maicao, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced a tightening of border controls this month, deploying 3,000 additional security personnel. But the measures are unlikely to stem the flow of illegal migrants pouring across the 1,379-mile (2,219 km) frontier.

While many feel a duty to welcome the migrants, in part because Venezuela accepted Colombian refugees during that country’s long civil war, others fear losing jobs to Venezuelans being paid under the table. After locals held a small anti-Venezuelan protest last month, police evicted 200 migrants who were living on a sports field, deporting many of them.

Migrants are verbally abused by some Colombians who refuse them work when they hear their accents, said Flavio Gouguella, 28, from Carabobo. “Are you a Veneco? Then no work,” he said, using a derogatory term for Venezuelans.

Locals also worry about an increase in crime and support police efforts to clear parks and sidewalks. They already have to cope with smuggled subsidized Venezuelan goods damaging local commerce, and have grown tired of job-seekers and lending their bathrooms to migrants. Spooked by police raids, migrants in Maicao have abandoned the parks and bus stations where they had makeshift camps, opting to sleep outside shuttered shops. Female migrants who spoke to Reuters said they were often solicited for sex.

Despairing of finding work, some entrepreneurial migrants turn the nearly worthless bolivar currency into crafts, weaving handbags from the bills and selling them in Maicao’s park. “This was made from 80,000 bolivars,” said 23-year-old Anthony Morillo, holding up a square purse featuring bills with the face of South America’s 19th-century liberation hero Simon Bolivar. “It’s not worth half a bag of rice.”

Despite four months of violent anti-government protests last year, Chavez’s successor Maduro is expected to win a fresh six-year term at elections on April 22. The opposition, whose most popular leaders have been banned from running, are boycotting the vote. Go here for more photos.