U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would intervene in the Justice Department's case against a top executive at China's Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.

Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada Dec. 1 and has been accused by the United States of misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. sanctions.

When asked if he would intervene with the Justice Department in her case, Trump said in an interview with Reuters: "Whatever's good for this country, I would do."

"If I think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made - which is a very important thing - what's good for national security - I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary," Trump said.

The US House of Representatives is once again calling on the European Union to ban the Russia-led construction of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline and has called for sanctions against the project.

The resolution was passed by the Republican-led Congress during Monday's session. Echoing US President Donald Trump's rhetoric against the construction of the undersea pipeline, the lawmakers called it "a drastic step backward for European energy security and United States interests." The House now wants the US president to step in and even impose economic penalties under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

Moscow has repeatedly stressed that all Washington's attempts to hamper the project are simply driven by economic reasons and are a shining example of unfair competition. Reacting to the latest House motion, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there is nothing new in this"unacceptable" position. He added that the project is purely economic and serves not only Russia's interests as a gas supplier, but Germany as an EU member-country and its consumers in the first place.

Prices for gas imported by Ukraine from European countries hit a record high in November, according to data published by the country's State Fiscal Service. The gas is most likely Russian in origin resold to Kiev at a premium.

The State Fiscal Service of Ukraine calculated an average cost of imported natural gas that formed during its customs clearance when it enters the territory of Ukraine.

"The price totaled some 9,472 hryvnia ($339.2) per thousand cubic meters of the fuel," the statement said, as quoted by the Ukrainian Independent Information Agency UNIAN.

Russian legislation may be amended to allow harsher sanctions against foreign IT-companies, including blocking Google, that keep violating the country's laws, Russia's telecom watchdog Roskomnadzor warned.

Earlier this week, Google was fined 500,000 rubles ($7,500) for refusing to connect its search engine to the federal database of banned websites. The penalty almost feels like a mockery, considering that Alphabet holding company, which Google is part of, earned almost $110 billion last year.

"If fines won't have any effect on the behavior of the foreign company, there's a possibility that the legislation will be changed, which will allow blocking Goggle in Russia," Vadim Subbotin, the deputy head of Roskomnadzor, said.

The ambassadors of the Arab League in Brazil will meet on Tuesday in Brasília to discuss the Bolsonaro government's intention to transfer the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

According to an unidentified Arab diplomat, quoted by the Reuters news agency, the secretary general of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, sent a letter to the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warning that the transfer of the embassy to Jerusalem could damage relations with the Arab countries.

"The Arab world has much respect for Brazil and we want not just to maintain relations but improve and diversify them. But the intention of moving the embassy to Jerusalem could harm them," the diplomat said.

Journalist and writer Neil Clark has told RT there's a "political agenda at work" at Twitter, where anti-war voices are "fair game," after having his latest reported death threat dismissed by the social media giant.

Clark posted a now deleted tweet in which the perpetrator, @ironstowe, appeared to suggest the RT writer was next in line to receive the same 'fate' as the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. The journalist stated he hoped Twitter would act after receiving such a "clear death threat," - adding "imagine the media coverage if a neocon/'liberal-left' got sent" such a tweet.

Note: I just saw this in Commentary Magazine online. It is too good to pass. I have to share that with you. And just for funzies, I bolded out the most blatant lies/misrepresentations. Have fun! The Saker

Is Russia Ready for Another Land Grab in Ukraine?
It's time for a new strategy.

by Noah Rothman

© Soldiers of the Ukrainian air assault units board a military cargo aircraft at a military base in the Zhytomyr region, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018.Soldiers of the Ukrainian air assault units board a military cargo aircraft at a military base in the Zhytomyr region, Ukraine, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018.

Two weeks ago, the world reacted with palpable shock to the news that Russia had unilaterally closed naval traffic through the Kerch Strait separating the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov, but it's a mystery as to why. Moscow's brazen violation of Ukraine's maritime navigation rights and its arrest of sailors is only its latest egregious attack on international norms. Such attacks have ranged from the invasion and annexation of sovereign territory in Europe to the active support for the starvation of Syrian civilians. This last offense against responsible statecraft was comparatively modest, but it was no less dangerous. If Russia's provocation was a calculated effort designed to gauge how the world would react to another transgression against Ukrainian sovereignty, Moscow got a rather definitive answer: it wouldn't. Russia has taken its cues, and it may be preparing for something far worse.

Andrey Illarionov, a former economic advisor to Vladimir Putin who has become a fierce critic of the Russian regime in his current role as a Cato Institute scholar, told the Kiev Post this week that time is not on Russia's side and the Kremlin knows it. Occupied Crimea is running out of water. The peninsula relies primarily on a Soviet-era canal to channel fresh water from mainland Ukraine and, between periodic draughts and the Ukrainian government's efforts to choke off resources to the illegally occupied territory, Illarionov believes it's only a matter of time before the canal runs dry. He thinks that Putin is resolved to prevent that kind of a crisis by any means necessary.

Oh well, the good thing is that these folks are showing their true face along with their mind boggling level of dishonesty. This will all eventually end like it always does, with a big and very predictable backlash. Then they will whine and sob about how nobody loves them (for some mysterious reason).

The Saker

Yellow Vest protesters in Paris erected a guillotine bearing the name of Emmanuel Macron's political party in a direct threat to the under-fire French President.

The move came as the country's finance minister warned the violent protests sweeping the country are a 'catastrophe' for the nation's economy.

The demonstrators torched cars, vandalised and looted shops and restaurants, and hurled stones in a fourth weekend of protests in Paris.

Riot police fought back with tear gas, water cannon and baton charges, leaving 71 people injured in the French capital.

The shocking guillotine footage, which was filmed in an unknown location in France, emerged as Macron prepared to meet trade unionists and rival politicians before addressing the country at 8pm tonight.

And his finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, yesterday warned that the Yellow Vest protests will have 'a severe impact' on the economy.

'It's a catastrophe for commerce, it's a catastrophe for our economy,' the finance minister said. 'We must expect a new slowdown of economic growth at year-end due to the protests.'

The protesters, who take their name from the fluorescent safety vests that French drivers are legally obliged to carry, have wreaked havoc on retailers and the tourism industry.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday called on the United States not to "create new opponents" and warned it against "bullying" Chinese citizens.

Wang made the remarks in a speech at the annual Symposium on International Developments and China's Diplomacy, hosted by a government think tank and its foundation in Beijing.

It came after the world's two biggest economies agreed to a 90-day truce in their trade war, and following the arrest of Huawei Technologies chief financial officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou in Canada on December 1. The US is seeking Meng's extradition on multiple fraud charges.

Update 3: This is big.

In what might be the first sign that May is growing weary of the unceasing Brexit chaos that has marred her tenure as prime minister, No. 10 Downing Street just hinted in comments that May might not be the conservative leader during the next election.

Update 2: Cable has climbed to session highs, wiping out yesterday's losses, following a BBC report that 158 MPs - enough for May to prevail in the no confidence vote - have publicly promised to back the prime minister.