U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday that President Donald Trump might ease U.S. restrictions on Huawei if there was progress in the trade row with China - but absent a deal, Washington would maintain tariffs to cut its deficit.

"I think what the president is saying is, if we move forward on trade, that perhaps he'll be willing to do certain things on Huawei if he gets comfort from China on that and certain guarantees," Mnuchin said. "But these are national security issues."

Washington has imposed and then toughened import tariffs on Chinese goods in a bid to reduce the United States' trade deficit and combat what it calls unfair trade practices.

US Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Todd Young (R-IN) have co-sponsored a bill to reign in President Donald Trump's power to sell arms to Saudi Arabia while sidestepping Congress, by forcing a vote on the deals.

The Republican and Democratic Senators plan to introduce a resolution that would potentially restrict the Trump administration's flourishing arms trade with, and security assistance to, Saudi Arabia, on Monday.

After lawmakers' unsuccessful previous attempts to stop American weapons from being funneled to Riyadh, the latest effort refers to a provision of the Foreign Assistance Act that allows Congress to vote to request information on the human rights record of a particular country. After being provided the data, Congress can vote to roll back any aspect of future or ongoing security assistance, including the supply of arms to that country.

The resolution is specifically aimed at forcing a vote on 22 arms deals struck between the US and the Saudis, as well as on any future weapons sales.

Kazakhstan is undergoing a change of leadership after the resignation of its head Nursultan Nazarbayev. The election came to an end with more than 70% of votes cast for his successor Tokayev, according to the preliminary results.

Kazakhstan, a large Central Asian country located between Russia and China, which is a major energy player in the region, has a new head of state for the first time since gaining independence in 1991.

On Sunday, Kazakhs went to over 9,000 polling stations throughout the country in a snap presidential election, which had a record seven candidates on the ballot. Some 12 million voters were registered in the nation of 16 million people.

Earlier, Jared Kushner, the US president's son-in-law, and the primary architect of the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, dubbed by Trump the "deal of the century," said that the upcoming proposal will differ from attempts by previous US administrations to mediate an agreement adhering to a "two-state solution", as the latter had failed.

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said during a press conference in Amman that "a two-state solution" should be reached through negotiations, The Times of Israel reported on Sunday.

His Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi echoed the statement, confirming that "the two-state solution is the only way to end the conflict", according to The Times of Israel.

The Furture of War
by Peter Mansbridge, CBC (Friday, June 06, 2019)

I had not intended to watch this program, a CBC special documentary hosted/narrated by Peter Mansbridge, the CBC's retired chief correspondent and national news anchor. However, as it came on during prime pre-dinner time viewing I thought that I should watch it in order to find out some of the current political spin within Canada's establishment.

It was rather underwhelming but also informative, not for what it said, but for what it did not say. A general summary of its main points covers three main ideas: first it is great support for the military industrial complex; second, it promoted active militarism; finally it supported the concept that we have been at peace for 75 years.

The introduction was a whirlwind through World War II, its aftermath in setting up the Bretton Woods group, the Washington consensus to control global finances, and then on through a precis of today's "threats". What was missing was context, and a whole lot of other information.

Sitting in a courtroom three years ago, after skipping out on a sizable legal bill, Hillary Rodham Clinton's youngest brother struck a reassuring tone: Don't worry, the money is coming.

"I deal through the Clinton Foundation," Tony Rodham said, according to court transcripts uncovered by the New York Times. He gave his word that Hillary and Bill were setting him up with Haitian-government permits to build a $22 million housing development in the earthquake-stricken country.

"I hound my brother-in-law, because it's his fund that we're going to get our money from," Rodham explained, promising a $1 million check once the Haitian-government paved the way, enough both to cover the outstanding legal fees and take his family to Disney World.

The construction deal fell through, but Rodham managed to settle his debt. And the next year, he got another crack at making money in Haiti's heavily-regulated economy when he joined the advisory board of a company, VCS Mining, which was developing a gold mine on the island. He'd met the company's CEO at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. "I go to see old friends [at the meetings,]" Rodham told the Washington Post, "but you never know what can happen."
From the moment the Clintons walked through the White House doors in January of 1993, Rodham has proven remarkably adept at harnessing their political horsepower for his personal gain. His schemes don't always pan out, and they have caused numerous headaches for Hillary and Bill. But Rodham's fortunes have always been tied to theirs, his bank account waxing and waning in time with the Clintons' political prospects. He may lack their sophistication, but to many observers, Tony is the unvarnished embodiment of the Clintons' decades-long dance with crony capitalism.

Rodham sits atop of a pile of money acquired through a vast tangle of enterprises just a little less secret and complex than those of his sister and brother-in-law. "There's really no better definition of what this is," says David Bossie, president of the conservative group Citizens United and a longtime Clinton foe. "This is a person who is not directly the principal, but he's the brother - or, in the 1990s, the brother-in-law - of the president, using these open doors of family to shake people down."

"A sibling's power is tremendous," says presidential historian Doug Wead. "In many parts of the Third World, the sister gets the Coca-Cola franchise and the brother gets to build the big shopping center. Now, unfortunately, that kind of corruption exists in the United States."

Voters looking ahead to 2020 are being bombarded with soundbites from the twenty plus Democratic would-be candidates. That Joe Biden is apparently leading the pack according to opinion polls should come as no surprise as he stands for nothing apart from being the Establishment favorite who will tirelessly work to support the status quo.

The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.

Felix Sater is a deep state Democrat with ties to the the Clintons and the Mueller gang. He's mentioned over 100 times in the Mueller report but not one mention refers to these connections with Deep State Democrats. In March, the far left and dishonest Democrat leader Adam Schiff announced that he had invited Felix Sater to provide a testimony before Congress. Sater eventually did not testify as Schiff and his party realized that Sater's testimony would be detrimental to their Russia-Collusion sham.

Most people are ignorant of the fact that the world's worst terrorist organization is pivoting to Africa after claiming attacks in the Western, Central, and now Southern parts of the continent, which is a surefire sign that the organization is far from being defeated but is instead morphing into an altogether different beast than before, though Russia might be able to proactively thwart this threat before it's too late if more countries request its "Democratic Security" services.

The "Caliphate's" African Comeback

The average person is under the false impression that Daesh has been defeated after both Russia and the US claimed victory over the world's worst terrorist organization, yet the fact is that the group is pivoting to Africa nowadays after claiming attacks in the Western, Central, and now Southern parts of the continent. Daesh first popped up in war-torn Libya and Somalia, but now reportedly has a presence in the Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger border triangle in West Africa, says that it carried out an attack in the Ebola-plagued conflict-wreaked eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, or simply the Congo), and now purports to have been behind a recent assault in northern Mozambique, showing that it's spread all throughout Africa while the rest of the world failed to take notice. It's true that local allies (whether alleged or self-declared) might have actually been the ones responsible for the latest incidents in the Congo and Mozambique, but even if that's the case, then it still speaks to Daesh's intent to expand into those largely lawless countries that it would claim to have been behind those terrorist attacks there.

Tehran's military displayed a brand-new indigenous air defense missile system, capable of tracking and shooting down six targets at the same time. The weapon was rolled out amid growing tensions around the Persian Gulf.

Iran unveiled its new domestically-designed air defense missile system Khordad 15 on Sunday. Equipped with long-range Sayyad 3 missiles, it can shoot down enemy jets and combat drones at a range of 120 kilometers, Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami said.


The complex can also track "stealth targets," intercepting them 45km away. Overall, the weapon can destroy six targets simultaneously, according to military officials.