SYRIA & LEBANON

ANDREI MARTYANOV—Obviously Russia and France (and EU) have drastically different views on Syria and they are irreconcilable. Ukraine? Ukraine is under external control from Washington D.C. and, partially, from Berlin. Europe as a whole still remains and will continue to remain a US’ slap bitch, so nothing strategically meaningful can be discussed in Paris, other than some tactical questions and protocol cliche’ pleasantries about “Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok”.

RICK STERLING—It may be a new low in propaganda. National Public Radio (NPR) used the news that Syrian First Lady Asma Assad had overcome breast cancer to mock her and continue the information war against Syria.

MoA—The original Asharq Al-Aswat report reads: Israel has expanded the scope of its Iranian targets in Iraq and Syria, western diplomatic sources told Asharq Al-Awsat amid reports that Tel Aviv carried out an airstrike earlier this month against an Iranian rockets depot northeast of Baghdad.The July 19 attack was carried out by an Israeli F-35 fighter jet, they added. On Sunday, the Ashraf base in Iraq, a former base used by the Iranian opposition People’s Mujahedin of Iran, was targeted by an air raid, said sources. The base lies 80 kilometers from the border with Iran and 40 kilometers northeast of Baghdad.

ERIC ZUESSE—Venezuelan refugees and asylum-seekers grew in number during 2018. The broader movement of Venezuelans through the region and beyond, increasingly took on the characteristics of a refugee situation, with some 3.4 million living outside Venezuela by the end of 2018, as more than 3 million Venezuelans left their homes, travelling mainly elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean. “This is the biggest exodus in the region’s recent history, and one of the biggest displacement crises in the world.” It could turn out to be even worse than Colombia’s was.

It’s a David vs Goliath story. A former local newspaper reporter, Robert Stuart, is taking on the British Broadcasting Corporation. Stuart believes that a sensational video story about an alleged atrocity in Syria “was largely, if not entirely, staged.” The BBC would like it all to just go away. But like David, Stuart will not back down or let it go. It has been proposed that the BBC could settle the issue by releasing the raw footage from the event, but they refuse to do this. Why?