PDF-Version: Seleced articles 9.5.2020
Selected articles (May 09, 2020)
=======
1a)
Why Julian Assange must urgently be freed
I want my children to believe that inequitable treatment is not tolerated in mature democracies
By Stella Moris
May 1, 2020
https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-05-01/why-julian-assange-must-urgently-be-freed.html
“[…] I want our children to grow up with the clarity of conviction that I had as a little girl. Peril lay beyond the South African border. I want them to believe that inequitable treatment is not tolerated in mature democracies. At university in Oxford, I was proud to be at the intellectual heart of the most mature democracy of them all.
It is not just our family who suffers from the infringement of Julian’s rights. If our family and Julian’s lawyers are not off-limits, then nothing is. The person responsible for allegedly ordering the theft of Gabriel’s DNA is Mike Pompeo, who last month threatened the family members of lawyers working at the International Criminal Court. Why? Because the court had had the temerity to investigate alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan. The same crimes that Julian exposed through WikiLeaks, and which the US wants to imprison him over.
Julian needs to be released now. For him, for our family, and for the society we all want our children to grow up in.”
1b)
Technofascism: The Censorship of David Icke is Digital Book Burning in a Totalitarian Age
This is how freedom dies.
By John Whitehead
May 5, 2020
Technofascism: The Censorship of David Icke is Digital Book Burning in a Totalitarian Age
“[…] The internet, hailed as a super-information highway, is increasingly becoming the police state’s secret weapon. This “policing of the mind: is exactly the danger author Jim Keith warned about when he predicted that “information and communication sources are gradually being linked together into a single computerized network, providing an opportunity for unheralded control of hat will be broadcast, what will be said, and ultimately what will be thought.”
It’s a slippery slope from censoring so-called illegitimate ideas to silencing truth. […]”
=======
2a)
Experts Warn of New Nuclear Arms Race After Trump Signals US Withdrawal from START Treaty
While much of the corporate press has blamed Russia and China for the sudden failure of multiple longstanding nuclear treaties, experts put the blame on squarely on the Trump administration.
By Alan Macleod
May 1, 2020
Experts Warn of New Nuclear Arms Race After Trump Signals US Withdrawal from START Treaty
“[…] While the Trump administration’s actions have been largely overlooked in corporate media, they are causing panic among diplomats and specialists in the area. On Wednesday, the U.S. foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs published an extraordinary article from the two diplomats who led the American and Russian negotiating teams that extended the START treaty in 2010. Rose Gottemoeller, the American ex-Deputy Secretary-General of NATO and Anatoly Antonov, former Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, wrote that Trump’s recklessness should be a wakeup call to the planet and is “a chilling sign of how dangerous the world has become.” The two warned that, without a binding treaty, the nuclear arms race will immediately recommence, and Armageddon will not be far away. […]”
2b)
The anatomy of a STRATCOM disinfographic
By John Krzyzaniak, Thomas Gaulkin
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
May 7, 2020
“United States Strategic Command, the branch of the US military responsible for the nation’s nuclear weapons, recently released an imperially misleading infographic on Twitter. The graphic is confused—not only about when to use bold typeface, but also about the facts. […]”
2c)
The No Bases Campaign
The closing of U.S. bases and the removal of U.S. military personnel are critical to the elimination of war.
2d)
Mapping Militarism 2020
By David Swanson
May 1, 2020
“A new collection of maps found here displays what militarism looks like in the world. […]”
=======
3a)
U.S. Peace Council Strongly Condemns the Armed Incursion Into the Territory of Venezuela
May 7, 2020
U.S. Peace Council Strongly Condemns the Armed Incursion Into the Territory of Venezuela
„[…] Venezuela recently suffered an armed incursion that was organized by nationals of the United States. On May 3, 2020 the Venezuelan authorities intercepted a boat with armed mercenaries that were involved in a plan to kidnap or assassinate the elected president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, in order to foment a coup d’état. Eight mercenaries were killed and multiple persons were captured, including two American citizens. […]“
3b)
Silvercorp co-founder speaks with The Grayzone: What did State Department know about failed Venezuela invasion?
The Grayzone speaks to Drew White – a close friend and business partner of Silvercorp mercenary firm founder and failed Venezuela coup leader Jordan Goudreau – about the botched invasion and potential involvement of the Trump administration.
By Anya Parampil
May 7, 2020
=======
4a)
Get Ready for the Next Game-Changer: the Digital Yuan
By Pepe Escobar
May 5, 2020
„A new, radical paradigm shift is in progress. The U.S. economy may shrink as much as 40% in the first semester of 2020. China, already the world’s largest economy by PPP for a few years now, may soon become the world’s largest economy even in exchange rate terms.
The post-Planet Lockdown world – still a hazy mirage – may well need a post-Planet Lockdown currency. And that’s where a serious candidate steps into the fray: the fiat digital yuan.
Last month, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) confirmed that a group of top banks started trials in electronic payment in four different Chinese regions using the new digital yuan. Yet there’s no timetable yet for the official launch of what is called the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). […]“
4b)
The hedge fund man behind pro-Trump media’s new war on China
By Eli Clifton
May 5, 2020
The hedge fund man behind pro-Trump media’s new war on China
„A fortune made at a secretive hedge fund led by Robert Mercer — one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors — appears to be fueling a push for a confrontation with China across a number of connected media properties. […]“
4c)
China’s Bargain on Global Influence Is Paying Off
The U.S. gives more money than China to many international organizations. So why do they seem more sympathetic to Beijing?
By Kathy Gilsinan
The Atlantic
May 6, 2020
„This spring, President Donald Trump declared that he would halt U.S. funding for the World Health Organization, previously more than $400 million annually—and he announced this right in the midst of a global pandemic. A week later, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged another $30 million—which would nowhere near make up for the shortfall (not to mention that China still owes the organization $60 million in membership dues, an amount the WHO expects to get later this year). But the moment was a clear case in point for China’s success at checkbook diplomacy, in which the amount matters less than the message: You can’t count on the U.S., but you can count on us. […]“
=======
5a)
A Peek On The Situation In And Around Syria
Moon of Alabama
May 7, 2020
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/05/a-peek-on-the-situation-in-and-around-syria.html#more
“The recent financial turbulence in the oil markets and the global depression will have a large impact on the conflicts in the Middle East. […]”
5b)
Greece’s Renewed Relations with Syria Further Isolates Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean
By Paul Antonopoulos
Global Research, May 08, 2020
Greece’s Renewed Relations with Syria Further Isolates Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean
“[…] The Greek Foreign Ministry said that contacts will be made for the “international aspects of Syria and related humanitarian action, as well as coordination of actions in view of the ongoing efforts to rebuild Syria.” […]”
“[…] Athens however is not completely independent from NATO and the EU. This suggests that although renewing relations with Syria is absolutely critical in protecting its sovereignty, perhaps Greece has gotten approval from the EU and/or NATO to do this. Greece is perhaps the most important of the very few European countries that have maintained or reopened relations with Syria because of its history of friendly relations, as well as thousands of years of religious, cultural, financial and ethnic ties. […]”
=======
6)
IRAQ SERIOUS CHALLENGES: THE US, IRAN, ISIS PLUS A “DIFFICULT TO FORM” CABINET.
By Elijah J. Magnier
May 5, 2020
Iraq serious challenges: the US, Iran, ISIS Plus a “difficult to form” cabinet.
“[…] Furthermore, Baghdad lacks a strong government, yet the foreign debts and the low price of oil are adding severely to Iraq’s deficit. Iraq needs 80 billion dollars per year but has a revenue of less than 30 billion. In the midst of this difficult situation, the Coronavirus is adding more strain on Baghdad, and tensions between the US and Iran harm the country. Both countries are fighting their own war on Iraqi soil and each side wants the other out of the country. Hashd al-Shaabi is considered an enemy of the US and Israel and is essential for Iran for keeping the US out and, for Iraq, to protect the country from ISIS. The Shia are divided, as well as the Sunnis and the Kurds. And now, as the last straw, ISIS is increasing its attacks, taking advantage of this chaotic state. It will take a miracle for Iraq to be able to stand on its feet any time soon.”
=======
7a)
100 Years of Shame: Annexation of Palestine Began in San Remo
By Ramzy Baroud
May 6, 2020
100 Years of Shame: Annexation of Palestine Began in San Remo
“One hundred years ago, representatives from a few powerful countries convened at San Remo, a sleepy town on the Italian Riviera. Together, they sealed the fate of the massive territories confiscated from the Ottoman Empire following its defeat in World War I.
It was on April 25, 1920, that the San Remo Conference Resolution was passed by the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council. Western Mandates were established over Palestine, Syria and ‘Mesopotamia’ – Iraq. The latter two were theoretically designated for provisional independence, while Palestine was granted to the Zionist movement to establish a Jewish homeland there. […]”
7b)
Israel may ask for double its usual $3.8 billion from the U.S this year
By Alison Weir
April 28, 2020
Israel may ask for double its usual $3.8 billion from the U.S this year
“[…] Breaking Defense, a digital magazine that covers military issues, reports that Israel may ask for its U.S. aid early, possibly in a lump sum that could be as high as $7.6 billion. This would work out to almost $21 million per day from American taxpayers, even though the U.S. is approaching a $4 trillion deficit (the largest in the world), and Israel typically has a lower unemployment rate than the United States. […]”
=======
8a)
Criminal Generosity
Mandatory Vaccination and Global Surveillance
first published: April 17, 2020
updated: May 09, 2020
https://amirmortasawi.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/20689455/
8b)
APPEAL FOR THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD
to Catholics and all people of good will
May 7, 2020
Signatories
„[…] The facts have shown that, under the pretext of the Covid-19 epidemic, the inalienable rights of citizens have in many cases been violated and their fundamental freedoms, including the exercise of freedom of worship, expression and movement, have been disproportionately and unjustifiably restricted. Public health must not and cannot become an alibi for infringing on the rights of millions of people around the world, let alone for depriving the civil authority of its duty to act wisely for the common good. This is particularly true as growing doubts emerge from several quarters about the actual contagiousness, danger and resistance of the virus. Many authoritative voices in the world of science and medicine confirm that the alarmism about Covid-19 by the media appears to be absolutely unjustified. […]“
8c)
Facts about Covid-19
„[…] Below you will find regular, but not daily, updates on medical and political developments. […]“
8d)
COVID-19: The Spearpoint for Rolling Out a “New Era” of High-Risk, Genetically Engineered Vaccines
By the Children’s Health Defense Team
May 7, 2020
COVID-19: The Spearpoint for Rolling Out a “New Era” of High-Risk, Genetically Engineered Vaccines
„For weeks, talking heads have been promoting the liability-free vaccine(s) that will save the world—so Bill Gates and Tony Fauci proclaim—from what Gates has now dubbed “Pandemic I.” As Microsoft News peddles self-congratulatory stories about the Gates Foundation’s reorientation of its priorities to devote “‘total attention’ to the pandemic,” Fauci—making the rounds of talk shows—pledges that a vaccine will make its debut in January 2021. Not to be outdone, the White House has now unveiled “Operation Warp Speed”—a joint pharmaceutical-government-military effort aimed at “substantially shrinking the development time for a vaccine”—and President Trump promises one by the end of the year. […]
8e)
2009 H1N1 Vaccine Caused Brain Damage in Children. Dr. Anthony Fauci on “Vaccine Safety” Issues
Don’t Let It Happen Again
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
May 03, 2020
2009 H1N1 Vaccine Caused Brain Damage in Children. Dr. Anthony Fauci on “Vaccine Safety” Issues
„In 2009, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci was firmly in support of a multibillion dollar H1N1 vaccine project. Today he is an avid supporter of a COVID-19 vaccine. What he fails to acknowledge is that the 2009 H1N1 Vaccine caused brain damage in children.
It was developed by Glaxo Smith Kline which today is at the forefront of the COVID-19 vaccine initiative. […]“
„[…] In 2009 The US Media was Complicit is Spreading Fear and Spreading Lies (and they are doing it again in relation to COVID-19).
The media hype was instrumental in supporting Big Pharma’s H1N1 Vaccine and so was the Obama Adminstration. It was a Multibillion dollar scam: […]“
8f)
Who Is Bill Gates?
Part One: How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health
Part Two: Bill Gates’ Plan to Vaccinate the World
The Corbett Report
May 1, 2020
„[…] Who is Bill Gates? A software developer? A businessman? A philanthropist? A global health expert?
This question, once merely academic, is becoming a very real question for those who are beginning to realize that Gates’ unimaginable wealth has been used to gain control over every corner of the fields of public health, medical research and vaccine development. And now that we are presented with the very problem that Gates has been talking about for years, we will soon find that this software developer with no medical training is going to leverage that wealth into control over the fates of billions of people. […]“
8g)
What you need to know about the COVID-19 vaccine
Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus.
By Bill Gates
April 30, 2020
„[…] Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus. Realistically, if we’re going to return to normal, we need to develop a safe, effective vaccine. We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible.
That sounds daunting, because it is. Our foundation is the biggest funder of vaccines in the world, and this effort dwarfs anything we’ve ever worked on before. It’s going to require a global cooperative effort like the world has never seen. But I know it’ll get done. There’s simply no alternative. […]“
„[…] We need to manufacture and distribute at least 7 billion doses of the vaccine. In order to stop the pandemic, we need to make the vaccine available to almost every person on the planet. We’ve never delivered something to every corner of the world before. And, as I mentioned earlier, vaccines are particularly difficult to make and store. […]“
8h)
Cuomo Announces Partnership with Bill Gates to “Revolutionize” NY Schools in Wake of Coronavirus
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he will use the COVID-19 virus as an opportunity to “revolutionize” the state’s school system, inviting Bill Gates to implement his controversial ideas about education.
By Alan Macleod
May 6, 2020
Cuomo Announces Partnership with Bill Gates to “Revolutionize” NY Schools in Wake of Coronavirus
„[…] One of only two centibillionaires in history, Gates is the world’s most popular businessman according to polling company YouGov, enjoying a 54 percent positive and only nine percent negative opinion rating. Nevertheless, Cuomo’s announcement was met with consternation by many. “Right-wing Wall Street puppet Cuomo is going to work with billionaire capitalist Bill Gates, one of the richest human beings in history, to privatize public education. “Philanthropy” is a scam. The Gates Foundation’s goal is to privatize everything so billionaires can profit,” wrote journalist Ben Norton.
Gates is one of the most important driving forces leading the assault on the American public education system through the promotion of charter schools. Charter schools effectively privatize the public school system, where the public continues to foot the bill for the school, but has no influence or say in how it is run. While very popular with both the private sector and the religious right, the large majority of unionized public school teachers oppose them.
Thus, Cuomo’s attempt to push through what he promises to be a massive overhaul of the state’s entire education network is a perfect example of what writer Naomi Klein called “disaster capitalism.” In her seminal book, “The Shock Doctrine”, Klein describes how regressive forces wait until the collective panic of a disaster to force through legislation that the population would never accept and would fight back against in normal times. […]“
8i)
WHO Experimenting on African Children without Informed Consent
By Jeremy R. Hammond
March 1, 2020
„[…] The World Health Organization (WHO), a pair of articles recently published in The BMJ have revealed, is sponsoring an experimental study of a controversial malaria vaccine among African children without obtaining informed consent from parents.
Data from prior clinical trials of the vaccine, manufactured by the British multinational pharmaceutical corporation GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), have shown it to be associated with an increased risk of clinical malaria after four years, a tenfold increased risk of meningitis, an increased risk of cerebral malaria (in which the parasitic organisms block the flow of blood to the brain, causing swelling and potential brain damage), and an increased risk of death that was disproportionately higher for female children. […]“
=======
9a)
Countering Iran in the Gray Zone
What the United States Should Learn from Israel’s Operations in Syria
By Ilan Goldenberg, Nicholas Heras, Kaleigh Thomas and Jennie Matuschak
Center for a New American Security
April 14, 2020
https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/countering-iran-gray-zone
Full report:
„[…] This study examines Israel’s mabam campaign and asks what lessons the United States can draw and how they may be applied to future U.S. actions in gray zone conflicts, both against Iran and more broadly. […]“
„[…] Conclusions
For years U.S. policymakers have stated that it is imperative that the United States push back on Iran’s destabilizing behavior in the Middle East. However, one administration after another has focused almost exclusively on sanctions—a relatively ineffective tool to counter what is ultimately a financially cheap strategy on the part of Iran. The concern always was that even highly limited and unattributed kinetic actions by the United States would lead to uncontrolled escalation. While these concerns are legitimate, the Israeli experience in Syria suggests that American freedom of action to strike Iranian targets in the gray zone may be greater than previously assessed. The United States may have more options than it has realized, providing it is willing to replicate the Israeli model, both against Iran and, possibly, against adversaries such as Russia or China in other gray zone conflicts. At the same time, U.S. policymakers will have to be careful to not “overlearn” some of the lessons of mabam. As analyzed in this report, certain conditions that have made the Israeli campaign successful may not apply, or may not be executable because of differences in how Israel and the United States fight wars.“
9b)
Why the US should not emulate Israel’s strategy in Syria
By Sina Toossi
May 8, 2020
„The United States is adrift in the Middle East. Its actions do not reflect coherent goals or strategies to attain them. The centerpiece of the Trump administration’s approach to the region is its so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, a failed policy that has ceded ground to Russia and China and put the U.S. at risk.
At the same time, the response from hawkish Democrats is equally problematic. Instead of these two paths, the next U.S. administration should consider an approach that focuses on sustained engagement with all regional powers.[…]“
9c)
Pressuring Iran is not the answer to the US’s Middle East woes
By Sina Toossi
May 8, 2020
Pressuring Iran is not the answer to the US’s Middle East woes
„[…] Importantly, America’s traditional regional partners should not feel abandoned by improved U.S.-Iran relations. To the contrary, a diplomacy-first U.S. Middle East policy can lead to regional cooperation and long-term stability. The U.S. can use its enhanced leverage to help realize a long imagined regional cooperation system between Iran, Iraq, and the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. This can be modeled after the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which originated out of a diplomatic process that reduced tensions between the Warsaw Pact and NATO states.
Institutionalized dialogue among the Persian Gulf countries will ease the U.S. security burden in the region. Saudi Arabia and Iran will have a forum to communicate their grievances and engage in reciprocal confidence-building measures. Over time, such dialogue can expand to cooperation to resolve various regional conflicts, such as the war in Yemen, and on regionalizing the cost of securing the Persian Gulf. […]“
9d)
Trump Vetoes Bipartisan Measure To Stop War Against Iran
The president called the bill ‚insulting‘ and called out its Republican supporters, Matt Gaetz and Rand Paul for special criticism.
By Hunter DeRensis
May 7, 202
„[…] The joint resolution passed with bipartisan support, with a 55-45 vote in the senate in February, and a 227-186 vote in the House in March. After gathering cobwebs for nearly two months, it finally reached the resolute desk on Wednesday, where it was promptly vetoed. This is the second war powers resolution that Donald Trump has vetoed, following the one on Yemen from March of last year. […]“
9e)
Anti-Iranian Boomerang Policies: How America Celebrated the Pandemic and Incited the Oil Crisis, and Got Stuck by Both
By Ivan KESIĆ
May 7, 2020
“Two months after the coronavirus pandemic broke out in Iran, we are seeing signs of a significant improvement for the total situation. The number of daily deaths has dropped below one hundred for a week in a row, the number of new COVID-19 cases has been on a continuous decline for more than three weeks, the restrictions are gradually being lifted and the streets are again vibrant. Iran’s success in combating the pandemic is the result of mobilizing all available governmental organizations and relying on its own know-how and industrial production. Alone and under the harshest sanctions seen in history, Iran has proven to be extremely effective, compared to the leading Western countries. In the face of global disasters and the vulnerability of civilians, it is traditionally common for nations to help one another, but recently we see something quite different from the U.S. regime. […]”
9f)
As Iran faces virus, Trump admin fails to use Swiss channel to ease medical exports
By Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, Sahil Shah
European Leadership Network
May 6, 2020
As Iran faces virus, Trump admin fails to use Swiss channel to ease medical exports
„[…] Just a few days after Iran announced its first deaths from COVID-19 in February, the Trump administration’s Special Envoy for Iran Brian Hook was asked during a briefing for an update on the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), a payments channel intended to ease the sale of medicine and medical devices by Swiss companies to Iran. Responding to the question, Hook acknowledged that no further transactions had been processed since a pilot transaction involving a $2.55 million sale of medication a month earlier, but insisted that there were “more transactions coming.”Two months later, over 6,000 Iranians have lost their lives to COVID-19, and the Swiss channel has yet to process any further transactions. Since the Trump administration reimposed secondary sanctions on Iran in November 2018, the Swiss government has worked to establish a dedicated banking channel to ease the export of medical supplies to Iran. Switzerland is the second largest supplier of medicine to Iran after the European Union. While technically exempt from sanctions, the sale of medical supplies has been made more difficult as banks refuse to process Iran-related transactions. In a recent client note, former Director of the US Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) John Smith detailed how “the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign has likely dissuaded many companies from exporting medicine and medical devices to Iran that they otherwise could.” […]“
9g)
Can Pompeo trap a future President Biden in Trump’s self-imposed Iran crisis?
By Jarrett Blanc
May 7, 2020
Can Pompeo trap a future President Biden in Trump’s self-imposed Iran crisis?
„[…] When Trump withdrew from the Iran deal in 2018, he chose not to use the so-called “snapback” measure which would restore all the U.N. sanctions suspended by the deal. John Bolton, then the national security adviser, explained that “we are not using the provisions…because we are out of the deal.” Yet Pompeo is now saying that the U.S. is still a legal participant and so entitled to use snapback even though the administration has repeatedly touted “ceasing” its participation. […]“
„[…] Today, returning to the Iran nuclear deal would largely be a bilateral matter between the U.S. and Iran. The two countries could simply return to compliance with their obligations under the deal. After snapback, any return to the deal would require new action at the Security Council, thus allowing other parties — again, most especially Russia and China — to seek concessions. That does not mean a Biden administration would not return. Being stuck implementing Trump’s Iran policy ad infinitum is an unattractive proposition. But the U.S. would probably need to pay a price to undo Trump’s mess.
As with all the hawks’ moves, the snapback idea will fail to achieve its purported objectives with Iran, but not before doing real damage to U.S. interests.“
9h)
US grants Iraq a summer break from Iran electricity sanctions
The Trump administration’s reprieve for Iraq from US sanctions on Iranian electricity imports will extend through September.
By Ali Hashem
May 7, 2020
„[…] Iran provides Iraq with around 1,200 megawatts of electricity per day, and 40 million cubic meters of gas. On Dec. 9, Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said his country had signed a three-year cooperation agreement with Iraq for extending Iranian energy exports. On Nov. 9, Ardakanian had announced that the power grids of Iran and Syria were to be connected through Iraq, as Tehran and Damascus signed a preliminary agreement in this regard.
From an Iranian perspective, exporting electricity to surrounding countries, including Turkey, is part of Tehran’s efforts to widen its financial resources; however, from US President Donald Trump’s point of view, this is an attempt to get around the sanctions imposed by Washington under the “maximum pressure” strategy that aims at drying up all sources of funds that might reach Iran. […]“
9i)
Video Event | Analyzing the Impact of the „Maximum Pressure“ Campaign on Iran Amid Coronavirus
Hudson Institute
May 6, 2020
9j)
Why is the US removing its Patriot missile systems from Saudi Arabia?
By Annelle Sheline
May 7, 2020
Why is the US removing its Patriot missile systems from Saudi Arabia?
„[…] The drawdown of U.S. military presence in the Middle East, and especially from Saudi Arabia, is a welcome development. However, given this administration’s track record of belligerence towards Iran and its transaction approach towards even its closest security partners, it is hardly surprising that the timing of the move is provoking considerable speculation.“
Amir Mortasawi (alias Afsane Bahar) (امیر مرتضوی (افسانه بهار 