War

Tony Blair has issued a scathing counter-attack on those who are calling for his arrest and demanding that he face a war crimes trial for the war in Iraq.  The former British Prime Minister told the BBC that he might reject the finding of the Chilcot inquiry if it attempts to suggest he lied to the British public in the build-up to the 2003 Iraq war. Independent.co.uk reports: Claiming he hasn’t seen a copy of the report the former Prime Minister added that he “looks forward” to participating in a debate about its findings. “Make no mistake about that,” Mr Blair said.

An top ISIS commander, thought to have been killed by U.S. forces, has been filmed recently in Iraq, showing that he is very much alive and well.  Despite claims by the U.S. government that they had killed ISIS operative Abu Omar al-Shishani last March, the commander was caught on camera in Iraq’s Fallujah battlefield fighting the Iraqi army. Almasdarnews.com reports: The red-beard Georgian veteran was reported dead several times; most recently last March when the Pentagon announced that al-Shishani was killed in an airstrike near the town of al-Shaddadi in eastern Syria.

The parents of a missing seven-year-old boy have admitted to police that the child was abandoned in bear infested mountains in northern Japan, as a “punishment.” The seven-year-old boy has been missing for two days. His parents initially told police that he had got lost during a family walk.  The Independent reports: More than 150 rescue workers are searching for Yamato Tanooka, who has been missing for two days, after his parents left him alone on Saturday in Nanae, Hokkaido – an island in northern Japan whose woods are known to be home to wild bears.

Demonstrators in France clash with police during labor reform protests. Video shows a policeman dressed in riot gear assaulting an unarmed woman. Following a verbal provocation, a Toulouse policeman attacks a woman demonstrator by grabbing her by the throat and sending her flying to the ground. RT reports: Two videos featuring the woman were posted by a YouTube account, Ben Art Core, that appears sympathetic to the cause of the demonstrators, who have been regularly flooding streets of most notable French urban centers since the turn of the year.

Today in Poland there are 80,000 militiamen training for a possible war with Russia. Believing an imminent Russian invasion is likely, Poles are living in the grip pf paranoia over their historic enemy. Yet it is not Moscow which is today threatening Poland’s sovereignty and independence. It is Washington and Brussels. A Russia Insider report: I have never been to Poland. But I know it is a country where Russophobic paranoia runs deep – perhaps more than any other country. The Poles and the Russians have been fighting each other for over 1000 years, going back to medieval Rus.