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Duterte sees China as a menacing friend, ever since US failed to deliver promised arms


RT
Wed, 03 Apr 2019 15:56 UTC
xi and duterte
© Reuters / Mark Cristino
Manila seeks to maintain close ties with Beijing despite any potential tensions in the disputed South China Sea, President Duterte said, emphasizing that the Philippines and China have no issues that can't be resolved politically.

"If I go to war my Navy will be crushed in a matter of minutes. If I wage a war with China, in seven minutes their missile will reach Manila," Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday, defending his good relationship with Beijing, despite recent tensions over the presence of a large number of Chinese vessels off Thitu Island in the South China Sea.

Speaking in Malabon City the day after the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) kicked off their massive annual military exercise with the United States, Duterte stressed that Beijing also remains committed to friendly relations with Manila. The special bond, Duterte believes, flourished after China (as well as Russia) answered Manila's calls to supply the country with armaments to fight Islamist insurgency, after Washington halted military shipments over 'human rights' concerns.
China just wants to be friend with us. They gave us arms, ammunition. I went there because America failed to deliver what we ordered.
"It was only when I went there and talked to them and Russia that the Americans started to take notice," Duterte said.
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Bad Guys

Theresa May just kicked the Brexit can right into Corbyn's corner: It's a trap

George Galloway
RT
Wed, 03 Apr 2019 15:36 UTC
corbyn May campaign posters Brexit
© Agence France-Presse/Isabel Infantes
As Inspector Clouseau once said in the Pink Panther "It's so obvious that it could not possibly be a trap."

Delivered in a Peter Sellers type of French accent with his gormless naivety it was perfectly obvious to the cinema audiences that a trap was exactly what it was.

Theresa May's 11th-hour 55th minute conversion to consulting Jeremy Corbyn on the type of Brexit Britain should finally enjoy is so obvious it must be a trap.

Not that Corbyn had any choice but to accept the prime minister's invitation to negotiate with her in the name of "national unity." Britain IS in a jam, but not one of the famously horticultural allotment-tending leader of the opposition's making. Just days away from the bumpy exit which, even its supporters (like me), cannot deny a WTO departure from the European Union would be, a terror (no exaggeration). Having to hold European Parliamentary elections (in which I would be a candidate), the Brexit camp would sweep with a huge majority, adding a new complication to the prime minister (and the leader of the opposition's) pickle. This, and an increasingly belligerent Brussels elite shrilly insulting us, something had to be done.

Comment: "May is done..." and yet, she's still PM.

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Bullseye

Reality check: CNN's claim that Trump has been unwilling to confront Putin is total bulls**t

Bryan MacDonald
RT
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 19:57 UTC
trump and putin helsinki
© Sputnik / Sergey Guneev
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin
Fareed Zakaria is a veteran Putin conspiracy theorist. And you can assume he feels this obsession has helped further his career, especially at CNN.

Back in 2017, he made a pseudo-documentary on Russia's president, titled "The most powerful man in the world," which was widely pilloried. Indeed, the Kremlin labeled it "hysterical" and "odious," and dismissed it as "often complete fiction."

Russia expert Dominic Basulto summed it up as "what slick propaganda for the masses looks like in the digital era." Further pointing out how Zakaria failed to disclose his own "Russian collusion" as a host at the 2016 St Petersburg Economic Forum. An appearance which didn't go very well for the CNN anchor.

Over the past couple of years, Zakaria has been one of the loudest voices pushing the "Trump/Russia" hoax. But, instead of accepting reality after Robert Mueller's report kiboshed the yarn, he doubled down. And his latest video is unhinged.
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Vader

Confirmed: War whore Bolton torpedoed Hanoi Summit

Mike Whitney
The Unz Review
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 15:16 UTC
Trump Bolton North Korea talks
© Reuters
Bolton (far left) with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney at a meeting with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and his delegation in Vietnam on Feb 28, 2019.
An explosive report by Reuters confirms that John Bolton sabotaged the denuclearization talks between Kim Jong un and Donald Trump in Hanoi in February. According to a March 29 exclusive by journalists Lesley Wroughton and David Brunnstrom:
"Donald Trump handed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a piece of paper" demanding that Kim surrender all of his "nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States." Trump also added a number of unrelated demands including "fully dismantling" all "chemical and biological warfare program(s).... and ballistic missiles, launchers, and associated facilities." Trump surprised Kim by demanding complete, unilateral disarmament in exchange for a flimsy promise to lift economic sanctions sometime in the future. Naturally, Kim rejected the offer.

Comment:

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Eye 2

Ecuador president implicated in financial scandal, blames Wikileaks, threatens Assange with expulsion from embassy

Elizabeth Vos
Consortium News
Wed, 03 Apr 2019 14:13 UTC
Julian Assange

Julian Assang's health has declined rapidly as his illegal incarceration drags on.
Ecuador's president is threatening to soon decide on Julian Assange's refuge after his government falsely accused WikiLeaks of publishing files about a scandal that threatens to bring the president down.

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno said Tuesday he would decide "in the short term" the fate of Julian Assange after claiming that WikiLeaks had "repeatedly violated" the terms of Assange's asylum in Ecuador's London embassy by commenting on a scandal linking a Panamanian investment company with Moreno and his family.

Those conditions, or protocol, were imposed by Ecuador on Assange in March 2018 and bar him from commenting publicly on political matters in exchange for being allowed to remain a refugee in the embassy. Assange never agreed to the protocol, which contradicts international refugee law guaranteeing freedom of expression.
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Bad Guys

Ecuador's president claims Assange breached terms of London embassy

Alexandra Valencia
Reuters
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 14:04 UTC
Assange/Moreno
© Unknown
Julian Assange • President of Ecuador Lenin Moreno
President Lenin Moreno of Ecuador told radio stations on Tuesday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has "repeatedly violated" the terms of his asylum in the Andean nation's London embassy, where he has lived for nearly seven years.

Moreno, interviewed by the Ecuadorean Radio Broadcasters' Association, said Assange does not have the right to "hack private accounts or phones" and cannot intervene in the politics of other countries, especially those that have friendly relations with Ecuador.

Attorneys for Assange did not respond to requests for comment.

Comment: Moreno has been trying to get rid of Assange at the behest of the US for some time now. Only his mother's tireless campaign and public opinion has kept him safe so far.

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War Whore

Imperialist mouthpieces CNN and WaPo demand that Trump further escalate tensions with Russia

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 08:43 UTC
fareed's take cnn
CNN has aired a segment in which pundit Fareed Zakaria tells the network's audience that the US president has "been unwilling to confront Putin in any way on any issue" and asks "will Venezuela be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?"

The segment is a near-verbatim reading of Zakaria's Washington Post column from a couple of days prior, so that's two massive prongs through which this false and pernicious narrative is being driven into mainstream consciousness claiming that the Trump administration has been far too dovish toward Moscow, rather than dangerously hawkish as is actually the case.

Zakaria begins his segment by describing the Trump administration's (completely illegitimate) efforts to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, then describing Russian efforts to counter this agenda as an attempt to "taunt the United States." He then spends the rest of the segment asking if Trump will be brave and patriotic enough to further escalate tensions against a nuclear superpower. Zakaria concludes by implying that if Trump fails to increase world-threatening nuclear tensions to effect yet another US regime change intervention in yet another oil-rich country, it will be because he is a Kremlin agent.


Comment: See also:

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Star of David

AIPAC gathering in Washington is full of lies and liars

Philip Giraldi
The Unz Reader
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
aipac conference
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just completed its annual summit in Washington. It claims that 18,000 supporters attended the event, which concluded with a day of lobbying Congress by the attendees. Numerous American politicians addressed the gathering and it is completely reasonable to observe that the meeting constituted the most powerful gathering of people dedicated to promoting the interests of a foreign nation ever witnessed in any country in the history of the world.

There are a number of things that one should understand about the Jewish state of Israel and its powerful American domestic lobby. First of all, the charge that the actions of The Lobby (referred to with capital letters because of its uniqueness and power) inevitably involves dual or even singular allegiance based on religion or tribe to a country where the lobbyist does not actually reside is completely correct by definition of what AIPAC is and why it exists. It claims to work to "ensure that the Jewish state is safe, strong and secure" through "foreign aid, government partnerships, [and] joint anti-terrorism efforts...," all of which involve the U.S. as the donor and Israel as the recipient.
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Target

Venezuela is the new Syria, and Russia is a friend to it too

Israel Shamir
The Unz Reader
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Maduro and Putin
A few days ago, an Ilyushin IL-62M liner carried over a hundred Russian soldiers and officers to Caracas. Symbolically, they made a stopover in Syria, as if saying that Venezuela is the next country after Syria to be saved from ruin and dismemberment. The military mission was led by the Head of General Staff, General Tonkoshkurov ("Thin-Skinned", a name that would thrill Vladimir Nabokov).

'Don't you dare, exclaimed John Bolton, meddle in the Western Hemisphere! Hands off Venezuela! It is our back yard!' The Russians didn't buy it. Some time ago they tried to object to the US tanks being positioned in Estonia, a brief drive from St Petersburg, and all they've got was preaching that sovereignty means sovereignty, and Estonia does not have to ask for Russian permission to receive American military assistance. Now they repeated this American sermon verbatim to John Bolton and his boss. Get out of Syria first, they added.

This is a new level in the Russian-American relations, or should we say confrontation. For a very long time, the Russians convinced themselves that their liking for the United States was mutual, or at least would be returned one day. However, this stage is over, the scales fell off their eyes and they finally realised America's implacable enmity. 'These Russians are really dumb if it dawned on them only now', you'd murmur. It is enough to read comments to the New York Times piece regarding Mueller's exoneration of Trump to learn that hatred to Russia is a staple diet of American elites, on a par with love to Israel. That's where we are.
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Bomb

Pacifying the natives: Bombs found in Corsica just ahead of Macron visit


The Local
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
island of Corsica
© AFP
The picturesque island of Corsica has been rocked by attacks in recent days.
Bombs at public buildings and holiday villas going up in flames: a spike in attacks on Corsica has led to worries that nationalist violence could return to the tourist destination known as France's "island of beauty".

The Mediterranean territory, famed for its beaches and as the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, was once a hotbed of anti-French militancy which led to thousands of bombings from the 1970s to early 2000s.

But since 2014, when local National Liberation Front of Corsica announced a ceasefire, French state infrastructure and the luxury holiday homes owned by wealthy mainlanders - still seen as "colonisers" by some locals - have been largely safe.

Comment: The same thing is going on in the UK: mystery persons are leaving bombs lying around and the authorities are suggesting 'it may have something to do with Brexit'.

As the establishment in both countries clings on for dear life, Project Fear is about to be taken up a notch, or ten...

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