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What is the US embassy in Helsinki up to? A guarded warehouse near Malmi airport and mysterious shipments from Baghdad


Helsinki Times
Sat, 29 Dec 2018 15:44 UTC
US Embassy warehouse near Malmi Airport
© Helsinki Times/Google Maps
US Embassy warehouse near Malmi Airport
Why does the US Embassy in Helsinki need a big warehouse near Malmi Airport and what are the contents of thousands of kilograms of cargo sent to Helsinki from Baghdad?

A dilapidated warehouse in Malmi is being used by the US Embassy for unknown operations after a Wikileaks release revealed its location. The anonymous looking building on Takoraudantie is notable only for the new 427 meter perimeter fence that according to the Wikileaks' database was ordered by the US Embassy in April 2018.

Situated across the street from the main entrance of Malmi Airport, the warehouse with its 3 meter high security fence appears an unlikely location for official embassy business. Neighbouring companies include a car yard and a tyre warehouse.

Comment: Others have been following up on the Helsinki-Baghdad connection.

How America's global Deep State maintains its secret logistics

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Arrow Down

Poland continues to prove itself as a US vassal


Global Times
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 20:33 UTC
Joachim Brudzinski Poland Minister of Internal Affairs

Joachim Brudzinski, Minister of Internal Affairs
After an employee of Huawei was arrested on alleged spying charges, Joachim Brudzinski, Poland's internal affairs minister, called for the European Union and NATO to work on a joint position over whether to exclude Huawei from their markets. When a spokesman for Poland's secret services chief tweeted the arrest on Friday, he used @ to attract the attention of the US Department of State, FBI, CIA and NATO.

Warsaw's moves confirm the suspicion that the high-profile arrest has the political purpose of catering to the US actions against Huawei.

Very few public espionage disputes have occurred between China and East Europe. Warsaw claims that the allegation was directed at personal behavior instead of the company, but how it handled the issue has already damaged Huawei's reputation. Although clearly aware of the affair's special resonance, Warsaw is wooing Washington while playing tricks on Beijing.

Poland fears China's retaliation, so it is calling for a joint position with the EU and NATO so as to share the pressure. Meanwhile such a call helps the US expand suppression of Huawei into the EU and NATO.

Huawei's equipment is widely applied in Europe's 4G networks and no evidence proves that Huawei's equipment has damaged European network security. Europe's 4G network is independent and free, but will the continent obey Washington's command in the communication industry starting from 5G? Warsaw is guiding Europe in the wrong direction.

Comment:

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Briefcase

China saw record-high foreign trade volume in 2018, with US trade surplus at highest level since 2006


Global Times
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:20 UTC
China US trade surplus 2018

China's trade surplus with the US grew 17 percent year-on-year to $323.32 billion in 2018, the highest on record since 2006.
Despite a volatile year in 2018, China has witnessed a record-high foreign trade volume of $4.62 trillion last year and a reduction in trade surplus to the lowest level since 2013, which shows its economy's vitality and resilience despite the lingering trade frictions with the US.

Although last year's overall trade surplus shrank, China's trade surplus with the US still grew 17 percent year-on-year to $323.32 billion in 2018, the highest on record since 2006 - a situation that goes against US President Donald Trump's vows to launch a trade war against China to reduce US trade deficit.

Specifically, China's exports to the US grew 11.3 percent year-on-year in 2018 to $478.4 billion in dollar-denominated terms, while imports from the US to China only rose 0.7 percent to $155 billion, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs.


Comment: Wow, those sanctions and tariffs were utterly useless then.


For the whole year, China's foreign trade volume hit $4.62 trillion in dollar-denominated terms, up 12.6 percent year-on-year, with exports and imports up 9.9 percent and 15.8 percent compared with 2017, respectively, customs data showed. The export growth was the highest since 2011.

Comment: RT adds that the simmering trade war is also negatively impacting Chinese investment in the US with levels falling to the lowest in seven years:
Chinese investments in North America and Europe fell by 73 percent last year as a result of tightened US scrutiny of foreign takeover deals and Beijing's restrictions on outbound investments.

Data from law firm Baker & McKenzie showed that Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into the United States have also turned negative, falling to the lowest in seven years. Chinese investments in the US fell by 83 percent, while growing by 80 percent in Canada.

Last year, Chinese companies completed just $4.8 billion in new business acquisitions and investments in the US, down 84 percent from $29 billion in 2017 and 90 percent from $46 billion in 2016.

With the $13 billion in US asset sales by Chinese companies, net Chinese investment in the United States dropped by $8 billion in 2018.
So China can withdraw three quarters of its investment in the West and still keep winning.

The dragon has awoken, but it hasn't even fully stretched out its limbs yet.

See also:

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Beer

Trump savages 'Elizabeth Warren beer catastrophe,' as shutdown debate drags on


RT
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 15:04 UTC
trump white MAGA hat
© Reuters / Carlos Barria
Against the backdrop of a government shutdown and withdrawal from Syria, President Trump still found time to engage in his favorite, least presidential hobby: insulting political rival and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Responding to an Instagram Live video posted by Warren two weeks ago, Trump suggested that the video would have been a "smash" if Warren "did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb."
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Binoculars

What Trump's Syrian withdrawal reveals about the Democrats and the Deep State

Stephen F. Cohen
The Nation
Wed, 09 Jan 2019 15:20 UTC
Trump Syria
President Trump was wrong in asserting that the United States destroyed the Islamic State's territorial statehood in a large part of Syria - Russia and its allies accomplished that - but he is right in proposing to withdraw some 2,000 American forces from that tragically war-ravaged country. The small American contingent serves no positive combat or strategic purpose unless it is to thwart the Russian-led peace negotiations now underway or to serve as a beachhead for a US war against Iran. Still worse, its presence represents a constant risk that American military personnel could be killed by Russian forces also operating in that relatively small area, thereby turning the new Cold War into a very hot conflict, even if inadvertently. Whether or not Trump understood this danger, his decision, if actually implemented - it is being fiercely resisted in Washington - will make US-Russian relations, and thus the world, somewhat safer.

Nonetheless, Trump's decision on Syria, coupled with his order to reduce US forces in Afghanistan by half, has been "condemned," as The New York Times approvingly reported, "across the ideological spectrum," by "the left and right." Analyzing these condemnations, particularly in the opinion-shaping New York Times and Washington Post and on interminable (and substantially uninformed) MSNBC and CNN segments, again reveals the alarming thinking that is deeply embedded in the US bipartisan policy-media establishment.
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Gear

'Economic suicide to abandon Russian gas': Analyst warns Washington that continued pressure on EU to derail Nord Stream 2 will backfire


RT
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 10:43 UTC
nord stream 2
© FILE PHOTO Sergey Guneev / Sputnik
Washington's attempts to derail the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to supply Russian natural gas to the European Union will definitely backfire, according to a geopolitical expert Dr. Pierre-Emmanuel Thomann.

"The more the US puts pressure on Europeans, the more there is a risk that Europeans try to detach themselves from the US and try to make a better deal with Russia," Thomann, who heads Eurocontinent geopolitical research, told RT.

"We cannot abandon the import of Russian gas, this will be economic suicide. So the Americans also have a limit of their pressure capacity," the analyst stressed.

The comment comes as the US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell sent out warnings to German companies reminding them about significant sanctions they may face for participating in the building of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with Russia.

Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Israeli sniper kills Gaza woman in first IOF murder of 2019

Maureen Clare Murphy
The Electronic Intifada
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 14:15 UTC
injured gaza protester march of return
© Ashraf Amra/APA
An injured protester east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on 11 January.
A woman shot during protests in the occupied Gaza Strip on Friday is the first Palestinian fatality at the hands of Israeli occupation forces in 2019. A Palestinian man was shot and seriously wounded by Israeli forces in the West Bank the same day.

Amal al-Taramsi, 44, died after she was shot in the head by live fire during Great March of Return protests east of Gaza City. She was 200 meters away from the boundary fence at the time of her injury, according to the Gaza-based human rights group Al Mezan.

Al-Taramsi is the third female to be killed during the protest series that was launched on 30 March last year. The other two female fatalities were medic Razan al-Najjar and 14-year-old Wesal al-Sheikh Khalil.
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Blue Planet

Court turns down National Guard chief's defamation suit against Kremlin critic Navalny


RT
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 17:05 UTC
Viktor Zolotov
© Sputnik / Kirill Kallinikov
National Giard chief, Viktor Zolotov.
Their much-hyped duel didn't happen last year and now it turns out that differences between Russia's National Guard's boss, Viktor Zolotov, and anti-corruption blogger, Aleksey Navalny, won't be settled in court either.

A defamation claim filed by General Zolotov in December didn't comply with the relevant articles of the Civil Procedure Code. He was given until January 9 to get it in order, but failed to do so, a Moscow court said, explaining the reasons why the lawsuit has been returned to the claimant.

The rift between Zolotov and the Kremlin critic began in September after a report by Navalny's NGO, the Foundation for Countering Corruption, alleged that tenders for food purchases by the National Guard were rigged in favor of a single supplier.

Comment: This demonstrates that just because someone is a 'critic of the Kremlin', increasingly, under Putin, the law is the law, whereas many countries in the west abuse the judicial process to target 'enemies of the state':

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Chess

Schumer says he will force a vote to block US move easing sanctions on Russian tycoon Deripaska


RFE/RL
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 12:57 UTC
Oleg Deripaska
© Sergei Savostyanev/TASS
Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he will use the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act to force a vote on a resolution disapproving a decision by President Donald Trump to relax sanctions on companies connected to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

"After consultation with the relevant committee ranking members and my colleagues, I have concluded that the Treasury Department's proposal is flawed and fails to sufficiently limit Oleg Deripaska's control and influence of these companies, and the Senate should move to block this misguided effort by the Trump administration and keep these sanctions in place," the Democratic senator from New York said in a statement on January 13.

Comment:

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Cow

The twisted web of the EAT-Lancet Commission's controversial campaign to eradicate meat consumption


EFA News
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 11:53 UTC
cows
A global powerful action against meat?

EAT is a global, non-profit startup dedicated to transforming our global food system through sound science, impatient disruption and novel partnerships. According to the website, "the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health brings together more than 30 world-leading scientists from across the globe to reach a scientific consensus that defines a healthy and sustainable diet".

But the campaign, that will be launched in Oslo on January 17th, sounds like a powerful push to shift global diets by discouraging animal products. It is fuelled by large budgets and will be mediatised for a long time to come, scheduling more than 30 events around the world. But a closer look into its background reveals some perturbing elements. The danger is that the overstatement of certain concerns will result in an anti-livestock narrative, create a false impression of scientific consensus, and do more harm than good in a world in need of nutrient-rich meals and sustainable food systems.

EFA News has received this text which we gladly publish to encourage public debate. These crucial issues, in our humble opinion, should be the responsibility of public authorities, rather than private associations that inevitably act as pressure groups.

Comment: Make no mistake, the "enlightened" viewpoint circulating through media and society at large, proclaiming veganism as the ideal diet for health and the environment, is entirely socially engineered and nothing like the grass roots movement it's presented as. These are corporate interests being served, making the vegan diet a corporate-endorsed one. What better way to signal your fealty to our corporate overlords than to sacrifice your own health on a vegan diet?

See also:

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