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Beijing warns US of 'consequences' after Donald Trump approves US$8 billion sale of fighter jets to Taiwan

Lawrence Chung
South China Morning Post
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 16:53 UTC
fighter jet
© EPA-EFE
A Taiwan Air Force F-16V takes off during a drill in May
Beijing warned it would take countermeasures against Washington for selling 66 fighter jets to Taiwan after US President Donald Trump said he had approved the US$8 billion deal.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Monday said the sale of Lockheed Martin F-16V jets was a serious violation of the one-China principle.

"China has made numerous solemn representations to the US on the sale of F-16V jets to Taiwan," Geng said in a press conference, adding that the United States should halt the sale.

"The US has to bear all the consequences triggered by the sale," Geng said. "China will take necessary measures to defend its self-interest based on the development of the situation."
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Satellite

Post- Brexit UK won't have access to EU's Galileo - wants 'Five Eyes' allies' support for new satellite system


Sputnik
Sun, 18 Aug 2019 16:42 UTC
Galileo satellite system
© European Space Agency/J. Huart
The Galileo satellite system
In March 2018, the European Commission in Brussels confirmed the UK after Brexit was likely to be excluded from some aspects of the Galileo project, especially relating to PRS, despite having invested more than £1 billion in the EU Global Navigation Satellite System.

The UK is reaching out to its "Five Eyes" security allies to enlist their help in building an alternative to the EU's Global Navigation Satellite System Galileo, reported The Telegraph.

According to the publication, Space Agency officials have conferred with representatives from the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the nations that make up the security pact.
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Chess

Trump admin gives Huawei 90 more days to continue buying products from American companies

Bobby Allyn
NPR
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 16:44 UTC
Wilbur Ross
© Eraldo Peres/AP
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
The Trump administration is extending a reprieve for Huawei Technologies and U.S. companies working with the telecom giant by 90 days, the Commerce Department announced Monday.

The decision permits Huawei to continue buying products from American companies to support its existing customers. It was made in part to minimize disruption in parts of rural America that rely on relatively inexpensive Huawei equipment to carry wireless service in remote areas, Commerce officials said.

"It is another 90 days for the U.S. telecom companies," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Fox Business Network. "Some of the rural companies are dependent on Huawei. So we're giving them a little more time to wean themselves off."

At the same time, the Trump administration is continuing to apply pressure to Huawei. Forty-six Huawei subsidiaries are being added to what is known as the Commerce Department's "Entity List," a kind of blacklist that bans U.S. companies from doing business because of national security concerns, Commerce officials said Monday.
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Dominoes

Google, Facebook, Amazon to testify in US against French digital tax


CNBC
Wed, 14 Aug 2019 16:38 UTC
tech companies
Alphabet Google unit, Facebook and Amazon are among the companies that will testify Monday at a U.S. government hearing on the French government's digital services tax.

In July, the French Senate approved a 3% levy that will apply to revenue from digital services earned in France by companies with more than 25 million euros in French revenue and 750 million euros ($838 million) worldwide.

The U.S. Trade Representative's Office in July opened a probe into the new tax it called "unreasonable." The office could issue new tariffs on French goods or other trade restrictions after the public comment period closes on Aug. 26.

Amazon's international tax policy director Peter Hiltz said in written testimony for the USTR hearing that more than 10,000 French-based small- and medium-size businesses are selling on Amazon's online stores and notified them that certain fees will increase by 3% for sales made on Amazon.fr starting Oct. 1.
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Attention

New evidence emerges showing why Steele, the Ohrs and TSA workers never should have become DOJ sources

John Solomon
The Hill
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 16:30 UTC
bruce ohr and chris steele

Christopher Steele, Bruce Ohr, Glenn Simpson
One of the inevitable outcomes of the Russia case will be that the Department of Justice (DOJ) almost certainly will need internal reforms.

The first reform is the most obvious, given the unraveling of the Russia collusion narrative: a new set of rules governing when the FBI can investigate or spy on a First Amendment-protected political campaign during an election.

The FBI never should have been allowed to sustain a counterintelligence investigation into Donald Trump's campaign based on hearsay from Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who helped to arrange a $25 million Australian government donation to the Clinton Foundation, and on a "minimally" verified dossier written by British spy Christopher Steele, who was working on the Hillary Clinton opposition-research team.
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Wolf

Sara Netanyahu flies into rage at not being welcomed aboard plane, security stops her storming cockpit


The Jerusalem Post
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 16:30 UTC
sara netanyahu
© EMIL SALMAN/POOL
Sara Netanyahu in court in the Prepared Food Affair on June 16th, 2019.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife, Sara Netanyahu, was furious after not being welcomed on the speakerphone on a plane by the captain of an El Al flight to Ukraine, according to Channel 12's report on Sunday.

Netanyahu rose from her seat and angrily requested to enter the cockpit, but the security guards prevented her from doing so. After a while, the captain of the plane spoke again on the loudspeaker and welcomed her.

El Al said in response to the news: "The prime minister's flight went according to plan. We were pleased to host the prime minister and Mrs. Netanyahu on our flight to Ukraine."

Comment: It perhaps sounds hard to believe, except Sara Netanyahu is pretty shameless about her seriously ugly side: Sara Netanyahu's narcissistic rage unleashed on aide: "I'm an educated woman, a psy-cho-lo-gist!" in recording from 2009 (VIDEO)

This video from RT's Ruptly shows that on her arrival to Ukraine she deliberately drops the welcome bread given to her by her hosts on the floor:

And we haven't even got into the fact that the king and queen of Israel were more than happy to visit perhaps the only country on Earth where anti-Semitism is part of the official culture...

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Question

The return of Steve Bannon? Former aide reportedly regaining Trump's favor

Steven Nelson
The Washington Examiner
Fri, 16 Aug 2019 16:20 UTC
Steve Bannon
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Steve Bannon
In the four months after he left the White House in August 2017, Steve Bannon would order reporters to the basement of the Capitol Hill townhouse known as the "Breitbart Embassy." Sometimes, the news organization's then-chairman would hustle to the third floor. President Trump was calling.

As with many Trump aides before him, Bannon was fired but remained in a wide circle of former employees and friends consulted by the president. But unlike many others, the phase didn't last long, ending in a pitiable downfall.

Bannon's influence imploded with the January 2018 release of author Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury. The former White House chief strategist had given Wolff broad access and was quoted calling Donald Trump Jr. "treasonous" for meeting a Russian hawking dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Comment: More background on Bannon's political fortunes.

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Control Panel

Did Anthony Weiner's emails reveal a trove of incriminating information about political elites?

Joe Hoft
The Gateway Pundit
Fri, 16 Aug 2019 00:00 UTC
Anthony Weiner
Newly uncovered documents show that the Obama White House ran the Weiner email investigation. The corrupt FBI and DOJ worked with them. We raised this question in April 2018 - Why would Mueller, Comey, Hillary and the Deep State go all in to remove President Trump from office? Their actions are more like rabid dogs than sore losers. There must be something more.

The DOJ IG's report on McCabe released on Friday April 14, 2018 was a bombshell. We discovered hidden in it were pieces of information that when put into context with information released at that time indicate unimaginable corruption!

The DOJ IG's report related to the many lies made by former FBI Head Andrew McCabe is 39 pages in length. (See report here - See our summary of the report here.) One key item that was included in the IG's report was related to Anthony Weiner's emails.

Comment: If all of this is correct, don't be surprised if Weiner gets Epsteined.

See also:

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Sherlock

Epstein used wealth to survive in jail, DoJ guards not cooperating with 'suicide' investigation

Eileen AJ Connelly and Mara Siegler
New York Times
Sat, 17 Aug 2019 15:18 UTC
epstein
© Corbis via Getty Images
Jeffrey Epstein
He couldn't buy his freedom — but he could buy vending machine snacks, the "friendship" of fellow inmates, and hours on end away from his cell meeting with lawyers.

Millionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein spread his wealth around as much as he could in the month before he committed suicide on Aug. 10 at the federal Manhattan Correctional Center, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Epstein deposited money in at least three other inmates' commissary accounts in an attempt to ingratiate himself and possibly buy protection from the hardened criminals in the MCC's Special Housing Unit, where he awaited trial on a massive underage sex trafficking indictment, outlet reported.

Comment: Zero Hedge reports on the prison guards who are rousing suspicions by being uncooperative with the DOJ investigation:
Employees at the Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Center where convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein reportedly took his own life last week are not cooperating with the Justice Department investigators according to Fox News.

Two senior DOJ officials sent by Attorney General William Barr have been on-site at MCC while the agency's Inspector General investigates the situation. According to a senior DOJ official, Barr said that "serious irregularities" had been uncovered at the jail.

The night of Epstein's death, correctional officers did not check on the extremely high-profile prisoner for "several hours" before he died, despite being required to look in on him every 30 minutes. Moreover, guards are suspected of falsifying log entries to show that they were checking as required, according to the Associated Press.

In response, officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons have been on-site at MCC to assist with the investigation.
BOP officials from various regional offices have also been sent to the Manhattan facility to lend their expertise and insight. In addition, a separate BOP "After Action Team" went to MCC earlier this week in an effort to examine what happened the night Epstein died. The use of the "After Action Team" is part of BOP protocol whenever a "significant event takes place at a prison.

Epstein was found dead in his cell on Aug. 10. Earlier Friday, New York City's medical examiner officially ruled the 66-year-old's death a suicide by hanging.

Fox News has also learned that 20 of 21 prison staff posts were filled between the hours of 4 p.m. and 12 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 9, the day before Epstein was found. Of those prison workers, six of them were working voluntary overtime. Between 12 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10, 18 of 19 staff posts were filled. Of those 18 staffers, 10 were working overtime and all but one of those were doing so voluntarily. -Fox News
Two staffers have been placed on administrative leave, while MCC's warden was reassigned pending the investigation.

"It is indisputable that the authorities violated their own protocols," said Epstein's attorneys, Martin Weinberg, Reid Weingarten and Michael Miller. "The defense team fully intends to conduct its own independent and complete investigation into the circumstances and cause of Mr. Epstein's death including if necessary legal action to view the pivotal videos - if they exist as they should - of the area proximate to Mr. Epstein's cell during the time period leading to his death."

Epstein's attorneys also addressed the deceased pedophile's controversial autopsy, which concluded that he hanged himself using bed-sheets, breaking his hyoid bone near the Adam's apple. This is typically only broken during strangulation victims, however they can also be broken via hanging - particularly if the person is older.

"We are not satisfied with the conclusions of the medical examiner," they said, adding "We will have a more complete response in the coming days" (and will bill Epstein's estate accordingly, we're sure).

Meanwhile, several women are suing Epstein's estate, claiming he sexually abused them.
The suit, filed Thursday in a federal court in New York, claims the women were working as hostesses at a popular Manhattan restaurant in 2004 when they were recruited to give Epstein massages. One was 18 at the time. The other was 20.

The lawsuit says an unidentified female recruiter offered the hostesses hundreds of dollars to provide massages to Epstein, saying he 'liked young, pretty girls to massage him,' and wouldn't engage in any unwanted touching. The women say Epstein groped them anyway.

One plaintiff now lives in Japan, the other in Baltimore. They seek $100 million in damages, citing depression, anxiety, anger and flashbacks.

Other lawsuits, filed over many years by other women, accused him of hiring girls as young as 14 or 15 to give him massages, then subjecting them to sex acts. -Daily Mail
Epstein had faced up to 45 years in prison if found guilty of exploiting dozens of underage girls at his residences in Manhattan and Florida between 2002 and 2005.
See also: NYT reporter: Epstein said criminalizing sex with teenage girls 'cultural aberration'; said he had dirt on powerful people

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Bizarro Earth

Lord Mountbatten 'was a homosexual with a fetish for beautiful boys in school uniform' claims secret FBI dossier

Connor Boyd Author
The Daily Mail
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 08:31 UTC
Mountbatten

Prince Charles' uncle and valued mentor Lord Mountbatten (pictured together) was a 'homosexual with a perversion for young boys', according to a secret dossier compiled by the FBI
Prince Charles' uncle and valued mentor Lord Mountbatten was a 'homosexual with a perversion for young boys', according to a secret dossier compiled by the FBI.

The intelligence files describe the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma and his wife Edwina as 'persons of extremely low morals' who frequently had extramarital affairs.

One source said Mountbatten's penchant for young men made him 'an unfit man to direct any sort of military operations'.

The files paint a very different picture of the last viceroy of India - who was hailed as a war hero who led allied efforts in southeast Asia before he was assassinated in 1979 by an IRA bomb.

Comment: The more pressing issue here is whether Lord Mountbatten is yet another elite figure who was also an abuser of children. There are statements that support this fact but, as it is, while he may have had "low morals" and could have been an ideal target for blackmail - an undesirable quality for someone in his position - more data is needed. The timing of this release is also interesting considering the accusations against Prince Andrew and his connections with convicted, now dead, pedophile Epstein. It's also notable that similar rumours surround his nephew, Prince Charles, partly because of his friendship with known pedophiles:

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