Puppet Masters
After President Trump announced last week a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates focused on normalizing relations between the two Middle East nations, Trump's son-in-law stressed that Israel won't follow through on annexation without U.S. approval.
"Israel has agreed with us that they will not move forward without our consent. We do not plan to give our consent for some time," Kushner told reporters on Monday.
Comment: The truth about Sweden has been out there for some time now, but don't expect to hear anything about it from the talking heads in corporate media:
- Sweden's success shows the true cost of our arrogant, failed establishment
- Sweden's head epidemiologist: 'Dangerous' to think masks will stop virus
- Sweden: The One Chart That Matters
- Why Sweden remains mask-free
- Looks Like Sweden Was Right After All
- Sweden's Covid expert says 'world went mad' with lockdowns
- No, Sweden has not changed its mind about lockdown
- Sweden's economy grows well ahead of the rest after opting against full lockdown
- Sweden's triumph: Staying free in a lockdown world
- Sweden's chief epidemiologist receives death threats for resisting globalists' lockdown orders
- Biased mainstream media again misuses science to paint sensible Sweden as reckless gamblers - here is why they are wrong
- Herd immunity: Sweden is the model
- Why Sweden has already won the debate on COVID 'lockdown' policy
- Why Sweden succeeded while others failed
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week proposed an online gathering, featuring Iran, Germany and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Defusing tensions around Iran and making the region safer can be achieved "if our countries and the regional states combine their political will and creative energy,"said the Kremlin's statement on the matter.
According to Tehran, that part is the hardest to achieve. "We understand the good intentions of Mr Putin to reduce tensions. However, one way or another, we doubt that such a meeting will be effective in the absence of sincerity on the part of the American government," Iranian government spokesperson Ali Rabiei told Russian news agency RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
Probably, the US president [Donald Trump] will not dare to take part in the summit because he is convinced that he will again be isolated.
FILE PHOTO: Trump on Air Force One
The White House referred queries to the Pentagon, which confirmed that the incident, which was described by reporters aboard the plane as Mr. Trump was returning from his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J. Sunday evening, was being examined.
"The 89th Airlift Wing is aware of the report. The matter is under review," said a statement from the Air Force unit which oversees Air Force One operations at Joint Base Andrews, Md. "The 89th Airlift Wing's C-32A aircraft landed safely without incident."
On the hunt for The Covid
But the spectacle of millions of masked-up Victorians, clinking elbows if they find someone else bold enough to have stepped outside, suggests our response is over the top, born of a mistaken belief that governments have more control over the course of events than they really do.
King Canute realised he couldn't control the tides. Outbreaks of the coronavirus in Victoria and New Zealand should remind us that controlling the spread of an invisible, highly contagious virus is not much easier.
Comment: Coronaviruses and many other types of highly contagious viruses are essentially designed by Nature to blanket the entire human population as quickly as possible.
In fact, we're MEANT to be infected by them because they're essentially 'system upgrades', without which the ever-changing near-Earth and planetary environment would REALLY kill us all!
Which means that trying to stop such system upgrades is the height of folly. Really, it's the stupidest thing the human race has ever attempted to do.
And that's saying something.
© Dreamstime/FT Montage
In the first quarter of 2020, the dollar's share of trade between Russia and China fell below 50 per cent for the first time on record, according to recent data from Russia's Central Bank and Federal Customs Service.
The greenback was used for only 46 per cent of settlements between the two countries. At the same time, the euro made up an all-time high of 30 per cent, while their national currencies accounted for 24 per cent, also a new high.
Russia and China have drastically cut their use of the dollar in bilateral trade over the past several years. As recently as 2015, approximately 90 per cent of bilateral transactions were conducted in dollars. Following the outbreak of the US-China trade war and a concerted push by both Moscow and Beijing to move away from the dollar, however, the figure had dropped to 51 per cent by 2019.
© MintPress/Antonio Cabrera
An online media company is suing social media giant Facebook for falsely smearing it as a Russian state-controlled propaganda outlet. Maffick, the owner of In The Now, Soapbox and Waste-Ed, has filed a lawsuit against Facebook in a Northern California district court for defamation, intentional interference and violating section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, unjustly causing them economic and reputational harm, claiming that Facebook's actions represent unfair competitive practices.
Go to any of the Maffick-owned Facebook pages, including In The Now (4.9 million followers), which focuses on light-hearted news and social justice issues, Soapbox (320,000 followers), featuring politically opinionated videos, or Waste-Ed (216,000 followers), with content on environmental topics, and you are greeted with a warning from Facebook: "This publisher is wholly or partially under the editorial control of a state." Maffick strenuously denies this, noting that its sole owner, Anissa Naouai, is a U.S. citizen living in California. "In doing all of these actions, Facebook has acted fraudulently, with actual malice and in reckless disregard for the truth," the complaint alleges.
© SIMON SCHLUTER/FAIRFAX/HEADPRESS/REDUX/Reuters/Jim Bourg
New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern • US Prsident Donald Trump
New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern • US Prsident Donald Trump
Ardern has postponed the elections in New Zealand for a month so the country can deal with a new spike in Covid-19 cases. The Kiwi PM has become something of a darling of liberal outlets around the world who larrup praise on her progressive outlook, being a female world leader and, most recently, the way she has dealt with the pandemic.
New Zealand has so far only had 22 deaths related to Covid-19, which is obviously all down to Ms Ardern and nothing to do with the fact that New Zealand is sparsely populated, over a thousand miles away from any other country and has five times as many sheep as people.
Comment: See also:
- New Zealand election postponed four weeks due to COVID-19 pandemic says PM
- With 22 deaths in population of 5M, New Zealand races to track origin as new COVID-19 cases jump to 13
- New Zealand acclaimed 'world leader' in handling Covid-19 as it announces enforced relocation of 'infected' to 'quarantine centers'
- Presidential election: A big push for mail-in voting will lead to chaos, allegations of fraud and worse
© file image
Members of Taliban
Members of Taliban
According to CNN, the Iranian government has paid "bounties" to the Haqqani network, a terrorist group with close links to the Taliban, for six attacks on US and coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2019, including one on December 11 which targeted Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which wounded four US personnel.
This explosive allegation was contained in a Pentagon briefing document which was reviewed by CNN. While the bounties mentioned were attributed to an unnamed "foreign government," CNN claims that sources "familiar with" the intelligence named the country as Iran. These bounties, and the attacks on US personnel they underwrote, played a role in the deliberations that led to the assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Quds Force, by US forces in early January 2020, the network reported.
Comment: As the US increases deflection, it diminishes credibility. America's real enemies are operating from within.
Comment: Israel's pathological thirst for hegemony and carnage in the Middle East has likely been quenched a bit with what was likely their doing in the recent Beirut explosion. They can afford to seem magnanimous and peaceful for a few minutes while they wonder if any evidence of that atrocity comes to light.