Russians will vote on a package of amendments to the constitution on July 1, President Vladimir Putin has announced. If passed, the new constitution would allow Putin to potentially stay in power until 2036.

On Monday, Putin agreed that the proposed date looks "quite suitable for holding an all-Russian vote on constitutional amendments," and called the scheduling "impeccable" from the legal point of view.

Initially planned for April 22, Putin was forced to postpone the vote due to an ever-worsening epidemiological situation. A package of constitutional amendments was passed by Russia's parliament, the State Duma, in March. They swiftly gained approval from the legislative bodies of each Russian region and the country's Constitutional Court. The bill passed 383-0, with 44 abstentions - mainly members of the opposition Communist Party.

The amendments include banning important officials from having foreign citizenships and restricting all future presidents' time in office to a total of two terms. The new constitution would also transfer more powers to the country's two houses of parliament - the State Duma and the Federation Council. For example, the appointment of a prime minister and other cabinet members proposed by the president would be subject to the approval of the State Duma.

Controversially, the new constitution would also 'nullify' the terms already served by President Putin, allowing him to run again for a fifth term in 2024.

Somewhere along the road of America's development, corporations were blessed with not only 'personhood,' but with the power to sanction what sort of messages were permissible to enter the public realm. Let's be clear: This sort of corporate control, which borders on pure fascism, has no place in a democracy.

There is no need to ask. There is no need to be polite. There is no need to debate. It is only necessary to point to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution for this fundamental human right, inscribed into law over 200 years ago, to be returned to the American people.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

So how did it come to be that such a straightforward and unambiguous command has become so unattainable in reality?

The U.S. is reeling from a shocking incident of police brutality and outright murder earlier this week. Minneapolis, MN Police officers detained an unarmed man, and were filmed kneeling with a knee on his throat after already placing him in handcuffs, choking him to death.

His name was George Floyd, a 46-year old black man from Minnesota who has tragically become the next high profile victim of our callous police state after he allegedly aroused police attention for attempting to use a counterfeit $20 bill at a local deli.

The officers proceeded to forcibly remove him from his vehicle and sat him down on the sidewalk, continuing to drag him to their police car where one officer knelt on his throat for over five minutes, as Floyd kept saying, 'I can't breathe,' until he passed out. He was later pronounced dead after his lifeless body was transported from the scene as bystanders watched in horror.

The disturbing video can be seen below:


Witnesses at the scene called on the officers to lift their chokehold, affirming that "he's not even resisting arrest right now," and "you're f — ing stopping his breathing right now, you think that's cool?," but to no avail.

The novel coronavirus spread so rapidly that it has changed the rhythm of the globe. Whether from the perspective of a single country or multilateral levels, the solidity of international relations has been put under test. The most obvious consequences include economic recession, a crisis of global governance, trade protectionism and increasing isolationist sentiment. People-to-people, cultural and travel exchanges have all been restricted. Nonetheless, this is just a tip of the iceberg.

After we overcome the pandemic, which will surely happen, we must carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the world's ability to maintain stability when faced with similar challenges in the future. We must also craft measures to cope with these challenges together. But perhaps at the current phase, we can already draw some conclusions.

A pandemic is not new in human history. But what makes the COVID-19 pandemic special is that it takes place in an unprecedented backdrop when the interconnectivity and interdependence between people, between countries and between continents are so deep. The achievements people have made in technology, intelligence and transportation make them both physically and psychologically globalized.

The Saudi Arabia-led coalition has been waging a war against Yemen's Houthis for five years now, but with little success, as the group continues to control roughly half of the country and launches drones and missiles to attack Saudi infrastructure, including oil refineries.

The air defences of the Saudi-led coalition have shot down two drones flying towards Saudi Arabia that were launched by Yemen's Houthis, the Saudi Press Agency reports, citing a coalition spokesman. The coalition claims the drones were targeting "civilian objects" in the Saudi city of Khamis Mushait.

The statement comes on the same day as the Houthis accused the Saudi-led coalition of conducting 30 intensive air raids in the Yemeni provinces of Marib, Saada, and Hajjah. Earlier, on 30 May, the Houthis reported 111 Saudi air raids over the course of two days.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein headlined in Rolling Stone on 20 October 1977, "The CIA and the Media", and he wrote that, "The history of the CIA's involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception."

Subsequently, John Simkin established in September 1997 his phenomenal website on deep history, including its comprehensively linked 6,000-word article, "Operation Mockingbird", which was about the CIA operation that Frank Wisner had set up in 1948 in order to get the American public to hate and fear Russia so that in post-World-War-II-America, the corporations that had been making all or most of their money from selling weapons to the U.S. Government weapons during WW II, could now continue making and selling weapons to the Government, even during 'peacetime', in a now 'purely' 'ideological' war against 'communism', the Cold War (which was, for America's wealthiest, really a military and diplomatic mission to take over and control ultimately the entire world in the first-ever total-global empire).

Its basic idea was that in order to be able to continue arms-production after the actual fighting war (WW II) was over, there now needed to be an excuse which was purely ideological, irrespective of whether there was any country that actually endangered us. The Soviet Union had been crucial to the Allied victory in WW II. In order to get the American public to hate and fear Russia so that in post-World-War-II-America the arms-makers would continue to thrive, ideology needed to be the PR focus; and, therefore, after WW II, the 'enemy' would be communism instead of fascism. But this had to be the case despite there being no threats (much less, invasions) against either the U.S., or any of its (non-Soviet) allies.

There was nothing like the Pearl Harbor attack by the Soviet Union. Communism did not threaten the American people. The post-FDR CIA was rabidly against FDR's vision of the future of U.S. international relations — a vision which focused against there being any imperialism, by any nation, but instead only the sovereign equality of all nations, under the jurisdiction of the United Nations.

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele has announced that he is taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against the coronavirus.

Bukele told reporters on Tuesday that "most world leaders" are doing the same and has questioned why world leaders are being advised to use it while the public is not.

"I use it as a prophylaxis, President Trump uses it as a prophylaxis, most of the world's leaders use it as a prophylaxis," said Bukele.

President Donald Trump has been a proponent of the drug, which is normally used to treat malaria, and recently announced that he had been taking it.

Iran's New Naval Fleet To Challenge US Presence in The Gulf of Hormuz

What happens when the Covid-19 state of emergency ends for the time being? Well, the likelihood of a world war seems more absolute by the day.

The US and its allies including Israel have been increasing tensions in the Middle East while the Covid-19 hysteria has taken over the headlines across the mainstream media in the West and around the world. Washington has increased its hostility against numerous countries under the Trump regime as they have imposed severe economic sanctions, regime change operations and assassinations against China, Russia, Iran, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Syria, the Palestinians, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela. All of these countries are allies with each other one way or another, and they all have one thing in common, they are on Washington's hit list for not following the dictates of the empire. Although the focus is on China at the moment, Iran is still the major target of Washington and Tel Aviv. Iran has increased its military capabilities by receiving 110 new combat vessels according to a Saudi based news website Arabnews.com,

"Iran Guards Threaten US Over Gulf Presence After Receiving New Combat Vessels' said that "Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Thursday warned the United States against its naval presence in the Gulf as they received 110 new combat vessels."

President Donald Trump shared a tweet on Thursday that argued the mandated use of face masks to control the spread of the coronavirus represents a "culture of silence, slavery, and social death."

The argument against masks was made by a right-wing columnist in The Federalist, a conservative online publication, and claimed that mandating the safety measure was "anti-American" and signaled "indefinite government expansion."

"Mandatory masks are a critical predicate conditioning us to accept abuses of our liberty," columnist Molly McCann wrote in the Wednesday piece.

CNN's Van Jones on Friday accused all white people of being racist, saying, "Even the most liberal, well-intentioned white person has a virus in his or her brain that can be activated at an instant."

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