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EU trying to "swindle" UK out of Brexit, May should pull out of talks without deal - Italian minister Salvini


RT
Sun, 29 Jul 2018 07:52 UTC
theresa may flag eu britain
© Francois Lenoir / Reuters
Matteo Salvini, Italy's right-wing interior minister and leader of anti-immigrant Lega Nord, has claimed that Brussels is trying to "swindle" London in their Brexit negotiations, telling Theresa May to walk away without a deal.

Salvini, an outspoken EU critic, told the Sunday Times that the British prime minister should adopt a tougher stance while dealing with Brussels. "My experience in the European parliament tells me you either impose yourself or they swindle you," he maintained.

Salvini urged May to be ready to pull out of the talks without a deal "because on some principles there is no need to be flexible and you should not go backwards." He also lashed out at the 27-member bloc, saying: "There is no objectivity or good faith [for Brexit talks] from the European side."

Comment: In their harsh dealings with the UK, the Eurocrats are further confirming just how detrimental membership in the EU can be, and for those countries fed up with the EU, how they may need to go about renegotiating their own position: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Cell Phone

Trump threatens to 'shut down' government if Dems fail to support border measures


RT
Sun, 29 Jul 2018 15:44 UTC
Central American migrants
© Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Irritated at the stalling of his border wall plans, US President Donald Trump has threatened to "shut down" the government in his latest tweet taking aim at Democrats over immigration reform.

The Sunday morning tirade saw the president claim he "would be willing to 'shut down'" the federal government if members of Congress from the opposition party didn't row in behind Republicans in voting for his immigration reform package, which includes releasing funds for the US-Mexico border wall that formed the cornerstone of his election campaign.

"I would be willing to 'shut down' government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security," the president tweeted, "which includes the Wall! Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc."

He also called for an immigration system "based on MERIT!," adding that immigrants wanted by the USA needed to be "great people."
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Bizarro Earth

Finian Cunningham: When does a 'blessed democrat' become an 'authoritarian strongman' leader?

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 29 Jul 2018 15:40 UTC
Trump and Putin
Former US President Barack Obama was in South Africa last week for the centennial anniversary marking the birth of the late Nelson Mandela. Obama delivered a speech warning about encroaching authoritarianism among nations and the "rise of strongman politics".

Coming on the heels of the summit in Helsinki between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, media reports assumed that Obama was taking a swipe at these two leaders for supposed growing authoritarianism.

Obama's casting of the "strongman" as a foreboding enemy to democracy is a variant of the supposed threat of "populism" that Western political establishments also seem concerned about.

Trump, Putin, Turkey's Erdogan, Italy's Salvini, Victor Orban in Hungary and Sebastian Kurz in Austria, among many others, are all lumped together as "strongman politics", "populists" or "authoritarians".

Here we are not trying to defend the above-mentioned political leaders or to make out that they are all virtuous democrats.

The point rather is to debunk the false narrative that there is some kind of dichotomy in modern politics between those who, on one hand, are supposedly virtuous, liberal, democratic, multilateralists, and on the other hand, the supposedly sinister "strongman", "authoritarian", or "populist".
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Eye 1

Erdogan warns US will lose a 'strong and sincere ally', accuses Trump of waging 'psychological war'


RT
Sun, 29 Jul 2018 15:27 UTC
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Donald Trump
© Shealah Craighead / Global Look Press
Turkey's president has warned the US that it will lose a valuable ally unless it changes its approach to the case of an American held in Turkey on espionage charges. Washington is threatening Ankara with sanctions over the issue.

Talking to Turkish media about US threats of sanctions if Ankara doesn't release Pastor Andrew Brunson, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said US president Donald Trump is waging a "psychological war," the Daily Sabah reports.

Washington would lose a "strong and sincere ally" if the administration there does not change its attitude regarding Brunson, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, after Trump threatened to impose sanctions against its NATO ally.

Comment: Erdogan has made a deal proposal to the US: Let's make a deal: Erdogan proposes release of US pastor in exchange for coup suspect Gulen

But maybe is being thwarted by Washington: Rogue elements in CIA-State Dept. blocking release of American pastor from Turkish prison

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Evil Rays

Russian football coach mocks loony US media hysteria re: 'Putin's spy-ball'


RT
Sat, 28 Jul 2018 15:20 UTC
putin cherchesov
© Pavel Golovkin / AFP
Russian national team coach Stanislav Cherchesov has joined in the mockery over claims in the US that a football recently presented to Donald Trump by Vladimir Putin could have been bugged.

Cherchesov and the Russian team met Putin at the Kremlin on Saturday for a ceremony to honor their performance at the recent World Cup, where they reached the quarter-finals.

The team presented the Russian president with a specially-made football as well as a shirt signed by all the players.

Cherchesov joked after the ceremony that there was no danger that the ball presented to Putin had been surreptitiously fitted with a listening device - mocking claims in the US that a ball the Russian leader had given Trump in Helsinki earlier in July had been bugged.

"We gave Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] a ball that was specially made, with our photographs and signatures,"Cherchesov said, before joking: "It's without a listening device."
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Info

German MP states the obvious: Neither German nor British intelligence can prove Russia is behind Skripal poisoning


RT
Sun, 29 Jul 2018 15:09 UTC
The bench in Salisbury, where the Skripals were found
© Adrian Dennis / AFP
The bench in Salisbury, where the Skripals were found.
Failure to release any evidence of Russia's alleged involvement in the Skripal case shows that neither German nor British intelligence services have anything on it, a member of the German Left Party, Heike Haensel, believes.

Western media and politicians still seize every opportunity to pin the blame on Moscow for the poisoning of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March. However, German lawmakers received nothing but the allies' assurances about the case, according to MP Heike Haensel. Speaking to daily newspaper Junge Welt, she revealed that two requests for any proof of the allegation, from her and her fellow MP Sevim Dagdelen, were left unanswered.

"Still neither British nor German intelligence agencies have evidence of Russian responsibility for the attack in March", Haensel said in an interview published on Saturday.

Comment: Whenever the powers-that-be don't have convincing evidence, they use the cloak-and-daggers approach to obfuscate:

The plot thins: How a gel became a liquid and the whole Novichok affair began to smell to high heaven

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Attention

'God, help us': British Army put on standby in case of no-deal Brexit supply issues


RT
Sun, 29 Jul 2018 14:57 UTC
British helicopters
© Russell Boyce/Reuters
Ministers planning Brexit told media the Army is on standby to deliver key supplies like food, fuel and medicines in the eventuality of a no-deal scenario. Remainers have likened the revelation to "self-immolation."

The possibility of a no-deal Brexit made the Ministry of Defence "dust off" blueprints to use army trucks and helicopters to deliver key supplies to far flung parts of the UK - something usually reserved for civil emergencies, like severe weather.

However a source inside the department said they have not yet received "a formal request" to assist the civilian authorities, according to the Sunday Times.

Comment: This Brexit fiasco keeps attaining new heights in absurdity. How did Britain ever function before the EU was created?

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Info

Iran says it can show why US has to 'give up sanctions addiction'


RT
Sun, 29 Jul 2018 14:50 UTC
German FM Heiko Maas, French FM Jean-Yves Le Drian, EU Foreign Affairs chief Federica Mogherini and Iran's FM Mohammad Javad Zarif
© Olivier Matthys / Reuters
German FM Heiko Maas, French FM Jean-Yves Le Drian, EU Foreign Affairs chief Federica Mogherini and Iran's FM Mohammad Javad Zarif meet in Brussels on May 15, 2018.
Iran knows how to sober up the US from its "addiction to sanctions," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said, referring to Washington's threatening of its allies with restrictions if they fail to pressure Tehran.

"Americans are addicted to sanctioning but we can show them that they have to give up their addiction," Iranian top diplomat said in Tehran on Sunday as cited by local news agencies. The minister was addressing a meeting of Iranian envoys and representatives of private sector companies.

He added that "it's become clear to the world" that Washington should stop the restrictive policies.

The US and its EU allies have locked horns over Iran since US President Donald Trump decided to unilaterally withdraw from the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement. Since then, another row over trade shook the American-European relations and Iran can benefit from the situation, Zarif stressed.

"I'm not that naive to say we can wage a conflict between US and Europeans, but there's a fracture between them from which we should take advantage of and we don't need to be a bridge for their gap," the minister said.

Comment: Another threat from Iran that could get the US riled up: Iran plans launch of national cryptocurrency, ditching the dollar in oil trade

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Yoda

The martyrdom of Julian Assange: 'Never send to know for whom the bell tolls'

John Wight
Sputnik
Thu, 26 Jul 2018 13:58 UTC
Assange
© Reuters / Neil Hall
Julian Assange
If reports are to be believed, and the Ecuadorian government is preparing to evict Julian Assange from their embassy in London, where the editor-in-chief of Wikileaks has been holed up since 2012, fighting for the right to political asylum, then his legal and political crucifixion may well now be approaching completion.

It is a development that once again reminds us of the plight of a man who, in acting as a metaphorical canary down the coal mine of Western democracy, is living proof that a marked difference exists between believing that you live in a free society and behaving as if you do.

For in daring to remove the mask of civility and moral rectitude behind which Western governments have carried out their malign deeds at home and around the world in the cause of hegemony, Assange has since 2012 sat pride of place in the crosshairs of their considerable wrath.

Comment: The author's final comment is particularly apt.

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Arrow Up

House Democrats push Pentagon to probe illegal US, Saudi activity in Yemen


Sputnik
Sat, 28 Jul 2018 18:18 UTC
Yemen
© AP Photo / Hani Mohammed
Four congressmen's revisions to the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) could make for drastic change in the devastating, US-backed Saudi Arabian military operation in Yemen.

"There is a terrible humanitarian crisis occurring in Yemen, and it deserves our attention in Washington," Representative Adam Smith (D-WA), said in a statement. "That's why I successfully fought to include the following provisions while negotiating the final version of the NDAA."

The group negotiated the terms into the final version of the NDAA, which passed the US House of Representatives on Thursday. The bill then goes to the Senate, and should it pass, to President Donald Trump for approval.

The bill is unlikely to face much opposition in the Senate, however, as a House-Senate conference committee already gave it the green light, Sputnik News reported Thursday.

The provision follows remarks made by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who negotiated the Yemen reforms, in a late 2017 interview. "Today, I believe that we are aiding Saudi Arabia in Saudi Arabia's committing war crimes," he said.

Comment: It 'reflects' a deep concern but whether will it actually be implemented remains to be seen. See also:

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