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US sidestepped OWN SANCTIONS against Russia to save American lives from Covid-19... If only it cared as much about Iranian lives

Scott Ritter
RT
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 19:11 UTC
medical aid
© Ruptly
When it comes to saving American lives, sanctions are not an obstacle to the provision of life-saving medical equipment. Ramping up sanctions on struggling Iran is okay however - which goes to show the US price tag on human life.

It was a sight that warmed the heart of even the most cynical American opponent of Vladimir Putin's Russia — a giant An-124 aircraft, loaded with boxes of desperately needed medical supplies, being offloaded at JFK Airport. When President Trump spoke on the phone with his Russian counterpart on March 31, he mentioned America's need for life-saving medical supplies, including ventilators and personal protective equipment. Two days later the AN-124 arrived in New York.

As the aircraft was being unloaded, however, it became clear that at least some of the equipment being offloaded had been delivered in violation of existing US sanctions. Boxes clearly marked as containing Aventa-M ventilators, produced by the Ural Instrument Engineering Plant (UPZ), could be seen. For weeks now President Trump has made an issue about the need for ventilators in the US to provide life-saving care for stricken Americans.
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Key

US hands over fourth air base to Iraqi forces

Shawn Snow
Military Times
Sat, 04 Apr 2020 17:11 UTC
Al-Taqaddum US forces leave base Iraq
© Sgt. Robert G. Gavaldon/ Marine Corps
U.S. Marines with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, assigned to Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command prepare their gear for departure in support of the transfer of Al-Taqaddum, Iraq, Mar. 24, 2020.
The U.S. handed over the al-Taqaddum Air Base to Iraqi forces on Saturday — it's the fourth base to be handed over to Iraqi Security Forces over the last several weeks.

The al-Taqaddum Air Base is located between Ramadi and Fallujah. The coalition says the base transfers are a result of success against ISIS.

"These pre-planned base transfers are not related to recent attacks against Iraqi bases hosting Coalition troops, or the ongoing COVID-19 situation in Iraq," Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a news release.

Comment:

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Bullseye

Belarus's president warns global elites using COVID-19 crisis to try to reshape world order

Ilya Tsukanov
Sputnik
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 16:49 UTC
Alexander Lukashenko
© Sputnik
Alexander Lukashenko
Belarus has been one of the few nations in the northern hemisphere to resist introducing nation-wide quarantines and other large-scale restrictions in its battle with the new coronavirus, instead preferring a targeted response.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has expressed concerns over how powerful nations and interests may try to use the coronavirus pandemic to reshape the world to their own advantage.
"I once asked the question: is this pandemic, this coronavirus, a man-made phenomenon? I don't know the answer yet, but I have my suspicions. Are politicians and others using this situation for their own purposes? You and I both know the answer to that question. You already see how it is used today...Doesn't it seem to you that the powerful forces of the world would like to remake the world, without a 'war' (Emmanuel Macron has already called it a war), through this so-called 'corona-psychosis', or 'info-demic'? Many people are asking: 'what will happen after the pandemic?'" Lukashenko said, speaking to Mir TV in an interview airing Friday.
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Light Saber

'Medicare for all'? Trump rolls out plan for funding Covid-19 treatments in US


RT
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 00:00 UTC
Trump & Medicare for all
© euters / Kevin Lamarque; Reuters / Aaron P. Bernstein
The Trump administration has said it intends to pay providers treating coronavirus patients at 'Medicare rates' and prohibit additional billing - in effect, testing a flagship progressive proposal for nationalized healthcare.

"We will send money to providers through the same mechanism used for testing," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters on Friday, referring to the $100 billion in funds earmarked for healthcare providers in the CARES stimulus act.

The government will reimburse any patients with Covid-19 that lack health insurance at Medicare rates, and will ban them from "balance-billing" those patients, Azar added, noting that this will give the millions of newly unemployed - and therefore uninsured - Americans a better deal than falling back on "Obamacare" insurance exchanges.

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Snakes in Suits

How BlackRock leveraged control of the US economy

Jazzhands McFeels
Fash the Nation
Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:00 UTC
black rock
© Fash the Nation
In less than a week the Federal Reserve has been merged with the U.S. Treasury (implying it wasn't always that way) and BlackRock, the world's largest and most powerful financial services institution, has been put in charge of executing future acquisitions and trades.

Who is BlackRock? What do they own? And perhaps more importantly, what and who do they control? Jazz and James dive into BlackRock and uncover a significant portion of the apparatus by which U.S. politics are controlled and manipulated.

Jazz and James hit the big breaking topics out of the gate: urns piling up, millions of closed cell phone accounts, theater closures, reinfections, and rioting, Trump's refusal to release disaster unemployment funds, and 175K Instacart workers poised for a Monday strike. After the break, we pivot to the Fed-Treasury merger (implying) and a nnndeep-nnndive into BlackRock - who they are, what they own, and how they control just about everything. In part 3, we go snorkel depth on the Defense Production Act. If it's Sunday, it's FTN!

Comment: See also: Ground Control to Planet Lockdown: This is Only a Test

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Pirates

US snatches masks from Germany in act of "modern piracy" - Berlin senator


RT
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 20:17 UTC
N95 masks
© Reuters / Mike Segar
FILE PHOTO: Boxes of N95 protective masks seen at a New York State emergency center in New Rochelle, New York, March 17, 2020
With Covid-19 infections climbing, Washington has diverted shipments of vital protective masks from its allies in Germany and Canada to the US. A Berlin senator described the move as "modern piracy."

As confirmed coronavirus cases passed 250,000 in the US this week, the White House pressured safety gear manufacturer 3M to step up imports of protective masks from its Chinese factories. Trump publicly promised on Thursday that 3M would "have a big price to pay" if it didn't increase supply to the US.

But behind the scenes, American officials were acquiring these masks by more underhand means.
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Light Sabers

German FM threatens Hungary with 'financial consequences' after PM Orban gains emergency powers to fight coronavirus


RT
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 03:09 UTC
Heiko Maas and Viktor Orban
© Reuters / Annegret Hilse and Bernadett Szabo
Heiko Maas and Viktor Orban
Germany's foreign minister has said that Hungary's PM Viktor Orban may literally pay for what his opponents called "a power grab." Orban, well used to criticism from Brussels, has brushed off the anger.

Viktor Orban secured the power to rule by decree on Monday in a bid to stem the outbreak of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic. The Hungarian leader - whose party holds a two-thirds majority in parliament - was cleared to rule without constraint until parliament withdraws his right to do so.

Branding the move "unacceptable," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas took a jab at Orban, saying his powers may come with a heavy cost.
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Putin

Global crude production should be cut by 10 mln barrels per day, Russia ready to work with US on oil markets - Putin


RT
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 03:07 UTC
oil flow
© REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country is ready to cooperate with Donald Trump's US administration to halt the freefall of oil prices, He believes global crude production should be cut by 10 million barrels daily.

Oil prices went started sinking after OPEC+ countries disagreed on production cuts, with Saudi Arabia refusing to lower their output. With an ongoing "price war" between Moscow and Riyadh driving values even lower, Trump said on Thursday that "it would be great" if the two countries could make a deal to limit production.

Putin had already spoken to Trump by phone earlier in the week, and on Friday announced that the world needs to cut production by 10 million barrels per day (BPD). The US produces around 15 million BPD, followed by Saudi Arabia with 12 million and Russia with 10 million. Putin said that moving forward, Moscow would be comfortable with a price of $42 per barrel, roughly $10-15 higher than current levels.
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Snakes in Suits

Netanyahu's proof of Iranian Coronavirus cover-up was clip from TV mini-series

Michael Arria
Mondoweiss
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 11:31 UTC
Pandemic

A poster for the 2007 Hallmark Channel miniseries, "Pandemic"
Axios reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared a video with members of his cabinet, which he believed to be proof of an Iranian coronavirus cover-up. It turns out that it was actually a clip from the 2007 Hallmark Channel mini-series Pandemic.

Two Israeli Cabinet ministers told reporter Barak Ravid that Netanyahu had informed them that he'd personally seen proof that Iran was concealing the full extent of the COVID-19 crisis in their country. He said that national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat had shown him a video of Iranian soldiers putting dead bodies in trucks and throwing them into garbage dumps.

Comment: Sputnik reports:
He showed it to illustrate his "assertions that Iran was being untruthful about the real consequences of coronavirus," Raz Zimmit, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told Ynet.
Netanyahu's office later realised, however, that the clip was taken from Pandemic, a mini-series about an unknown virus infecting Los Angeles, which aired on the Hallmark Channel in 2007.

The prime minister allegedly said that he had been shown the clip by the chief of the National Security Council. It appears to have been shared by users with Arab-language nicknames on social media in the days before Monday's briefing, which could explain how it came to the attention of Israeli security officials.

Notably, Netanyahu's office did not deny the story, but said that it showed the footage only to three ministers and made it clear that the clip was found on social media and its authenticity was unclear.

Iran has reported 47,593 coronavirus cases and 3,036 deaths as of Wednesday, although some officials within the country have accused the government of underreporting the real death count. Tehran has denied covering up the full extent of the outbreak.



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Bizarro Earth

We cannot allow Facebook and Twitter to use Covid-19 to launch their own coup d'état


RT
Thu, 02 Apr 2020 16:01 UTC
Twitter
© Getty Images / Omar Marques / SOPA Images / LightRocket
World leaders are having their social media posts deleted under the guise of the pandemic, but is this just the beginning of socially destructive subterfuge?

A few days ago, Facebook and Twitter decided to delete contributions from two world leaders. The first was Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who shared a video and aired his view that "hydroxychloroquine is working in all places" to treat Covid-19. Facebook decided it was against what the World Health Organization had decreed and trashed the video. Twitter followed up by removing two of Bolsonaro's tweets.

They also deleted a tweet by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in which he spoke of a "brew" that would eliminate any infectious genes.

Even former New York Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani got his knuckles rapped. His tweet quoting someone else stating that hydroxychloroquine is 100 percent effective had the vanishing spray applied too.
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