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Then there were 2: Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt final two in race for Tory leadership


RT
Thu, 20 Jun 2019 17:21 UTC
Michael Gove
© Reuters/Peter Nicholls
Michael Gove
The race for the Tory leadership has narrowed two candidates as Michael Gove was eliminated in a fifth round of voting, leaving former and current foreign secretaries Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt to fight it out.

Home secretary Sajid David was eliminated earlier in a fourth round of voting at lunch time.

Johnson received 162 votes in the fifth round, with Hunt receiving 77.

Johnson has maintained the lead throughout the voting process and is seen as a shoo-in to win the leadership contest and replace Theresa May as the next British Prime Minister.
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Compass

Ilhan Omar re-tweets video of CNN commenter claiming US could be on the road to 'death camps'


RT
Fri, 21 Jun 2019 01:44 UTC
Ilhan Omar
© Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar appears to be supporting fellow representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after AOC sparked uproar for comparing detention centers at the US border to Nazi concentration camps.

Omar (D-MN) re-tweeted a video clip on Thursday in which CNN commenter Angela Rye makes the argument that the US is indeed on the road to having "death camps."

"In 1933, there were concentration camps. In 1941, they were death camps - and that is where we are going if our consciences are not quickly pierced," an impassioned Rye said, during a debate with Trump surrogate Steve Cortes.

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House

550 Palestinians to be homeless after Israel demolishes entire neighborhood in East Jerusalem


Middle East Monitor
Fri, 14 Jun 2019 10:59 UTC
Palestinian home demolished by Israel
© Marmoun Wazwaz/Anadolu Agency
Palestinians inspect the house of Palestinian Arafat Irfaiyye, after it was demolished by a Israeli army in Hebron, West Bank on April 19, 2019.
Israeli authorities are pressing ahead with plans to demolish an entire Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, human rights NGO B'Tselem reported, which will leave 550 homeless.

Wadi Yasul, located between the neighbourhoods of Abu Tur and Silwan, is home to 72 Palestinian families.

According to B'Tselem, the Jerusalem Municipality has "issued demolition orders for all the neighbourhood homes so all the families there are facing the threat of expulsion."

In late April, "the city already demolished two of the orders and displaced two of the families."

The NGO noted that Wadi Yasul built "is adjacent to a forest, also located on privately owned land that was expropriated from its Palestinian owners in 1970."
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Eye 2

Israeli TV airs call to expel all Palestinians

Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada
Wed, 19 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC
Israeli channel airs call to expel all Palestinians
The Israeli international TV channel i24 News last week aired a call for the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

"There will never, ever be a two-state solution," British far-right demagogue Katie Hopkins stated. "Israel will become the super force here. You will have to have a one-state solution."

But she wasn't talking about a single state with equal rights for all.


"There will not be peace in Israel until you remove the people who don't belong there," Hopkins asserted.

Another guest, former Israeli diplomat Daniel Shek, objected that they - the Palestinians - "are indigenous people, not migrants." But Hopkins added that "it will be a one-state solution, and in so far as you will have to remove certain individuals, you would just take more land."

Shek asked: "You mean 50 percent of the population will have to go?"

"Yes, they will have to go," Hopkins affirmed. "If some of their population still stab you with knives, then I would say yes, the rest have to go."
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Newspaper

Corbyn wants public to vote on second referendum and Brexit deals

Elizabeth Piper
Reuters
Wed, 19 Jun 2019 17:23 UTC
Corbyn
© REUTERS/Toby Melville
FILE PHOTO - Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks during a rally against U.S. President Donald Trump, in London, Britain, June 4, 2019.
British opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn backed a second referendum on any Brexit deal on Wednesday, his strongest support yet for a vote he said must offer "real choices" for those who want to leave or stay in the EU.

Corbyn, an instinctive critic of the European Union, has been under growing pressure to back unequivocally a second referendum to satisfy many members and lawmakers in his party who say it is the only way to break the Brexit deadlock.

He has previously showed his preference for a new national election, almost three years since Britain voted to leave the EU which left both his party and the governing Conservatives deeply split over how, when and whether Brexit should happen.

Comment: See also:

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Radar

India deploys warships, jets to Persian Gulf to reassure own vessels amid rising Iran-US tension


Sputnik
Thu, 20 Jun 2019 18:42 UTC
india navy
© AFP 2019 / MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
The Indian Navy named the deployment "Operation Sankalp (resolution)", claiming that it only serves to re-assure Indian flagged vessels travelling through the area following the recent maritime incidents there.

The Indian Navy has deployed warships and aircraft to the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf to undertake maritime security operations amid rising tensions between the US and Iran.

The announcement came from the Indian Navy on a day when Iranian paramilitary forces claimed that a US spy drone had been shot down after entering Iran's airspace.

Comment: The more eyes on the area, the better:

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X

OPCW slammed by top MIT scientist for repressing dissenting report on Douma gas attack

Aaron Maté
The Grayzone
Tue, 18 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC
OPCW/family
© OPCW/therealnews.com
MIT rocket scientist Theodore Postol has accused the OPCW leadership of overseeing "compromised reporting" and ignoring evidence that challenged claims that the Syrian government carried out a chemical attack in Douma.

Facing a growing controversy, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has offered his most extensive comments to date on a leaked internal assessment that challenged allegations that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018.

But the remarks from OPCW chief Fernando Arias have done little to address concerns that his UN-backed watchdog suppressed the document and published a flawed report that ignored countervailing data.

In an exclusive interview with The Grayzone, the award-winning rocket scientist and MIT professor emeritus Theodore Postol accused Arias of badly mischaracterizing the document in order to paper over his organization's errors.



Comment: See Postol's assessment: "Contradictions in the Conclusions, Science and Data in the UN OPCW Fact-Finding Mission Report S/1731/2019 on the Chlorine Cylinder Attack on 7 April 2018 in Douma, Syria,"


Comment: See also:

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Attention

Pentagon's nuclear weapons 'war-fighting' doctrine has experts sounding alarm

Julian Borger
The Guardian
Wed, 19 Jun 2019 14:21 UTC
US Nuke silo
© Brendan Smialowski/AFP
The Pentagon believes using nuclear weapons could "create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability," according to a new nuclear doctrine adopted by the US joint chiefs of staff last week.

The document, entitled 'Nuclear Operations', was published on 11 June, and was the first such doctrine paper for 14 years. Arms control experts say it marks a shift in US military thinking towards the idea of fighting and winning a nuclear war - which they believe is a highly dangerous mindset.

"Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability," the joint chiefs' document says. "Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and create conditions that affect how commanders will prevail in conflict."

At the start of a chapter on nuclear planning and targeting, the document quotes a cold war theorist, Herman Kahn, as saying: "My guess is that nuclear weapons will be used sometime in the next hundred years, but that their use is much more likely to be small and limited than widespread and unconstrained."

Kahn was a controversial figure. He argued that a nuclear war could be "winnable" and is reported to have provided part of the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's film Dr Strangelove.

The Nuclear Operations document was taken down from the Pentagon online site after a week, and is now only available through a restricted access electronic library. But before it was withdrawn it was downloaded by Steven Aftergood, who directs the project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

As China ups tariffs on US goods, it gives other countries the red carpet treatment

Yen Nee Lee
CNBC
Wed, 19 Jun 2019 03:25 UTC
TrumpXi
© Getty Images
President Donald Trump • President Xi Jinping
China is "rolling out the red carpet for the rest of the world" by lowering tariffs with other countries - even as its trade war with the U.S. continues to drag on, according to Peterson Institute for International Economics.

In a little known fact, Beijing has over the past year lowered duties on goods from countries that compete with America, the think tank said in a recent report. The research showed that:
  • China's average tariff rate on U.S. goods jumped from 8% at the start of 2018 to 20.7% this month.
  • China's average tariff rate on its imports from all other countries fell from 8% at the start of 2018 to 6.7% last November. It has stayed at that level since then.
China's move to lower tariffs on countries other than the U.S. has received little public attention, with much media coverage focusing on what Beijing and Washington say and do to each other.

But in fact, by lowering duties with other trading partners, Beijing has put American firms at a "considerable" disadvantage at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly used tariffs as a way to negotiate with other countries, PIIE said.

Comment: More from RT: Tariffs are sanctions by another name meant to hobble states - Putin
China and Russia have one thing in common - the US is targeting both nations with economic sanctions that are designed to undermine their economic growth and to help America compete with them, said Vladimir Putin.
"China has nothing to do with Crimea or Donbass [the issues over which Russia was subjected to Western sanctions]. But the tariffs on their goods, which are de facto sanctions, are growing and growing. There is [also] the attack against Huawei. Where did it come from and what is its goal? The goal is to hold back development [of a state which] has become a global competitor to another global power, the US. The same thing is happening with Russia and it will continue."
The US and China are currently locked in several conflicts. Washington has subjected Chinese exports to increasingly harsh trade tariffs over the past months, triggering a tit-for-tat response from Beijing. The US is also targeting the Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei, pressuring other nations to reject the company's bids to upgrade their communications networks to 5G technology.

The Russian president said this at his annual Q&A session, held on Thursday.
See also: Markets turn optimistic: Trump to meet with President Xi at the G-20 summit

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Stop

Campaigners against arms sales to Saudi Arabia offer 'brutal condemnation of UK foreign policy'


RT
Thu, 20 Jun 2019 16:00 UTC
UK protesters
© Reuters/Simon Dawson
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT)
Anti-arms sales campaigners have given a damning assessment of the UK government's arms export licensing failures, claiming "Parliament has been shown to be totally broken," after a landmark ruling was handed down.

The UK Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday that it was "irrational and unlawful" of the government to allow arms sales to Saudi Arabia without making proper checks. In addition, it concluded that the state had "made no attempt" to assess whether Riyadh had breached international humanitarian law in the ongoing Yemen war.

Responding to the judgment, Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who was in court to witness the ruling handed down by three of the UK's top judges, told RT that there now needs to be "a judicial review into the whole arms licensing system."


Comment: More from RT:
Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade, which brought the challenge, welcomed the verdict but insisted it shouldn't have taken a court case to force the UK government to "follow its own rules. No matter what atrocities it has inflicted, the Saudi regime has been able to count on the uncritical political and military support of the UK."
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox was due to give a statement to parliament on Thursday afternoon, about how the government planned to respond to the judgement.


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