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UN 'Independent' Commission on Syria cannot guarantee credibility of its own data

Drago Bosnic
Fort Russ News
Thu, 09 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC
UN ‘Independent’ Commission on Syria Cannot Guarantee Credibility of Its Own Data
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, which reported "crimes" of the official Damascus in Idlib, cannot guarantee the credibility of the information it disseminates, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday following a videoconference with his counterparts from the African Union trio (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt and South Africa).

"We believe that all issues regarding the Syrian or any other conflict must be viewed and solved only based on concrete facts, on information that the relevant organization can be held responsible for," Lavrov stated, according to TASS.

"This independent commission cannot be held responsible for its own statements, which has been proven repeatedly," he added.

Comment: Good on Lavrov and others in the Russian Federation for continuing to call out the UN, the OPCW, and other Western-influenced organizations who have been tasked with wholesale lying to the world about Syria and Russia.

See also:

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NPC

AOC: 'Only entitled moaners think cancel culture exists' (in a post complaining about her critics) - social media bites back


RT
Sat, 11 Jul 2020 04:03 UTC
ocasio cortez
© REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) strikes what she hopes is a heroic pose
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has denied the existence of cancel culture, suggesting it is an invention of privileged moaners who can't handle criticism. Her thesis prompted speculation that the powerful lawmaker has no self-awareness.

The rookie New York congresswoman, whose 'woke' Twitter takes have made her a hero to many on the Left, attempted to debunk the concept of cancel culture in a series of profound posts.

"People who are actually 'cancelled' don't get their thoughts published and amplified in major outlets," she argued, adding that the whiners who complain about being 'cancelled' are actually just entitled and hate being "held accountable" or "unliked."

Comment:

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Syringe

UK's quantitative easing ponzi-scheme injecting even more cash than during the crash of '08

Liam Halligan
The Spectator
Sat, 11 Jul 2020 09:31 UTC
bank of england
© Getty Images
We are hooked on the economic equivalent of crack cocaine
The FTSE-100 index of leading stocks is over 20 per cent up since Britain went into lockdown — 'bull market' territory. The government borrowed £55 billion in May, nine times more than the same month last year — yet borrowing costs are down, with some investors now paying to lend to an increasingly indebted nation.

Who cares if the UK economy will shrink some 10 per cent this year, as our national debt rockets above 100 per cent of GDP? Stocks are up, bond prices are up and the laws of economics have been suspended. It's different this time — and all because of quantitative easing.

Back in 2009, with the global banking system on the brink of collapse, QE was a justifiable emergency measure. But this one-off post-crisis necessity has now morphed into a lifestyle choice. For a decade since the financial crisis, QE has pumped up share prices and suppressed bond yields, allowing governments to borrow cheaply. But as state spending has surged post-Covid, we've become dependent. QE is now the economic equivalent of crack cocaine.

Comment: See also:

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Eye 1

Meet the Israeli intelligence-linked firm using AI to profile Americans and guide US lockdown policy

Whitney Webb
The Last Vagabond
Thu, 02 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC
Israeli AI
An Israeli government contractor founded by a former Israeli spy has partnered with one U.S. state and is set to announce a series of new partnerships with other states and U.S. healthcare providers to monitor civilian health and use an IDF-designed AI system to profile Americans likely to contract coronavirus and to inform U.S. government lockdown policy.

A company tied to Israel's military signal intelligence unit, Unit 8200, has recently partnered with the state of Rhode Island to use an artificial intelligence-based system developed in tandem with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to profile Americans potentially infected and/or "at risk" of being infected with coronavirus, then informing government authorities of their "risk profile." Once flagged, state health officials can target those individuals as well as their communities for mandatory testing, treatment and/or more restrictive lockdown measures.

The firm, Israel-based Diagnostic Robotics, is poised to announce a series of new such partnerships with several other U.S. states as well as major U.S. hospital systems and healthcare providers in the coming weeks, according to a company spokesperson. The first of these announcements came on June 30 regarding the firm's new partnership with Mayo Clinic, which will soon implement the Diagnostic Robotics' "artificial intelligence platform that predicts patients' hospitalization risk." They have also been in discussions with Vice President Mike Pence about the platform's implementation nationwide since April.

Comment: See also:

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Radar

Washington's bipartisan torpedo against the agreement for withdrawal from Afghanistan

Manlio Dinucci
Global Research
Fri, 10 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC
soldiers in Afghanistan
Hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, over 2,400 US soldiers killed (plus an unknown number of wounded), about 1,000 billion dollars spent: this is the budget summary of 19 years of US war in Afghanistan, to which the cost for NATO allies (including Italy) and others, who joined the US in the war, is added.

Bankruptcy budget for the USA also from a political-military point of view: most of the territory is now controlled by the Taliban or disputed between them and the Governmental Forces supported by NATO.

After lengthy negotiations, the Trump administration concluded an agreement with the Taliban last February against this background, which provides for the reduction of the number of US troops in Afghanistan from 8,600 to 4,500 in exchange for a series of guarantees. This does not mean the end of the US military intervention in Afghanistan, which continues with Special Forces, drones and bombers.

The deal, however, would pave the way for a de-escalation of the armed conflict. A few months after signing, however, the agreement was broken: not by Afghan Taliban but by US Democrats.

Comment: See also: And let's not forget Afghanistan's biggest cash crop: Opium production in Afghanistan up 50-fold since US Invasion

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Bad Guys

Is the US planning to invade Venezuela through Colombia?

Lucas Leiroz
InfoBrics
Fri, 10 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC
Colombian troops
Colombia is under a pro-Washington government. The country's current president, Iván Duque Márquez, has been noted for a series of policies of alignment with the United States, continuing the legacy of his predecessor, former president Juan Manuel Santos, who has made Colombia a NATO's "global partner", allowing the country to participate in joint military operations of the Western military alliance. In general, the long scenario of crises and tensions in Colombia, marked by drug trafficking and the conflict between criminal factions and rebel parties, has driven its governments towards a policy of alignment with Washington in exchange for security, which has increased in recent years.

However, not all Colombian politicians approve these measures. Recently, the leftist senator Iván Cepeda asked Colombian Congressional President Lidio García to convene a session to investigate and legally control the government in its collaboration with the constant arrival of American soldiers in the country. According to Cepeda, the presence of these military personnel is hostile to Colombia, deeply affecting the maintenance of national sovereignty.

Comment: See also:

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Light Sabers

Culture war in the West: Trump threatens to defund universities for 'Radical Left Indoctrination'


RT
Fri, 10 Jul 2020 20:25 UTC
trump
© Reuters / Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump has announced that the Treasury Department will examine the tax-exempt status of the US' universities and schools, accusing them of indoctrinating children with "Radical Left" ideology.

"Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education," Trump tweeted on Friday. "Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status and/or funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues."

It is unclear to what extent the Treasury would be able to prove a difference between "indoctrination" and "education," and the IRS - which would be tasked with conducting such a probe - is prohibited by federal law from targeting organizations "based on their ideological beliefs."

That university professors lean left is not shocking news. A 2018 study said that Democrat professors outnumber their Republican colleagues on campus ten to one, or 13 to one if military colleges aren't counted. On the streets, university professors are far more often seen marching with Antifa than the Proud Boys.
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Stop

On Ukrainian sabotage efforts in Crimea, Biden allegedly tells Poroshenko 'it can't come close to happening again'


RT
Thu, 09 Jul 2020 15:52 UTC
PoroshenkoBIden
© Reuters/Gleb Garanich/Scott Olson/Getty Images
Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko • Former US VP Joe Biden
Petro Poroshenko acknowledged that Ukraine carried out a sabotage operation in Crimea but promised it would never happen again, in what appears to be a 2016 phone call with the then-US Vice President Joe Biden.

Released by Ukrainian MP Andrii Derkach, the recording, allegedly from August 19, 2016, begins with 'Biden' expressing frustration over "Ukrainian intelligence operations" which occurred earlier that month in Crimea.

Derkach previously disclosed a batch of audio recordings of what sounded like Biden and Poroshenko discussing a range of topics. The leaked tapes have been interpreted by some as proof of corruption.

In the new recording, the alleged Biden reminds the alleged Poroshenko that the United States had previously disapproved of a Ukrainian plan to "sabotage military targets inside Russian territory." He then chides Poroshenko, stressing that "military and sabotage operations" should not be used against Moscow.

"Every time the CIA screws up in the United States, it's the president's responsibility. Period," Biden says.

The following video is in English.


Comment: Give a listen to the video. Check out the dynamics between Biden and Poroshenko.

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Cardboard Box

Pandora's box? US Supreme Court rules half of Oklahoma is 'Indian country'. Manhattan next?


RT
Thu, 09 Jul 2020 22:21 UTC
Indian looking at teepees
© Reuters/Stephanie Keith
While critics of US President Donald Trump gloated over the Supreme Court ruling in the matter of his taxes, another verdict returning much of Oklahoma to the Creek Nation has far bigger implications for the country down the line.

"On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise," Justice Neil Gorsuch - a Trump appointee presumed to be a conservative textualist - declared at the start of the majority opinion in McGirt v Oklahoma, referring to the removal of Native Americans that began in 1831.

Gorsuch sided with the four liberal justices in ruling that a large portion of Oklahoma was in fact "Indian country" for the purpose of criminal law. The 1866 treaty made with the Creek - now Muscogee - still applied, even if the state has exercised jurisdiction there for over a century, they said.

"Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word," Gorsuch wrote.


Comment: So... a 'conservative' Supreme Court just ruled that half of the state of Oklahoma is no longer Oklahoma... so that a convicted pedophile can get a re-trial?

What a plant Gorsuch turned out to be.

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HRC Blue

US slaps sanctions on Chinese officials for 'horrific abuse of Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs'


RFE/RL
Thu, 09 Jul 2020 18:14 UTC
crowd in China
© ET
The United States has imposed sanctions on senior Chinese officials for "horrific and systematic" human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minority groups in the western Xinjiang region. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on July 9:
"The United States will not stand idly by as the Chinese Communist Party carries out human rights abuses targeting Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang, to include forced labor, arbitrary mass detention, and forced population control, and attempts to erase their culture and Muslim faith,"
Three Chinese officials will be denied U.S. visas and have their U.S.-based assets frozen.

The three include Chen Quanguo, the Chinese Communist Party chief for the Xinjiang region and alleged architect of repression against religious and ethnic minorities. The other two targeted are Zhu Hailun, a former chief of Xinjiang's political and legal committee, and Wang Mingshan, the head of regional security.

The U.S. Treasury also sanctioned a fourth person, Huo Liujun, a former security official in Xinjiang.

These U.S. designations and visa restrictions are part of an intensifying effort to pressure China over gross human rights abuses reported in the Xinjiang region, where Beijing is accused of placing more than 1 million Uyghurs and members of other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in internment camps and prisons where they are subjected to ideological discipline, forced to denounce their religion and language, and physically abused since early 2017. China says the camps are reeducation and training centers needed to combat separatist terrorism and extremism.

Comment: The US uses human rights as a wedge or retaliation for self-serving purposes. This particular attack comes days after China imposed visa restrictions on particular US individuals.
As a result of the US move, the Chinese officials and their immediate family members are ineligible for entry into America. It is now a crime in the US to conduct financial transactions with all of them, and they will have their US-based assets frozen.

"The United States is taking action today against the horrific and systematic abuses in Xinjiang and calls on all nations who share our concerns about the CCP's attacks on human rights and fundamental freedoms to join us in condemning this behaviour," Pompeo said.

In a separate statement, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the US is committed to using the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world.

Chen is the highest-ranking Chinese official ever to be hit by US sanctions and previously charged in Tibet. Previously, Chen oversaw extensive abuses in Tibetan areas.


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