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© Mikhail Sokolov/RFE/RLA photo of Gulag prisoners in Perm (undated).
- The Real Reason The US Must Talk to Russia: Its Military Prowess
- Andrei Martyanov's Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning
- Losing Military Supremacy book review: How the US lost its edge to Russia
The book is definitely worth reading, so don't let the following criticism stop you from checking it out. Despite Martyanov's injection of some much-needed nuance in understanding the realities of the Soviet Union and the West's hubris-based miscalculations of its actual abilities and achievements, the author traps himself in his own black-and-white thinking on a few points, notably in his treatment of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his statements about the Stalinist repressions.
The popularity of imprisoned former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's has grown strongly despite his corruption conviction, an election poll on Wednesday showed, a result that rattled markets and raised the possibility that Lula's running mate could ultimately become the next occupant of the country's presidential palace.
Investors reacted unfavorably to the poll, sending Brazil's currency down 0.8 percent in late morning trading to 4.08 to the U.S. dollar, near an all-time low.
Lula, the candidate for October's presidential election for the Workers Party (PT), which he founded, is almost certain to be barred from running by an electoral court. Brazilian law forbids the candidacy of anyone whose conviction has been upheld on appeal, as is the case with the charismatic former president.
Comment: That does seem to be the general sentiment but the United Nations Human Rights Committee recently requested that the Brazilian government allow Lula to exercise his political rights as a presidential candidate while in prison. Lula's lawyers affirm such request is actually mandatory. The Brazilian judiciary is unpredictable but some of its members, and others in positions of power, are clearly working towards keeping Lula away from the election.
See also:
Coup in Brazil: Six Crucial Facts in the Persecution of Lula
Human rights lawyer: No evidence Lula is corrupt - Brazilian prosecutor wants him to prove innocence AFTER beginning 12-year prison sentence!
Glenn Greenwald explains conviction of Lula and Brazilian oligarchs' war against the Workers' Party
Permanent state of coup: Brazilian court orders favored presidential candidate Lula to prison
In a Datafolha poll published by the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper and Globo TV, Lula easily led all contenders when his name was included, winning the support of 39 percent of those surveyed. Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro was in second place with 19 percent, while environmentalist Marina Silva took 8 percent.
If Lula's name is excluded, Bolsonaro leads with 22 percent and Marina Silva jumps to 16 percent.
Other polls this week had similar results.
Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is carried by supporters in front of the metallurgic trade union in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil April 7, 2018. REUTERS/Leonardo Benassatto/File photo
Lula, the candidate for October's presidential election for the Workers Party (PT), which he founded, is almost certain to be barred from running by an electoral court. Brazilian law forbids the candidacy of anyone whose conviction has been upheld on appeal, as is the case with the charismatic former president.
Comment: That does seem to be the general sentiment but the United Nations Human Rights Committee recently requested that the Brazilian government allow Lula to exercise his political rights as a presidential candidate while in prison. Lula's lawyers affirm such request is actually mandatory. The Brazilian judiciary is unpredictable but some of its members, and others in positions of power, are clearly working towards keeping Lula away from the election.
See also:
Coup in Brazil: Six Crucial Facts in the Persecution of Lula
Human rights lawyer: No evidence Lula is corrupt - Brazilian prosecutor wants him to prove innocence AFTER beginning 12-year prison sentence!
Glenn Greenwald explains conviction of Lula and Brazilian oligarchs' war against the Workers' Party
Permanent state of coup: Brazilian court orders favored presidential candidate Lula to prison
In a Datafolha poll published by the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper and Globo TV, Lula easily led all contenders when his name was included, winning the support of 39 percent of those surveyed. Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro was in second place with 19 percent, while environmentalist Marina Silva took 8 percent.
If Lula's name is excluded, Bolsonaro leads with 22 percent and Marina Silva jumps to 16 percent.
Other polls this week had similar results.
© Aly Song / ReutersChinese workers make flags for Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign
In a mirror response, China has slapped hundreds of US products with their own levies. New 25 percent tariffs against $16 billion worth of fuel, steel products, autos and medical equipment went into effect at 12:01pm local time.
Calling the latest round of sanctions a "clear violation" of WTO trade rules, the ministry stressed that it will continue to introduce all the "necessary countermeasures" in order to defend free trade and China's "legitimate rights and interests."
"China will file a lawsuit against this tariff measure under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism," the statement said.
According to The Daily Caller, in an attempt to put 400 Bernie Sanders-like politicians in Congress, George Soros has propped up the political career of now infamous communist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ocasio-Cortez was formerly a Bernie Sanders presidential campaign organizer.
The New York Times wrote that the communist was able to defeat her opponent, who greatly outspent her, due to her online presence. In an interview with a "progressive" and communist-leaning digital media outlet The Young Turks, which is a member of a Soros-funded network of far-left publications called The Media Consortium, Ocasio-Cortez also admits that their coverage helped her achieve her win.
Comment: More on Ocasio-Cortez:
- Hypocritical democratic socialist Ocasio-Cortez counts big bank, private equity firm among top donors
- Now even the Left-leaning Washington Post is debunking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's ignorant talking points
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the kind of socialist that only capitalism could produce
- Ocasio-Cortez reminds us of the worthlessness of economics degrees
- Has Ocasio-Cortez changed her stance on Palestine to please Zionist Democratic mega-donors?
- Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The beginning of the Democratic Party's demise?
© Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty ImagesNikolai Patrushev (left) and John Bolton arrive for their meeting in Geneva
"We made a lot of progress, we've identified certain areas where lines of communication could be restored and more work done by the affected agencies - the State Department, the Defense Department," Bolton said during the press conference following the meeting in Geneva, which he said lasted over five hours.
Systematic diplomatic and military cooperation between the two countries stopped in the wake of the Crimea fallout in 2014, and since then the two sides have mostly communicated narrowly through the Syria deconfliction line. But the door was opened during last month's Helsinki summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, where the two leaders put forward the idea of Thursday's meeting.
Comment: The Kremlin expects that Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and US National Security Adviser John Bolton will discuss all issues on the bilateral agenda, although that the US side is not quite willing to conduct a dialogue, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
Kremlin expects that this meeting in Geneva will offer a possibility "to once again discuss all issues that are well-known" in the Russian-US agenda and "try to find the issues where our colleagues will show at least some readiness to conduct a dialogue," Peskov said.
© Reason.com/KJN
Ten years ago, in September, 2008, US Treasury Secretary, former Wall Street banker Henry Paulson, deliberately pulled the plug on the global dollar system by allowing the mid-sized Wall Street investment bank, Lehman Bros go under. At that point, with aid of the infinite money-creating resources of the Fed known as Quantitative Easing, the half-dozen top banks of Wall Street, including Paulson's own Goldman Sachs, were rescued from a debacle their exotic securitized finance created. The Fed also acted to give unprecedented hundreds of billions of US dollar credit lines to EU central banks to avert a dollar shortage that would clearly have brought the entire global financial architecture crashing down. At the time six Eurozone banks had dollar liabilities in excess of 100% of their country GDP.
Comment: An salient, straight-forward summary of dollar strategy, dominance and control.
© Conservative Refocus/US HotAir/KJN
"I don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job," the US leader added. "If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor," the president said in an interview with Fox News.The president highlighted record low unemployment numbers, stressing that if his opponent Hillary Clinton were elected back in 2016 the US would not be in the position it is in today. Trump credits the country's success to the GOP tax-cut plan, as well as to fairer trade agreements and curbing government regulation.
"I freed up, I got rid of regulations, the tax cut was a tremendous thing," Trump said. "But even before the tax cut, right from the first day, I got rid of regulations. I approved the pipelines, 48,000 jobs. But I did a lot of things. Had Hillary and the Democrats gotten in, had she been president, you would have had negative growth. We picked up $10 trillion in worth," he added.President Trump also brought up China, stressing that a Clinton-led government couldn't have reach a fair agreement with Beijing.
"China by the way is going down $15 trillion," he said. "When I came in, China was a dominant force, now they like me very much, I get along great with President Xi, but, I said, we can no longer give you $500 billion a year in bad trade deals, and you see what's happened over the last 90 days."
Comment: He's probably right. Burst the illusion, disrupt the process and the economy would go into free fall...and that would be just the beginning. Are we approaching the last hurrah? Or, are things just getting interesting. See also: Washington's silent weapon for not-so-quiet wars
© Valentyn Ogirenko/ReutersUS servicemen march during Ukraine's Independence Day rehearsal in Kiev.
Bolton will attend a military parade in Kiev and meet with virtually all key figures of the Ukrainian government, including President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Vladimir Groysman as well as foreign and defense ministers, according to the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, Valery Chaly, who praised this visit as a display of the US "support to Ukraine."
In fact, Bolton's visit is more of an "inspection" rather than a courtesy call, Vladimir Kornilov, a political analyst, historian and journalist, told RT, adding that it has recently become a sort of an "unhealthy tradition" for Ukraine to invite US officials as honored guests on its Independence Day celebrations. Top American officials attending military parades, like Pentagon chief James Mattis last year, shows "the true state of Ukrainian independence" and indicates who has long-since become "the true masters in the Ukrainian house," he said.
The Ukrainian government is "not so much worried about Ukraine as they are worried about their own fate," believes Vladimir Zharikhin, the deputy head of the Institute of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The current Kiev authorities have been heavily relying on US support since the 2014 coup that ousted Viktor Yanukovich and plunged Ukraine into crisis. Even though they apparently interpret Bolton's visit as a sign of such ongoing unconditional support, Zharikhin believes Kiev might yet be in for a surprise.
Comment: Assess it, corrupt what's working and create the penalized rescue. Bolton should be good at this.
Trump: Pompeo to 'closely study' South Africa's land expropriations and the killing of white farmers
© Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
"I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. 'South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers,'" Trump tweeted.
The South African government this week has reportedly moved to seize two farms from owners who refused to accept the government-set compensation, triggering panic among landlords and investors.
Comment: The South African government hit back, tweeting that it "totally rejects this narrow perception, which only seeks to divide our nation."
Comment: Study is not 'action'...yet.
More from RT:
The South African rand slumped almost two percent on Thursday, following US President Donald Trump's tweet about the country's land reforms. Trump's comment raised fears about the possibility of US economic sanctions.In addition, RT:
The currency fell to 14.43 per dollar after the Trump's tweet before recovering to 14.22 per dollar during afternoon trading in Johannesburg.
State broadcaster SABC said President Cyril Ramaphosa would seek clarification from the US embassy. Ramaphosa said on August 1 that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) was forging ahead with plans to change the constitution in order to allow the expropriation of land without compensation.
Reacting on Trump's "unfortunate comments" South African Foreign Affairs Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said it was regrettable that the tweet was "based on false information." She added that her department is to meet US diplomats in Pretoria "to seek clarification" later in the day. Sisulu also seeks to communicate with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo through diplomatic channels.
The South African president's office will also seek an explanation for Trump's tweet, with President Cyril Ramaphosa's spokeswoman saying that the US leader is "misinformed" on the matter.
"The presidency has noted Trump's tweet, which is misinformed in our view," Khusela Diko said on Thursday as cited by Reuters. "We will take up the matter through diplomatic channels."
Comment: Further reading: