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NPC

German FM Baerbock plans 'feminist' blitz


RT
Fri, 03 Mar 2023 00:56 UTC
baerbock
© Christophe Gateau/picture alliance/Getty ImagesGerman Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock
Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock has put together a platform for "feminist foreign policy," several outlets reported on Tuesday. The revamp of Berlin's diplomacy, due to be made public later this week, will infuse "gender issues" into everything from humanitarian aid and energy to climate change.

"We are pursuing a feminist foreign policy because it is bitterly necessary. Because men and women are still not equal worldwide," Baerbock wrote, according to Politico Europe.

The 80-page report outlines 10 principal guidelines, according to the German news agency DPA. Among them are offering "gender-sensitive" humanitarian aid, involving "women and marginalized groups" in economic development and considering the "gender issues" dimension of climate and energy policies.

Comment:



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Bullseye

Best of the Web: Orion 23: France holds its largest-ever military exercise, NATO allies also attend 'global geopolitical upheaval' war games

Samuel Tissot
World Socialist Web Site
Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:00 UTC
france military exercise
© AP Photo/Jeremy Bessat/Armee de TerreThis undated photo provided Thursday January 5, 2023, by the French Army shows AMX-10 RC tanks.
On Saturday, the French military's Operation Orion 2023 (Orion 23) began with hundreds of parachutists being dropped in the Tarn region of southern France. On Sunday morning, an amphibious assault was simulated at Sète on the Mediterranean coast.

This first stage of Orion 2023, which continues until the end of the week, involves 7,000 troops from France, the US, Italy, Spain, Belgium and the UK, which are all part of the NATO alliance that is waging war against Russia in Ukraine. Over this week, as many as 2,300 military vehicles will be involved in the war games. These include 40 warplanes, over 100 drones, 30 warships and the Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier.

According to General Yves Métayer, who led the organization of the operation, "We have never done an exercise of this magnitude over such a long period of time." Another officer told France3: "The amount of resources made available, the degree of synergy between the different armies, is unheard of since I joined the army."

Comment: Lest we forget that, amidst its failing proxy war in Ukraine, the US is ramping up its provocations against China; furthermore, as noted above, the French establishment has its own citizens, who are in open revolt, to worry about too: NewsReal: Enter The Dragon: China Sides With Russia Against America



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Snakes in Suits

GOP senators confront Garland on protesters outside homes of Supreme Court justices

Daniel Chaitin
The Daily Wire
Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:00 UTC
garland
© Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty ImagesAG Merrick Garland
Republican senators pressed Attorney General Merrick Garland on enforcing a federal law against protests outside Supreme Court justices' homes.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) set a focus on demonstrators carrying signs and shouting slogans outside the residences of justices after the 2022 leak and issuance of the Supreme Court opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case, which determined that abortion is not a constitutional right.

Lee, a former law clerk, said it is "very clear" that protesters are trying to influence jurisprudence in potential violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1507, which prohibits pickets or parades near the house of a judge with the intent of influencing or impeding the administration of justice.

Comment: See also: Man faces federal indictment for Justice Kavanaugh assassination attempt

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Target

US senator threatens Brazil with 'crippling sanctions'


RT
Tue, 28 Feb 2023 22:24 UTC
TCruz
© Ken Cedeno/APSenator Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz was furious after Iranian warships docked in Rio de Janeiro over American objections...

Washington should sanction everyone having anything to do with the visit of two Iranian warships to Brazil, Senator Ted Cruz said on Tuesday, declaring the visit "a direct threat to the safety and security of Americans."

The Iranian Navy frigate Dena and the supply ship Makran are on a mission to sail around the world. They arrived in Brazil on Sunday, intending to resupply before proceeding to the Panama Canal. The US has previously demanded Brazil refuses them permission to dock, citing unilateral American sanctions against Tehran.

Cruz said in a statement:
"These Iranian warships are already sanctioned, and so the port in Rio de Janeiro where they docked is now at risk of crippling sanctions, as are any Brazilian companies that provided them services or accepted payments - and so are all foreign companies that entangle themselves with the port or those Brazilian companies in the future."
Insisting that US anti-terrorism laws are "not optional," the senator called on President Joe Biden to "impose relevant sanctions" and re-evaluate whether Brasilia is adequately cooperating with Washington. "If the administration does not, Congress should force them to do so."

Comment: Glen Greenwald's response to Cruz's statement:


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Oil Well

US army resumes theft of Syrian oil weeks after deadly quake


The Cradle
Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:00 UTC
oil field
© Getty ImagesUS troops on Syrian oil field
The US occupation army renewed its oil smuggling campaign in northeast Syria three weeks after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake ravaged the war-torn country.

According to eyewitness reports from the countryside of Al-Yarubiyah in Hasakah governorate, on 27 February, US troops transported at least 34 tankers filled with stolen Syrian oil through the illegal Al-Mahmoudiya border crossing to their bases in Iraq. The oil was plundered from Syria's northeast Jazira region, the country's primary energy and grain-producing region.

Washington maintains approximately 900 troops in Syria, primarily split between the Al-Tanf base and the country's northeastern region. Their occupation is illegal under international law as it was carried out without government approval.

Though US troops - accompanied by fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - initially occupied large swathes of Syria under the pretext of fighting ISIS, the official rationale for the occupation changed once ISIS was largely defeated.

In infamous comments made in 2019, former US President Donald Trump said: "We're keeping [Syria's] oil. We have the oil. The oil is secure. We left troops behind only for the oil."

The same year, the current US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for West Asia, Dana Stroul, noted during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that "one-third of Syrian territory was owned by the US military, with its local partner the SDF."

Comment: There is no such thing as international squatters rights, nor self-proclaimed ownership of resources.

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Eye 2

The Telegraph's 'Lockdown Files': WhatsApp messages reveal UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock rejected Covid testing for care homes advice


The Telegraph
Thu, 02 Mar 2023 15:06 UTC
matt hancock telegraph lock down files covid
© The Telegraph
Huge leak reveals conversations from 100,000 texts, showing how then health secretary did not follow Sir Chris Whitty's tough line

Matt Hancock rejected the Chief Medical Officer's advice to test for Covid all residents going into English care homes, leaked messages seen by The Telegraph reveal.

Prof Sir Chris Whitty told the then health secretary early in April 2020, about a month into the pandemic, that there should be testing for "all going into care homes". But Mr Hancock did not follow that guidance, telling his advisers that it "muddies the waters".

Instead, he introduced guidance that made testing mandatory for those entering care homes from hospital, but not for those coming from the community. Prior to the guidance, care homes had been told that negative tests were not required even for hospital patients. The guidance stating that those coming in from the community should be tested was eventually introduced on Aug 14.

Between April 17 and August 13, 2020, a total of 17,678 people died of Covid in care homes in England.


Comment: Cruelly, the majority were deprived of the comfort of their families.


Comment: Hancock's decisions created the clusterf*ck the UK is now dealing with. Incompetence, or something more sinister?

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Arrow Down

Deadly balancing act for region with US hell bent on China war

Alex Lo
South China Morning Post
Wed, 01 Mar 2023 13:00 UTC
US China Flag
© Flipboard
In one respect, Antony Blinken's latest claim about Taiwan is right. The US secretary of state said any cross-strait crisis is "a matter of concern to quite literally the entire world". That's true because Washington has made it so by deliberately escalating what are already high tensions into a powder keg.

When arsonists like Blinken are threatening to torch a house, which is Taiwan, to save it, it's no wonder the whole neighbourhood is alarmed. It doesn't help when top US military men just keep on predicting a war with China, any time now, and up to 2027 at the latest.

It also doesn't help when the United States keeps selling more weapons to the island, and is now increasing its military presence with actual boots on Taiwanese ground. If that's not provocation, I don't know what is.

There is an easier and sensible way to ease tensions with China, and that's by trying to reach an understanding with Beijing over the island, as both the US and the mainland have managed to do in the past 40 years, until now.

But then the US decides it must openly confront and contain a rising China. And what's more convenient than playing the Taiwan card, Asia's peace and security be damned? After all, if the whole region goes up in smoke, that's someone else's neighbourhood, not America's. It's déjà vu. How many times have we seen this film before? Why talk when you can just pull out a gun?

That's America's style. It's apparently even written into its constitution.
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MIB

Deep State Absolutely Wants to Kill You

Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog
Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:00 UTC
US flag hole
Award-winning journalist Alex Newman, author of the popular books "Deep State" and "Crimes of the Educators," predicted at the beginning is this year that the Deep State demons will have one crisis after another to keep people confused and afraid. The latest crisis is the economic and ecological disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. Newman says expect many more disasters and explains,
"All across the country we are seeing very bizarre things happen. Factories and chemical plants going up in flames, food processing facilities blowing up, airplanes crashing in mysterious ways, and I think we are heading into an era of really serious crisis. Last summer, I was putting together the wave of crises that the Deep State was preparing for us, and one of the terms I used was 'polycrisis.' Then, right before the World Economic Forum meeting this year, they actually put on their website is 2023 the year of the polycrisis? Of course, it will be the year of the polycrisis. I think we are prepared and being groomed for cyber-attacks, currency crisis, economic crisis and, of course, Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan. I think all of this is going to be used for a series of never-ending crises until we are ready to give up our freedoms, give up our national sovereignty and self-government, and move towards this crazy totalitarian, technocratic system they want."

Comment: Newman's got it wrong about Putin here and has not been paying enough attention to Putin's strong criticisms of the WEF, or figure the WEF/NATO agenda, vis-à-vis Ukraine, into his calculus; Russia has been fighting tooth and nail against the literal and existential threat that the WEF/NATO's egregious aggression poses against her - and that's all just a ruse because Russia is really part of the globalist agenda? We think not.

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Rocket

The most important consequence of Russia's withdrawal from the START-3 treaty


Stalkerzone
Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00 UTC
missile transport
For some reason, everyone focuses primarily on two points:

A) The US will no longer be able to inspect our launchers, warehouses, carriers, etc. That is, they will not be able to find out the details related to nuclear weapons. Especially with the latest models.

B) Now it will be necessary to include France and Britain in the treaty, that is, either increase the number of nuclear warheads in our country, or lower them in the United States.

Yes, both points are undoubtedly important and relevant. But there is another point that stems from the START-3 treaty that can have the maximum impact on the United States.

This is paragraph 11 of article 4 of this treaty. Here's what it prescribes:

11. Strategic offensive weapons falling within the scope of this Treaty are not based outside the national territory of each of the Parties.

In other words, we can say this: Russia can now deploy nuclear weapons OUTSIDE of Russia. That is, anywhere. Even in Cuba, even in Nicaragua, even in Venezuela.
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Yoda

Ron DeSantis: Why I stood up to Disney

Ron DeSantis
The Wall Street Journal
Tue, 28 Feb 2023 18:27 UTC
disney magic kingdom
© Ted Shaffrey/Associated PressMagic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., April 18, 2022.
Old-fashioned corporate Republicanism won't do in a world where the left has hijacked big business.

On Monday, I signed the law ending the Walt Disney Co.'s self-governing status over 43 square miles in central Florida, an area almost as big as Miami. Disney no longer has its own government. It has to live under the same laws as Universal Studios, SeaWorld and every other company in our state and is still on the hook for the old district's municipal debt.

Disney's special arrangement, which dates to 1967, was an indefensible example of corporate welfare. It provided the company with favorable tax treatment, including the ability to assess its own property valuations and to enjoy the benefits of regional infrastructure improvements without paying taxes toward the projects. It exempted Disney from Florida's building and fire-prevention codes. It even allowed Disney to build a nuclear power plant and to use eminent domain to seize private property outside the district's boundaries. While special districts are common in Florida, Disney's deal was conspicuous in the massive benefits it conferred. Disney's self-governing status endured because the company's unrivaled political power in Florida made its arrangement virtually untouchable.

Comment: See also:

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