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China stealing Middle East from under America's nose

Darius Shahtahmasebi
RT
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 14:19 UTC
china dragon saudi
© AFP / FAYEZ NURELDINE
China, the world's second-largest economy, appears to be in the process of carving out a new Middle East plan that will over time erode and chip away at American dominance in the region.

Granted, Washington's influence in the Middle East has been steadily disappearing for some time. It became clear this was the case after the US toppled an anti-Iranian dictator, Saddam Hussein, in Iraq and replaced his government with a pro-Tehran Shia-dominated leadership. However, things really took a turn for the worse some years later in Syria, which saw Russia emerge as a major power whose physical presence could not only prevent a pending US invasion, but could potentially broker lasting peace deals.

It should be no surprise then to see China also willingly filling the void left by a slowly but surely deteriorating superpower. The Middle East Security Forum held in Beijing at the end of November brought together over 200 representatives from both the Middle East and China to discuss Beijing's "new idea" for the Middle East.

Comment: See also:

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Newspaper

Trump says he will NOT declare Mexican cartels terrorists just yet


RT
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
US federal police officer
© REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
A federal police officer keeps watch after the U.S. Attorney General William Barr's convoy arrived at the Mexico's Attorney General Office, in Mexico City, Mexico December 5, 2019.
US President Donald Trump said he will hold off on designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorists at the request of the country's president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, adding that they will "deal decisively" with them together.

Calling Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, "a man who I like and respect, and has worked so well with us," Trump said that he will "temporarily" hold off on the terrorist designation despite all the necessary work already being completed.

Comment: 21 killed, including police officers, near Texas - Mexico border

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Snakes in Suits

Disabled people 'don't really understand money': Tory candidate heckled after saying they should be paid less than minimum wage


RT
Sat, 07 Dec 2019 11:25 UTC
Tory disabled
© Screenshot
A Tory candidate has been filmed at a hustings event being jeered after claiming those with learning difficulties shouldn't be paid the minimum wage because "it's about the happiness to work."


Comment: One could say the same about many of today's politicians, however, instead: UK MPs award themselves above inflation pay rise - the sixth salary increase in six years.


Sally-Ann Hart, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Hastings and Rye, was asked by an audience member to defend an article she shared on Facebook titled: 'Why people with learning disabilities should be allowed to work for less than the minimum wage.'

"They should be given the opportunity to work because it's to do with the happiness they have about working... It's about the happiness to work."

Comment: And in case in that video her statement may have been unclear, here's another:

See also:

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UFO

Boris Johnson likens leaked documents showing US in talks about NHS to 'photos of UFOs'

Rob Merrick
Independent
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 07:05 UTC
Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson has likened leaked documents showing the US and UK held talks about the NHS after Brexit to faked photos of UFOs.

For the first time, the prime minister appeared to suggest the dossier - which revealed exploratory talks about possible higher medicine prices outside the EU - may have been falsified.

When it was put to him that the dossier proved talks had taken place, he replied: "There are photographs that purport to prove that there are UFOs."

Labour's allegation that the NHS was at risk in the post-Brexit US-UK trade deal that Mr Johnson craves was a "scare story" put out at "every election", Mr Johnson insisted, on ITV's This Morning programme.

The prime minister also tried to deflect growing criticism of his past comments about Muslim women, gay men, single mothers and the working-class as old news.

The general election campaign was "not the time to talk about articles written quite a long time ago", he insisted.

Comment: Corbyn wasn't too impressed either. From RT:
In November, Corbyn produced an unredacted 451-page UK-US post-Brexit trade talks dossier which he said was evidence of not only a "plot against our NHS," but a "plot against our country." He asserted that it proved without doubt that the UK's public healthcare system is on the table in a Tory Brexit deal with President Donald Trump's United States.


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Bad Guys

Trump blasts media's penchant for anonymous tip-offs: 'Sources say' stories are all fake news


RT
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 20:58 UTC
trump oval office white house press corp
© Leah Mills/Reuters
Trump signs bills in the Oval Office, October 23, 2018
US President Donald Trump has fired off another volley of Twitter wisdom in his endless war against 'fake news,' advising people to ignore stories based on information from unnamed sources.

"Do not believe any article or story you read or see that uses 'anonymous sources' having to do with trade or any other subject," Trump tweeted on Friday. "Only accept information if it has an actual living name on it. The Fake News Media makes up many 'sources say' stories. Do not believe them!"
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Network

Putin: Russia won't stop gas transit through Ukraine when Nord Stream 2 becomes operational


RT
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 22:42 UTC
oil tanker
© Nord Stream 2 / Axel Schmidt 29
Commissioning of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which is a commercial project, does not mean that Russia will abandon gas transit through Ukraine, said Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

While meeting with German business executives in Sochi, he said: "The pipe laying of the Nord Stream 2 is close to completion now; its commissioning will make it possible to double Russian gas supplies over the Baltic route."

He added: "This will be an extra contribution to satisfying the demand in Germany and other countries." The Russian president added that Nord Stream 2 "is a purely commercial project" and the government is not participating in it.
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Snakes in Suits

Canadian politics: New cabinet, empty platitudes, interventionism - in other words, a repeat Trudeau

Pablo Vivanco
RT
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 08:43 UTC
Trudeau
© Reuters/Blair Gable
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a news conference after presenting his new cabinet, at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada November 20, 2019.
For however long it lasts, Canada's incoming government has doubled down on its doublespeak, using 'woke' discourse to push corporate welfarism at home and interventionism abroad.

There was little fanfare within Canada around the new group that will attempt to steer the country's governmental agenda over the next four years.

'Attempt to', of course, because Justin Trudeau will seek to downplay his NATO Summit gaffe and row with US President Donald Trump when he reconvenes parliament on Thursday as prime minister of a minority government.

Trudeau's Liberals won enough seats in Canada's 338-member House of Commons to form a government but also failed to repeat their 2015 showing after dropping 27 seats. They also lost over a million votes compared to the last election, finishing second in the popular vote.

Given the evident signs of a decline in support, Trudeau looked to curry favor with voters by making a surprise announcement. It was certainly a surprise to everyone to hear that part of the Cabinet would include a Minister for 'Middle Class Prosperity'. What will this new branch of government do? No one really knows, including the person in charge of it.

Comment: If Canada could become more politically bland, mind-numbing and constituent inconsequential, it just did so. Trudeau won the system, not the hearts, minds nor vision of the voters.

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Better Earth

USA, China and the geopolitics of lithium

F. William Engdahl
Global Research
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
Lithium Bolivia
© www.dreamstime.com/salar-de-uyuni-bolivia
Lithium in Bolivia
For several years since the global push to develop mass-scale Electric Vehicles, the element Lithium has come into focus as a strategic metal. Demand is enormous in China, in the EU and in the USA at present, and securing control over lithium supplies is already developing its own geopolitics not unlike that for the control of oil.

China Moves to Secure Sources

For China, which has set major targets to become the world's largest producer of EVs, developing lithium battery materials is a priority for the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period. Though China has its own lithium reserves, recovery is limited, and China has gone to secure lithium mining rights abroad.

In Australia, Chinese company Talison Lithium, controlled by Tianqi, mines and owns the world's largest and highest grade spodumene reserves in Greenbushes, Western Australia near Perth.

Talison Lithium Inc. is the world's largest primary lithium producer. Their Greenbushes site in Australia produces today some 75% of China's lithium demands and about forty percent of world demand. This as well as other vital Australian raw materials, has made relations with Australia, traditionally a firm US ally, of strategic importance to Beijing. As well, China has become the largest trade partner for Australia.

Comment: See also:

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Stop

Russia suspends Fordow facility medical research after Tehran's uranium enrichment response to US pressure


RT
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 22:36 UTC
Fordow facility
© AFP/Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
Inside the Fordow Uranium Conversion Facility in Qom, Iran.
The Russian research project at Iran's Fordow nuclear site has been put on hold, after Tehran resumed uranium enrichment. The US earlier said it will be revoking the sanctions waiver for the facility.

TVEL, a company that is part of Russia's atomic agency Rosatom, said on Thursday that its work to convert Fordow to the production of radioactive isotopes for medical purposes has been suspended. TVEL said in a statement:
"The enrichment of uranium and the production of stable isotopes can't be carried out in the same space, since trace amounts of uranium, incompatible with the use of the resulting isotopes for medical purposes, will inevitably appear in the air and on the equipment."
In order for the project to resume, the hardware used for uranium enrichment has to be dismantled and the facility decontaminated, TVEL said, adding that it notified the Iranian side of the situation.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov pointed on Thursday that Moscow wasn't giving up on the project, specifying that:
"the work wasn't abandoned, but only halted. We'll need some time to analyze the options in this situation and the potential negative aftermath of those American measures."
Ryabkov referred to the US decision to stop exempting Fordow from its anti-Iran sanctions starting December 15.

Comment: See also:

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Target

NATO summit: RT's Ruptly video agency producer detained, questioned and banned entry under 'Terrorism Act'


RT
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 20:06 UTC
UK police
© Reuters/Kevin Coomb
Police wait outside Buckingham Palace ahead of the NATO summit in London.
The accreditation of RT's Ruptly video agency at the NATO summit in London was withdrawn without any explanation, while its producer was detained by UK police and questioned under the Terrorism Act.

NATO's 70th anniversary gathering, which took place in the British capital on Tuesday and Wednesday, was a big event and Ruptly, of course, couldn't ignore it. The agency applied for press credentials beforehand and received an accreditation approval letter via email.

So the assigned producer went to routinely pick up his pass to be able to film at the summit. The organizers asked him to wait in the lobby where "he was approached by a plain clothed man, who presented a police warrant and requested he went in for questioning," Ekaterina Mavrenkova, Ruptly chief content officer, told RT on air.

The producer said he was detained and interrogated under the Terrorism Act, with the officers searching him and his belongings. Before being released, the man was told that Ruptly's accreditation at the NATO summit had been revoked.


Comment: Was Ruptly barred from the summit just to make a statement? Another mean poke at Russia? Was the producer denied access to prevent filming the exact same news filmed by other sources for broadcast? This is nonsense. If they don't consider Ruptly to be an integral aspect of 'a news organization' - as this is what it does - what do they consider it to be?

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