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What's behind Israeli PM's unscheduled stopover in Moscow

Netanyahu
© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
FILE PHOTO Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia February 27, 2019.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Russia after unveiling a peace proposal alongside US President Donald Trump in Washington. The 'deal of the century' was met with skepticism and outrage around the world.

The caretaker prime minister was in Washington, DC on Tuesday alongside his chief rival, retired General Benny Gantz, as Trump unveiled his controversial "Vision" that included a two-state solution, Israeli control of Jerusalem and no right of return for Palestinians.

Netanyahu's office said he would return from Washington to Tel Aviv via Moscow, something that was previously not included on his official itinerary.

Comment: Considering the magnitude of the 'deal of the century', it's unlikely that Netanyahu was visiting Putin because of a convicted drug trafficker. We may be able to derive some clues as to what occurred at the meeting in the following days as the world responds to the deplorable proposal, as well as any other events that may relate back to that which has been put in motion by Israel and the US.

See also:


Newspaper

Catalan president to call early election as divisions grow between 2 pro-independence parties

Quim Torra
© Nacho Doce/Reuters
Spain's Catalan president, Quim Torra, speaking in Barcelona, said: 'No government can work without unity and without a shared, common strategy and loyalty between partners.'
Catalonia's separatist president, Quim Torra, has announced he will call an early regional election amid growing divisions and deteriorating relations between the two pro-independence parties in his coalition government.

In an address that laid bare the splits between his centre-right Together for Catalonia party and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), Torra said: "No government can work without unity and without a shared, common strategy and loyalty between partners."

He said an election would be called once the regional parliament had approved this year's budget - a process that could take months and result in a May or June poll.

Comment: See also: Catalan president Quim Torra banned from holding public office over 'disobedience'

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Document

Hillary Clinton refuses to be served Tulsi Gabbard's defamation lawsuit

tulsi gabbard hillary clinton
© Getty Images
Hillary Clinton has now twice snubbed a process server attempting to deliver the defamation lawsuit filed against her by Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, according to Gabbard's attorney.

"I find it rather unbelievable that Hillary Clinton is so intimidated by Tulsi Gabbard that she won't accept service of process," the congresswoman's attorney, Brian Dunne, told The Post. "But I guess here we are."

Dunne said their process server first attempted to effect service at the Clinton's house in Chappaqua Tuesday afternoon — but was turned away by Secret Service agents.

Comment: See also:


Handcuffs

Elizabeth Warren proposes criminal penalties for spreading voting disinformation online

Senator Elizabeth Warren
© Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
Democratic presidential hopeful Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks during the fourth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season co-hosted by The New York Times and CNN at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio on October 15, 2019.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday released a plan to fight disinformation and to hold tech companies accountable for their actions in light of the 2016 election.

"Disinformation and online foreign interference erode our democracy, and Donald Trump has invited both," Warren said in a Tweet Wednesday. "Anyone who seeks to challenge and defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 election must be fully prepared to take this on - and I've got a plan to do it."

Warren proposed to combat disinformation by holding big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google responsible for spreading misinformation designed to suppress voters from turning out.

"I will push for new laws that impose tough civil and criminal penalties for knowingly disseminating this kind of information, which has the explicit purpose of undermining the basic right to vote," Warren said in a release.

Warren, who has been an advocate for breaking up big tech companies like Amazon and Facebook, has said that she wants to make "big structural changes to the tech sector to promote more competition." It's part of a broader policy to stop disinformation, requiring tech companies and the government to come together to solve the problem.

Comment: Ministry of Truth anyone? Sounds like we're in for a pretty dystopian future if Warren gets in.


Георгиевская ленточка

Why the West can't beat Putin or his policies

Putin
Whenever there's an examination of Russia's resurgence in Middle Eastern and African affairs, the narrative is always about weapons, economic competition, and Cold War-era detente. Few analysts or reporters examine the non-transactional elements of the policies of Vladimir Putin. To really understand the recent successes of Mr. Putin and Russia, we must understand the somewhat obscure aspects of Russia's foreign policy.

A perfect example of how trade statistics dominate western thought process on Russia policy can be found at almost any Washington or London think tank. Take this Chatham House report last year by Dr. Alex Vines OBE, for instance. The Africa Programme at Chatham House is not immune from the disease that causes western experts to oversimplify and underestimate Putin's external policies. To quote Dr. Vines:

"Russia has, for several years, been quietly investing in Soviet-era partnerships and forging new alliances by offering security, arms training, and electioneering services in exchange for mining rights and other opportunities."

Magnify

Yemen's Houthi rebels say they attacked Saudi oil giant Aramco, airport & other 'sensitive' targets

Saudi Aramco
© Reuters / Maxim Shemetov
FILE PHOTO. A view shows the damaged site of Saudi Aramco oil facility in Abqaiq.
A military base and a facility of Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco were targeted in the latest attacks, Yemen's Houthi militants claimed. Aramco has so far kept silent on the reports.

The militants took aim at sites located in the southern Saudi province of Jizan, the Houthi spokesman said in a televised speech on Wednesday. Apart from that, the group claimed it targeted airports of Abha and Jizan, a military base, and other "sensitive" targets on Saudi soil.

"A large number of rockets and drones" were used during the strike, it has been claimed. Riyadh has remained silent on the matter, while Aramco declined to comment on altogether when reached by Reuters for details.

Comment: Also from today:




Star of David

The 'Deal of the Century' only entrenches Israel's apartheid state

peace plan deal israel palestine

Map of a future Palestinian state in the Trump administration plan.
With great fanfare, President Trump finally unveiled his long-anticipated Middle East peace proposal. The proposal was labeled 'The Deal of the Century' because it was supposed to offer an even-handed and just solution to one of the world's most intractable conflicts. Instead it does something very different. The 'Deal of the Century' resurrects and restores grand apartheid, a racist political system that should have been left in the dustbins of history.

Under President Trump's newly unveiled peace plan, the Palestinians will be granted limited autonomy within a Palestinian homeland that consists of multiple non-contiguous enclaves scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza. The government of Israel will retain security control over the Palestinian enclaves and will continue to control Palestinian borders, airspace, aquifers, maritime waters, and electromagnetic spectrum. Israel will be allowed to annex the Jordan Valley and Jewish communities in the West Bank. The Palestinians will be allowed to select the leaders of their new homeland but will have no political rights in Israel, the state that actually rules over them.

Comment: An RT op-ed emphasizes that the "deal" was made without consulting the Palestinians and offered in mafia-like style:
"In going so far as decreeing Jerusalem's status, the Deal of the Century clearly has echoes of the 19th century's age of empires which created the current impasse in the Middle East that inspires recurring terrorism," said Afshin Rattansi, host of RT's Going Underground.

His guest, former ambassador UK to the Palestinian Authority Sir Richard Dalton, noted that Trump's unilateral decision on Jerusalem's status is nothing short of "de facto violation of 2017 emergency UN resolution" and could even be seen by the international body as a "flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention."

Yet the Trump administration apparently believes that it has "the right to unilaterally defy" all these international norms, since it openly endorses Israel's illegal annexations, the diplomat added.

The US proposal is extremely unlikely to bring even a hint of peace to the Middle East, since Washington was apparently more concerned about pleasing its allies in Tel Aviv rather than offering a genuinely feasible solution to the decades-old conflict.

Palestinians "are being presented with a deal that was made exclusively between the US and Israel" and hardly has any regard for their interests at all, said former US diplomat Jim Jatras, adding that the deal looks more like an ultimatum than an agreement.

"Like everything else in this so-called plan, it is 'take it or leave it'," Jatras said. "That is what the US and Israel will offer you and if you do not take it, they will take more. I think that is why Trump said it was Palestinians' last chance."
Either they will settle to the deal offered to them or they will get nothing.
That is precisely why this proposal has been a "non-starter" from the very beginning, believes former Pentagon official Michael Maloof.

"If you are going to have an agreement you will need both sides to go along with it. Right now I do not see Palestinians going along with it," he told RT.

Jatras believes that getting Palestinians to sign the deal might not be the goal of this proposal, which opens the way for Israel to further annex Palestinian territories in the West Bank like the Jordan Valley, with an approval from Washington.

"I expect that to happen fairly soon. Trump said that the US will then recognize these annexations as they recognized the annexation of the Golan Heights," he said.

The pompous unveiling of the peace plan was "the latest act of political theater" by Trump, who has honed his double-speak skills by confusing and manipulating the American people and now hopes to repeat the same trick with the Palestinians, American comedian Lee Camp told RT.

"For decades he has lied, reneged, and stolen - and his 'Two State Solution' is no different. He and Netanyahu were joined at the announcement by ultra-Zionist billionaire Sheldon Adelson and many others who have pushed for and celebrated an endless array of war crimes," Camp noted, adding that the Palestinians were nowhere to be seen.
The Palestinian people were not a part of this process. They are being asked to surrender what remains of their rights and sovereignty.
The consensus across the board is that this "deal of the century" could actually bring war to the Middle East, not peace. Palestinians already fiercely oppose this proposal and attempts to shove it down their throats would only be met with more resistance, potentially leading to a full-blown conflict.

"Palestinians are already threatening a new Intifada as a result," Maloof said. "It would create a whole new dimension of violence in the region."
The Palestine Chronicle notes:
Jerusalem, including Al-Aqsa Mosque and all other holy sites, would remain under Israeli control. The Muslim and Christian sites would, however, be administered jointly by the PA and Israel.

Between 30 and 40 percent of Area C in the occupied West Bank will be annexed by Israel. Fifteen Israeli Jewish settlements would remain isolated and 60 settlement posts with 3,000 settlers will be dismantled.

The deal reportedly stipulates that the Palestinian state would have no control over its air space, borders, crossings and would have no power to hold any agreement with foreign countries.

It allegedly proposes a tunnel to connect Gaza to the West Bank, however, Israel has yet to agree to this because it believes the tunnel can be used for weapons smuggling.

The deal would require Hamas and Islamic Jihad to relinquish their arms.
Even Israeli newspaper Haaretz thinks the plan is a recipe for disaster:
January 28, 2020 could very well go down as the most mind-boggling day in the history of Israel and its relations with the United States. Against the backdrop of a White House audience of enthusiastic cheerleaders, in a ceremony that seemed to fuse a Donald Trump rally with a religious Zionist gala, the president pronounced a dramatic, pro-Israel shift in U.S. foreign policy and laid down a lopsided peace plan that exceeds any rational Israeli's wildest dreams.

Netanyahu's unilateral acceptance of Trump's plan is a measure of his vanity, audacity, increasing disdain for accepted procedures and norms, and, of course, growing desperation to extract himself - one way or the other - from his legal morass.

For anyone not wedded to the concept that Israel must ultimately annex all of its biblical lands, Trump's plan is undoubtedly the most pro-Israel peace proposal ever made - and, despite the president's claims to the contrary, the worst offer ever made to the Palestinians. Even if it was more evenhanded, just a cursory look at the map attached to Trump's plan makes clear just how unworkable it is: It keeps Israelis and Palestinians at each other's throats to a degree that makes former Yugoslavia seems like an island of tranquility.

Nonetheless, Trump's cavalier, condescending and seemingly self-defeating approach to Palestinians - which is expressed in the tone and content of his "vision" - represents Netanyahu's greatest triumph. The plan marginalizes Palestinians, ignores their core demands and determines their borders as if by imperial edict, at a time when they are divided among themselves and abandoned by their one-time allies in the Gulf. If Tuesday marked a zenith for Netanyahu, it was a day of unprecedented degradation and humiliation for most Palestinians.

Netanyahu and Dermer have long argued that Palestinians must give up their unrealistic dreams in order to achieve peace; now Trump has shot down their aspirations without waiting for approval. Netanyahu has long argued that Palestinians must be motivated economically but beaten into submission as far as their political aspirations are concerned. His theory will now be put the test.

Netanyahu has the Palestinians right where he's always wanted them. If he was wrong, as many believe, then Netanyahu's mistake, born of hubris and desperation, will cost countless Israeli and Palestinian lives. It seems increasingly likely, however, that if and when the Trump scheme collapses and things go south, Netanyahu won't be around to take responsibility, not that he'd ever consider it.
The Deal:




Stock Down

India: Malaysian PM's CAA remark likely to cost his country more than palm oil exports

After palm oil, many other Malaysian exports may face restrictions from India as the Modi administration expresses anger over Malaysian PM's CAA remark.
  • Miffed by Malaysian PM's remarks on CAA, Indian govt is likely to increase restriction on imports from his country
  • India may limit imports of Petroleum crude, palm oil and aluminum wire, among other products from Malaysia
  • India, which is the largest consumer of palm oil, has already restricted its imports from Malaysia
Palm oil fruits
© Palm oil fruits
The Indian government had kickstarted imposing restrictions by bringing limiting import of palm oil from Malaysia, thus altering the trade relationship between the world's biggest edible oil buyer - India, and the key supplier - Malaysia.
Miffed over Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's criticism of India's domestic issues like CAA, the Modi government has set into motion an exercise which may bring more curbs on exports from the southeast nation.

The cabinet secretariat has already written to the Ministry of Commerce seeking "trade remedial action against restrictive trade practices of Malaysia".

Kuala Lumpur's refusal to revoke permanent resident status for controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik has also affected India's attitude towards the nation.

Comment:
Malaysian palm oil export to India 2016-2019
© Malaysian Palm Oil Board



Wolf

DNC chair names PODESTA, other Clinton loyalists, to Convention Committee - Democratic voters revolt in fear of 2016 v2.0


Comment: Yes, you read that headline correctly: John 'Pizzagate' Podesta is gonna play possibly the deciding role in who the Dems nominate to run against Trump. You couldn't make this sh*tshow up!


John Podesta
© Reuters/Lucas Jackson
John Podesta at Clinton rally in 2016
Democrats hoping their party learned from its 2016 failure have been horrified to discover many of those behind Hillary Clinton's losing campaign - including John Podesta of hacked email fame - have major Convention posts.

Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez has unveiled a 2020 Democratic Convention lousy with Clinton loyalists - Podesta merely the most notorious among them - alongside former Obama administration officials and corporate lobbyists. Democrats hoping the centrist old guard had relinquished its death-grip on the party are livid, and at least one campaign is pushing back.

"If the DNC believes it's going to get away in 2020 with what it did in 2016, it has another thing coming," Bernie Sanders campaign co-chair Nina Turner told progressive YouTube channel Status Coup on Monday. The appointments, she said, were "a slap in the face. The DNC should be ashamed of itself."

Comment: As they say: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." If true, 2020 promises to be another volatile and thoroughly disgusting, 'no-holds barred' election.


Footprints

'I'm an old guy, vote for someone else' is Biden's latest gaffe in an odd sales pitch to voters

Biden
© Scott Olson/Getty Images
Democratic candidate and former VP Joe Biden
Former Vice President Joe Biden's odd strategy for winning over voters continues as video of him scolding one goes viral, and recent comments about his age raises alarm.

Though Biden continues to poll at the top of the Democrats fighting for their party's presidential nomination - a Wednesday Monmouth University poll has him at the top of the heap with 23 percent in Iowa - the former vice president is continuing his confrontational style with voters when challenged, and he can't seem to quit making odd statements, such as recently saying he has two requirements for a potential running mate.

"One, is capable of being president, because I'm an old guy," the 77-year-old Biden told a crowd of voters on Tuesday about his standards for a vice president. He then tried backing off the joke by convincing everyone he's in "good shape."

"No, I'm serious. Look, thank God I'm in great health, I work out, no I'm serious, you know I work out every morning. I'm in good shape," he said.

Comment: Biden gives a new meaning to 'stumping for votes' as in 'stump the voters'!