Minister of Foreign Affairs S V Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi in 2012
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The Saudis can’t even defeat the poorly-equipped Houthis in Yemen… good luck fighting a well-trained well-armed Moscow-backed military. We know it’s a badly abused cliché, but we really did laugh out loud after reading that Washington is “working to create a military alliance of Sunni Arab nations” to “counter” Iran. Close your eyes and imagine NATO. Are you seeing visions of an incompetent useless dinosaur that can’t tell the difference between a wedding party and a terrorist pow-wow? Now, clear your mind and imagine a NATO-like coalition with Egypt, Jordan, the KSA, and the UAE as members. Imagine that this coalition of medieval failures had one mission and one mission only… to provoke a war with Iran.
Typical. Washington finally realised that Americans have zero interest in starting a war with Iran, despite years of tireless propaganda portraying Tehran as an existential threat to humanity… or Israel, but what’s the difference, right? They’ve tried everything… even lobbing accusations that one can easily debunk with a simple Google search. Hey, wait a minute… maybe, our medieval Sunni allies would fight Iran for us? That’d be swell. Isn’t that what friends are for? This is true desperation seeping out of Washington’s adult diapers.
Iran isn’t Syria. It doesn’t have to worry about appeasing 1,000 different ethnic and religious groups. It’s a proud country with a long history of fighting off foreign parasites. A Sunni war against Iran would’ve likely been a disaster even ten years ago. Today? It’d be suicidal. Russia is Tehran’s dependable political and military ally, and the idea that Washington would somehow drive a wedge between Moscow and Tehran is ludicrous. Russia would do everything it could to help Iran fight off Sunni fanatics, for the same reason it intervened in Syria… if Washington’s “moderates” were to overrun the Middle East, Russia would be next.
Forget the fact that Iran already deploys Russian-made S-300 SAMs, or that Russia and Iran coördinated a miraculous military campaign to turn the tables in Syria in less than a year… an experience that’d be invaluable if there were a Sunni-led war against Iran. Just for a moment, consider that Russia has gone so far as to ask Washington to acknowledge Hizbullah as a crucial part of anti-ISIS efforts in Syria. Hizbullah! The very name sends shivers up the crooked spines of every Israel First blowhard with an American passport.
People worry that Moscow would abandon Tehran? For Russia, Iran is a holy grail of business opportunities and security coöperation. There’s one takeaway from Syria… Washington loves to stir up trouble in countries that can’t defend themselves. However, when a formidable force such as Russia steps into the ring, the Americans run for the hills (crying foul, of course). Even with full support from Washington and Israel (Israel would stay in the shadows, to keep up appearances), the KSA, Qatar, and the UAE would get a Russian-backed Persian beating that they’d never forget. The icing on the cake would be that this “anti-Iran” bloc includes some of the most autocratic states on earth… anti-women, anti-democratic, anti-everything… it’d be a true joy to watch Washington claim that the KSA and Qatar were fighting Iran to protect democracy in the Middle East.
Of course, we’re probably getting ahead of ourselves. Following NATO’s model, this coalition of medieval head-choppers would first surround Iran with defensive military bases. Then, the provocations and (more) sanctions would begin. It won’t work. Iran isn’t Iraq. It isn’t Libya. It isn’t Syria. It already has the full backing of Russia. If Washington were smart, it’d take note.
18 February 2017
Rudy Panko
Russian Insider
Voices from Russia 
Engaged Couple Imprisoned in Abu Dhabi for Sex Outside Marriage… Trump Loves the UAE and Refuses to Put Them on His Ban List
Tags: Abu Dhabi, Crime, Crime and Justice, Islamic fundamentalism, Islamism, Islamist, Law, Law and Justice, legal affairs, Persian Gulf Region, political commentary, politics, True Crime, UAE
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Editor:
Note well that Trump does NOT put the KSA and its Gulf stooges on the ban list, but they’re the ones ramming Islamic law down people’s throats the hardest. As for me, I don’t care what people do behind their closed doors, so long as they don’t hurt anyone else or involve children in their fancies. If you want to fuck a duck, go ahead… as long as it’s OK with the duck. Reflect well on this… Evangelicals want to criminalise abortion and all other sorts of things that they don’t like. It seems to me that Evangelicals and Islamists are brothers under the skin. Mike Pence is a fanatical Evangelical who tossed a woman in prison for a miscarriage. He’s no different from these Gulf State yahoos. Pray for Trump’s health… for the alternative is Pence… a truly feral and evil man, an American Wahhabist if there ever was such…
Yes… there are “Christians” who resemble the Wahhabis… and they’re “nice” and “sincere” and “moral”. Excuse me, I need to find a corner to be sick in…
BMD
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A relative said that the authorities arrested a South African man and his Ukrainian fiancée in Abu Dhabi after a doctor discovered that the woman was pregnant. They arrested Emlyn Culverwell, 29, and Irina Nogai, 27 for unlawful sex outside of marriage. The arrests came after Nogai, who was suffering from stomach cramps, went to Medeor Medical Centre in Yas Mall in Abu Dhabi, where a doctor told her she was pregnant. Having sex outside of marriage is illegal in the UAE, and those convicted of it can face long jail sentences. Reportedly, the couple was in detention since 29 January, but details of their arrests are just emerging.
Police arrested Culverwell and Nogai at the hospital for not being able to provide marriage certificates. They took them first to the Yas Police Station, and then later brought them to al-Wathba Prison. However, they didn’t yet charge them because the authorities are still investigating the child’s paternity, how long the couple was sexually active, and are testing Nogai’s HIV status. The couple became engaged just two days before their arrest, on 27 January. Culverwell worked in the UAE for the past five years as a water rescue operative at Yas Waterworld. He started dating Nogai, who worked as an administration officer, in mid-2014.
The South African Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation said that it couldn’t help the couple because it is an issue with domestic UAE law, according to News24, and suggested that they seek legal help. Times Live reported that legal representation for Culverwell and Nogai could cost up to 118‚000 South African rands ($8‚000) per person. Culverwell’s mother, Linda, said that Nogai was still in the early stages of her pregnancy, and suggested that the cramps could be a sign of a miscarriage. She pleaded for their release, saying, “The only thing they did wrong was fall in love”. Linda described her son as a health fanatic who didn’t smoke, take drugs, or drink alcohol. She told News24 that her family is “trying to get messages to the two to say we love them and they shouldn’t be worried”. Linda said that since the couple’s arrest, family members and friends have been unable to contact them. She said that the only people who can visit the couple are family members who share the same last name, and relatives are currently calculating the costs of making a trip to Abu Dhabi with lawyers.
According to Herald Live, since their arrest, a Christian Church in Yas Island in the UAE offered to marry the couple for a lofty price, but a judge refused to allow it. Nogai is guilty of Zina, the Islamic legal term referring to unlawful sexual intercourse, which the UAE has criminalised. The UAE authorities either deport women and couples found guilty of Zina or imprison them in the country for at least a year. They imprison hundreds of women each year for the crime, including pregnant women and rape victims.
8 March 2017
Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4294774/Couple-detained-UAE-sex-outside-marriage.html?ito=social-facebook