Austria’s ruling coalition party is under fire after a leaked video showed the vice chancellor discussing alleged quid pro quo arrangements with a “Russian oligarch niece” … and some pundits quickly had their Russiagate meltdowns.

The scandal rocked the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) on Friday after two German publications, Spiegel and Suddeutsche Zeitung, released exposes of a video leaked to them by an unnamed party. The video shows a July 2017 meeting at an Ibiza villa, where Heinz-Christian Strache, the party leader and vice chancellor of Austria, and Johann Gudenus, Strache’s protégé and senior figure in the FPO, discuss alleged shady deals with a woman identified as Alena Makarova by Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The conversations reportedly lasted for hours. One of the options “discussed” there was that the mysterious woman “and her companion” would buy a majority share in Austria’s major tabloid – Kronen Zeitung – and use it to prop up FPO’s bid in the October 2017 national election.

The FPO narrowly came in third place and became a junior partner in the current ruling coalition. In exchange, the politicians said the woman’s construction business could get government contracts once the party is in power. The politicians also discussed alleged circumventing of Austria’s transparency laws for political donations by funneling money through a charity.

The scandal led to opposition calls for the two politicians implicated to resign and even for the coalition to break up, which could lead to a snap election. On Saturday, Strache confirmed the meeting but insisted the information was taken out of context. He still announced his resignation as FPO chief and vice chancellor not to damage the ruling coalition. Gudenus did the same, giving up his mandate as a member of the Austrian Parliament. 

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That said, some pundits already had their usual Russiagate meltdowns, alleging the tape proves that the FPO was bought and paid-for by Moscow, which conspired with the right-wing party to destroy Austria’s freedom of the press. The pièce de résistance in this claim is that the woman Strache and Gudenus talked with is described as a “suspected Russian oligarch niece.”

The German outlets indeed say the woman spoke Russian and English. This leaves a pretty large field of options for who she might be besides a relative of a Kremlin-controlled businessman, through whom the Russian government may have wanted to gain influence in Austria.

Strache himself said on Saturday the woman was a Russian-speaking Latvian national, who told Gudenus that she and her daughter wanted to move to Vienna to secure the meeting. He added they were an obvious plant, considering how the situation played out.

Notably, Der Spiegel article itself says that the video was “clearly done as a trap” for the FPO politicians. The scandal conveniently erupted days before the European Parliament election in Austria and may understandably hurt the FPO’s performance.

Anyway, if the “niece” was a Russian government agent, it doesn’t seem that she managed to get Strache and Gudenus on board with some plan to subvert the election. At least the reports say no agreements were reached at the meeting. The Kronen Zeitung tabloid did partially change ownership after the discussion, but it happened in autumn 2018 and the buyer was Austrian entrepreneur Rene Benko, who told Spiegel the deal was purely commercial.

Pyongyang has urged the UN to act after North Korea’s bulk carrier, the Wise Honest, was captured by US forces. It was seized a year after being detained in Indonesia.

Pyongyang’s UN representative Kim Song has sent a letter on Friday to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asking for immediate action to be taken to return the ship.

“You must take urgent measures as a way of contributing to the stability of the Korean peninsula and proving the impartiality of the UN,” the letter said.

North Korea’s UN representative also called the US’s action “unlawful” and “outrageous,” describing the US as a “gangster country that does not care at all about international law,” according to North Korea’s state media KCNA.

The ship was seized by the US a year after it was detained in Indonesia. It was loaded with a $3 million shipment of North Korean coal, and the vessel had its AIS tracking transponder turned off when it entered Indonesian waters. Indonesian authorities arrested the captain and charged him with “knowingly hoisting a false flag,” UN Security Council documents show. Later, a US judge issued a warrant to seize the vessel in July 2018. Officials announced the seizure Thursday as the vessel was close to entering US territorial waters.

Calling on the UN, North Korea had also cited disappointment in the failed summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump in Singapore last year. The summit was heralded as reconciliation between the two countries, which have been in conflict for decades. But the second meeting in Vietnam this February showed both countries stand far away from any constructive deal. This has lead to a new round of confrontations.

It’s unclear whether the UN will respond to North Korea’s latest demand. The UN has sanctioned the country numerous times for violating UN Security Council resolutions with its nuclear and missile programs. One of Kim Jong-un’s demands at the summit with Trump in Singapore was that some of these sanctions would be lifted, but the agreement ultimately came to no avail on this issue.

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Lasers are commonly seen as a ‘weapon of the future’ – and that future is already here as they are making it into the military. Laser systems have unique properties, opening new ways of waging warfare, RT’s military analyst says.

Laser weaponry “will largely define” the combat potential of the Russian armed forces “throughout the whole of the 21st century,” President Vladimir Putin said. The country has already adopted a combat laser system – Peresvet – and appears to be seeking other weaponry of this type.

Lasers indeed have great potential to be used in combat, especially against uncongenial targets such as swarms of tiny drones, Russian military analyst Mikhail Khodarenok believes. Apart from that, they have many advantages compared to ballistic and missile weaponry.

“Laser weaponry is quite tempting due to the possibility of a surprise and almost immediate – at the speed of light – attack on an adversary, relative cheapness of a single ‘shot’, high precision and lack of the necessity to stockpile an arsenal of ‘munitions’ during peacetime,” Khodarenok told RT.

Apart from dealing direct damage to an adversary’s personnel and hardware, lasers can be used in a support role, facilitating usage of conventional weapon systems.

The analyst added that optical devices themselves actually amplify and focus a laser beam, making it very effective even at long ranges.

At the same time, laser weaponry has a number of limitations that are still in place despite decades of experiments with such arms around the world. Above all, the main issue is the need for a powerful and reliable energy source, which makes such systems either very bulky or suitable only for naval vessels.

“To make a 150kw laser ‘shot’ – not that powerful, actually, by modern standards – one needs energy of 450kw,” Khodarenok said. “Ideally, a laser system needs a capacitor able to charge as fast as the system itself uses it. It would allow it to use lasers in combat continuously.”

Laser systems are also quite sensitive to transparency of the atmosphere, as bad weather or mere smoke greatly affects their performance (at least at this stage). Laser beams – like any light – tend to dissipate with distance, and for now, “combat range might be limited to several dozen kilometers,” Khodarenok added.

What exactly does Russia have in stock?

Russia adopted a new “battle laser complex,” dubbed Peresvet, last year, yet little is known about what exactly the system is capable of. The complex is mounted on a wheeled vehicle, featuring a cannon-like laser emitter and a large container, presumably holding its power source.

It is not known if the device can “blind” optics or actually melt holes in something, and it’s not even known what exactly – land or air units – it’s supposed to target. In the Soviet era, the country fielded a handful of laser weaponry prototypes, primarily blinding devices, designed to target the enemy’s optics. The last Soviet weapon of this type, the 1K17 Szhatie, was produced shortly before the collapse of the country and never entered into mass production.

What about other countries?

The US has been experimenting with lasers for decades as well, trying to fit them into various combat roles. While repeated attempts to create an aircraft-based system were not very fruitful, the US successfully fielded and tested several prototypes of ground vehicles and naval systems. One of the newest is the MEHEL laser system, mounted on a Stryker APC, which has successfully shot down a number of light drones during testing.

Another major power – China – is not sitting idle either. Beijing puts “experimental systems on ships, coastal platforms, self-propelled chassis. One of the Chinese lasers has reportedly hit an unmanned aerial vehicle some 300 meters away,” Khodarenok said.

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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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