US politicians and lobbyists applied pressure on the Irish government before it passed a bill banning goods from illegal Israel settlements, including threatening the immigration status of Irish people in the US.

Documents obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request by the TheJournal.ie reveal lobby groups and US politicians sought to influence the Irish government to stop the passage of the Occupied Territories Bill, banning the sale of goods from illegal Israeli settlements. The bill passed in both houses of Ireland’s parliament in December and January.

Republican Massachusetts Rep. Steven S. Howitt wrote to Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and leader of the opposition Fianna Fail party Micheal Martin in January, warning that the bill “threatens to jail citizens of Irish origin and sanction Irish based companies in Massachusetts who engage in commercial activity with the State of Israel.”

The Irish bill makes it an offence for a person to import or sell goods or services or extract resources originating in an occupied territory. US law prevents companies from taking part in boycotts against Israel.

Howitt claimed this would force Irish citizens to “make an impossible choice, whether to return to Ireland to face prosecution or stay [and] violate the terms of their immigration status in the United States.”

Indiana Secretary of Commerce James A. Schellinger also wrote to Coveney and Martin explaining that while he “respects the autonomy of the Irish government,” Indiana has a “strong relationship with the State of Israel.” He said he was concerned that the bill could impact companies operating in Indiana, and affect the state’s economy.

Meanwhile, the Jewish Voice group wrote to Israel’s ambassador to Ireland in January, saying the Irish bill “singles out Israel” and “sets a dangerous precedent which is detrimental to the relations between our countries.”

The letter said that because Irish people do not understand “the intricate minutiae of the territorial conflict,” the legislation would mean people would conclude “it’s open season on Israel.”

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The Oxford English Dictionary decided to step in amidst the Indian election and set the record straight after the leading opposition party chief claimed that it had listed a new word for ‘lying’.

Earlier this week, Rahul Ghandi, who leads the largest opposition party in the parliament, the Indian National Congress, claimed there was a new word in English for ‘lying’ – ‘Modilie’. This was an obvious jab at his chief opponent, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As ‘proof’, Ghandi posted what was supposedly a screenshot from the Twitter account run by the Oxford English Dictionary. It said that ‘Modilie’ means “to lie incessantly and habitually,” or to lie “without respite,” and can be used in phrases like “He is such a Modiliar.”

The tweet was published amidst the ongoing parliamentary election, with the last round of voting scheduled for Sunday.

It was not clear whether the politician was serious or more tongue-in-cheek in his comments, but the Oxford Dictionary decided to clarify. “We can confirm that the image showing the entry ‘Modilie’ is fake,” the dictionary wrote in a comment to Ghandi’s tweet the next day, adding that no such word exists on its pages.

Ghandi, meanwhile, continued to insist that the word has “become popular worldwide,” and provided a link to what he said was a website listing “the best Modilies.”

The opposition politician’s tweets were blasted by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with one official saying that the Oxford Dictionary had “slapped” Ghandi by rejecting his claim.

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The feline who became a viral hit and sparked a frenzy of memes thanks to her iconic scowl has passed away, her owners have confirmed.

The cat, famous for its permanent angry expression, was seven years old and died from complications of a urinary tract infection.

Her real name was Tardar Sauce and she went viral in 2012 after an image of her iconic grumpy face was posted to Reddit and began circulating online. She soon became a meme and went on to have books published in her name, and even went on world tours meeting her fans.

Grumpy Cat has 8.5 million Facebook fans, 2.4 million Instagram followers and 1.5 million Twitter followers.

Owner Tabatha Bundesen explained that her distinct facial expression was a side-effect of feline dwarfism.

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A leaked report by OPCW engineers contradicts the chemical watchdog’s official report on the April 2018 incident in Syria, and raises questions about political pressure by US, UK and France on the UN body.

In April 2018, as Syrian government forces recaptured the city of Douma from Islamist militants, the “White Helmets” claimed a chemical attack with chlorine and sarin gas killed over 40 people. Not waiting for UN investigators to reach the site, the US, UK and France launched airstrikes against government positions and declared President Bashar Assad was to blame.

In its final report on the incident, published in March 2019, the fact-finding mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found no sarin, but said the cylinders with “molecular chlorine” were dropped from the air. The report cited unnamed, unspecified external “experts.” But there was another report, by OPCW engineers, that challenged these conclusions – and was never included in the final document.

This report was leaked last week to the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, a group of independent scholars and researchers that have been highly skeptical of official narratives about the Syrian conflict, pushed by militants and the governments that support them. “We have confirmation from multiple sources that it is authentic,” Dr. Piers Robinson from the Working Group told RT.

The most important finding of the leaked engineering report is that the gas cylinders used in the attack were more likely to have been placed by hand, implicating the militants, and not the Syrian government – and unraveling the official narrative.

Robinson says that the OPCW is not denying the document’s authenticity either, only trying to break the link between it and the final report by the fact-finding mission. That, however, raises more questions than it answers.

“The OPCW FFM final report was not signed off. No one’s name was put to it. That is very unusual for OPCW final reports,” Robinson told RT, pointing out that instead of the internal engineering report, it included expertise by “obscure, unnamed, anonymous organizations,” leaving questions about who exactly is behind the watchdog’s conclusions.

Robinson said he would like to know “what kind of political pressure might have been brought to bear on the OCPW” by Paris, London and Washington to suppress an internal engineering report in favor of one produced by unspecified outsiders.

If the OPCW, a major UN watchdog, submitted to this kind of pressure, this would be “an incredibly serious matter” on top of the actual atrocity in Douma, which still needs to be fully investigated, he told RT.

Though RT sent an inquiry to the OPCW almost a week ago, we have received no response. The organization did send a reply to Peter Hitchens, columnist for the Mail on Sunday, telling him that they are “conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised release of the document in question” and had no further comment on the FFM report.

On Friday, Russian envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said that Moscow wanted to get the OPCW “back on track.”

“It used to be a technical body where consensus prevailed, but it has become highly politicized,” said Nebenzia. “We want it to return to the way it was originally.”

Following the publication of the FFM report in March, Russian envoy to the OPCW Alexander Shulgin told RT that the organization was under tremendous pressure and “simply didn’t dare” to contradict the US narrative blaming Damascus for the attack.

“Admitting that it was a staged provocation… would deny the US and their allies the legitimacy they claimed for carrying out the missile strike on Syria,” Shulgin told RT.

The strike, launched two days before the OPCW team was due to arrive in Douma, involved more than a hundred cruise missiles. Once the dust settled and OPCW investigators actually visited the site, they refused to inspect a warehouse where militants kept chlorine barrels, saying it was “too dangerous.”

The Indian Navy has successfully tested a Medium Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MRSAM) developed by the national military research agency in cooperation with Israel Aerospace Industries.

“The firing was undertaken on the Western Seaboard by Indian Naval Ships Kochi and Chennai, wherein the missiles of both ships were controlled by one ship to intercept different aerial targets at extended ranges,” the country’s maritime force said, praising the “maiden cooperative engagement” between the Indian Navy, Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

The medium-range anti-air missile, co-developed with Israel, where it’s known as Barak-8, was manufactured by Bharat Dynamics Limited, India. It is designed to tackle a wide array of airborne threats from up to 70 km away, including enemy aircraft and hostile drones as well as anti-ship and ballistic missiles.

“This capability will significantly enhance the combat effectiveness of the Indian Navy,” the maritime force boasted.

While the fleet currently has the missiles fitted on Kolkata Class Destroyers, the country plans to install the MRSAMs on “all future major warships.”

Last year, Israel’s major aerospace and aviation manufacturer signed a $777 million deal with India to provide New Delhi with long-range missile defense systems. A follow-up $93 million deal, signed in January, secured the Indian Navy’s access to IAI’s technology for medium-range missiles, including interceptors with modern radio frequency seekers and digital radar.

In a chilling reminder of the downing of Iran Air flight 655 by a US missile, an FAA notice said civilian aircraft flying over the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman are currently at risk of “miscalculation or misidentification.”

A Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) published by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) late on Thursday said the risk stems from “heightened military activities and increased political tensions” in the area. Airliners operating in the region may also “encounter inadvertent GPS interference and other communications jamming” the warning said.

The tension in the proximity of Iran comes as the US deployed additional military assets in the region, including an aircraft carrier strike group and a battery of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles. Washington said it was a response to an undefined threat posed by Iranian forces. The US also withdrew non-essential personnel from diplomatic missions in Iraq. The show of force was reportedly triggered by intelligence provided by Israel.

For some, the FAA warning may bring back the dark memory of the 1988 incident, in which an American guided missile destroyer shot down an Iranian airliner, killing 290 people on board. It happened two months after the US sunk an Iranian frigate and a gunboat in retaliation for an incident a few days earlier, in which a US warship struck an Iranian mine.

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Washington said the crew of the USS Vincennes misidentified Iran Air flight 655 for a warplane trying to attack the warship and acted in self-defense. The government rejected accusations that US military service members had acted recklessly, with President George H.W. Bush infamously declaring: “I will never apologize for the United States – I don’t care what the facts are… I’m not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.”

The US did pay compensation to the families of the victims, but never accepted legal liability or apologized to Tehran.

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An Indian Army clerk has been arrested for passing information on troop movements and military exercises to a Pakistani spy on Facebook and WhatsApp and may have been paid for his betrayal, authorities say.

The 26-year-old havildar, posted in an infantry battalion at Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, was reportedly coaxed into sharing the information by a Pakistani woman whose profile claimed she was an international journalist. As they chatted back and forth “regularly” on Facebook and WhatsApp, he began supplying her with sensitive information on military maneuvers, eventually even receiving assignments regarding what information to provide and mining his network of Army contacts in order to satisfy his inquisitive pen pal.

The clerk was finally arrested on Thursday after six months’ surveillance by military intelligence, according to India Today, in a joint operation with the intelligence bureau and local Mhow police. Authorities are still investigating whether he received money in return for the information he gave up.

The Indian Army announced a nationwide crackdown on social media “honey-traps” in January, and military intelligence has been conducting spot-checks of soldiers’ phones and laptops ever since, warning them not to post any photos or share any material containing sensitive military information, according to sources cited in India Today. In this particular model of honey-trap, attractive young women “like” and comment on soldiers’ social media photos and gradually ply them for more information under the guise of flirtation and developing a “relationship.” As the dialogue moves into private messages, “intimate” videos and photos are exchanged, and the women – who invariably turn out to be ISI operatives – can then blackmail soldiers into telling everything they know. 

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The deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has said that the US fleet in the Gulf is already within striking distance of his country’s short range missiles, adding that the US could not sustain a new war in the region.

“Even our short-range missiles can easily reach (US) warships in the Gulf,” Mohammad Saleh Jokar, the IRGC’s deputy for parliamentary affairs, was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying Friday. Jokar added that the US would be unable to sustain a conflict with Iran on account of financial, personnel and social reasons.

It marks the latest escalation in a war of words between the two countries as tensions mount amid renewed sanctions and political pressure from the US, along with a build-up of US forces in the region.

“Iran is not after a conflict in the region but has always defended its interests powerfully and will do so now too,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Thursday.

US carriers always deploy as part of a battlegroup so Iran’s large fleet of smaller fast boats would find it very difficult to get within striking distance without themselves being destroyed by US surface warships.

The guided missile destroyers USS Gonzalez and USS McFaul recently joined the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group on stand-by off the coast of Oman.

In recent years, Iran has developed the Khalij Fars (‘Persian Gulf’) anti-ship ballistic missile, which uses infrared guidance to slam a 1,433lb warhead into moving naval targets. Iran also unveiled the Mach 4 version of the Khalij Fars, the Hormuz -1 and -2 which is designed to seek out enemy radar systems and destroy them.

The Persian Gulf is quite narrow (ranging from 35 miles to 220 miles across in parts), for a carrier battle group and could afford the IRGC the opportunity to amass launchers within range of the US fleet with relative ease.

The consequences of any armed conflict between Iran and the US “would be literally incalculable” according to James Jatras, a former US diplomat and GOP Senate policy adviser.

“One doesn’t really know where this goes next – let’s suppose Iran strikes the UAE or the Saudi oil fields or strikes the Israelis … then what do those parties do next?” Jatras told RT.com, emphasizing that the conflict would quickly escalate to include US regional allies in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

“Especially the Israelis who everybody knows have nuclear weapons. Although I doubt very much they would use those unless they were really down to an existential threat.”

Jatras also warned that “Moscow and Beijing would be foolish to stand back and watch the US take another piece off the chessboard” despite Pompeo’s attempts at warning the Kremlin against involvement in any potential conflict with Iran.

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Russia will respond ‘reciprocally’ to the US sanctions placed on Chechen special police unit Terek, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson said, slamming Washington’s move as ‘destructive.’

“Obviously, the principle of reciprocity applies here,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday, adding that Washington’s recent actions against Chechnya’s Terek Special Rapid Response Team will trigger “necessary countermeasures.” 

Peskov did not specify what steps are being considered.

On Thursday, the US Treasury Department included the rapid-response unit – a local equivalent of a SWAT team – into the anti-Russian sanctions list. The sanctions also personally apply to the team’s commander.

It was done under the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act, which is an extension of an earlier US law adopted to target Moscow. The legislation allows the US government to sanction anyone it sees as complicit in violating human rights anywhere in the world.

Russian officials heavily criticized the law, saying that Washington does not provide sufficient evidence for its enactment and uses it to target people arbitrarily.

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Japanese lawmakers are determined to chase a fellow MP out of parliament after he suggested Tokyo could wage war on Russia over the Kuril Islands.

MP Hodaka Maruyama horrified many in Japanese political circles during his visit to “the Northern territories” – as the islands are known in Japan, earlier this month. While talking with a former Japanese resident of one of the islands Maruyama asked if he thought the Kurils “could only be taken back by means of war,” causing a massive diplomatic faux pas.

The lawmaker later apologized, claiming he was drunk. But his party – the Nippon Ishin Japan Innovation Party – the third largest opposition force in parliament, took matters into their own hands. They expelled the politician, while the party leader apologized to Russians for the remarks.

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Maruyama was also urged to give up his parliament seat, which he refused to do. Today six opposition parties submitted a resolution to the lower house officially calling for the MP’s resignation.

The territorial dispute over the South Kuril Islands has been one of the major stumbling blocks in Russian-Japanese relations since the end of World War II, with the two countries still lacking a formal peace treaty. The islands were handed over to the USSR under the 1945 Potsdam Declaration, but since then Tokyo has been trying to reclaim them.

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