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Merkel: Washington's stance is wrong! Nord Stream 2 project benefits Germany AND Europe


RT
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 21:42 UTC
Merkel
© Hannibal Hanschke/ReutersGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the Nord Stream 2 is an economic project that will benefit large parts of Europe, criticizing US attempts to undermine it.

Speaking to journalists in Moscow along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Merkel argued that "sanctions are the wrong way to go." Both leaders vowed that the gas pipeline project will be finished against all odds.

In December, the US State Department issued an ultimatum to European companies taking part in the project, threatening them with sanctions if they do not cease their work by January 20. The US says the project will harm the interests of Poland and Ukraine, which will lose billions of dollars in transit fees from Moscow, as well as limiting Europe's opportunities for energy diversification.

Merkel dismissed these arguments at a joint press conference with Putin, stating that "everyone" in Germany and Europe "is interested in diversifying the gas supply and we are going to continue working in this direction," while saying the Nord Stream 2 is of the "utmost importance. It will be implemented no matter what. In the future, we will support the project as we did in the past."
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Briefcase

The FISA Court is complicit in the same abuses perpetrated by the FBI

Margot Cleveland
The Federalist
Fri, 10 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
FISA/Page
© Fox NewsFISA file • Carter Page
Today is the deadline Judge Rosemary Collyer set for the government to inform the FISA court of how it will stop lying to obtain secret surveillance orders. The court needs to do much more.

Shortly after Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his report detailing the government's egregious abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Rosemary M. Collyer, the presiding judge of the FISA court, issued a rare public order demanding answers.

Today is the deadline Collyer set for the government to
"inform the Court in a sworn written submission of what it has done, and plans to do, to ensure that the statement of facts in each FBI application accurately and completely reflects information possessed by the FBI that is material to any issue presented by the application."
The Department of Justice's response will surely promise amends, as it should; the FISA abuse was inexcusable. Collyer was rightfully outraged at the government's misconduct because, as her order stressed, the FISA court assesses whether probable cause exists to justify a surveillance order based solely on the information provided by the government. But that the DOJ swore out four fraudulent FISA applications does not excuse the FISA court for its own culpability — and from the IG report's analysis, it appears that the secret court is far from blameless.
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Stop

Spokesman for Haftar's LNA forces announces ceasefire beginning January 12


RT
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 21:30 UTC
Members LNA
© Reuters/Esam Omran Al-FetoriMembers of the Libyan National Army
The Libyan National Army led by General Khalifa Haftar has declared a ceasefire after Russian and Turkish presidents suggested as a way to de-escalate the hostilities with the government in Tripoli.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel's also called for ending hostilities between the two warring sides in the troubled North Africa country earlier on Sunday and promised conducting peace conference in Berlin.

The ceasefire is conditioned on the rival side, the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) - accepting it, spokesman Ahmed Mismari said. It was suggested by Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul earlier this week, but initially Haftar rejected it.

"We welcome Putin's call for a ceasefire. However, our fight against terrorist organizations that seized Tripoli and received support of some countries will continue until the end," he said through a representative [to] them. Haftar's position seems to have changed now.

The Tripoli-based government led by PM Fayez al-Sarraj backed the ceasefire immediately, releasing a statement late Wednesday that showed its full support of "any serious calls for the resumption of the political process and the elimination of the specter of war."
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Red Flag

Best of the Web: This Decade Belonged to China. So Will The Next One

Martin Jacques
The Guardian
Thu, 31 Dec 2020 17:35 UTC
The west is still finding it extraordinarily difficult to come to terms with China's remarkable ascent
xi jinping
Now all your govts is belong to us
By 2010, China was beginning to have an impact on the global consciousness in a new way. Prior to the western financial crisis, it had been seen as the new but very junior kid on the block. The financial crash changed all that. Before 2008 the conventional western wisdom had been that sooner or later China would suffer a big economic meltdown. It never did. Instead, the crisis happened in the west, with huge consequences for the latter's stability and self-confidence.

Every year for the past decade, China, not the US, has been the main source of global economic growth. In 2014, according to the World Bank's international comparison program, the Chinese economy overtook that of the US to become the world's largest, measured by purchasing power parity. Although China's growth rate over the past decade has declined to its present 6.2%, it is still one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Today its economy is more than twice as big as it was in 2010.
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Vader

SOTT Focus: US as The Globe's Judge, Jury And Executioner

Ilana Mercer
Ron Paul Institute
Sun, 12 Jan 2020 16:54 UTC
us drone strike
Qassim Soleimani, an Iranian major general, was assassinated by a US drone air strike, at the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). Soleimani was traveling with one Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was an Iraqi, born and bred. Al-Muhandis was even elected to the Iraqi Parliament, in 2005, until the US intervened. (Yes, we intervene in other nations' elections.)

Iraq's caretaker prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, was furious, denouncing "What happened [as] a political assassination." Unanimously, Iraqi lawmakers "responded to the Soleimani assassination by passing a nonbinding resolution calling on the government to end foreign-troop presence in Iraq."

Yes, it's a complicated region. And America, sad to say, still doesn't know Shia from Shinola.

The consensus in our country is that "Soleimani deserved to die." That's the party-line on Fox News — and beyond. It's how assorted commentators on all networks prefaced their "positions" on the Jan. 3 killing of this Iranian general.
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Powertool

Western intel gets it right for a change, but will there be further Truth casualties?

Finian Cunningham
Sputnik
Sun, 12 Jan 2020 13:54 UTC
ukrainian plane crash
© RIA Novosti . Wana News Agency
Western intelligence claims about the airliner shoot-down by Iran have been proven correct - after the Iranian authorities owned up to the disaster.

Iran's air commander General Amir Ali Hajizadeh delivered the grim news that a defense battery had fired two missiles at the civilian airliner in the genuine, but fatal, belief that the aircraft was an incoming enemy cruise missile.

Given the heightened war-like tensions over the past week between the US and Iran it is understandable that such human error was made. All 176 civilians onboard Flight PS 752 were killed when it crashed near Tehran on January 8 after being hit by two missiles.

Iran's leadership expressed heartfelt apology and condolences to the families of the victims, most of whom were Iranian, as well as Canadian, Ukrainian, British, Swedish, German and Afghan.

Initially, Iranian aviation officials dismissed Western claims of an errant missile strike by Iranian air defense. They said they believed the crash was due to a technical problem onboard, such as engine failure.

Some Western media are now reporting that Iranian officials were trying to cover-up the cause, even lying to their own people. More likely, the conflicting initial explanation was due to the chaos amid such a calamity.

Iran's leadership has commendably done the right thing by quickly admitting the truth of the terrible event and loss of so many innocent lives. At least the grieving families will not have to agonize over a endless claims and counter-claims.

Comment: Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. They got it 'right' only because Iran was so cleverly boxed in by some variant of a cyberwarfare attack that it could do nothing but squeal 'sorry'.

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Yellow Vest

Increased pressure sees Macron 'willing' to step back from most contentious pension reform proposals


Sputnik
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 23:37 UTC
yellow vest December 2019
© Reuters / Benoit TessierProtestors wearing yellow vests attend a demonstration against French government's pensions reform plans in Paris as part of a second day of national strike and protests in France, December 10, 2019.
France has seen weeks of strikes, with demonstrators taking to the streets every week in protest against the authorities' pension reform plans that they have promised to proceed with in the near future.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced on Saturday that the government was "willing" to scrap the most contested provision of the pension reform plan in a move to appease protesting trade unions.

"To demonstrate my confidence in the social partners... I am willing to withdraw from the bill the short-term measure I had proposed" to set a so-called "pivot age" of 64 with effect from 2027, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe wrote in a letter to union leaders a day after they met seeking to end a crippling transport strike now in its 38th day.

Comment: Even the judiciary is fed up Macron's neoliberal economic policies.





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Briefcase

UNSC adopts European resolution on cross-border humanitarian aid deliveries to Syria - Russia, China abstain over Idlib concerns


Sputnik
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 22:42 UTC
UN Security council
© AFP / Mark GartenA general view of the Security Council meeting on maintenance of international peace and security and upholding the United Nations Charter
The United States, the United Kingdom, China, and Russia abstained from voting on the resolution, while other 11 members voted in favour.

The United Nations Security Council has renewed its cross-border humanitarian aid operation in Syria, but the number of crossings and length of authorisation has been reduced.

Aid deliveries will continue from Turkey, paragraphs 2 and 3 of Security Council resolution 2165 (2014), for six months, but two cross-border points - the Al-Yarubiyah border crossing with Iraq and the Al-Ramtha crossing with Jordan - were dropped, according to Reuters.
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Attention

North Korea says Kim Jong Un's 'personal' relationship with Trump 'not enough' to salvage nuclear talks

Jesse Johnson
Japan TImes
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 22:12 UTC
rally northkorea central committee
© AFP-JIJIAttendees stand before a North Korean flag during a rally in support of the 5th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang on Jan. 5.
Kim Jong Un's personal relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump may not be enough to salvage stalled nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington, a senior North Korean official said Saturday.

Kim Kye Gwan, an adviser to the North's Foreign Ministry, said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency that his country had directly received Trump's letter wishing a happy birthday to leader Kim Jong Un, but warned that it will return to nuclear talks only when Washington fully accepts its demands.

"As acknowledged by the world, it is true that the personal relations between (Kim Jong Un) and President Trump are not bad," he said. However, he continued, it would be "absent-minded" to expect Pyongyang to resume dialogue because of that warm personal relationship.
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USA

SOTT Focus: Who is America's Hero? Spongebob?

Amari Roos
Sott.net
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 20:34 UTC
spongebob
"Let's hit those darn terrorists with our jellyfish army, Patrick!"
About a day after the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, Iranian cleric Shahab Moradi called in during a show about the events surrounding the assassination. He asked the presenter:
[In the situation] that we take one of theirs now that they've got one of ours — who should we consider to take out in the context of America? Think about it. Are we supposed to take out Spiderman and SpongeBob? They don't have any heroes. We have a country in front of us with a large population and a large landmass, but it doesn't have any heroes. All of their heroes are cartoon characters - they're all fictional.
Can anyone argue with that? Can anyone name an American soldier of any rank in recent decades who saved large numbers of civilians from terrorists? Someone who really stands out?

I'll wager that when you think about American troops in the Middle East, the things that come to mind are along the lines of: troops abusing and sexually humiliating prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, troops setting fire to Iraqis, troops raping a 14-year-old girl and killing her and her family afterwards, throwing a puppy off a cliff in Iraq, killing Afghan civilians and collecting fingers as trophies... and other similar, horrifying, stories.
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