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Snub at Brussels: Ireland joins forces with Apple to combat the EU tax ruling


Fortune
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 21:12 UTC
Andrus Ansip with Apple CEO Tim Cook
© Emmanuel Dunand—AFP via Getty Images
European Commission vice president and commissioner for the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, shakes hands with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Ireland's cabinet agreed on Friday to join Apple in appealing against a multi-billion-euro back tax demand that the European Commission has slapped on the iPhone maker, despite misgivings among independents who back the fragile coalition.

The Commission's ruling this week that the U.S. tech giant must pay up to 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) to Dublin has angered Washington, which accuses the EU of trying to grab tax revenue that should go to the U.S. government.

With transatlantic tensions rising, the White House said President Barack Obama would raise the issue of tax avoidance by some multinational corporations at a summit of the G20 leading economies in China this weekend.
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Snakes in Suits

Smoking gun? FBI reveals Hillary could not recall briefings due to concussion and clot

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 20:50 UTC
Hillary Clinton needed help walking up a flight of stairs in February 2016
© Getty Images
Hillary Clinton needed help walking up a flight of stairs in February 2016.
With much of the recent discussion focusing on Hillary Clinton's general health condition, and mental acuity in particular, we wonder if the FBI just threw her under the bus with the following statement which links Hillary's "inability" to remember her transition instructions with her 2012 concussion and blood clot:
CLINTON stated she received no instructions or direction regarding the preservation or production of records from State during the transition out of her role as Secretary of State in early 2013. However, in December of 2012, CLINTON suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot. Based on her doctor's advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received. CLINTON did not have any discussions with aides about turning over her email records, nor did anyone from State request them. She believed her work-related emails were captured by her practice of sending email to the state.gov email address of her staff. CLINTON was unaware of the requirement to turn over printed records at that time. Her physical records were boxed up and handled by aides.

Comment: FBI releases Killary interview docs related to email investigation

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Chess

Russia should build 'strategic cooperation' with Kurds


Sputnik
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 21:35 UTC
Turkish Lawmaker
© REUTERS/ Umit Bektas
In exclusive interview with Sputnik, Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party in Turkey, commented on Russia's policy towards the Kurdish problem in Syria.
"Russia should intensify its ties with the Kurdish people. Cooperation with Kurds should be based on a strategic basis, not under the influence of a political environment. Such an approach would contribute to the peaceful settlement in the Middle East," Demirtas said.
According to the politician, Russia and other major international players could play an important role in the Syrian settlement, including the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in Syria.
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Attention

The Empire wants Killary the conqueror!

Andre Vltchek
Global Reasearch
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 19:50 UTC
Clinton and Trump
© NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune file photo
What a fine race it has become! Both Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump are competing in it as a who is the 'tougher guy/gal' in what could be easily described as a 21st Century Tarantino-style (or Scorsese-style) political pulp fiction gore.

What they both utter, may often sound like some staged bluff: "Are you talking to me? Hey, there's nobody else here... Are you talking to me?"

But just think for a moment what would really happen if one of them sticks to his or her 'promises' and 'principles', after getting elected! (The bullets would be flying, the nukes exploding, and millions of immigrants pushed off some cliff).

Let's face it: unless there is any intervention from outer space, one of them will actually ascend to the throne very soon! And they both may actually mean, at least partially, what they say!


Comment: Let loose the comets.

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Bad Guys

FBI releases Killary interview docs related to email investigation


RT
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 19:48 UTC
clinton
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
The FBI has released documents relating to its investigation of the private email server used by Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, including notes of its interview with her.

The information was given to Congress last month and made public on Friday afternoon, ahead of the holiday long weekend. The documents were released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from a slew of media organizations.

"Today the FBI is releasing a summary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's July 2, 2016 interview with the FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal e-mail server she used during her tenure,"the bureau said in a statement. "We also are releasing a factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter."

"This report recounts the information collected in this investigation," the FBI said in the first of two documents. "It is not intended to address potential inconsistencies in, or the validity of, the information related herein."

That 47-page document is a summary of the investigation, which began in July 2015, at the request of the US Intelligence Community Inspector General. The second is an 11-page summary of the FBI's interview with Clinton at the beginning of July.

Comment: FBI documents can be found here.

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Attention

Armed clashes reported between ISIL's foreign commanders in Iraq


FARS News Ageency
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 19:42 UTC
ISIL terrorist
Infighting between two Tunisian and Moroccan commanders of the ISIL terrorist group in Raqqa province led to armed clashes and took a toll.

Sources in al-Akirshi village in Raqqa reported on Thursday that the ISIL's Tunisian and Moroccan leaders fired bullets at each other and their comrades in fierce clashes.


Comment: Note the "leaders" are not from Iraq or Syria.


One terrorist was killed and 4 others were wounded in the armed clashes.

Opposition source confirmed in August that differences between the Ansar (Syrian members of ISIL), and Mohajereen (foreign nationals of the terrorist group) have increased after the Takfiri group's leadership granted more advantages to Mohajereen and their families in Raqqa.

"ISIL security units refused to deliver the body of Ansar fighters to their families to bury them in their birth place and even in so many cases the security forces did not inform the families about the death of their sons, but instead ISIL transferred the bodies of non-Syrian fighters to cities and buried them there," the sources said.
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Info

Rousseff's lawyers challenging impeachment decision at Supreme Federal Court


ITAR-TASS
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 19:37 UTC
Brazil's former president Dilma Rousseff
© AP Photo/Leo Correa
The lawyers of Brazil's ex-president Dilma Rousseff on Thursday challenged the impeachment decision at the country's Supreme Federal Court, the Globu TV reported.

The lawyers' chief argument is that the legal norms behind Rousseff's impeachment were outdated and contradicted some paragraphs of Brazil's fundamental law.

"Unlike the constitution of 1946, the 1988 Constitution does not classify violations concerning the storage and illegal use of state funds as crimes, which can lead to the loss of the mandate," the lawyers wrote in the appeal, the extracts of which have been published by Folha de S. Paulo newspaper on its website.
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Cloud Grey

Philippines: President Duterte ignores UN chief amid 'War on Drugs' abuse criticism


RT
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 07:15 UTC
Duterte
© Inquirer/Lyn Rillon
"The Punisher" is now "The Snubber"
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has refused to meet the UN secretary-general. Earlier he threatened to leave the UN after it criticized his controversial 'War on Drugs', which has claimed some 2,400 lives since Duterte came to power.

Ban Ki-moon requested to meet Duterte during a summit of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Laos next week, but the president's office said it could not happen due to scheduling conflict, Reuters reported. A UN official told the agency that it was "basically unheard of" for a leader to be too busy to meet the secretary-general. Duterte's spokesman Ernesto Abella said his boss had "his own reasons for not meeting up with some leaders," but would not elaborate.

Last week UN experts criticized the Philippines for a wave of extrajudicial executions and killings amid the president's War on Drugs, which was a key point of his electoral platform. The president responded by calling the UN "silly" and threatening to withdraw the Philippines from it, a statement that was later retracted by his Foreign Ministry.

Duterte's tough and controversial methods of cracking down on narcotic trade stem from his 22 years as mayor of the City of Davao, which earned him nickname 'the Punisher' - after the vigilante anti-hero character of Marvel comics books.

Comment: See also:

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Dominoes

France, Germany: Pro Russia or US?

Pavil Shipilin
Russia Insider
Fri, 02 Sep 2016 00:00 UTC
Merkel, Hollande, Steinmeier
© www.huffingtonpost.com
Merkel, Hollande and Steinmeier: Give up or give in?
The presidential candidates in Germany and France must promise their voters they will be friends with the Kremlin. Lately François Hollande said he was sorry about the deterioration of relations with Russia. A little earlier Frank-Walter Steinmeier curtsied in our direction for the twentieth time. And Nicolas Sarkozy's pro-Russian attitude is legendary.

Though symbolic, this is all just election rhetoric. But today we have a unique chance to discover the public mood in Europe.There is another topic besides the normalization of relations with Russia, which the future leaders of Germany and France - major states that will define European policy after Brexit - are struggling with. It's the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - a trade agreement with the USA that is driving a stake in Eurasia's European peninsula.

TTIP completes the legal boundaries of the 'golden billion' that already have their own army (NATO), their fences and money (the Bretton Woods Agreement), a stranglehold on the rest of the world. The question is whether Europeans want to live inside these boundaries that resemble a golden cage or not. Because once TTIP is signed, they can forget about the sovereignty of Europe's democracies.

Comment: Chipping away at TAFTA, TTIP and restoring relations with Russia -- maybe the EU will wake up regarding NATO as well?

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Cards

Migration crisis 2.0: Erdogan holds the aces, Merkel flounders

Brian MacDonald
RT
Wed, 31 Aug 2016 15:16 UTC
Ace Erdogan
© www.benzilla.com
This year, the European Union's controversial migrant deal with Turkey enabled the bloc to avoid to a repeat of the summer 2015 migrant crisis. But it might have merely been the calm before a new storm.

Turkey is angry that Germany's European Commissioner has labelled its EU accession bid "unrealistic" while Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains in power. In reality, however, this latest imbroglio has little to do with the Turkish President himself. Erdogan's presence is merely a convenient excuse for the fact that EU nations will never accept Ankara as a full member. And this has huge implications for the stability of Europe.

In the summer of 2015, the EU endured a migrant crisis which threatened to kibosh the Schengen agreement and also strained unity between the east and west of the alliance. Some pundits even suggested the entire project could unravel if the scenes were repeated this year.

This potential disaster was avoided by some fevered politicking by Angela Merkel. The German Chancellor struck a deal with Erdogan where Brussels agreed to transfer €6 billion to Turkey over four years, in exchange for allowing the bloc to deport migrants who do not qualify for asylum in Greece back to Turkey. The sweetener was an EU pledge to finally allow Turks visa-free travel in the Schengen area. This was important because it allowed Ankara to sell the deal domestically.

Comment: Choices for Merkel are slim to none. There is no winning hand.

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