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New Yorker spins Hunter Biden's drug addiction as 'a plus' to boost Joe Biden's sinking polls


RT
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 10:14 UTC
Hunter,Joe Biden
© Access/Screenshot
Hunter Biden and Joe Biden
Does Hunter Biden's crack use humanize his father, or serve as another black mark in the ledger against the Democratic frontrunner? Mainstream media has put the spin machine into top gear as Joe Biden sinks in the polls.

Hunter, the youngest son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, has spilled his guts to the New Yorker, weaving a sordid tale of addiction, affairs, and alcoholism that the outlet has heroically tried to spin as a positive. After Joe Biden's abysmal debate performance, the alleged frontrunner - whom even the New York Times has admitted has all the flaws of Hillary Clinton in 2016, plus the deadly "white male" factor - needs all the help he can get.

And the New Yorker has gamely tried to frame the younger Biden's troubles as a plus for dad. It noted that most candidates are "relentlessly bland" but the former VP - whom mainstream media has been consistently calling the 2020 Democratic frontrunner since his campaign launch, despite a scandal-studded history that would sink multiple less-well-heeled candidates - has "responded to tragedy" and "learned from it."

Comment: See also:

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Beaker

Trump: Afghanistan is a 'lab for terrorists'


RFE/RL
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 02:50 UTC
Trump
© Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump has described Afghanistan as a "lab for terrorists," saying in a television interview that if the United States withdrew its military forces from the country, he would still leave a "very strong intelligence" presence behind.

"I call it the Harvard of terrorists," Trump said about Afghanistan and referring to the prestigious private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Trump made the remarks in an interview conducted during the weekend with Fox News that was broadcast on July 1. The interview was recorded before a truck-bomb attack by Taliban fighters in Kabul on July 1 that killed at least six people and wounded 105.

It was broadcast after U.S. special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met on July 1 for a seventh round of peace talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar. The focus of the talks has been a Taliban demand that foreign forces leave Afghanistan and a U.S. demand for a guarantee that Afghanistan will not be used as a base for attacks elsewhere.

Comment: See also:



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Attention

Lavrov to EU big three: Recognize your responsibility for preserving JCPOA


Sputnik
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 17:13 UTC
Lavrov
© Al-Masdar News
Russian FM Sergei Lavrov
Russia is calling on the so-called EU big three to recognise their responsibility for preserving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), including through enabling Iran to sell its oil, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

"I would very much like our European colleagues to fully understand their responsibility for preserving the JCPOA. They have very important commitments under this plan, including to ensure Iran's economic interests, enabling it to sell oil and receive revenue, which is an integral component of the agreement", Lavrov stressed.

The minister also noted that Tehran had exceeded its enriched uranium stockpile limits due to US sanctions.

"In order to understand the reasons for what is happening now, it is necessary to see the entire picture. Part of these obligations [under the JCPOA] is voluntary commitments undertaken by Iran to comply with the limits of stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and heavy water. But this is necessarily linked with Iran's right... to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent and produce heavy water, and Iran had the right to sell excesses, which was done... until recently", Lavrov said.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

Fallout from Airbus subsidies? Revenge for INSTEX? US considers $4B more in tariffs on EU


RT
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 02:03 UTC
wallet for dinner
© Pixabay/Peter-facebook
The US is eyeing tariffs on $4 billion more in European products, citing vague "additional analysis" ostensibly in a row over aircraft subsidies. The decision comes days after the EU restarted trade in essential goods with Iran.

The US trade representative has released a list of 89 categories of goods featuring an array of European foods and liquor to be added to April's compendium of products subject to proposed import duties, which is already worth some $21 billion, claiming the additional tariffs are "in response to public comments and following initial analysis."

Frozen pig meat, fermented and curdled milk products, Gouda, Edam, and an array of Italian cheeses, olives, coffee, pasta, whisky, certain chemicals and metals appear on the USTR's list of additional products. A public hearing will be held in August to discuss the measures.

Comment: For more back and forth on the tariff wars insanity, see also:

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Yoda

Irish MEPs wear 'Free Assange' T-shirts supporting WikiLeaks founder on first day in EU Parliament


RT
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 19:15 UTC
Irish MEP EU free assange
© Twitter/ Clare Daly
Clare Daly and Mick Wallace in the European Parliament on Tuesday.
As the European Parliament reopened in Strasbourg on Tuesday, two freshly elected Irish MEPs marked the occasion by donning T-shirts supporting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the parliament chamber.

Independent politicians Mick Wallace and Clare Daly put all their new colleagues on notice with the eye-catching garments which featured a striking image of Assange, gagged with a US flag, emblazoned across their chests.

"Assange is in prison because he exposed the ugliness of US Foreign Policy. Anyone who cares about a free independent media should challenge the treatment of Julian Assange," Wallace wrote on Twitter.

Comment: The Irish are known for supporting humanitarian causes, being one of the first EU countries to endorse BDS

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Bad Guys

Kamala Harris campaign lawyer, Mark Elias, was responsible for hiring Fusion GPS for Clinton presidential run

Jerry Dunleavy
The Washington Examiner
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 18:31 UTC
hillary clinton mark elias perkins coie
© Alex Wong/Getty Images, AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Breitbart News edit
Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and Perkins Coie lawyer Mark Elias
The former top lawyer for Hillary Clinton's failed presidential campaign who hired Fusion GPS to carry out controversial opposition research against then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016 is now working for a top 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful.

Marc Elias, who heads Perkins Coie's political law group, became general counsel for California Sen. Kamala Harris' presidential bid this year. Elias, who held the same position in Clinton's campaign, is named in two pending Federal Election Commission complaints and in a recent federal lawsuit alleging that the Clinton campaign broke campaign finance laws when it used Perkins Coie to hire Fusion GPS.

Fusion GPS went on to hire British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who compiled an unverified dossier allegedly based on sources close to the Kremlin which was disseminated to the media and used by the FBI to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is reviewing alleged FISA abuse related to the dossier and Attorney General William Barr launched his "investigation of the investigators" earlier this year.

Comment:

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Health

'It is our fault': El Salvador president says his country is to blame for migrant deaths in Rio Grande

Adry Torres
Daily Mail
Mon, 01 Jul 2019 16:40 UTC
El salvador migrants
El Salvador president-elect Nayib Bukele said migration should be a choice rather than an 'obligation' for residents of his nation a week after the bodies of a Salvadoran young man and his daughter were pictured floating in the Rio Grande circled the globe.

Bukele, who took office June 1, said late Sunday that the drownings were 'a great tragedy.'

On Monday, about 200 relatives and friends followed a hearse bearing the bodies of Óscar Martínez and his 23-month-old daughter Angie Valeria Martínez inside La Bermeja municipal cemetery in the capital city of San Salvador.

The ceremony was private, and journalists were not allowed access.

Comment: The world's problems cannot be understood through black and white thinking, and the migrant crisis is proof of that. It is heartening to see El Salvador's president claim responsibility. More leaders need to do the same. The US bears responsibility here as well, as do many other countries who have participated in creating this mess.

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Eye 1

UK Home Office spark outrage after saying Nigerian sex slaves return home 'wealthy' & 'enjoy status'


RT
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 18:55 UTC
Nigerian women trafficking
© Reuters / Maxim Shemetov
Nigerian women rescued from trafficking
British officials controversially implied that human-trafficking victims from Nigeria become rich and get royal treatment upon returning home, when, in fact, the opposite is true, a Nigerian journalist told RT.

The Home Office, which is responsible for law enforcement and security, said in its updated policy note that Nigerian human-trafficking victims return home "wealthy from prostitution" where they "enjoy high social-economic status" and are "often held in high regard because they have improved income prospects."

This passage enraged human rights campaigners and politicians in Britain, who demanded that the Home Office delete it and apologize.
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Star of David

Israeli government minister crows over his role getting anti-BDS laws passed in 27 states

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 17:40 UTC
Gilad Erdan, minister of strategic affairs israel BDS
© Jerusalem Post/screenshot
Gilad Erdan, minister of strategic affairs, June 16, 2019, Jerusalem Post conference, NY.
A leading Israeli government minister takes credit for 27 U.S. states passing laws aimed at curbing citizens' advocacy for BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign targeting Israel.

Gilad Erdan, minister for strategic affairs and information under Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed the Jerusalem Post conference in New York two weeks ago, and bragged that the Israeli government had taken its fights "to the enemy," and that includes BDS.
When I was charged with leading this fight, BDS leaders operated freely and were largely successful in disguising themselves as human rights organizations... We tore off their masks. We exposed their ties to terror, we exposed their deeprooted antisemitism, we exposed their opposition to peace, and we exposed of course their hypocrisy. They couldn't care less about the real human rights violations, for example in Syria and Iran. All they care about is demonizing and delegitimizing the world's only Jewish and democratic state.

Comment: Gilad Erdan has been at the center of Israel's anti-BDS campaign for years. There is no tactic too low for him. He is also champing at the bit to finish annexing the West Bank, re-invade Gaza, and get the US going to fight Israel's war with Iran. A true fanatic.

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Bulb

Former Revolutionary Guards commander says Iran should consider talking to Trump

Golnaz Esfandiari
RFE/RL
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 17:28 UTC
Hossein Alaei

“We can’t leave aside talks, but how to talk is another issue," said ex-IRGC naval commander Hossein Alaei.
Amid escalating tensions with the United States and mounting sanctions pressuring Iran's economy, a former senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) says Tehran should not rule out holding talks with Washington.

"We can't leave aside talks, but how to talk is another issue," said ex-IRGC naval commander Hossein Alaei.

"We have to use the tools of power, meaning negotiations," the former deputy defense minister was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA in Tehran on June 30.

Alaei's opinion appeared to be at odds with Iran's highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has categorically rejected holding negotiations with the United States.

Alaei added that Tehran should have accepted an early offer for talks without preconditions made by U.S. President Donald Trump and then set the agenda.
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