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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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Heart - Black

Atrocities by terrorists against Syrian children ignored by Western media covering conflict from comfort of offices elsewhere

Vanessa Beeley
RT
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 20:49 UTC
Khalidiyah, west Aleppo
© Vanessa Beele
A child walks past an area that has been targeted by the terrorist groups less than 200 meters away. Khalidiyah, west Aleppo.
Western media, filing their reports on Syria from safe offices in New York and London, ignore atrocities committed almost daily against children and civilians by terrorists in Idlib.

A recent report compiled by the US coalition's primary anti-Assad "evidence" producers has condemned the alleged Syrian/Russian targeting of civilians in Idlib. In familiar fashion, the Guardian accepted the White Helmet version of events without any apparent fact-checking or verification. Claims by the notorious terrorist-linked group and its PR agency, Syria Campaign, that 304 children and 11 "rescue workers" had been killed since April 2019 went unchallenged by one of the foremost "humanitarian" war-promoting media outlets - one that has sustained and nourished the criminalization of the Syrian government and its allies since 2011.
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Rocket

Iran claims its ballistic missile and space launch program in line with UN resolution, not in violation of deal


RT
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 18:35 UTC
missile Iran
© Reuters/Mahmood Hosseini
A ballistic missile is launched and tested in an undisclosed location in Iran, 2016
Iran says it will "resolutely continue" its ballistic missile program. Tehran claims the program does not violate the deal it signed with Western powers in 2015, and accuses the West of selectively interpreting a UN resolution.

"Iran is determined to resolutely continue its activities related to ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles," the country's UN envoy Majid Takhte Ravanchi wrote in a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday.

Comment: See also:

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Mr. Potato

Delusional Killary hints at Trump grudge match: Democrats approach political extinction

Robert Bridge
RT
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 20:40 UTC
hillary clinton
The former First Lady just can't let it go. The belief that the presidency was denied her in 2016 by a thousand conspiracies is tempting her to enter the 2020 race at a time when Democrats desperately need new blood.

With uncanny timing, Hillary Rodham Clinton has hit the international talk show circuit, triggering heated speculation that she may be planning a last-minute plunge into the Democratic primaries against a disappointing field of nominees. The temptation of getting another shot at Donald Trump, who beat Clinton in 2016 despite losing the popular vote, appears to have become an idée fixe for the former secretary of state.

On the UK's Graham Norton Show, Clinton gave a very unconvincing denial that she was entertaining any presidential ambitions when she commented, "Right now, I'm not, at all, you know, planning that. I'd have to make up my mind really quickly, because it's moving very fast."
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Bad Guys

Youtube CEO Wojcicki boasts of new algorithm, army of 10,000 censors that have disappeared 'controversial content' by 70%

Ian Schwartz
Real Clear Politics
Mon, 02 Dec 2019 23:12 UTC
Wojcicki
© AP/Reed Saxon
YouTube's Susan Wojcicki
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki tells Lesley Stahl what the video platform is doing about hate speech in an interview Sunday on the CBS newsmagazine program '60 Minutes.'

Wojcicki told '60 Minutes' that Google employs 10,000 people to focus on "controversial content." She described their schedule, which includes time for therapy. Stahl also said there are reports that the "monitors" are "beginning to buy the conspiracy theories."

"What we really had to do was tighten our enforcement of that to make sure we were catching everything and we use a combination of people and machines," Wojcicki explained. "So Google as a whole has about 10,000 people that are focused on controversial content."

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Windsock

Show's over, folks? Farage loses three more Brexit Party MEPs to the Tories

Zoe Drewett
Metro, UK
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 18:38 UTC
farage meps
© PA – Getty
Brexit party leader Nigel Farage said he was disappointed by the decision
It has not been a great election campaign for Nigel Farage by all accounts. He gave up more than 300 seats to the Conservatives in the first week of his campaign after a number of candidates quit and then had members turning on him and calling him a traitor. Now, three Brexit Party MEPs have announced they are quitting too in order to back Boris Johnson and the Conservatives in the general election.

Jacob Rees-Mogg's sister Annunziata, Lance Forman and Lucy Harris today said they had resigned the whip to back the prime minister's push to 'get Brexit done'. It follows the decision yesterday to sack John Longworth, the former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, for 'repeatedly undermining' Mr Farage's election strategy.

Ms Rees-Mogg, MEP for the East Midlands and a former Conservative candidate, said: 'We need a strong Leave-supporting government to deliver the Brexit 17.4 million voted for. The Conservatives are the only option for Brexit supporters and democrats alike.'

The Brexit Party leader, who isn't standing in the election, said he was 'disappointed' by the decision.
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Magic Hat

Punting the propaganda: Pelosi lectures Americans that impeachment not really about Ukraine but all about... Russia!


RT
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 14:57 UTC
Pelosi
© J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
For Americans still confused why exactly Democrats want to impeach President Donald Trump - something about Ukraine, maybe? - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has helpfully clarified that it's all about Russia and always has been.

Briefing reporters on the impeachment inquiry on Thursday, Pelosi (D-California) made sure to point out that "this isn't about Ukraine, this is about Russia."
"Russia. It's about Russia. Russia invading eastern Ukraine ...all roads lead to Putin. Understand that."
That may come as a surprise given the Democrats' recent line of argument that Trump must be impeached because he tried to force new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open a corruption investigation into the gas company that had Joe Biden's son Hunter on its board - a "quid pro quo" that qualified as bribery and election interference, somehow.

Comment: While no one can chart the course of the latest unhinged Democratic gambit, the tone seems to be coming increasingly desperate. If the Russia card doesn't play with the American public any more, what do they have left?

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