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Iran and China keep banking initiatives secret to evade US sanctions - Envoy


Press TV
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 17:18 UTC
Chang Hua

China’s envoy to Iran Chang Hua
China's ambassador to Iran Chang Hua says the two countries have agreed on new banking mechanisms that could facilitate bilateral trade although he insists that the initiatives would remain confidential to avoid the American sanctions imposed on Iran.

Hua told semi-official ILNA news agency on Monday that officials from Iran and China have been holding "regular meetings" to coordinate efforts that could facilitate banking and trade relations in the face of the US sanctions on Tehran.

He said the two sides have reached "some agreements" which they could not reveal any details about because of the sanctions.

Comment: Who can blame them?

The US should be careful, because it's not just China and Iran that are looking for workarounds to US unilateralism:

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Eye 1

'European values'? Czech think tank funded by NATO govt's calls for EU BLANKET BAN on Russian outlets like RT

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Tue, 17 Dec 2019 17:30 UTC
rt logo
© Sputnik / Ilya Pitalev
A pro-NATO Czech think tank has another piece of unsolicited advice for Western governments. Now they should refuse to give access or interviews to Russian media, who are "not real journalists", according to the "wise censor".

At first blush, the 'Kremlin Watch Strategy' paper published last week by the Prague-based 'European Values Center for Security Policy' sounds like another self-serving attempt to cash in on the anti-Russian hysteria that has gripped many a Western capital for the past several years.

There are some two dozen mentions of "funding," mostly in the context of urging the European Union to spend more money on "independent" NGOs - such as themselves, obviously - to battle "hostile Russian interference" the authors see under every bed. There is even a proposal for every EU government to conduct its own version of the Mueller probe - which famously found zero evidence of "collusion" between US President Donald Trump and Russia, and its evidence of Russian "meddling" amounted to unsubstantiated assertions from indictments, as its lawyers had to admit in court.
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Newspaper

'Leftists trying to destroy Finland, salesgirl is now PM' - Estonian interior minister


ERR
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 06:09 UTC
Sanna Marin
© Office of the Government of the Republic of Estonia
Jüri Ratas congratulates newly-elected Finnish premier Sanna Marin in Brussels on Thursday.
The new coalition government in Estonia's neighbor to the north, Finland, is evidence of leftist efforts to destroy the country from within, according to Estonian interior minister Mart Helme (EKRE). Helme also said that incoming Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP) was a 'salesgirl'.

"What has happened in Finland now still makes the hair stand on end," speaking on TRE Raadio broadcast Räägime asjast on Sunday, ERR's online news in Estonian reports.

Sanna Marin was elected new prime minister-in-waiting on Tuesday, following the resignation of her predecessor Antti Rinne, and should head up a center-left coalition of five parties, all of which are led by women, making Marin, 34, the youngest prime minister worldwide.

Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Israeli apologist: 'Mossad exists to secure the right of Israeli people to sleep calmly at night'


Sputnik News
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 01:21 UTC
Jerusales Dome of Rock
© CC BY-SA 3.0 / Yourway-to-israel
Mossad's ability to collect information and penetrate deep into the territory of its adversaries has been a matter of survival for Israel since the establishment of the Jewish state, says Israeli publicist Avigdor Eskin, stressing that it is Mossad who has helped build bridges between the Israelis and Arabs over the years.

The establishment of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad ("institute"), first, as the Central Institute for Coordination on 13 December 1949, and then, as the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations on 1 April 1951 came a few years after the Second World War, which claimed the lives of millions of Jews and amid a series of Israeli-Arab wars in the Middle East.

Comment: The Mossad's evil exploits are too numerous to list here. They have spied on everybody and secretly used that information to control all Western governments, and they are masters of bloody false-flag operations.

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Light Saber

Assange extradition fight could turn on reports he was illegaly spied on for CIA

Ben Doherty and Amy Remeikis
The Guardian
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 01:11 UTC
assange belmarsh prison
© Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images
Julian Assange gestures from the window of a prison van.
Allegations a security firm at Ecuadorian embassy gave footage to CIA come as 100 doctors urge Australia to protect him

Julian Assange's fight against extradition to the US could last years, and his argument could hinge on reports he has been illegally spied upon and his sensitive information given to the CIA.

Meanwhile, more than 100 doctors from across the world have written to the Australian government, urging it to act and "protect the life of its citizen", in a letter to be delivered to the foreign affairs minister on Tuesday, amid warnings Assange's health continues to deteriorate.

A judicial investigation by the Audiencia Nacional in Spain, the country's national court, is acting on allegations that while Assange held asylum inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the Wikileaks founder was spied on, listened to and had his computer data scraped and that this information was sold to US intelligence agencies.

Comment: The Sydney Morning Herald reports one hundred medical doctors have written to the Australian Foreign Minister to have Assange evacuated to a hospital in Australia.
Detailing allegations of "psychological torture" inflicted on Assange during efforts to extradite the 48-year-old to the United States, 100 medical doctors have urged Senator Payne and Prime Minister Scott Morrison to intervene.

"It is an extremely serious matter for an Australian citizen's survival to be endangered by a foreign government obstructing his human right to health," the doctors say in a letter.
"It is an even more serious matter for that citizen's own government to refuse to intervene, against historical precedent and numerous converging lines of medical advice.

"Should Mr Assange die in a British prison, people will want to know what you, minister, did to prevent his death."
Assange is expected to appear via video link at the Westminster Magistrates' Court later this week for a case management hearing, ahead of a full extradition hearing in February that will attract global attention. At his last court appearance, the WikiLeaks founder struggled to recall his own name and age.

Senator Payne's office has been contacted for comment.

In May, the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture reported "overwhelming evidence" that Assange had been subjected to psychological torture.

Stephen Frost, a specialist in diagnostic radiology in the UK and Sweden, said the group of doctors agreed with that assessment and feared for Assange's future.
"That doctors should have to write open letters to the UK and Australian governments to demand appropriate healthcare for a victim of torture is beyond belief.

"The torture must stop now, and Mr Assange must be provided with immediate access to the health care which he so obviously needs before it is too late."
A cross-party coalition of 11 federal MPs — which includes two Nationals MPs, two Labor MPs and members of the crossbench — recently formed to lobby the Morrison government to intervene on behalf of Assange.

In an addendum to their letter to Senator Payne, Morrison and Labor leader Anthony Albanese, the doctors from Europe, the US and Australia said that "contrary to popular misconception", the injuries caused by psychological torture were extremely serious.

"The term psychological torture is not a synonym for mere hardship, suffering or distress," they said.
"Psychological torture involves extreme mental, emotional and physical harm, which over time causes severe damage and disintegration of a number of critical psychological functions, involving emotions, cognitions, identity and interpersonal functioning."
They warned the physical effects of psychological torture caused susceptibility to a range of illnesses and diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular disease.
"The potentially fatal medical consequences of prolonged psychological torture are inherently unpredictable, and could strike at any time. Accordingly, no doctor, no matter how senior, can offer any legitimate assurances regarding Julian Assange's survival or medical stability while he continues to be held in Belmarsh Prison."
The same group of doctors sent a similar letter to the UK Home Secretary Priti Patel last month but say they received no response.


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Snakes in Suits

"You should go to fuc*in' jail": Chaos ensues as Schiff accused of 'treason' at California event

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 17 Dec 2019 01:06 UTC
Adam Schiff

Oops.
A Glendale, California town hall event hosted by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) became less than civil on Saturday, after hecklers accused the House Intelligence Committee chairman of "treason" and being a "liar," according to the Los Angeles Times.
As Schiff began speaking, a man and two women held up signs reading,"Don't Impeach." When they were asked to take down the signs, they refused. -LA Times
Around a dozen Trump supporters attended the event to discuss the House's recent recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Scattered throughout the audience, the protesters began yelling "Liar!" at the de facto ringleader of House Democrats' efforts to impeach President Trump.
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Alarm Clock

IG report on FBI spying reveals "scandal of historic magnitude" for US media

Glenn Greenwald
The Intercept
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 21:43 UTC
FBI bias Fisa
© Bill Rees/The Columbus Dispatch
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives from the U.S. media were utter frauds.

Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power - its serial deceit - is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI - in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page during the 2016 election - manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
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Broom

The story of the UK general election is not Brexit, it's the coming break-up of Britain

John Wight
Medium
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 17:43 UTC
tattered union jack
To grasp the real meaning of the 12 December UK general election result is to understand the history of a state born in mercantilism and sustained by centuries of empire and colonialism.

Allow me to explain.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to give the UK its Sunday name, is the epitome of an artificial state. It was and remains the product of the grafting together of divergent cultures, histories and national identities. At inception, this grafting together was undertaken not in the interests of its peoples but in the interests of national elites eager to take advantage of the commercial opportunities of a unified polity with added manpower and resources in an age of empire.

The venality, greed and corruption of the Scottish ruling and political class in the late 17th- early 18th century delivered the Scottish people into the arms of the union with England without their support, establishing thereby the Kingdom of Great Britain. This was reflected in the social unrest and riots that ensued in Scottish towns and cities both during the negotiations that brought into being the 1707 Act of Union, and upon its passage.

Comment: A question British leftists might want to ask themselves at this juncture is: would the union have fallen apart sooner if not for their movement keeping it 'glued together' all this time?

Would the British empire and its "juggernaut of exploitation, subjugation and oppression" thus have ended far sooner? Would the UK be today's 'Air Strip One' of the American Empire?

Leading British leftist thinker George Galloway, a Scotsman, articulates the rationale of the British Labour movement very well. He is strongly opposed to Scottish independence because it would "abandon the English working class to the ['right-wing', pseudo-nationalist] Tories."

But is class really a more 'reality-based' basis for group identity than nation? As we've seen in recent years - and decades, if we go back to the fall of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact - more and more peoples are going with 'no, it is not', thereby abandoning many of the Marxist beliefs that took hold in the 20th century.

Let's put it this way; which is the more 'illusory': class, or nation?

If the UK too is 'moving to the right', then its disintegration into the constituent nations that comprise it seems the logical outcome.

See also: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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TV

Calling out the MSM: Corbyn ally slams BBC for 'consciously' contributing to Labour's disastrous election defeat


RT
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 21:17 UTC
corbyn
© BBC / AFP / Jeff Overs
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
Andy McDonald, Labour's shadow transport secretary and key ally of leader Jeremy Corbyn, has furiously hit out at the BBC for "consciously" playing its part in the party's worst election defeat since 1935.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today program on Monday, McDonald was asked by presenter Justin Webb whether he thought the public service broadcaster had "consciously" contributed to Corbyn's loss. "Consciously, yes," replied McDonald.

Comment: The UK media has piled on Jeremy Corby since the moment he took leadership of the Labour Party. He was a voice for real change for the ordinary British citizen and represented a shift in Britain's foreign policy. There was no way he would every be allowed into power.

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Dollar

Minister quits govt after it emerges he would personally profit from involvement of US BlackRock mega-bank in French pensions 'reform'


RT
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 21:11 UTC

Comment: The guy had some brass ones to even put himself in the running for minister in the first place...


Jean-Paul Delevoye
© Reuters/Benoit Tessier
French Minister for Pensions Jean-Paul Delevoye quits after it is revealed he has shares in the Wall Street bank that would profit from his 'reforms'
The French official tasked with overseeing the pension reforms that sparked disruptive strikes across France has resigned, the presidency announced Monday. It comes in the wake of reports he'd failed to disclose outside incomes.

In a statement, Emmanuel Macron's office said that High Commissioner for Pensions Jean-Paul Delevoye had decided to resign "on his own initiative."

France is currently in the midst of crippling protests and union-led strikes over the government's pension-reform efforts. Macron's administration has refused to accede to the demands against the new measures, which were unveiled by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe last week.

Comment: That's not the half of it.

The French have learned in recent days that their pensions aren't actually to be 'reformed'.

They're to be plundered...

Pepe Escobar comments:
BOMBSHELL: THE NEW FRENCH CONNECTION

Guess who's issuing "recommendations" for Le Petit Roi and his government re: the French pension "reform"?

BlackRock.

How could they not? BlackRock manages $7 TRILLION. It's the number one asset management colossus on the planet, and a member of the Masters of the Universe.

When they see those immense French savings - one of the largest if not the largest pool in Europe - how not to salivate like mad dogs (no offense to dogs)?

So much for Western liberal "democracy". It's all about FINANCIAL MONOPOLIES.
Macron and BlackRock representatives have met several times during his presidency.

BlackRock, founded by these two, is considered one of the largest 'shadow banks' in the world, managing $6.5 TRILLION in assets.

Delevoye, the above-mentioned minister who just resigned, did so because he was caught having 13 (THIRTEEN!) undisclosed conflicts of interest.

The most glaring of those conflicts of interest is his ownership of 30 million euros' worth of shares in BlackRock.

Now you understand why all of France is on strike:
France brought to standstill as massive strike continues with transport workers erecting flaming barricades and truckers blocking traffic


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