Turkey closes border with Iran over coronavirus outbreak

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Ankara was suspending transport services with a neighboring country, in particular, flights, trains and vehicle crossings

ANKARA, February 24. /TASS/. Turkey has announced the border with Iran will be closed in the face of a spike in confirmed coronavirus cases in Iran, the Turkish Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

"The Turkish-Iranian border has been closed over the coronavirus," A Haber television said citing the Interior Ministry’s statement.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Ankara was suspending transport services with a neighboring country, in particular, flights, trains and vehicle crossings.

The first cases were confirmed in Iran on February 19. According to official data, now their number has reached 43, the death toll has risen to eight.

In late December 2019, a pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, an economic and industrial megacity with a population of 12 million. The World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, characterizing it as an epidemic with multiple locations. Apart from China, 27 other countries, including Russia, have reported confirmed coronavirus cases. According to the latest reports, China has confirmed over 77,000 cases of patients infected with the novel coronavirus. The virus’ death toll has hit 2,442, yet more than 22,900 patients have recovered from the disease.

https://tass.com/world/1123263

"Sick People" - Russian Lawmakers Blast US For Nuclear War Exercise

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper participated in a war exercise late last week at the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) HQ in Omaha, Nebraska, which featured how the Pentagon would respond to a Russian nuclear attack on Europe, reported Defense One.

"We conducted a mini-exercise," a senior defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The scenario included a European contingency where you are conducting a war with Russia and Russia decides to use a low-yield limited nuclear weapon against the site on NATO territory, and then you go through the conversation that you would have with the secretary of defense and then with the president ultimately to decide how to respond."

"During the exercise, we simulated responding with a nuclear weapon," the official said.

News of the "mini-exercise" immediately traveled to Moscow. Russian lawmakers called the Pentagon's nuclear war simulation completely outrageous:

Senator Sergei Tsekov called organizers and participants of the exercise "sick people," telling RBC News on Saturday, that he was "very surprised, frankly, very much, that they are doing this and also declare it. Although, on the other hand, judging by their current state and current actions, why be surprised?"

Alexander Sherin, the deputy head of the Duma's defense committee, told HCH news on Saturday that the US' nuclear war simulation with Russia has several objectives:

"Firstly, the population is getting used to such an incredible scenario for resolving the conflict as a nuclear strike between the Russian Federation and the NATO bloc. Secondly, an attempt to intimidate the population of Europe and justify the presence of American bases in European countries as guarantors of security and defenders in the event of a nuclear attack from Russia," Sherin said.

He said it would be foolish for Moscow to launch nuclear strikes on European countries because the fallout would flow back into Russia.

Sherin says the reason the US nonchalantly leaks its nuclear war exercises to the media is because it has never had a major war on its soil, unlike Europe and Russia.

The latest drill comes as President Trump's gargantuan military budget of more than $740 billion has allocated a whopping $44 billion for nuclear weapons.

Peter Kuznick, the director of the American University's Nuclear Studies Institute, told RT News there is no such thing of limited nuclear war.

Kuznick said how these things play out is that both sides will continue shooting atomic weapons at one another until the human civilization is completely wiped out.

The exercise comes weeks after we reported the US added a 'low yield' nuclear weapon to its submarine arsenal in a controversial first in decades.

Trump's soaring military budget has led to the most significant increase in global military spending in more than a decade suggests governments across the world are preparing for the next big conflict.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sick-people-russian-lawmakers-blast-us-nuclear-war-exercise

Bernie Sanders Goes to War Against Pro-Israel AIPAC, Accuses It of ‘Bigotry’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) denounced the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday evening, accusing the pro-Israel organization of promoting “bigotry.”

It was not clear what he meant, and he did not specify any examples of what he was talking about.

Only one Democratic candidate for president — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has since dropped out of the race — attended AIPAC’s annual conference last year, which many observers interpreted as a sign of the anti-Israel drift of the party.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a Sanders surrogate, specifically singled out AIPAC last year when she made the antisemitic claim that members of Congress were being paid off to support Israel.

Sanders posted the following in a Twitter thread on Sunday:

The Israeli people have the right to live in peace and security. So do the Palestinian people. I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights. For that reason I will not attend their conference.

As president, I will support the right of both Israelis and Palestinians and do everything possible to bring peace and security to the region.

AIPAC responded with a tweet and a statement of its own:

Senator Sanders has never attended our conference and that is evident from his outrageous comment. In fact, many of his own Senate and House Democratic colleagues and leaders speak from our platform to the over 18,000 Americans from widely diverse backgrounds — Democrats, Republicans, Jews, Christians, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, progressives, Veterans, students, members of the LGBTQ+ community — who participate in the conference to proclaim their support for the U.S.-Israel relationship.

By engaging in such an odious attack on this mainstream, bipartisan American political event, Senator Sanders is insulting his very own colleagues and the millions of Americans who stand with Israel. Truly shameful.

This year’s AIPAC conference is scheduled for the first few days of March.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/23/aipac-bernie-sanders-goes-to-war-against-pro-israel-accuses-of-bigotry/

How The "Interpreter" Scam Brought 75,000 Iraqis And Afghans To America

The latest battle over Special Immigrant Visas pitted Stephen Miller, President Trump’s senior advisor, against the Pentagon. The military brass was lobbying for 6,000 special immigrant visas for Iraqis who worked for American forces in the country. These visas were once again billed as helping “interpreters”.

That’s a lot of interpreters considering that there were only 5,200 American troops in Iraq.

How could there be more Iraqi interpreters for American troops than there are troops?

The Special Immigrant Visa scam has been sold for over a decade using the same claim that it’s needed to save the lives of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who are risking death by helping American soldiers.

In one decade, the United States has handed out 75,250 of these visas to Iraqi and Afghan employees, and their dependents. Between 2007 and 2017, they represented 1 percent of all immigrant visas.

The truth is that the military brass has wrongly used the incentive of Special Immigrant Visas to recruit local personnel and cut costs by promising them resettlement in the United States. Considering the costs of resettling even the nicest Iraqi or Afghan families, it would have been cheaper to pay each of them a six-figure salary. But that would have come out of the defense budget. The SIV scam passes the buck to local cities and states, to ordinary taxpayers and communities who have to hire interpreters who speak Pashto to interact with the children of the interpreters who are swamping local school systems.

One Iraqi or Afghan employee brings a lot more dependents and expenses with him. In 2017, the 4,677 Iraqi and Afghan employees brought 13,713 dependents with them for a total of 18,390 refugees.

Those were the worst numbers since before Obama took office.

While conventional refugee numbers have been slashed, the number of Special Immigrant Visas for Iraqis and Afghans drastically shot up because the Pentagon was getting its way on immigration. Few of these visas were for actual interpreters. That number tends to be capped at 50 a year. Most of the SIV applicants coming in had to have only worked for a few years in often vaguely defined capacities.

Some were actual interpreters. Many more were cultural advisors and linguists.

All they have to do is claim that they received threats over their work for the US or the ISAF, the multinational force in Afghanistan, and they are resettled in the United States as refugees.

While the media has repeatedly accused President Trump of stopping interpreters from coming to this country even though they, allegedly, risked their lives, the number of SIV visas for Afghans and Iraqis shot up from 10,681 in 2014, to 14,383 in 2016, to 18,390 in 2017.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-interpreter-scam-brought-75000-iraqis-and-afghans-america

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Reportedly Submits Resignation to King

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has submitted his resignation to the king, according to Reuters.

94-year-old Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad sent his resignation letter to the king, according to the Malaysian news outlet The Star.

"The letter has been sent to His Royal Highness the King at 1 p.m.," Mahathir's office said in a statement.

Earlier, the highest council of the governing coalition of Malaysia, the Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope), had ruled that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad could decide when to leave office.

In 2018, Mahathir took over as prime minister from the opposition coalition. Previously, he had led the government as head of the ruling party for 22 years (from 1981 to 2003). Mahathir and the coalition confirmed that after about two years, the leader of the People’s Justice Party, Anwar Ibrahim, will take over as prime minister. However, later, Mahathir said he was ready to remain in the post of prime minister for more than two years, if this is what the representatives of the public want.

Moreover, already at the end of last year, Mahathir did not rule out that he could remain in power until 2030. He promised that he would resign when he resolved the problems created by the previous government.

https://sputniknews.com/asia/202002241078390071-malaysian-prime-minister-mahathir-reportedly-submits-resignation-to-king/

https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1231508206364422144