ZIONCONS

On the same day, the Turkish military established three new ‘observation posts’ around Jisr al-Shughur. They are located at the villages of Baksariya, al-Z’ainiyah and Furaykah. Idlib militants see Turkish positions as an important defense line that would allow containing possible Russia- and Iran-backed anti-terrorist operations in the area.

The 46th Regiment Base of the Syrian Army in western Aleppo came under Turkish artillery shelling. In response, Syrian forces struck position of Turkish-backed militants near Kafr Amma. The attack on the 46th Regiment Base became a third incident between the Turkish military and Syrian troops in less than a week. On April 3, two Syrian soldiers were killed in a Turkish artillery strike on their positions near Tell Abyad.

This week, Russia sent a huge cargo plane to the US with medical equipment to fight an escalating epidemic of the deadly disease. The US is on track to become the new epicenter of the pandemic, partly because the country has critical shortages of equipment. The gesture of solidarity from Russia was promptly arranged after President Trump phoned Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin requesting assistance.

MATTHEW EHRET—As historian Anton Chaitkin recently reported: “Lemnitzer had displayed what his faction viewed as his qualifications for this role back in August 1960, when, as Army chief of staff, he announced that the Army was all ready to “restore order” in the United States after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union—to bring back normalcy just as the military does after a flood or a riot”

RACHEL BLEVINS—The US is promising retaliation after top judges at the International Criminal Court gave the approval to move forward with the first ever war crimes investigation into the conduct of the US military and the CIA in Afghanistan.

The US is now firing back, after top judges at the International Criminal Court gave the green-light to move forward with a war crimes investigation into US conduct in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US does not recognize the ICC’s authority over American citizens, and has no plans to cooperate.

THE SAKER—COVID19 has hit the Ukraine very, very hard.  The problem is that the authorities, which fully knew that they had no means to do anything meaningful began by thumping their chests and saying that there were no cases in the Ukraine only to then suddenly decree drastic quarantine measures.  And yet, the true information is seeping out: Ukrainians hospitals are full of cases, mostly un-diagnosed, and many have already died.  Officially, and as of right now, there are only 14 confirmed cases in the Ukraine, and only two fatalities.  But absolutely everybody knows that these numbers are totally fictional and that the real number of cases remains unknown due to a lack of testing kits, not a lack of cases.  MDs in Ukrainian hospitals are sounding the alarms, but nobody is listening.