© Slash Gear
SOTT
SIGNS
OF THE
TIMES
OF THE
TIMES
Welcome to Sott.net
The World for People who Think
Puppet MastersS
During the night of June 12, warplanes of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a barrage of missiles at targets near Tell al-Hara in southern Syria. According to the Syrian state media, the IDF employed electronic warfare measures to suppress Syrian air defense systems. Despite this, at least some of the missiles were intercepted and the strike caused material damage only.
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., gives a speech on foreign policy and national security at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, on June 11, 2019.
"Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons should remain a core tenet of our global leadership," said Buttigieg, 37, in a speech focused on foreign policy and national security at the University of Indiana in Bloomington. "For this reason, I will rejoin our international partners and recommit the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal."
"Whatever its imperfections, this was perhaps as close to a true 'art of the deal' as it gets," he said. "As even this administration repeatedly certified it was preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It has helped constrain the military threat that Iran poses to Israel and Europe without leading up down a path to another Middle Eastern war. This agreement was concluded not to do Iran a favor, but because it is in our national security interest, just as a parallel policy of confronting Iran's support for terrorism and abysmal human rights record reflects our values and security interests."
"That's why I've worked so hard in my career to make sure that... I promise you if I'm elected president, you're going to see the single most important thing that changes America, we're gonna cure cancer," Biden declared.
Comment: Does Biden think people are so dumb that he can dispense with any notion of feasibility with regard to his campaign promises and win, is he so delusional that he thinks such a thing is possible, or is it something else? Whatever the case may be, here's an idea for a more accurate campaign slogan:
Biden 2020: Ponies for all, cancer for none, and inappropriately touching or smelling children is definitely not creepy.
© Global Look Press / US Department of DefenseThe guided-missile destroyer (DDG 93) sails in the South China Sea, May 10, 2019
China is now the second-biggest defence spender in the world, losing out only to the US (who - by the way - is so far ahead of the game that it accounts for 36 percent of all global defence spending). The rise of Beijing - and Washington's response to its ever-emerging preeminence - is putting traditional allies of both China and the United States in an increasingly interesting position.
One such ally is the Philippines. In October 2016, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was so emboldened by his newfound anti-American stance that he even dared the CIA to try to have him removed from power (and ultimately assassinated).
"You want to oust me?" Duterte said at the time. "You want to use the CIA? Go ahead."
© AP Photo
The current 2020 Democrat frontrunner made the comments to Washingtonian magazine while being interviewed fora profile published in June 1974. Biden, then only 31-years-old, came to regret the interview, as his penchant for gaffes and insensitive remarks-traits defining later portions of his career-heavily colored the piece. At the time, however, Biden appeared eager to discuss his life as the nation's youngest senator.
"I am proud to be a politician," Biden told then-Washingtonian writer Kitty Kelley, who authored the profile. "There is no other walk of life which can do more good for mankind than politics. It influences everything that happens to the American people."
© AP/Evan VucciTrump shakes hands with Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan at a Gulf Cooperation Council Summit in Riyadh, SA, May 2017.
Rashid al-Malik, an Emirati businessman whose name came up in a federal probe into possible illegal donations to pro-Trump groups, served as a secret paid intelligence source for the sheikdom's intelligence services in 2017, The Intercept has reported, citing official documents and unnamed sources said to be familiar with the matter.
According to the publication, al-Malik, formally working as an investment consultant, was given an official code name, and paid "tens of thousands of dollars a month" by the Emirati government to search for information on the then-incoming Trump administration's Middle East policy.
Specifically, Abu Dhabi reportedly sought to find out about Washington's stance in the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Qatar, the details of US officials' meetings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the administration's attitudes toward the Muslim Brotherhood.
© ABC News/Go.comIran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
The top Iranian diplomat met his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono in Tehran on Wednesday, shortly before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was set to begin his visit to the country, the first one of its kind in 41 years. Abe is set to hold talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani later in the day and meet with supreme leader Ali Khamenei on Thursday.
"They [the US] have opened economic war on our nation," Zarif said as cited by local media, accusing Washington of spreading anti-Iranian sentiment and propaganda on a daily basis.
"We will find ways for the welfare and comfort of our nation in these hard conditions, including revising the budget and financial policies to make them oil-free," the minister added.
Earlier this week, the Iranian Parliament's Research Center (IPRC) issued a scheme dubbed "Oil-Free Economic Conduct" (OFEC). The plan stipulates some amendments to the budget in order to "balance the payments and the foreign exchange market," according to Fars news.
Comment: See also:
- US 'cannot expect to stay safe' after launching economic war - Iranian FM Zarif
- Iran shall thrive despite US sanctions, remarks FM Zarif
- Rouhani: The US can't stop Iranian oil exports, Persian Gulf will shut down if they try
- Iran's oil revenues increased by almost 50% despite sanctions
© Reuters/Laura HasaniFormer US President Bill Clinton receives medal from 'President of Kosovo' and former KLA militant Hashim Thaci, June 11, 2019
Falsely claiming that Yugoslavia was committing "genocide" against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, NATO launched an air war in March that year, violating its own and the UN charter. Thousands of civilians perished, including ethnic Albanians the alliance claimed to be protecting, before an armistice was signed that allowed NATO to occupy the province as peacekeepers.
On Tuesday, Clinton arrived in Kosovo to receive honors from the ethnic Albanian authorities. He was presented with a medal by "President" Hashim Thaci, and a commemorative postage stamp bearing his face.
Clinton was welcomed to the stamp "club" by Representative Eliot Engel (D-New York), current chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee and another outspoken supporter of the ethnic Albanian cause.
Comment: It's sickening that war whores like Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright are getting anything but prison sentences for their roles in the destruction of Yugoslavia where thousands of innocent civilians, including children, perished courtesy of NATO bombs.
See:
- The Serbian children of Yugoslavia recall the horror of the 1999 NATO bombing
- Truth and lies about the break-up of Yugoslavia: Forget Milosevic, this was a US operation from start to finish
- Shameless: How NATO stole Yugoslavia's prosperity, targeting state-owned and worker cooperative factories
- Destruction of Yugoslavia: The template for America's future policy
- The Weight of Chains: US/NATO Destruction of Yugoslavia (Documentary)
- NATO's full-spectrum war against Yugoslavia: Demonization of Serbs was key
- 20 years on: RT documentary reveals the toxic legacy of NATO's 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia
- Documentary: Зaшto? (Why?) - Revisiting NATO atrocities in Yugoslavia
- The spread of Balkanization: US Empire's strategy of barbaric dismemberment of sovereign states began in Yugoslavia
© Reuters / Yuri Kadobnov
"Europe... must build new rules of trust and security with Russia, and should not only agree with NATO," Macron said in an interview with the Swiss television channel RTS. "It needs to build [relations] only between Europe and Russia."
While noting that disagreements between Moscow and Brussels do exist, in particular over Ukraine, Macron insisted that Russia's role in world affairs cannot be underestimated. Europe, the French president stressed, needs Moscow to solve major security issues, as Russia's highly successful anti-terrorist campaign in Syria has shown.
"We need to have a strategic debate, so this week I will have another, long and intense conversation with Vladimir Putin, as the president of France and the G7," Macron stressed."There is disagreement among us, but we work together."
Comment: Surprisingly wise comments coming from Macron for once. It remains to be seen if those are just empty words or if there will be actions that back them up.
Comment: See also: