The pullout of non-emergency government staff from Iraq is not a “prelude” to an attack but a precaution, Senator Marco Rubio has explained on his Twitter. Many users, however, perceive it to be laying the groundwork for war.

Rubio took a break from tweeting non-stop in support of the US regime-change activities in Venezuela on Wednesday, shifting his efforts towards another potential flashpoint – Iran.

The senator took to his social media of choice and tried hard to explain why US activities in the Middle East are not actually preparations for war with Tehran. In fact, it’s the Iranians who are seeking to harm Americans, the senator claimed, assuring his followers that Washington won’t start a war, but “it will win one that Iran starts.”

Rubio issued a whole thread on why the US State Department’s decision to pull out “non-emergency” diplomatic staff from Iraq should not be perceived as preparation for war. The senator claimed that Tehran is plotting to inflict “mass casualties” on US citizens, using “proxy forces” in Iraq and Yemen, citing “clear and persistent evidence, supported by observable movements on the ground.”

Sadly, Rubio did not provide any actual proof for such an accusation, backing it up only with further allegations. He claimed that Iran spent “years” on building such an attack capability…

…As well as honed its internet trolling skills to further influence those, who distrust the US authorities.

The alleged preparations for attacks on Americans might have been provoked by the recent US designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation, Rubio explained. All in all, “Iran need to know that if they are attacked a UNITED States of America will respond decisively,” the senator concluded.

The Twitter crowd was largely unconvinced by the senator’s claims. The mere fact that the top cheerleader of the US-backed coup in Venezuela has now shifted his attention towards Iran prompted many to demand actual proof for the alleged activities attributed to Tehran.

Many users pointed out that the whole anti-Iran hysteria looks exactly like the pre-Iraqi war one – just without brandishing any shady test tubes in the UN.

Others encouraged Rubio to take part in the war personally, or, at least, send his own children into it instead of just talking tough on Twitter.

Some users, however, looked deeper into the whole warmongering and suggested that it might be a re-election strategy of Donald Trump, invoking ironically his old tweets accusing then-President Barack Obama of the very same thing.

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The US’ reckless maximum pressure campaign against Tehran and nations dealing with it is deeply provocative and hurts international relations, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said, warning against a major “crisis.”

Speaking at a joint press conference with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Wednesday, Van der Bellen slammed the US sanctions against Iran by saying that such policies “do not help international relations” and only erode the system of global treaties.

READ MORE: US orders all non-emergency personnel to leave Iraq

“The fact that the US withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal undermines trust in this agreement in general,” he told journalists.

The Austrian leader also admitted that Europe has so far failed to “come up with a mechanism that would help companies effectively circumvent” the US restrictions. He also said that creating such an instrument is a “very laborious” task.

Van der Bellen then warned the US against going down its chosen path by saying that any additional pressure Washington puts on Iran “is going to undermine political relations” on the international arena “even further.”

If America continues to put pressure on Iran, the whole situation risks spilling into another major crisis “as it happened in Iraq some years ago,” the president warned, without elaborating.

Van der Bellen’s words came amid growing fears that a military conflict could potentially break out between the US and Iran. These concerns were further fueled by the US decision to recall all non-essential personnel from its embassy in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and a consulate in Iraq’s northern town of Erbil. The developments have prompted Germany and the Netherlands to temporarily suspend its missions aimed at training the Iraqi forces.

Earlier, the Iraqi ambassador to Moscow said that Baghdad would not let the US use the Iraqi territory in the event of a war against Iran, adding that it is not interested in another “devastating” conflict in the region.

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Washington has deployed the USS ‘Abraham Lincoln’ Carrier Strike Group, as well as B-52 bombers, to “send a message” to Iran while constantly citing an allegedly increased threat from Tehran and criticizing those of its allies who doubted the claim.

US President Donald Trump has recently dismissed a New York Times report of a plan to send “120,000 troops” to the Middle East as “fake news,” saying that it would “hopefully” not be necessary. He added, however, that if it did come to a hot conflict, “we’d send a hell of a lot more troops than that.”

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NASA has released photos of the Israeli Beresheet spacecraft’s impact site on the Moon’s surface. The lander smashed into the celestial surface during a botched landing attempt last month.

Black and white photos include ‘before’ and ‘after’ images of the crash area at the Sea of Serenity, where the maiden Moon mission by SpaceIL crashed on April 11 after suffering engine failure.

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The image snapped by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on April 22, just 56 miles (90 kilometers) above the surface, shows what the space agency referred to as a “dark smudge” roughly 10 meters wide that was not visible in the photo of the same location taken in 2016.

“The dark tone suggests a surface roughened by the hard landing, which is less reflective than a clean, smooth surface,” NASA said, noting that its cameras “could not detect whether Beresheet formed a surface crater upon impact.”

Beresheet, Hebrew for the biblical phrase “in the beginning,” would have been the first Israeli and first privately-funded spacecraft to land on the moon. To date, only Russia, the US, and China have managed to perform controlled ‘soft’ landings on the lunar surface. Despite the crash, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged state support for a new Israeli moon mission.

A new report gives a fascinating insight into the future of food five, 30 and 150 years from now as the world adapts to technological advancements and a changing environment. Just don’t read it over lunch.

The 34-page report, commissioned by British supermarket Sainsbury’s, paints a picture of grocery shopping in 2025, 2050 and 2196 and aims to show the potential of food for the next 150 years.

It envisions mainstream dinners consisting of jellyfish and insects with a glass of algae milk, or perhaps some lab-grown meat and, eventually, maybe even a patch or intravenous drip that gives you all the nutrients you need. Sounds tasty.

READ MORE: Hunger games: Ukrainians spend half of their income on food, highest in Europe

Food pharmacy

Food as medicine isn’t exactly a modern thought, however the report speculates that the importance of diet on health, and foods with healing properties will come to the forefront in the next five years.

Bio-fortified foods like so-called ‘Super Mushrooms’ and salmon who have been fed a “bespoke diet” will offer customers specifically formulated extra nutrients. Specific diets for the elderly to prevent dementia and loss of brain function will be the norm by 2025, for example.

Planet-friendly food

The report notes that the future of food will see a huge increase in vegan, vegetarian and flexitarian (part-time vegetarian) eaters, as well as customers who want to purchase ‘planet-friendly food.’

It claims a quarter of all British people will be vegetarian by 2025 (up from one in eight today). The report says that food is the easiest way for people to reduce their global footprint, so a more plant-based diet is inevitable as the modern world moves away from meat consumption.

To supplement the nutritional gap and plate space the report says mushroom-based products, algae milk, seaweed caviar and protein-rich insects will be just some of the plant-based substitutes that will be in our fridge

It also foresees digital advancements like apps to calculate your daily environmental footprint and the introduction of carbon footprint numbers on menus – much like calories are today.

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Lab-grown aisle

The supermarket also expects to introduce a “lab-grown” aisle, where customers can pick up cultured-meats and kits to grow meat at home. “Meat, as we know it today, could instead start to become a luxury product,” the report notes.

The experts say that the need for printed meat is inevitable thanks to a growing population that’s expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. The average European eats 80kg of meat per year, while North Americans and Australians eat over 110kg per year.

By 2050 people will be 3D-printing their meat in the supermarket. Customers can watch their meat be created through the plexi glass of the in-store ‘artisan’ factory, which will be entirely run by robots – the only humans will be those walking between the small conveyor belts for quality control.

READ MORE: UK researchers link consumption of junk memes to teen obesity & other ‘unhealthy’ habits

Expanding the fish counter

As with everything on the planet these days, the fast-growing population is threatening the livelihood of ecosystems around the world. Marine life is no different and soon fish eaters may have to get creative.

Sainsbury’s says the shift toward ‘cultured meat’ will force even more toward the ocean for more authentic protein. The threat of sustainability to our oceans will soon force fish counters to embrace more “invasive species” like jellyfish, seaweed, porgy/bream, dogfish, lionfish and barramundi.

The future of food

By 2169, 150 years from now, it’s likely that we’ll be consuming our key nutrients through implants while nutrition patches and drips could replace our day-to-day intake.

Robotic farmers will be resuscitating the desert, attempting to rebalance the earth and reverse climate change, the report predicts. Wearable tech will advance to microchip implants that monitor our well-being and, through artificial intelligence, work out exactly what nutrients we need at each moment.

”The connected world of 2169 could see our AI personal nutrition advisors shop, prepare and tailor meals to optimise our health, ensuring that we only use exactly what we need, with food waste a thing of the past,” the report reads.

Enjoy that steak while you still can.

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The cancellation of The Jeremy Kyle Show is a typical British middle-class moral panic that treats working-class people as children – too stupid to even be allowed to participate in (or watch!) a daytime TV program.

Having looked down on what is a parochial watered-down Jerry Springer Show clone for its entire 14 year run, this week the UK’s officials and cultural elite got their chance to concoct a fatal media storm.

After over 3,000 shows and what must be well over 10,000 guests who aired their family feuds, questionable paternities and definite drug addictions in public, a 63-year-old man, Steve Dymond, committed suicide shortly after appearing on the program, where he failed a lie detector test when grilled about cheating on his fiancee.

Apart from the statistically surprising fact that such an incident has happened only now, it is quite distasteful to see Dymond’s suicide used as a pawn to push an agenda.

As all those blaming the show for insensitively handling mental health issues must themselves know, suicide is rarely a single-factor issue, and frequently the victim is not thinking clearly in their final days. “TV show made innocent man kill himself” is ironically the same kind of simplistic, finger-pointing approach to complex situations that Kyle himself stands accused of.

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And even if it was somehow possible to definitively prove that his appearance on the show pushed Dymond over the edge, it doesn’t actually make his death Kyle’s fault. Otherwise, we’d have to jail every person blamed in every parting note.

So without the coercion-to-death charge what we are left with is a more generalized accusation of exploitation and humiliation of the featured guests – who are predominantly working-class – for the sake of entertainment.

Allow me to let you in on a secret that the experienced media personalities piling in on Jeremy Kyle know as well as I do: all non-professional participation on TV is a form of exploitation by the content makers, and can lead to potential humiliation. And it’s all for your entertainment.

When you agree to appear in anything from a soundbite to a lifelong documentary you become a tool in the hands of those who write, film and edit the program.

This is true for talk shows, game shows with inept contestants, political discussion programs, singing contests where you can hit the wrong note, children’s TV, humor panels featuring jokes that fall flat, local station reports, reality TV where you agree to live in a video-surveilled house with strangers, or let someone cohabit with your wife, and even those shows where you get to bid on antiques or talk about your family history. They all use you, and any can result in a YouTube clip that will haunt you – or worse.

In most cases the people involved are aware of this, and see it as a quid-pro-quo arrangement: I will give you my time, myself even, in exchange for money, local (or global) fame, or even a chance to state my political views.

What critics of the Jeremy Kyle Show are claiming is that its participants are too stupid to have made that calculation. Uniquely, they should have been barred from television for their own good, despite voluntarily choosing to take part.

Is this view based on a thorough behind-the-scenes look at the screening of the applicants for the show, the quality of mental healthcare they received from its four dedicated staff, their behavior before and after?

Or is this just a snobbish disgust from people who would be embarrassed to be caught even watching a single broadcast, saying “Oh these common people with their tawdry lives washing their laundry in public, they must be getting roped into it.”

It appears to be the latter. Because the critics aren’t just worried about participants, they think the entire enterprise is a social harm – throughout the commentary shines through a vicarious desire to save the poor even from watching something that sets its sights so low, and possibly even corrupts them (does real life corrupt?).

Now I agree that the Jeremy Kyle Show is not aspirational, nor does it rank high on the educational totem pole of public broadcasting.

But unless they plan to set up a commission that will give counselling to each person who appears on TV – every aspiring pop star, every teenager talking about his exam results –  bourgeois tastemakers are just expressing patronizing prejudice dressed up as concern.

And they should not have forced shut a show that was watched by millions on vague moral grounds, particularly as it became a quaint relic in a post-YouTube world where far more genuinely disturbing content is available in one search request.

By Igor Ogorodnev

Igor Ogorodnev is a Russian-British journalist, who has worked at RT since 2007 as a correspondent, editor and writer.

Ahead of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that it is their collective duty to “find ways for further development.”

“During my meetings in Russia, a number of important topics will be discussed. For some of them we can agree, for others we can disagree, but when it comes to national interests, our duty is to find ways for further development,” Pompeo wrote on Twitter.

He is due to meet with the Russian leaders in Sochi on Tuesday to discuss a wide range of issues. The US secretary of state canceled a planned meeting in Moscow to discuss escalating tensions between the US and Iran with European leaders in Brussels.

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US social justice activists incensed at the Cannes Festival’s intent to honor Alain Delon have started a petition to stop it, citing the legendary actor’s “close-minded” views. The festival, and the French public, were not amused.

Cannes organizers have held firm in their intent to honor the actor, now 83, with a Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement. One of the most prestigious European film festivals kicked off this week with posters of Delon from his 1960s heyday as a sex symbol.

The decision is not sitting well with some feminists and #MeToo activists, who have started a petition declaring that “no amount of good acting can neutralise such a close-minded vision of the world. There is no place in such an important event for racists, sexists and homophobes.”

“Alain is an old, depressed ex-movie star who goes on TV shows and spouts misogynistic and homophobic insults,” actress Carole Raphaelle Davis, the co-founder of #MeToo France, told the Daily Beast. “Cannes should ditch the old white guy syndrome and honor a woman, not a sexist homophobe.”

Activist Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood was likewise outraged, saying that Delon “hits every single button embodying everyone in the world agrees are not values we want to have anymore.”

“You’d think French people would be up in arms about this. It is so tone-deaf,” she added.

The French do seem to be up in arms, however – against American social justice warriors attempting to thought-police their film festivals and meddle in their cultural affairs, that is.

Comments on social media appear to be overwhelmingly pro-Delon and angry at attempts from overseas to impose “political correctness” on Cannes.

“Never has the Hollywood of today resembled yesterday’s Hollywood, when McCarthyism and witch-hunting were rampant,” declared literary critic Eric Naulleau, referring to the 1950s climate of ‘red scare’ and blacklisting. “F**k the PC!” he added, in English.

Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the festival, also defended the decision to honor Delon.

“Today it is very difficult to ­reward or honour or recompense anyone because the political police then falls on you,” he said at a press event on Monday. “People are free to express their views. Alain Delon was entitled to say what he did. We need to have things in context. In any one person’s life there are many contradictions.”

“We’re not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize. We are giving the honorary Palme d’Or for his career as an actor,” said Fremaux. “He has said certain things and he is entitled to express his views.”

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Among the sins Delon’s detractors hold against him are speaking out against immigration, expressing sympathies for the nationalist National Rally party, and opposing homosexual couples adopting children.

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Moscow cannot save the Iranian nuclear deal from falling apart all by itself, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that the destruction of the agreement was triggered by the US, while Europe has failed to react.

While Moscow believes the deal – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – should be preserved, it can be saved only through the efforts of all its signees, Putin said during a press conference Wednesday after meeting Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen.

“Russia is not a firefighting team, we cannot go around and save everything that does not fully depend on us,” Russia’s president stated.

He added that saying such an “undiplomatic thing might hurt the ears of our European friends.” Putin squarely put the blame for the dismantling of the JCPOA on the US while blasting the EU’s inability to actually do something about saving the deal.

“The Americans have withdrawn from the deal, the agreement is crumbling and European countries are unable to do anything to save it, unable to actually work with Iran and compensate for [its] economic losses,” he stated.

Putin believes it’s not quite “expedient” for Iran to leave the deal altogether, given how strictly Tehran has abided to it and how transparent the country’s nuclear sector has become.

“I’ve repeatedly told our Iranian partners that, in my opinion, it would be advisable for Iran to stay within the deal no matter what,” Putin said. “Iran might take retaliatory steps [over the US leaving the JCPOA], and say that it’s leaving something, but tomorrow everyone will forget it was triggered by the US and all the blame will be put on Iran.”

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New patches of distinction to honor the downing of a Pakistani F-16 by Indian MIG-21s in a tense dogfight in February have been awarded to the Indian Air Force’s 51st Squadron – even though Islamabad firmly denies the loss.

The patch depicts a MIG-21 Bison as the centerpiece with a red-colored F-16 in crosshairs in the background. ‘AMRAAM Dodger’ is written at the top of the design with ‘Falcon Slayer’ inscribed at the bottom.

“Patches instill a sense of pride in not only the present generation of pilots but also future ones. It gives a sense of achievement to the pilot,” Group Captain Anupam Bannerjee said.

Meanwhile, another Indian squadron that flies Sukhoi-30 jets, which also participated in the Pakistani raid, received a patch that portrays an SU-30 dodging AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs) used on F-16 jets.

The dogfight between Indian and Pakistani warplanes over the contested border region of Jammu and Kashmir erupted on February 27, following the IAF’s raid on Balakot a day earlier. The raid penetrated deep inside Pakistani territory to strike a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) camp in retaliation for a terrorist attack on Indian paramilitary forces in the disputed region.

While India lost one of its aircraft in the fight, New Delhi said that hero Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman of the 51st Squadron managed to shoot down one of the PAF’s F-16 jets before he was shot down and captured. Pakistan, however, vehemently denies the loss, claiming it didn’t even use the US-supplied plane during the sortie. “No Pakistani F-16 was hit by Indian Air Force,” Pakistan’s military insists.

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Germany and the Netherlands halted training of Iraqi troops hours after the US said it will partially evacuate its Baghdad embassy. Amid growing tensions with Iran, analysts offered differing views on the reasons behind the moves.

Washington announced the partial evacuation of its embassy in Baghdad as well as a consulate in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan on Wednesday, citing heightened tension in the region. Hours later, Germany and the Netherlands suspended their missions to train Iraqi troops. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had earlier warned that “Iranian activities” endanger American sites and soldiers stationed in the country.

Are the latest moves a sign that the US is preparing for military action against Iran, are they just a precaution, or do they signal something about a shift in the security situation on the ground in Iraq?

‘Preparing for instability’

The recent actions are likely an indication that the US administration is expecting some kind of destabilization in the region, Ted Seay, a former US diplomat and senior policy consultant at the British American Security Information Council told RT.

“The only time the US government ever evacuates diplomatic personnel is because they expect instability, violence, or warfare,” he said, adding that the US does not take this kind of action unless it’s “very serious about the situation that’s unfolding.”

Seay said the timing of the evacuation was interesting, given Pompeo had recently “made nice noises” about the Iraqi authorities and their ability to keep US personnel safe in the country.

“Unfortunately I think the evacuation speaks far more clearly than the Secretary of State when it comes to the situation in Iraq,” he said.

‘Just being cautious’

But military analyst Kamal Amal believes that by pulling its embassy staff, Washington is “just being cautious,” as the White House fears that the sanctions and the economic crisis in Iran may force the nation to “retaliate physically.” He said such a mindset and behavior is not surprising because the US and Iran have been waging “a proxy war for over a decade.”

The threats the US is allegedly facing from Iran, he said, are “based on little intelligence,” however, and it would be “very unlikely for Iran to actually do anything against the US.”

Amal also said it was difficult to follow Washington’s strategy as there is “no one policy” and seems to be a “contradiction every week.” While Pompeo might say something one week, the White House and Pentagon might say something different the next.

‘Lack of confidence in Iraq’

The US decision to remove embassy staff could also reflect, to a certain extent a “lack of confidence” in its Iraqi allies, Ammar Waqqaf, who heads the Middle East-focused think tank Gnosos, told RT.

The embassy move “may be the prelude to more deployment of US forces in the region, just as we’ve seen recently with them sending an aircraft carrier [to the Persian Gulf],” Waqqaf said.

Still, there is nothing major happening on the ground in Iraq itself that seemed to precipitate the embassy move, he added.

‘Creating a justification’

Udo Steinbach, former director of the German Institute for Middle East Studies and honorary professor at the University of Hamburg said Germany, which has halted its training of Iraqi soldiers amid the worsening tensions, is likely to be very cautious about following the US line on Iran and is unlikely to take “any measure which would have a negative impact on the climate between the EU and Iran and between Germany and Iran in particular.”

As for the evacuation of US embassy staff and the cutoff of military assistance programs, Steinbach said it could mean the US is preparing to create “an excuse or justification” for some new military action in the future.

While there remains no diplomatic deal between the US and Iran on the table, “one has to be prepared that the Americans are preparing for military attack,” Steinbach said. Although “whether they will start it themselves or they will create some sort of excuse or justification” by “simulating an attack” against American installations remains unclear.

In any case, he said, the situation remains “extremely dangerous.”

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