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Russia says WTO would likely cease to exist if United States quits trade body


RT
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 16:45 UTC
wto insignia
© Reuters / Denis Balibouse
The US withdrawal from the World Trade Organization (WTO) could lead to the extinction of the regulating body, the Kremlin said following US President Donald Trump's warning that Washington may leave the organization.

"The existence of [...] the backbone global economic organization after the world's largest economy leaves it will be a big question, it's obvious," the Russian president's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, as cited by Interfax. However, according to him, whatever the decision, it is a "US internal affair." At the same time, the Kremlin official emphasized that Russia remains a devoted member of the WTO "with all the ensuing consequences."

Addressing a gathering in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Trump said he was considering his country's exit from the WTO if conditions within the organization are not improved.

"We will leave [the WTO] if we have to. We know that they have been screwing us for years and it's not going to happen again," Trump told an audience of workers at a Shell chemical plant in Pennsylvania.
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Light Saber

A measure of vindication for Tulsi Gabbard

Scott Ritter
TruthDig
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 17:28 UTC
gabbard debate
© Paul Sancya / Associated Press
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard speaks in Detroit on July 31, 2019 during the second of two Democratic presidential primary debates hosted by CNN.
In the aftermath of the second Democratic primary debate on July 31, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard emerged as the most Googled of all candidates, an indication that her performance (which included a stunning takedown of California Sen. Kamala Harris over her criminal justice record) attracted the attention of many viewers. This heightened level of attention produced blowback, both from Harris, who dismissed Gabbard as "an Assad apologist" (a reference to Syrian President Bashar Assad), and from the mainstream media, typified by CNN's Chris Cuomo, who alleged that Gabbard — a major in the Hawaiian National Guard, with two tours of duty in the Middle East under her belt — is taking the side of Assad over the U.S. intelligence community and U.N. inspectors when it comes to assigning blame for chemical weapons attacks against Syrian civilians.

"What you are referring to are [sic] cynicism as skepticism that I have expressed, because I've served in a war that was caused by people who lied to us, who lied to the American people, who presented false evidence that members of Congress and U.S. senators believed and voted for a war that resulted in the loss of lives of over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform," Gabbard replied to Cuomo. "It's our responsibility as lawmakers and as leaders in this country to make sure that our U.S. military is not being activated and deployed to go to war unless we are certain a) that it serves the best interests of the American people; and b) that that action will actually have a positive impact. The questions I'm raising are based on this experience that I've had."
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MIB

CIA-MOSSAD cluster-f**k? Neutralizing the Jeffrey Epstein case

Ronald Thomas West
Fort Russ News
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 15:57 UTC
epstein white house prostitution ring
© Washington Times/Fort Russ News
"Cohn's job was to run the little boys. Say you had an admiral, a general, a congressman, who did not want to go along with the program. Cohn's job was to set them up, then they would go along" [1]
What is interesting about this small snippet is,
1) Concurrent to the present Epstein case, a subsequent Pentagon pedophilia scandal of epic proportions is not followed, juxtaposed to the Epstein reporting or even reported on at all by mainstream press [2]

2) The 'con' pimping little boys to the Pentagon and Congress happened to be Roy Cohn, a longtime mafioso attorney who cross-references both MOSSAD & CIA via organized crime and, as well, Cohn was a Donald Trump mentor.

3) "Many of the same names that surrounded Cohn until death in the late 1980s would later come to surround Jeffrey Epstein, with their names later appearing in Epstein's now-infamous "little black book"" [3]
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Better Earth

Decade in the making: US-Taliban peace deal appears within reach

Frud Bezhan
RFE/RL
Wed, 14 Aug 2019 17:00 UTC
taliban moscow

Members of a Taliban delegation, led by chief negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (center), leave after peace talks with Afghan politicians in Moscow in May.
In the fall of 2010, U.S. officials secretly met a young Taliban representative outside the southern German city of Munich.

Tayyib Agha, a member of the militant group's political wing, presented the U.S. diplomats with a road map for a negotiated end to the war.

It was not the United States' first contact with the Taliban.

Since the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, the militant group had sought a channel with Washington. There had been contact between U.S. and Taliban military commanders. But the 2010 meeting, brokered by Germany, was a turning point in the conflict.

"For the first time, both the Taliban and the United States had some degree of seriousness in seeking talks towards a political settlement," Jarrett Blanc, a former diplomat who was involved in former President Barack Obama administration's negotiations with the Taliban, tells RFE/RL. "Even then, people knew enough to know that we weren't going to 'win the war.'"

But in the intervening years, meaningful U.S.-Taliban talks failed to take off, hampered by mutual mistrust, missed opportunities, protests by the Afghan government, and the deaths of two successive Taliban leaders.


Comment: In other words, U.S. leadership insisted on continuing to fight a war it could never win, and doing all it could to make sure it stayed that way.


Now, nearly a decade since those initial secret contacts, the United States and the Taliban are apparently on the verge of agreeing to a landmark peace deal that would end the United States' longest-ever war.
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Arrow Up

Syrian Army advances in Idlib and Hama, clears 1000 sq km from terrorist occupiers

Drago Bosnic
Fort Russ News
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 16:34 UTC
Syrian Army personnel
The Syrian Army continued its mop-up operations to purge the demilitarized zone in northern Syria of terrorists, and regained full control of over 30 regions there.

Idlib, Hama

The Syrian Documents Center news website reported that the Syrian Army has liberated 34 towns and villages covering an area of 1000 square kilometers in northern Hama and southern Idlib. It pointed to the Syrian Army advances deep inside the demilitarized zone to reopen Aleppo-Damascus Road, and said that the government troops have tightened the noose on Tahrir al-Sham al-Hay'at (the Levant Liberation Board or the Al-Nusra Front) in the city of Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib.

Also in the past 24 hours, the Syrian Army came closer to capturing areas north of Hama province after its recent advances in southern Idlib that have expanded its rule to areas very close to the strategic city of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian Army troops engaged in fierce clashes with terrorists from al-Hobait in southern Idlib and took control of Tal A'as heights and the town of Kafar Ain to West of Khan Sheikhoun.

Meanwhile, the Arabic-language website of the Russian Sputnik news agency reported that the Syrian and Russian air forces conducted several airstrikes on the terrorists' centers in Khan Sheikhoun as well as the terrorists' movements near Khan Sheikhoun. A battlefield source also said that the Syrian Army troops are presently seven kilometers to the west of Khan Sheikhoun on al-Hobait road and six kilometers to the east of Khan Sheikhoun on al-Sakik road.

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Dollar Gold

Big election business: Democratic candidates, even critical of Facebook, pour millions into platform


RT
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 16:39 UTC
facebook
© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
Though many Democrats have decried the role of social media giant Facebook in spreading 'fake news' during the 2016 presidential election, the party's new debate rules are driving candidates to shovel millions into the platform.

Even as a growing number of 2020 hopefuls get in line to suggest breaking up the tech firm - arguing it wields too much power and influence, and that it helps to spread misinformation online - their campaigns continue to spend lavishly on Facebook ads.

In the last 90 days, billionaire-investor-turned-candidate Tom Steyer has spent $3.1 million on some 3,200 Facebook ads, blowing the next largest Democratic social media spender, Kirsten Gillibrand, out of the water by over $1 million, according to the site's ad library. In the same period, several top Democratic candidates also spent in excess of $1 million on Facebook ads, including Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar.
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Sherlock

Fact check: Kamala Harris makes false claim about Trump and auto jobs

Daniel Dale
CNN
Wed, 14 Aug 2019 16:22 UTC
kamala
© CNN
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Sen. Kamala Harris argued that President Donald Trump has failed to deliver on his promises to workers. And she issued a dire warning about autoworkers' jobs in particular.

"He said he was going to help working people, and it is estimated that as many as 300,000 autoworkers may be out of a job before the end of the year," she said aboard her campaign bus in Iowa.

That was a more conservative figure than Harris used July 12 on the radio show "The Breakfast Club," during which she said, "He's helped the top 1% and the biggest corporations. Meanwhile, some estimate that as many as 700,000 autoworkers were going to lose their job before the end of the year."

Both figures are incorrect.
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Snakes in Suits

Justin Trudeau broke federal ethics rules in corruption scandal

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 16:05 UTC
Justin Trudeau
In a hotly anticipated report released months after a former member of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet alleged that Trudeau and several members of his inner circle had tried to pressure her into dropping criminal charges against SNC-Lavalin, Canadian Ethics commissioner Mario Dion has ruled that, in doing so, Trudeau violated a section of the Conflict of Interest Act.

In a report published on Wednesday, the commissioner said Trudeau used his position of authority over Jody Wilson-Raybould, the aforementioned former AG and Justice Minister, to try and convince her to halt a criminal prosecution of the Montreal-based engineering giant. According to the report, Trudeau violated Canada's federal Conflict of Interest Act.
"The prime minister, directly and through his senior officials, used various means to exert influence over Ms. Wilson‑Raybould," Dion said.

"The authority of the prime minister and his office was used to circumvent, undermine and ultimately attempt to discredit the decision of the director of public prosecutions as well as the authority of Ms. Wilson‑Raybould as the Crown's chief law officer."

Comment: Trudeau responded by admitting his role but dug in his heels and refused to apologize because he was trying to "defend jobs". Apparently ethics rules are only important to Trudeau when they fit with virtue signaling actions.

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Boat

Gibraltar releases Grace 1 tanker after US move to seize it

Brian Reyes
Gibraltar Chronicle
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 16:08 UTC
royal navy patrol grace 1
© REUTERS/Jon Nazca
A Royal Navy patrol vessel guards the oil tanker Grace 1, after it was seized off Gibraltar, July 20, 2019
The US Department of Justice has applied to seize the Iranian supertanker Grace 1 in Gibraltar, just hours before the Gibraltar Government was poised to release it.

Gibraltar had been due to lift the detention on the ship this morning but the move by the US means the decision has now been adjourned until 4pm today.

The developments were revealed by Joseph Triay, the lawyer for Attorney General Michael Llamas QC, during a short hearing in the Supreme Court of Gibraltar.

Mr Triay said: "This application was to have taken a very different turn. It was to have been an application for no further order of detention."

The grounds for the US application are not clear at this stage but the court was told it was a request from the Department of Justice for mutual legal assistance.

The case has now been adjourned until 4pm this afternoon while Gibraltar's authorities consider the US application.

Speaking in court, Chief Justice Anthony Dudley made clear that were it not for the US move, "the ship would have sailed."

Comment: Well, it looks like those matters were considered ... and rejected:
Authorities in Gibraltar have released the Iranian oil tanker Grace 1, after receiving assurances that its cargo is not destined for Syria. ... Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo agreed to lift the detention on the ship, however, after Tehran gave written assurances that its cargo - 2.1 million barrels of oil - would not be unloaded in Syria. "In light of the assurances we have received, there are no longer any reasonable grounds for the continued legal detention of the Grace 1 in order to ensure compliance with the EU Sanctions Regulation," he said.


The United States requested the government of Gibraltar to transfer control of the vessel to Washington, but Iran's ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baeidinejad, said that effort had failed.

"The US, with its desperate, last-minute efforts, intended to prevent the release of the [Grace 1] oil tanker from detention, and was faced with humiliation," Baeidinejad said.


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Blue Planet

Sane court ruling: Alaskan battered women's shelter not required to admit trans-woman

Kevin Daily
The Daily Caller
Tue, 13 Aug 2019 15:23 UTC
women shelter anchorage
© Youtube/Alliance Defending Freedom
An Anchorage civil rights panel cannot enforce an anti-discrimination ordinance against a battered women's shelter that refused to admit a trans-woman, a federal court in Alaska ruled.

"Downtown Hope Center serves everyone, but women deserve a safe place to stay overnight," said lawyer Kate Anderson of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a public interest law practice that represents Hope Center. "No woman — particularly not an abuse survivor — should be forced to sleep or disrobe next to a man. The court's order will allow the center to continue in its duty to protect the vulnerable women it serves while this lawsuit moves forward."

The shelter is a Christian ministry which operates consistent with its religious views, including the belief that sex is immutable. Hope Center serves approximately 142,000 meals per year, according to ADF lawyers.

Comment: Kudos to the Alaskan court for coming down on the side of common sense. No matter the dress, makeup, hormones or surgery, a male-bodied individual cannot make themselves into a female-bodied individual, only the facsimile of one. The differences go down to the cellular level.

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