Defiant Iran blasts Pompeo’s Saudi-attack accusations as ‘blind and futile comments’ - Fox News

An Iranian official responded Sunday after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed at the nation’s government in Tehran following Saturday’s drone attacks on Saudi Arabia oil facilities.

“The Americans adopted the ‘maximum pressure’ policy against Iran, which, due to its failure, is leaning towards ‘maximum lies’,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, according to the Associated Press.

On Saturday, Pompeo charged that Iran’s government in Tehran ordered “nearly 100 attacks” on a Saudi refinery and oilfield, further alleging that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif pretending “to engage in diplomacy.”

POMPEO ACCUSES IRAN OF 'UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK' AFTER DRONES HIT SAUDI OIL FACILITIES

On Sunday, Mousavi dismissed Pompeo’s remarks as “blind and futile comments.”

Saturday’s attacks, for which Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility, resulted in “the temporary suspension of production operations” at the Abqaiq processing facility and the Khurais oil field, Riyadh said. They followed weeks of similar drone assaults on the kingdom's oil infrastructure, but none of the earlier strikes appeared to have caused the same amount of damage.

The attacks led to the interruption of an estimated 5.7 million barrels in crude supplies, authorities said, while pledging the kingdom's stockpiles would make up the difference. That size of shutdown hasn't occurred since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, The Wall Street Journal reported.

But Saudi officials told the Journal that normal levels of oil production would resume by Monday.

The rebels hold Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and other parts of the Arab world's poorest country. Since 2015, a Saudi-led coalition has fought to reinstate the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

What remained to be seen were the attacks’ effect on world energy prices. With markets closed Sunday, the answer wouldn’t be known for another 24 hours.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

But one undeniable impact was an increase in Middle East tensions amid escalating U.S.-Iran hostilities as the Obama-era nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers continues to unravel.

Meanwhile, President Trump on Saturday called Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to offer his support for the kingdom's defense, the White House said. The crown prince assured Trump that Saudi Arabia was "willing and able to confront and deal with this terrorist aggression," according to a news release from the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

​​​​​​​Fox News’ Sam Dorman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.foxnews.com/world/defiant-iran-blasts-pompeos-saudi-attack-accusations-as-blind-and-futile-comments

2019-09-15 09:50:46Z
52780382632806

Analysis: Mike Pompeo blames Iran for drone attacks - Al Jazeera English

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pum109B7-_E

2019-09-15 08:23:40Z
52780382632806

Bahamas brace for bad weather as Tropical Storm Humberto nears area hit by Hurricane Dorian - latest path, track, forecast, updates - CBS News

Hurricane-ravaged Bahamas brace for new storm

There's more trouble for the hurricane-ravaged Bahamas. Tropical Storm Humberto is threatening Grand Bahama Island, creating new worries for more than 2,000 people living in shelters and those trying to rebuild their homes after Hurricane Dorian.

As of 11 a.m. ET, the storm was about 30 miles east-northeast of Great Abaco Island and about 145 miles east of Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, the National Hurricane Center said Saturday. Tropical Storm Humberto had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and was nearly stationary for several hours.

Humberto is forecast to move away from the northwestern Bahamas by Saturday evening and become a hurricane by Sunday evening. By then, the storm will be moving away from the U.S.

Trending News

A group organized by retired Navy Seals and the conservation group Sea Shepherd has been loading up supplies to send to remote islands that may be impacted by the approaching storm. When CBS News caught up with them, the group had four tons of essentials — food, water and generators — it had loaded onto a ship.

Residents are doing whatever they can to prepare. With few boats intact, locals are shuttling them to the few dozen people who remain. "I mean, we really don't need another hurricane. As you can see, we don't need another one. But we just have to prepare," Sinetra Higgs told CBS News.

This image shows the trajectory of Tropical Storm Humberto on September 14, 2019. National Hurricane Center

Hurricane Dorian devastated the northern Bahamas. Entire neighborhoods were flattened, homes shredded, shipping containers and boats hurled inland. Some airports were submerged, while terminals were covered in debris.

Some residents remain frustrated at the government's response, especially with another storm on the way. Many residents said that the only assistance they've gotten came from foreigners — and that they're still living without cell service, power and running water.

The Bahamian government said it's coordinating relief efforts from Nassau. But since most of the field teams come from private foreign aid groups, that's all the residents in hard-hit communities see. 

Errol Barnett contributed to this report.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bahamas-tropical-storm-humberto-threatens-islands-after-hurricane-dorian-track-path-latest-updates-2019-09-14/

2019-09-14 16:22:00Z
52780383387975

Saudi Arabia reportedly shuts down half its oil production after drone attack - CNBC

Fires burn in the distance after a drone strike by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group on Saudi company Aramco's oil processing facilities, in Buqayq, Saudi Arabia September 14, 2019 in this still image taken from a social media video obtained by REUTERS

Saudi Arabia is shutting down half of its oil production after drones attacked the world's largest oil processing facility in the kingdom, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The closure will impact almost five million barrels of crude production a day, about 5% of the world's daily oil production, the WSJ reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Early Saturday, an oilfield operated by Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant, was attacked by a number of drones, which sparked a huge fire at a processor crucial to global energy supplies.

Yemen's Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was one of their largest attacks ever inside the kingdom, the WSJ reported.

"We promise the Saudi regime that our future operations will expand and be more painful as long as its aggression and siege continue," a Houthi spokesman said. The attack involved 10 drones, the Houthis said.

The Saudi interior ministry said the fires were under control.

Saudi officials are considering drawing down their oil stocks to sell to foreign buyers to make sure world oil supplies won't be disrupted by the attack and shutdown, the WSJ reported.

The Iran-backed Houthis had been behind a series of attacks on Saudi pipelines, tankers and other infrastructure in the past few years as tensions rise among Iran and the U.S. and partners like Saudi Arabia.

The Islamic Republic, a target of U.S. sanctions for decades, has recently attacked oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, shot down a U.S. military drone and announced plans to execute 17 suspected U.S. spies.

Saudi Arabia is moving forward to take Saudi Aramco public in a major shakeup of the kingdom's energy sector.

—Click here to read the original Wall Street Journal story.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/14/saudi-arabia-is-shutting-down-half-of-its-oil-production-after-drone-attack-wsj-says.html

2019-09-14 14:07:58Z
52780382632806

Was Israel spying? Or was the StingRay story an anti-Bibi sting? - Washington Examiner

Israeli voters in the “very exciting” Sept. 17 Israeli elections should be skeptical of the weird story in recent days accusing the Israeli government of spying on the White House.

American experience shows that if a news story toward the end of a close campaign seems outlandish, odds are that’s because it’s not true. Think of Dan Rather’s false story in 2004 about George W. Bush’s supposed draft dodging. Less famously, allies of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana planted fake news in a Mexican paper in the closing days of her very close 2002 reelection campaign, to the effect that the Republican Bush administration had made a secret deal with Mexico adverse to Louisiana sugar interests. By speaking as the supposed defender of her state’s cane farmers, Landrieu narrowly won her race.

So now we come to the Politico story that cites unnamed former officials claiming that cellphone surveillance devices found near the White House last year were “most likely” the work of Israel. My well-informed colleague Tom Rogan thinks the allegation is true. I don’t.

First, as noted, consider the timing. As Rogan notes in yet another excellent piece, the upcoming Israeli election is another nail-biter. Incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a big selling point of his closeness to the current American administration, one which his opponents want to undermine.

Logic says that if the surveillance devices, known as StingRays, were found way back last year, it is rather suspicious that they are suddenly now being blamed on Israel, and therefore on Netanyahu, just as the election approaches. There is no good reason for Netanyahu’s government to have been spying on the Trump team, especially in such a ham-handed way, when Trump has been openly supportive of Netanyahu ever since taking office.

As it is, both the Netanyahu team and the White House have denied that the StingRays were an Israeli operation, and the White House has conspicuously refused to take any public action showing the slightest hint that it suspects Israel.

I am certainly the furthest thing from a tech guru, but Jeff Dunetz, proprietor of The Lid blog, has through the years struck me as reliable both with regard to technology and especially with regard to matters Israeli. He wrote on Friday that the accusation against the Netanyahu government is “nonsense” and a “hit job.” In addition to the reasons I’ve offered for doubt about the allegations, Dunetz writes this:

“StingRay is old technology, U.S. police forces have been using it since 2006 or earlier. In technology years, StingRay is ancient. If Israel were to mount an operation to spy on the pro-Israel Trump administration after eight years of the anti-Israel Obama White House, there is no way they would use ancient technology which can be easily detected. Israel is one of the leading sources of cell phone technology.”

This sounds like a reasonable assessment to me. Frankly, Israel is, if anything, probably ahead of the United States technologically. Its intelligence agency, Mossad, is considered the world’s best, and Israel developed the remarkably effective Iron Dome anti-rocket defense, outpacing U.S. efforts.

The point is not that we can be sure Israel was not behind the StingRay spying. The point is that there is ample reason for skepticism — and that until more is known, Israeli voters would be wise to avoid letting it affect their thinking, either against Netanyahu or for him.

More importantly for Americans, we should withhold judgments against our Israeli allies. Anonymous sources are a far thing from proof.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/was-israel-spying-or-was-the-stingray-story-an-anti-bibi-sting

2019-09-14 13:28:00Z
52780382424932

In China, 2019 is not 1989 - The Hill

The 2019 Hong Kong protests will be written about for decades to come. They are not, as Beijing claims, another color revolution: They do not seek to replace the national government. Nor are they, as the Mainland media dubs them, a product of a U.S./CIA plot to undermine China, a claim absurd on its face.  Most importantly, even though there are some irresistible parallels to the student-led protests of 1989 (threatening troop movements, stultifying political pronouncements by Beijing, the glare of the international media), those similarities do not describe the Hong Kong protesters. 

Unlike 1989, the 2019 “water revolution” has been fueled by moderation and constant updating of tactics and the correcting of tactical errors in real time.  To cite one example, the occupation of Chep Lap Kok airport was a powerful move, but by its second day, it was creating a serious optics problem and posed a risk of costing international support.  The protesters responded to these new realities with extraordinary speed and coordination. By contrast, the 1989 protests went down a singular path of increasing radicalization.  This was fueled by the constant influx of students from the provinces that gave the Beijing movement leaders human resources necessary to occupy the square after many of their moderate Beijing-based colleagues had gone home or back to campus. 

The key inflection points of the 1989 protests were shaped by a group of increasingly radicalized students who took the spotlight away from their more thoughtful and responsible colleagues.  

ADVERTISEMENT

The protesters in 1989 were also more naïve and less worldly than the 2019 protesters.  Their initially reasonable demands were often overshadowed by the personal drama of key protest leaders, culminating in the televised “debate” between protest leader Wu’er Kaixi and Premier Li Peng, which led to both sides digging in further.

By contrast, the Hong Kong protesters are extremely savvy in their use of symbols and the messaging of their unhappiness. With Carrie Lam’s formal withdrawal of the extradition bill from the docket three of the remaining four demands – an independent inquiry into alleged police brutality, amnesty for arrested protester and a government edict against describing the protests as “riots” – are eminently reasonable. This does not have to end badly.

Finally, the protesters’ use of social media is an object lesson to the world on how to use phone apps and VPNs as a way to constructively engage in a social movement rather than provide a dark platform of conspiracy theories that threaten to corrode the movement from within. This open, non-hierarchical organizational structure is only able to exist because of the technological advances of the last few years. It is an extraordinary resource for these protesters, and, were Beijing to send in troops, would remain an organizing tool for a resistance that could well make a post-crackdown Hong Kong look more like Beirut than a post-Tiananmen Beijing.

That said – and as reluctant as I am to write this – some of the protesters are making serious tactical errors that threaten the already-dwindling chances for a peaceful outcome of the crisis.

First, the act of defacing symbols of the Mainland serve little purpose but to inflame Beijing and the scores of netizens it has captured in the net of its overarching narrative that the protests are a threat to stability. Although the 2019 protesters have largely avoided the temptation of gratuitously embarrassing their opponents, lapses in this regard are dangerous and provide little if any lasting benefit.

ADVERTISEMENT

Second, the use of American flags and other U.S. symbols is a wrongheaded tactic. It plays directly into Beijing’s unfounded narrative that the protesters are being organized and funded by Washington, a claim that has widespread traction in the Mainland. And it betrays a misunderstanding of the U.S.’s willingness to provide anything more than a fig leaf to the protesters. 

The Trump administration has been almost completely mute on the issue, and it is not difficult to imagine Trump privately equating these protesters with the 2017 anti-white nationalist protesters of Charlottesville: troublemakers whose grievances make absolutely no sense to him.  Unlike the deep ambivalence but robust action of the George H.W. Bush administration toward the 1989 events, the Trump administration seems to have little, if any, concern at all with Hong Kong in 2019.

Third, although Beijing bears the full blame of creating this crisis by introducing the extradition law in the first place, the protesters’ legitimate, ongoing frustrations are nonetheless complicating prospects for a positive outcome. It seems there might be some daylight between Ms. Lam and Beijing, as well as a face-saving way to meet most, but not all, of the protesters’ demands (the demand for the right of Hong Kong citizens to elect their own political leaders, for example, is a political non-starter). 

Beijing is going to pay, no matter what. No need to drive the knife in further.

Andrew Mertha is Hyman Professor of China Studies and the director of China studies and director of SAIS China at the School of Advanced Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/461373-in-china-2019-is-not-1989

2019-09-14 12:00:13Z
52780378737284

Bahamas brace for bad weather as Tropical Storm Humberto nears area hit by Hurricane Dorian - latest path, track, forecast, updates - CBS News

Bahamians brace for another storm

Tropical Depression Nine strengthened into Tropical Storm Humberto near the Bahamas Friday night, the National Hurricane Center said. The Bahamian government issued a tropical storm warning for its northwestern islands — the same area devastated by Hurricane Dorian earlier this month.

As of 11 p.m. ET, the storm was about 130 miles east-southeast of Great Abaco Island and about 225 miles east-southeast of Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, the hurricane center said. Tropical Storm Humberto had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and was moving northwest at 6 mph.

A group organized by retired Navy Seals and the conservation group Sea Shepherd has been loading up supplies to send to remote islands that may be impacted by the approaching storm. When CBS News caught up with them, the group had four tons of essentials — food, water and generators — it had loaded onto a ship.

Trending News

Residents are doing whatever they can to prepare. With few boats intact, locals are shuttling them to the few dozen people who remain. "I mean, we really don't need another hurricane. As you can see, we don't need another one. But we just have to prepare," Sinetra Higgs told CBS News.

This image shows the trajectory of Tropical Storm Humberto on September 13, 2019. National Hurricane Center

Hurricane Dorian devastated the northern Bahamas. Entire neighborhoods were flattened, homes shredded, shipping containers and boats hurled inland. Some airports were submerged, while terminals were covered in debris.

Some residents remain frustrated at the government's response, especially with another storm on the way. Many residents said that the only assistance they've gotten came from foreigners — and that they're still living without cell service, power and running water.

The Bahamian government said it's coordinating relief efforts from Nassau. But since most of the field teams come from private foreign aid groups, that's all the residents in hard-hit communities see. 

Errol Barnett contributed to this report.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bahamas-tropical-storm-warning-areas-devastated-by-hurricane-dorian-track-path-latest-2019-09-13/

2019-09-14 12:26:00Z
52780380309261