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Japan's neighbors will closely observe PM Abe's policy after election

Tomoyuki Tachikawa, Dahee Kim
Kyodo News
Sat, 20 Jul 2019 18:00 UTC
Shinzo Abe
© Unknown
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
Japan's major neighbors are closely watching how the result of Sunday's upper house election will affect the regional situation, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is still believed to stick to what they regard as hawkish policies.

South Korea, whose ties with Japan have sharply deteriorated over wartime labor disputes and other issues, expects that Abe may shift his hardline stance against Seoul if his Liberal Democratic Party wins the election with the support of conservative voters.

But some South Korean pundits say Tokyo is unlikely to work to improve relations with Seoul even after the election, as Abe is not inclined to get along with President Moon Jae in, who has pursued leftwing liberal policies centering on social equality and egalitarianism.

China, meanwhile, has been eager to boost ties with Tokyo amid trade and security spats with the United States, but it is vigilant about the possibility that Abe will push ahead with amending Japan's pacifist Constitution if his LDP scores a landslide victory.

"Although Abe is certain to become Japan's longest-serving prime minister, he has failed to make major achievements. Territorial negotiations with Russia have been stalled and a Japan-North Korea summit has yet to be realized," a diplomat of an Asian nation said.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

'Anti-Trump' CNN presstitute defends Trump persecuting Assange

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Fri, 19 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Jim Acosta
© ABC News
CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta
In the endless brain fart cyclone that is the Trump era, CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta has made a name for himself posing as a martyr of the free press. While US mass media have made a theatrical WWE performance of Trump's occasional mean words toward Acosta under the banner of defending press freedoms, it has been pathetically sympathetic to this administration's attempt to actually prosecute an actual journalist, Julian Assange, under the Espionage Act.

It is about time, then, that someone highlighted the irony and hypocrisy of this ridiculous melodrama by confronting Acosta on these contradictions directly. Thanks to independent video journalist Matt Orfalea, we now have footage of one such necessary confrontation taking place.


Comment: See also:

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Handcuffs

Iran busts 17 spies linked to CIA; some will receive the death penalty


RT
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 07:16 UTC
Alleged CIA spies in Iran
© Twitter/Tasmin News Agency
Alleged CIA spies
Iranian secret services uncovered a 17-member spy ring working against the country, according to state-affiliated media. Some of the agents have been given capital punishment. All the suspects in question were arrested by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

They were working as private contractors "in the economic, nuclear, infrastructural, military and cyber areas... where they collected classified information," the report said.

Some of the suspected agents were allegedly recruited by CIA officers while applying for US visas. Others were approached on the sidelines of scientific events in European, African, and Asian countries. Tehran did not say when the spy ring was exposed, but announced the arrests were made throughout the last Iranian calendar year, which ended in March 2019.

It is reported that the suspects were equipped with top-notch communication gear which they used to hand over intelligence to their American handlers. It included, among other items, containers disguised as stones. Agents were trained to retrieve these from urban or mountainous areas using complex procedures. Using the containers, the CIA allegedly provided its spies with encrypted communications and fake IDs, local media reports, citing officials.

Washington brushed off the accusation, with Secretary of State - and former CIA Director - Mike Pompeo saying Iran has "history of lying." Later in the day, he told Fox News: "I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian assertion about actions that they've taken."

Comment: RT reports: Iranian media releases photos of 'captured spies'
Photos purporting to show several of the 17 alleged captured CIA-linked operatives have begun circulating in the Iranian media.

Iran announced that it had broken up an alleged CIA spy ring in June but officials have yet to clarify whether Monday's announcement is in fact linked. The CIA has yet to comment.

The arrests reportedly took place in March 2019 but have only been made public as of Monday, with photos purporting to show several of the arrestees shared online by state-affiliated media. The photos seem to be personal or family photos rather than images of people in detention.

In addition, an Iranian documentary which aired on state television on Monday purported to show a CIA officer recruiting an Iranian man while the pair were in the UAE.
RT: Trump: Iran's CIA spy claim is 'totally false'
US President Donald Trump has denied reports that over a dozen CIA operatives were captured in Iran, calling it 'just more lies and propaganda' on Tehran's part.

The allegation is a desperate measure by a "badly failing" government with a "dead" economy, Trump tweeted on Monday.

RT reports: Pompeo shrugs off Iran claim of CIA spy ring
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has dismissed Tehran's claim that it has captured 17 spies working for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), suggesting that the assertion is pure fabrication.


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Chart Bar

Bank of America warns: 'Enjoy it while it lasts'

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 18:56 UTC
Money/pillars
© www.cio.com
Last August, several of Bank of America's more skeptical analysts including Michael Hartnett and chief economist Ethan Harris wrote a piece on the law of large numbers, arguing that an ever-expanding list of uncertainties would likely undercut the markets going into year-end. At the time, the main concerns were the trade war, a hawkish Fed, Brexit, Quitaly and Iran oil sanctions. And now, Bank of America once again warns that this fall, a similar set of concerns could come to a head and halt the current rally in global equity markets. As always, the trade war is at the top of the list.
Chart rising uncertainties
While BofA's economists are hopeful for a partial de-escalation between the US and China in the next few months, they are are becoming increasingly concerned that the current tariffs are permanent. With the US and China facing off across a demilitarized zone, a number of other battle fronts could emerge. The deadline for avoiding auto tariffs is mid-November. Additionally, there is a steady drift toward some kind of currency war: in the form of either countervailing duties or outright intervention. Countries that benefit from production shifting out of China, including Vietnam and other ASEAN countries, could face at least a serious threat of US tariffs. Meanwhile, the list of foreign firms facing unfair trade investigations by the US Commerce Department continues to grow. Elsewhere, Brexit, Middle East tensions, fraying Japan and Korea relations, and Washington DC policy missteps all loom as risk factors.
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Question

Who's a Kremlin agent? Boris Johnson for talking to a 'Russian oligarch' who hates Putin


RT
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 19:19 UTC
Boris Johnson
© independent.co.uk
Boris Johnson
In 2019, merely being on first-name terms with a Russian makes a Western politician a pawn of Vladimir Putin, even if the Russian in question fled the country 15 years ago, and has an outstanding Moscow police warrant against him.

Catherine Belton, a former Financial Times correspondent in Moscow, has produced a truly exhausting 3,500-word investigation in search of a crime for Reuters. The subject of the special report is the relationship between UK's likely next prime minister, Boris Johnson, and an exiled executive for long-defunct Russian oil giant Yukos, Alexander Temerko, though it is almost impossible to understand what the actual point of the piece is, beyond its insinuation that "MPs are increasingly wary of possible Russian influence over British politics."

Russian diminutives as evidence of conspiracy

We learn that "Temerko rose to prominence in the Russia arms industry in the 1990s, in the wild days that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union," though rather than the wheeler-dealer Lord of War picture this paints, the 57-year-old was actually a high-ranking government official, close to the administration of then-President Boris Yeltsin, and helped set up Russia's post-Soviet arms exporter.

Switching over to the private sector, Temerko sat on the board of oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's energy company, and when the Yukos boss was charged with embezzlement, he stayed in Russia for two years, before fleeing in 2005, fraud charges hanging over him. Having convinced UK authorities that the accusations were politically motivated, Temerko was granted British citizenship in 2011, and has spent the past decade involved in Western energy businesses.
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Jet3

US military complains Venezuelan jet 'aggressively shadowed' its spy plane...and then blames Russia


RT
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 16:27 UTC
Venezuelan jet
© Twitter/Southcom
A Venezuelan Su-30 fighter "aggressively shadowed" an American spy plane over the Caribbean Sea, the US military said, claiming the jet was at an "unsafe distance" and blaming Russia for its "irresponsible" support for Caracas.

Footage of the Russian-made Su-30 aircraft approaching a US EP-3 reconnaissance plane was released by the Southern Command on Sunday. The US military said the incident took place over the Caribbean Sea on July 19, but did not indicate how close the EP-3 was to the Venezuelan border, stating that the planes were in international airspace.
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Arrow Up

Ukraine snap election: Zelensky's new party gains parliamentary faction


RT
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 17:05 UTC
Zelenskiy and Olena.
© REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his wife Olena.
The newly formed party of Volodymyr Zelensky gained the majority of votes in Ukraine's parliament elections, while ultra-nationalist parties failed to pass threshold. The president still has to find coalition partners.

Zelensky is a professional comedian who entered politics last year to successfully defeat his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, in April in a crushing landslide victory with over 70 percent of the vote.

His ability to enact his policies, however, has been undermined by a lack of representation in the parliament, where allies of Poroshenko have held a ruling majority and defeated Zelensky's numerous attempts to sack senior officials loyal to the previous president. His response was to call a snap election in his inauguration speech in May.

Sunday's vote proved a reasonable success for the new head of state. His party, called 'Servant of the People' after a TV show in which he played a fictional Ukrainian president, scored almost 44 percent of the vote, according to the national exit poll.

Yet without a majority of seats, his faction will need an ally to form a ruling coalition.

Comment: See also:

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Bad Guys

'Jihad Squad' meme posted on Illinois GOP FB page angers Democrats


RT
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:06 UTC
Jihad squad
A Republican group has distanced itself from an altered movie poster that appeared on its Facebook page, depicting four progressive congresswomen as 'The Jihad Squad'. The post sparked outrage among local Democrats.

The now deleted post appeared on the Illinois Republican County Chairman's Association Facebook page on Friday evening. The image is a doctored poster from the 2013 film 'Gangster Squad', with the faces of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) photoshopped onto the protagonists.

"Jihad Squad," the poster reads, with the tagline: "Political Jihad is their game. If you don't agree with their socialist ideology, you're racist."

Comment: Political leaders, such as those in The Squad as well as others are indeed using more and more extreme ideologies to radicalize Americans into hating one another. In this respect, the meme is actually pretty accurate.

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Chess

Pompeo: UK must look after its own ships in the Gulf

Patrick Wintour
The Guardian
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:19 UTC
oil tanker
The UK must be responsible for the safety of its own ships in the Gulf, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has said.

His remarks reflect unresolved tensions between Britain and the US over Donald Trump's plans for a US-led military convoy to protect international shipping operating off the Iranian coast.

Speaking on Fox News, Pompeo said: "The responsibility in the first instance falls to the United Kingdom to take care of their ships. The US has a responsibility to do its part."

British ministers discussed the issue at a Cobra emergency meeting that largely focused on how to respond to the Iranian capture on Friday of the British-flagged Stena Impero. The ship, crewed largely by Indian nationals, is being held in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. All crew members are in good health and still onboard, the Iran embassy in India said on Monday.
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Snakes in Suits

Tory MP Charlie Elphicke charged with sexual assault

Jamie Grierson
The Guardian
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:07 UTC
Charlie Elphicke
© Sky News
The Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke has been charged with three counts of sexual assault relating to two women, prosecutors have said.

The MP for Dover and Deal is alleged to have committed the first offence in 2007 against one complainant and two further offences against a second complaint in 2016, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

He will appear at Westminster magistrates court on 6 September.

Elphicke, 49, was suspended from the Conservative party in November 2017 after allegations made against him were referred to the police.
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