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Possible pullout of French troops from Syria under discussion


Sputnik
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 17:27 UTC
french soldier syria
© AFP 2018 / Daphné BENOIT
The potential withdrawal of French troops from Syria is currently under discussion, French Ambassador in Russia Sylvie Bermann told Sputnik.

"This issue is currently being discussed," the ambassador said, when asked if France would stay in Syria.

US President Donald Trump announced in mid-December that the US troops would withdraw from Syria.

"Yes, like everyone, we were surprised when the United States said it was withdrawing its troops from Syria. From that moment on, we have been in constant contact with the US leadership, but France has also assumed certain responsibilities as part of the coalition. What we find somewhat reassuring is that this is about a gradual, planned troop pullout," the ambassador added.

In January, French President Emmanuel Macron said that France would continue being militarily engaged in the Middle East in the international coalition throughout 2019 as, according to the president, the battle against Daesh was not over. The statement came a day after a suicide bombing claimed by Daesh militants killed at least 16 people, including two US service members.

Comment: The U.S. withdrawal is happening, so it's hard to see what the French think they can do on their own. They'll likely leave as well. That doesn't mean they'll be happy about it, though.

See also: The Syria withdrawal is happening: Trump's 'eye-to-eye' orders to US generals

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Star of David

Thousands of Palestinian Bedouins have no access to vote in upcoming Israeli elections

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 17:24 UTC
Negev village
© AdalahThe unrecognized Palestinian-Bedouin village of Um el Hiran in the Negev village, currently surrounded by Israeli police
As the Israeli campaign trail moves full speed ahead to the upcoming April 9th elections, rights groups are demanding authorities provide thousands of Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel with adequate access to polling stations.

Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel released a statement Monday saying the group is appealing to the Israeli Central Elections Committee Chairman and Interior Minister, demanding that polling stations be placed in 11 "unrecognized" Bedouin villages in the Negev desert.

The 11 villages, which are home to some 40,000 Palestinian Bedouins who have Israeli citizenship, currently have no polling stations or public transportation to reach existing stations.

"Some of their thousands of residents will have to travel up to 50 kilometers to vote in the upcoming national elections on 9 April 2019," Adalah said.
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Info

Pro-EU think tank blames Russia for future EP election meddling in report on Euroskeptic movement


RT
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 17:17 UTC
eu flag
© Global Look Press / John Heeneman
With the approach of the May elections to the EU Parliament, a pro-EU think tank has sounded an alarm over the burgeoning Euroskeptics, expected to take some 30 percent of seats. Naturally, Russia "highly likely" has a hand in it.

The alarmist report is published by The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) - a pro-EU non-profit think tank. The ECFR was established in 2007 and relies primarily on "donations" from various organizations - including such purveyors of a globalist agenda as George Soros' Open Society Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Needless to say, the report paints a very dim picture of a European future if Euroskeptics manage to secure the expected 28 -or even 30- percent of seats in the EU Parliament in the May elections, as opinion polls indicate. According to the report, Euroskeptic parties from all across Europe - both left- and right-wing - are bent on "paralyzing" the bloc.

"Their ability to paralyze decision-making at the centre of the EU would defuse pro-Europeans' argument that the project is imperfect but capable of reform. At this point, the EU would be living on borrowed time," the report warns.

The upcoming elections are described in terms like "battle of ideas," "fight" and so on. It's pointed out, however, that the EP is "only one of the European Union's governing bodies and, in many ways, the least powerful of them."

Comment: It's idiocy like this that turns even more people off of the EU project. Yet rather than realize their own hand in creating the perceived 'crisis', the bureaucrats will just do what comes naturally and continue to blame Russia. It's a never-ending cycle.

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X

US Senate Intel Committee probe: NO EVIDENCE of alleged Trump-Russian collusion


Sputnik
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 19:32 UTC
Trump
© Getty ImagesUS President Donald Trump
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has found no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 US presidential election, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

The bipartisan committee, which is nearing the end of its investigation, has found no proof that US President Donald Trump formed a corrupt pact with Russia to offer sanctions relief or other favorable treatment in return for Russian help during the election, NBC News reported citing Democrats and Republics on the committee.

While the Intelligence Committee did not find any direct evidence of the alleged conspiracy between the US president and Russia, Democrats say the series of contacts between Trump's associates, including his children, and various Russians suggest a campaign willing to accept help from a foreign adversary, the report said. According to the report, Trump and his associates had more than 100 contacts with Russians before the January 2017 presidential inauguration.

Democratic Senate investigators told NBC News that it may take them six or seven months to write their final report.
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USA

Trump undecided on deal to avoid another shutdown

Susan Cornwell, Richard Cowan
Reuters
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 17:02 UTC
Donald Trump
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Donald Trump has not yet decided whether to back an agreement hammered out by congressional negotiators to avert another partial government shutdown that includes funds for U.S.-Mexican border security but not for his promised wall, the White House said on Tuesday.

Democratic and Republican negotiators reached the tentative deal on Monday night on border security provisions and money to keep several government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security funded through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Temporary funding for about a quarter of the government is due to expire on Friday.

The Republican president triggered a 35-day partial government shutdown with his December demand for Congress to give him $5.7 billion to help build the border wall, which is opposed by Democrats. At a rally in Texas on Monday night, he made clear he would not drop his quest for a wall.

Trump has not yet made up his mind on the deal reached by lawmakers, said a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "No decision has been made," the official said.
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Cow

Cory Booker wants government to drastically increase the cost of meat to encourage veganism

Erick Erickson
The Resurgent
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 00:01 UTC
Cory Booker
© AP Photo/Julio CortezU.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, speaks during a news conference outside of his home, Friday, Feb. 1, 2019, in Newark, N.J. Booker on Friday declared his bid for the presidency with a sweeping call to unite a deeply polarized nation around a "common purpose."
The Democrats may be denying that Green New Deal white paper's lamentations about cow farts, but Cory Booker (D-NJ) is being very, very open about embracing one of its key points.

The pope wants to use the power of government to coerce farmers into abandoning animal populations in favor of vegetarian farming. Booker is doubling down on that.

Comment: Everyone who thinks the world should be ditching meat and eating a vegan diet needs to watch this series of videos (parts 2 - 4 on YouTube).



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Chess

Rachel Riley & JK Rowling reportedly attend 'secret' anti-Corbyn meeting for 'breakaway Labour Party'

Katie Harris
Express
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 11:33 UTC
Rachel Riley and JK Rowling
© GETTYRachel Riley and JK Rowling
The meeting for "potential supporters" of the new pro-European centrist party was led by Tony Blair's former chief of staff Jonathan Powell and Philip Collins, who was the ex-prime minister's speech writer. Ms Riley and Ms Rowling were said to be among 50 attendees at the reception which was held at the London offices of the author's agent Neil Blair. Mr Powell and Mr Collins told guests they aim to launch the Blairite movement - which has not yet been named - after Brexit, claiming the party could win up to 100 seats.

An invitation to the evening insisted Britain "desperately needs" a new party.

It read: "We are hosting a drinks reception at 7pm on Tuesday 5th February for potential supporters of a new political movement that Britain desperately needs. This is an initiative led by Jonathan Powell and Philip Collins.
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Megaphone

Former Mexican president Vincente Fox drops 'F-bomb' in describing Trump

Natasha Turak
CNBC
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 11:33 UTC
Former Mexican president Vincente Fox
© Mark Ralston | AFP | Getty ImagesFormer Mexican president Vincente Fox
Mexico's former president shared some choice words for President Donald Trump, describing the American leader as a "machine" with "no compassion" while at the World Government Summit in Dubai on Sunday.

"He doesn't seem to be a human being, he just looks like a machine, he doesn't have any compassion," Vicente Fox told CNBC's Hadley Gamble.

The former leader blasted Trump's border wall plans and focused on the divide within the U.S., adding that Trump essentially has a "f--- you" approach to the rest of the world. The White House did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

"That is the big big problem of today, in the U.S., the divide. And when the leader is calling aggressive means for people, when the leader is not uniting, then you have this divide," Fox said. "We don't need walls, we need bridges of understanding, bridges of sharing; that is exactly what must be done in the very immediate future."
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Star of David

'All about the money': Former campaign staffer details AIPAC's far-reaching financial power


Mondoweiss
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 11:33 UTC
Linda Sarsour Ady Barkan
Linda Sarsour and Ady Barkan
Ady Barkan, a Democratic progressive activist who is dying of ALS, just put up this thread on Twitter in response to Ilhan Omar's powerful tweet of last night about AIPAC. He tells the story of how AIPAC reached out to a candidate he was working for, and the candidate's compliance was "definitely about the Benjamins." He describes the importance of Omar's intervention in calling out AIPAC, a "pillar of the occupation," and the refusal to discuss the lobby's financially-driven power to do "terrible things."

Barkan wrote:

A thread on @IlhanMN, anti-semitism, and my personal experience with @AIPAC's money.

In 2006, I was the first real staffer on a long-shot Democratic Congressional race in deep red Ohio. My boss was a hippie doctor with a lefty perspective on international affairs. . . .very skeptical of military force, opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, etc.
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Broom

"Enormous hypocrisy": Hungary blasts US' warnings on dangers of dealing with Russia and China


RT
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 23:21 UTC
Peter Szijjarto
© Reuters / Tamas KaszasHungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto speaks during a joint news conference with the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in Budapest, Hungary, on February 11, 2019.
US State Secretary Mike Pompeo's quest to scare Hungary away from dealing with Russia and China appears to have turned sour, as Budapest said it's fed up with lectures about its foreign policy.

Pompeo is on a five-day massive charm offensive in Eastern Europe seeking to "make up" for the time the US "shunned" the nations of the region "in a way that drove them to fill a vacuum with folks who didn't share our values," as he himself put it.

His first stop was Hungary, a country that no US State Secretary had visited since 2011. And Budapest has been dangerously leaning towards Moscow and Beijing, according to Washington.

Comment: Despite the relentless sanctions and propaganda war everyone who is able, including the US, is doing business with Russia and China, and even Iran, because, try as the US might, there's no denying the future lies in partnership with them:

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