NYT 'leak' to pressure Putin-Trump talks and Russia reacts to Hormuz crisis

Izvestia: Russia has no plans of tightening security in Strait of Hormuz

Moscow is not planning to beef up its military presence in the Strait of Hormuz in the wake of the recent oil tanker attacks, Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Defense Committee Chairman Vladimir Shamanov told Izvestia. According to him, Russian vessels are not in jeopardy and therefore there are no grounds for tightening security. Meanwhile, the United States, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia have deployed additional forces to the Gulf of Oman, supposedly to protect their vessels from the Iranian threat.

However, other European countries have not responded to this clear provocation against Iran and the incident is unlikely to spoil their relations with the Islamic Republic, experts told the paper.

The Strait of Hormuz has strategic importance for the entire oil market: up to 40% of the world's hydrocarbon exports pass through it. However, as far as Russia is concerned, it has own channels for exporting hydrocarbons, so for Moscow, Hormuz is less important. That’s why the presence of Russia’s warships tasked with protecting navigation in the strait is not large-scale, Shamanov explained.

Russia and China are refraining from taking hasty steps following the example of Washington, which rushed to point fingers at Iran over the attack on the tankers. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed doubts over Washington's evidence on Tehran’s alleged involvement in the explosion. According to Director of the Center on the Near and Middle East at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies Vladimir Fitin, Berlin’s behavior proves that Western Europe is not ready to give up its partnership with Iran. "US statement on Tehran’s involvement in the attacks is the same fake news as its rhetoric on the use of chemical weapons by the government of Bashar Assad," the expert said. "Western Europeans are not that blind to swallow any bait, which Washington gives them. They are well aware that this is an unfounded accusation, and that’s why they won’t rush to sever ties with Iran like in the case with the nuclear deal." The EU is unlikely to slap sanctions on Tehran until an international investigation into the tanker attacks is over. The expert noted that the attack on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf is apparently not the last. The US will continue pursuing its own game against Iran and carrying out similar provocations, Fitin said.

https://tass.com/pressreview/1064074

Opioid Manufacturer Insys to Pay $225 Million Settlement After Admitting to Bribing Doctors

One of America’s biggest opioid manufacturers is set to pay a massive federal penalty after getting nailed for bribing doctors to prescribe their dangerous and highly addictive fentanyl painkillers. The distribution scheme of Insys Therapeutics, that pushed potent opiates into the hands of patients that did not need them, has been described as a driving force behind America’s ongoing public health epidemic stemming from use of the drugs.

Insys, an Arizona company that reported almost $150 million in revenue in 2017, contracted doctors who agreed to prescribe their drugs for sham speeches. In reality, the doctors were getting paid for issuing prescriptions of Subsys, the company’s fentanyl-based painkiller medication.

Insys’ reckoning in the federal court system thus far represents one of the most prominent judgements against the dark forces that pioneered America’s full-fledged opioid crisis. The company’s founder, billionaire pharmacist John Kapoor, was convicted of criminal racketeering in May with other Insys executives, and faces up to 20 years in prison upon sentencing.

A degree of public accountability being levied against Insys could spur the American public to demand criminal proceedings against other pioneers of the nation’s opioid crisis, most prominently among them the billionaire oligarch Sackler family. The Sacklers, one of America’s wealthiest families, developed and popularized a new generation of opioid-based painkillers, misrepresenting the potential dangers their products posed to the public and profiting off of them to the tunes of billions of dollars.

For the malevolent pharmaceutical kingpins of Insys, a life sentence in the nation’s prison system is little more than a slap on the hand in the eyes of the millions of Americans who have lost a family member or loved one to the ongoing scourge of opiate addiction.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/73295/opioid-manufacturer-insys-to-pay-225-million-settlement-after-admitting-to-bribing.html

Israel’s Secretive Nuclear Facility Leaking as Watchdog Finds Israel Has Nearly 100 Nukes

Israel is one of only five nations in the world that refuse to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, an international treaty aimed at ending the proliferation of nuclear weapons and achieving global nuclear disarmament.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) — an international watchdog organization focusing on conflicts, the arms trade and nuclear proliferation — released a new report on Monday that claimed that Israel has nearly a hundred nuclear warheads, more than previously thought.

The SIPRI report described Israel’s nuclear arsenal as follows: 30 gravity bombs capable of delivering nuclear weapons by fighter jets; an additional 50 warheads that can be delivered by land-based ballistic missiles; and an unknown number of nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles that would grant Israel a sea-based second-strike capability.

In total, the SIPRI report estimated that Israel possesses between 80 and 90 nuclear weapons, an increase over previous years. SIPRI was unable, however, to confirm those estimates with Israel’s government, which has a long-standing policy of refusing to comment on its nuclear weapons program — a policy it describes as “nuclear ambiguity.”

As a result of this “nuclear ambiguity” policy, the actual number of Israeli nuclear weapons is unknown. Some other organizations, such as the U.S.-based Nuclear Threat Initiative, have estimated that Israel has produced enough weapons-grade plutonium to arm between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads. Israel is one of only five nations in the world that refuse to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, an international treaty aimed at ending the proliferation of nuclear weapons and achieving global nuclear disarmament.

During a speech last August in front of the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to use nuclear weapons to “wipe out” Israel’s enemies. More recently, Netanyahu and his allies in the U.S. accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, despite the fact that intelligence agencies of both the U.S. and Israel have long recognized that Iran has no such program.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/international-watchdog-finds-israel-has-nearly-100-nuclear-weapons/259274/