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Russia asks Merkel to push Kiev towards implementing its commitments, amidst 1,000+ ceasefire violations in August


TASS
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 19:02 UTC
Merkel Putin
© Mikhail Metzel/TASS
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin
Russia asks German Chancellor Angela Merkel, ahead of her visit to Kiev, to exert influence of the Ukrainian authorities to push them towards implementing their commitments, Russian President said on Friday after talks with Merkel.

"It looks like that Ukraine's leadership has decided to abandon the idea of peaceful settlement of the situation. In this context, we once again ask Mrs Chancellor, in view of her upcoming visit to Kiev, to exercise influence on the Ukrainian side in terms of the implementation of its commitments," he said.

The Russian president recalled that more than 1,000 ceasefire violations had been reported in Donbass since early August. "Populated localities in Donbass come under shelling every day," he said. "We cannot but be worried over the fact that Ukraine has passed a series of laws and normative acts, which run counter to the Minsk agreements," he said.

Comment: The dire state of Ukraine is also reflected in its regional politics, with the following high profile murders occurring in just the last month:

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NPC

Something is wrong with the President

Jim Geraghty
National Review
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 09:24 UTC
Biden
© Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., August 11, 2021.
On the menu today: The transcript of President Joe Biden's interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos dropped, and the president's incoherence, insistence that he was incorrectly briefed, denial that he was warned by his military advisers, and oddly low profile in the past week raise troubling questions about his ability to perform his duties.

What's Going On with President Biden?

After making no public appearances for four days — during a major foreign crisis — President Biden read a 20-minute speech off a teleprompter on Monday afternoon and took no questions. He immediately returned to Camp David. He had no events on his schedule Tuesday. On Wednesday, he gave another 20-minute speech about vaccine boosters off a teleprompter from Camp David, and again took no questions. Also on Wednesday, the president sat for an on-camera interview with George Stephanopoulos that did not go well. According to the White House public records, Biden has had two phone conversations with foreign leaders in the past ten days — one with Boris Johnson and one with Angela Merkel.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: The Great (End)Game - Closing the Afghan War, Opening the 'Covid War'?

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Newspaper

Chinese official says "all-round efforts" needed to ensure Tibetans speak standard Chinese & share symbols of nation


Associated Press
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 12:00 UTC
Wang Yang china
© Huang Jingwen/Xinhua via AP
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Wang Yang, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), center, waves as he arrives in Lhasa to attend the ceremony to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Tibet liberation, in Lhasa in western China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021. The top Chinese official said Thursday, Aug. 19, that "all-round efforts" are needed to ensure Tibetans speak standard spoken and written Chinese and share the "cultural symbols and images of the Chinese nation."
A top Chinese official said Thursday that "all-round efforts" are needed to ensure Tibetans speak standard spoken and written Chinese and share the "cultural symbols and images of the Chinese nation."

Wang Yang made the remarks before a handpicked audience in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the home of Tibet's traditional Buddhist leaders, at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Chinese invasion of the vast Himalayan region.

China's ruling Communist Party says it "peacefully liberated" Tibetan peasants from an oppressive theocracy and restored Chinese rule over a region under threat from outside powers.

Comment: The West's claims of Uighur 'labour camps' have been thoroughly refuted and it's likely that these claims 'China's brutality' in Tibet are also up for question:

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Eagle

Why the wheels are coming off the American imperial project

Charles Hugh Smith
of two minds.com
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
Rome on fire
Is that the scent of smoke? What's that red glare? Must be nothing.

Why are the wheels coming off the American Project? Afghanistan is front and center in the news flow for obvious reasons, but since I have no expertise on that nation or America's role there, I am stipulating these are general comments from a systemic perspective.

By the American Project I mean 1) global hegemony in both hard and soft power and 2) American Exceptionalism, the belief that America is not just uniquely strong but uniquely right in terms of holding the high moral ground.

1. If you don't understand the problem, you can't possibly arrive at a solution. It's long been painfully obvious that U.S. presidents would be best served by their closest advisors being anthropologists with long in-country experience in whatever nation the U.S. is engaging.

Any anthropologist with experience in Vietnam would have dismissed the idea of an American "victory" by any means as a possibility. The same can be said of Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, American presidents don't listen to anthropologists, they listen to advisors with no real understanding of the nation and people the U.S. is engaging. Lacking a grasp of the situation, every characterization of the "problem" will necessarily be completely misguided and the proposed "solutions" cannot but fail miserably.
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Bad Guys

The Afghanistan Debacle, Zalmay Khalilzad and The Great Reset

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
Zalmay Khalilzad
Much of the world is shocked by the apparent incompetence of the Biden Administration in the human and geopolitical catastrophe that is unfolding in Afghanistan. While Biden speaks out of both sides of his pre-scripted mouth, stating that everyone else is to blame than his decisions, then stating "the buck stops here," only adds to the impression that the once sole-superpower is in terminal collapse. Could it be that this is all part of a long-term strategy to end the nation state in preparation for the global totalitarian model sometimes called the Great Reset by the Davos cabal? The 40 year history of the Afghan US war and the Afghani Pashtun who shaped the policy until today is revealing.

The airwaves of mainstream media across the globe are filled with questions of military incompetence or intelligence failure or both. It is worthwhile to examine the role of the Biden Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation at the State Department, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad. For the one figure who has shaped strategic US foreign policy since 1984 in the Administration of Bush Sr., and has been US Ambassador to both Afghanistan and to Iraq at key times during the US wars there, as well as the key figure in the present debacle, astonishingly little media attention has been given the 70-year old Afghan-born operative.

Comment: See also: The Afghanistan exit debacle: Incompetence, distraction or something more sinister?

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Attention

Prescient, much? Bin Laden once plotted to kill Obama, as he thought a Biden presidency would create chaos and aid the Taliban...

Paul A. Nuttall
RT
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 12:43 UTC
Bin Laden Biden
© Getty Images/CNN/Reuters/Jonathan Ernst/KJN
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden • US President Joe Biden
The Al Qaeda leader made his prediction in a 2010 letter to a key lieutenant. It pains me to point out that, on this issue at least, he's unfortunately been proved completely right, albeit a few years later than he hoped.

In May 2010, the leader of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, wrote a remarkable letter to one of his acolytes. In it, he urged his lieutenant to plot to kill President Barack Obama, because a Joe Biden presidency would result in a "crisis", as the then vice-president was "totally unprepared for that post."

The assassination attempt on Obama's life was to be made by two teams of terrorists, who would also target General David Petraeus, then head of the US Central Command, if either man visited Afghanistan or Pakistan.
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Footprints

White House backtracks after Biden appears to say US would defend Taiwan against China


The Guardian
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 22:29 UTC
Biden
© Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
US President Joe Biden
A senior Biden administration official said US policy on Taiwan had not changed after President Joe Biden appeared to suggest the US would defend the island if it were attacked, a deviation from a long-held US position of "strategic ambiguity".

In an interview aired by ABC News on Thursday, Biden was asked about the effects of the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and responses in Chinese media telling Taiwan this showed Washington could not be relied on to come to its defence. Biden replied that Taiwan, South Korea and NATO were fundamentally different situations to Afghanistan and appeared to lump Taiwan together with countries to which Washington has explicit defence commitments.

The president said:
"They are ... entities we've made agreements with based on not a civil war they're having on that island or in South Korea, but on an agreement where they have a unity government that, in fact, is trying to keep bad guys from doing bad things to them. We have made, kept every commitment. We made a sacred commitment to article 5 that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with Taiwan. It's not even comparable to talk about that."
A senior Biden administration official said later on Thursday that US "policy with regard to Taiwan has not changed" and analysts said it appeared that Biden had misspoken.
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Arrow Up

Defense Secretary Austin acknowledges Taliban beatings of Americans in Kabul

Zachary Evans
National Review
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 04:23 UTC
Austin
© Yuri Gripas/Reuters
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a news briefing at the Pentagon
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged that some Americans attempting to leave Afghanistan have been beaten by Taliban militants, Politico reported on Friday. Austin told House lawmakers during a briefing:
"We're...aware that some people including Americans have been harassed and even beaten by the Taliban. This is unacceptable and [we] made it clear to the designated Taliban leader."
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby also acknowledged that the U.S. was aware of reports of beatings. He told reporters:
"We're certainly mindful of these reports and we've communicated to the Taliban that that's absolutely unacceptable and we want free passage through these checkpoints for documented Americans. By and large, that's happening."
The comments come less than two hours after President Biden claimed that the U.S. had not received reports of American citizens being unable to enter Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Secretary Austin was present at that press conference. Biden said:
"We have no indication that they haven't been able to get in Kabul through the airport. We know of no circumstance where American citizens who are carrying an American passport are trying to get through to the airport" [unsuccessfully].

Comment: Between Biden's misquotes, mistakes and misperceptions, there is little use for 'presidential' commentary.

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Target

Bolsonaro asks Brazil's Senate to impeach a Supreme Court justice


Reuters
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 06:58 UTC
Bolsonaro
© screenshot
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro
Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro raised the stakes in his battle with the country's Supreme Court on Friday, sending the Senate a request for the impeachment of one of its justices, according to the request seen by Reuters.

Bolsonaro is seeking to impeach Justice Alexandre de Moraes after he opened an investigation into the president for allegedly leaking to the media a secret federal police report of a hacking that backed up his views that Brazil's electronic voting system was vulnerable to fraud.

Moraes has also begun investigating Bolsonaro for his attacks on the Supreme Electoral Court, which has maintained that the electronic system is safe and can be audited.

The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, told reporters he will look at the request, but said he does not see political or technical grounds to impeach Moraes.

Comment: Greenwald offers perspective into examples of justice abuse warranting Bolsonaro's request:



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Bizarro Earth

Afghanistan: The End of the Occupation and the Use of Feminism as Propaganda

Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale
annebonnypirate.org
Sat, 21 Aug 2021 17:34 UTC
Taliban
© Getty
A lot of nonsense about Afghanistan is being written in Britain and the United States. Most of this nonsense hides a number of important truths.

First, the Taliban have defeated the United States.

Second, the Taliban have won because they have more popular support.

Third, this is not because most Afghans love the Taliban. It is because the American occupation has been unbearably cruel and corrupt.

Fourth, the War on Terror has also been politically defeated in the United States. The majority of Americans are now in favor of withdrawal from Afghanistan and against any more foreign wars.

Fifth, this is a turning point in world history. The greatest military power in the world has been defeated by the people of a small, desperately poor country. This will weaken the power of the American empire all over the world.

Sixth, the rhetoric of saving Afghan women has been widely used to justify the occupation, and many feminists in Afghanistan have chosen the side of the occupation. The result is a tragedy for feminism.

This article explains these points. Because this a short piece, we assert more than we prove. But we have written a great deal about gender, politics and war in Afghanistan since we did fieldwork there as anthropologists almost fifty years ago. We give links to much of this work at the end of this article, so you can explore our arguments in more detail.[1]
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