This overfed man is the poster boy for narcissism, isn’t he? Oh well, people get the government they deserve, no? What I am afraid of is of a civil war that would disintegrate the States to Smithereens. Too much noise, as I live above them.
Moscow’s permanent mission to the UN issued a statement on Thursday questioning why Ukraine, Georgia, the UK, US, and EU had shot down its proposal, arguing that these nations “refused to cast aside politicized approaches and interests,” and that their decision could negatively affect “a great number of people” – especially in developing nations currently under sanctions.
The rejected motion called for broad international cooperation on combating the spread of Covid-19, as well as the “rejection of trade wars and unilateral sanctions adopted without the mandate of the UN Security Council, in order to ensure early access to food and medication.” The draft also called on member states to reject “stigmatizations of states, peoples and individuals with regard to the pandemic, and the need to circulate only reliable and science-based information about it.”
The declaration was co-sponsored by 28 UN member states, Russia’s UN mission said. The General Assembly ultimately passed a different resolution calling for “international cooperation” and “multilateralism” to combat coronavirus.
There are more than 1 million confirmed cases of the virus worldwide, resulting in more than 50,000 deaths, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
“In Verduno, near Turin in northern Italy, a hospital that has been under construction for 20 years, and is still unfinished, will open as a Covid-19 hospital next week, and will take in its first 60 coronavirus victims.
In comparison, the Italian government will be well aware that China, using 7,000 builders working around the clock, built a 1000-bed hospital in just 10 days, and that Russia, with parallel ambition, is looking to finish a virus hospital on the outskirts of Moscow within a month.”
When this coronavirus pandemic has passed and the nations of the European Union are counting the cost of decimated populations, shattered public health infrastructures and economic meltdowns, one thing is certain: the dynamics within the bloc will have changed forever.
Before the global outbreak of this killer virus, Russia and China were always the West’s undisputed bogeymen. Troublemakers, always up to mischief, playing dangerous geopolitical games intended to undermine Western democracies and divide allies in the EU and NATO.
Many in the Western mainstream media are addicted to a daily fix of either Russian or Chinese conspiracy, so they probably don’t appreciate the irony here. Because things have changed.
In a big way.
It’s largely due to the generosity of these two “tricksy” outsider superpowers that some European nations, fully paid-up, long-term members of the EU, have even a remote chance of getting to grips with the immense public health demands caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus.
And thank heavens for that, because if either Italy or Spain had been looking to the EU — or the USA for that matter — for real, on-the-ground assistance that would enable them to simply stop people dying in their thousands in overcrowded hospitals, then they would have found themselves waiting in vain.
Sure, the ECB weighed in only last week, with an unprecedented fiscal bazooka aimed at reducing the economic impact that is being caused by the virus (ar at least by the measures governments are taking to try to stop it). But that’s fighting the virus in one manner only, very much after the fact and certainly not on the frontline.
This significance of that fiscal help will only really be apparent once the health crisis is over and the full, disastrous economic consequences are realized. And the fact that it is far from over right now is what needs immediate attention, like providing more medical staff, personal protection gear, ventilators, hospitals and, obviously, a vaccine.
But the message from Brussels to Italy, Spain and other EU members is clear: in dealing with the pandemic and the thousands of dead citizens it leaves in its wake, you are on your own.
The EU’s abject hopelessness and indifference started to become clear some weeks back in the face of the escalating virus, when the export beyond national borders of facemasks and medical equipment was banned by some EU members, including Germany.
ALSO ON RT.COMRussian military planes with medics & supplies land in coronavirus-hit Italy (VIDEO)It’s unlikely the Italians will forget that. Compare it with the generosity of the Chinese consumer electronics company Xiaomi which has sent tens of thousands of face masks to Italy at the same time as Beijing has filled planes with medical experts and crucial equipment of which Rome was, and remains, in desperate need.
Compare it too with the help from Moscow sent over the weekend: 100 virus specialists, disinfection trucks and medical equipment. All being sent at the request of Italy.
It seems the close ties the Italian government maintained with Russia over the last few years, particularly at the initiative of former coalition foreign minister Matteo Salvini, have paid off. His refusal to be drawn into the EU’s Kremlin-bashing of recent times, preferring to cultivate a closer friendship of his own, has to be applauded for the dividends it has produced in the Italian hour of need.
And one unintended consequence of that must be that it is driving critics of the controversial Italian populist absolutely nuts.
It also won’t escape the attention of NATO that the aid from Russia is coming via military channels, which must sting those of its members with a more hawkish view towards Moscow. Just so they don’t miss the irony, the supplies bear a “From Russia with Love” label.
What cannot be denied is that actions speak louder than words. The people of those nations being helped from outside the EU will be eternally grateful for that assistance. It’s help that can be seen. It’s brigades of medical experts, boxes of supplies delivered in big planes. It will save the lives of family and friends and it will provide help on the frontline where it is most needed.
In Verduno, near Turin in northern Italy, a hospital that has been under construction for 20 years, and is still unfinished, will open as a Covid-19 hospital next week, and will take in its first 60 coronavirus victims.
In comparison, the Italian government will be well aware that China, using 7,000 builders working around the clock, built a 1000-bed hospital in just 10 days, and that Russia, with parallel ambition, is looking to finish a virus hospital on the outskirts of Moscow within a month.
It is these sorts of highly visible acts that people need to see. It builds confidence from despair and hope from misery.
Confidence and hope. As millions of terrified Europeans sit confined in their homes today, isolated voluntarily or by law, those are two things in critically short supply.
Here is an example of political censorship from Facebook (for those of you who don’t use Facebook)
Facebook banned me for 24 hours for saying this. Stupid Americans cannot be told dissident opinions, as their puny brainwashed brains cannot handle it.
There is no democracy in the USA. American politics is a farce of epic proportions:
By Daniel Patrick Welch
I have to start by saying that I really find it depressing and almost embarrassing to find myself back in this time frame of commenting on the quadrennial farce the Americans call an “election process.” It really is terrible. And what the Iowa debacle shows to the world is that there is no limit to the hypocrisy of the American consciousness or the American ruling class when it comes to accusing everyone else of having rigged elections, bad systems, not democracy etc etc.
The latest twist—of there being a neck-and-neck battle for New Hampshire, which is tomorrow (today)—is just the latest stint in this show, which is all about stopping Sanders. There is only one story in this whole election cycle, and that is stopping Sanders. The Democrat Party has been working on it not just for the last four years, but the very idea going back to at least 1980, with the Democratic Leadership Council. What they always want is just a new neoliberal with a twist. A fresh young face: Obama was the ‘black’ one; Mayor Pete is the ‘gay’ one. And that is new and fresh enough for the Democrats as long as you never say anything about class, or actually threaten the status quo in any real way.
It is designed to create a certain narrative. They’re making it up out of whole cloth. “There are no results.” This is 2020. Everyone has a cell phone, everyone has devices. They had results. But they relied on this app that was a sort of DNC front group called “Stealth” or “Shadow” or some other creepy name. They’re hiding the fact that this is an oligarchy. And the way the parties pick their nominee—not only do they produce two virtually identical candidates. But the process is repulsive; it’s completely opaque.
The real threat (or what they perceive as a threat) is this idea of a Sanders. And Sanders’ supporters call him a “movement” politician. I reject that, because I don’t think that the US voting populace has enough of a developed political consciousness to spawn a movement politician. But I would say that he is a moment politician.
As terrible as he is, especially on foreign policy, he has captured this moment on all these issues that he has been working on for decades. And at a time when people are very, very angry. Trump exploited it as a sort of faux populism that was based partly on a racial, xenophobic appeal. But there is a popular anger: people are unbelievably angry in this country. They don’t yet understand imperialism, and they have been bred not to ask questions about the wider picture.
But they know when somebody tells them that the economy is doing well they look around and they say ‘What are you talking about?’ And these are normal people. The statisticians can say well, the US created 225,000 jobs in January. And some poor schmuck in the pub sharing a drink with you will say ‘Yeah I know there are a lot of jobs—I have three of them!’ The question is why does it take 3 or 4 jobs to have the living you used to be able to have with one job.
The sad part is that Sanders is anything but an anti-imperialist, especially on foreign policy. The way he speaks about Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Russia –he comes down full force on the wrong side of history. It’s absolutely terrible. But, that said, he does reach into the anger in the vast majority of Americans, who are living paycheck to paycheck, who are scared about tomorrow, scared about health care, scared about the safety of their children, they’re scared about the future of the job market. They’re scared about education, and costs, and money, and working all the time and not being able to retire.
And what I think is that this idea is powerful. And if allowed to continue, it would have a solid chance of beating Trump. It would beat anybody: the people united, you know… But the Democrats are determined to divide people along all lines but class, so that they keep this non discussion [in place].
And I think that even from the perspective of the left—I mean, I’m not a Sanders supporter—but I think it is reasonable to try to organize on the outskirts of this moment. I think it’s silly not to engage. This is like the Superbowl; everybody is talking about it. So why not join the conversation? It’s a chance for a thousand—for millions of conversations—where you can talk to people who ordinarily would not be able to discuss anything like this. And say “What do you mean? What’s wrong with universal health care? The whole world has universal health care.”
Or “What’s wrong with universal free education? The entire developed world has this. What is wrong with questioning the idea that billionaires don’t need to be restricted in what they can say and buy and do?” And the ability to have that [discussion] is exceedingly rare. What foreigners don’t realize is how terrible the system is in this country in terms of restricting thought. They constantly use the term “autocrat” or “authoritarian” to describe Iran, or Russia, or anyplace that they don’t like, and then they say it’s not democratic, it’s this or that.
Not only are there crappy non-democratic elections here, where it’s just about how much power rich people can buy—the atmosphere here is so scared. There is no secret police—well of course there is, but I mean they’re not sitting in the bar listening to your conversations. Everybody is their own censor. It’s shocking. Foreigners are constantly shocked at the range of things that are just off the table, that you cannot discuss in American society. And because it’s kind of self imposed, or purchased—i.e. the idea of manufactured consent—people think they’re free.
So the Democratic National Committee, the Leadership Council, the GOP, the Deep State, all the powers that be, the oligarchs—are absolutely petrified—scared to death of these conversations taking place. But they are the key to getting rid of the US empire, of not only Trump but in the long term, beyond Trump: The Forever Wars, the permanent war machine, the oppression of black and brown people at home and abroad. All of this has to start with those conversations. And Americans are just not allowed to participate in it. So we have to fight for the very idea of talking, which is kind of strange. Wish us luck!
Daniel Patrick Welch is a writer of political commentary and analysis. Also a singer and songwriter, he lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts with his wife. Together they run The Greenhouse School. He has traveled widely, speaks five languages and studied Russian History and Literature at Harvard University. Welch has also appeared as a guest on several TV and radio channels to speak on topics of foreign affairs and political analysis–around his day job. He can be available for interview requests as time and scheduling permit. Despite the price of being outspoken against US foreign policy and military adventurism — which can be steep in today’s circumstances — he believes firmly as did Rosa Luxemburg that “It will always be the most revolutionary act to tell the truth out loud.”
Welch wrote this article for Press TV website.
Jan 31, 2020
YouTuber Josh Pieters has revealed that he pranked far-right British commentator Katie Hopkins by flying her to Prague and presenting her with a fake award. Hopkins, who is frequently retweeted by President Trump and was recently suspended on Twitter, was awarded the Campaign to Unify the Nation Trophy, abbreviated as C.U.N.T. And if you think that’s mean, just wait until you hear her hate-filled acceptance speech for the award.
The 26-year-old Pieters explained the prank in a new video on his YouTube channel, which has over 1.2 million subscribers. And it was a surprisingly large undertaking to convince Hopkins that she was getting a real award. Pieters organized flights, hotels, a dinner at the Four Seasons, and even hired actors to play members of his fake advocacy group, the Cape Town Collective For the Freedom of Speech.
Pieters, who’s originally from South Africa but lives in the UK, set up a fake website to make his organization appear more authentic, though there are some clear hints it might be fake. The photo of the founder that appears on his website is the current leader of the Ku Klux Klan, as just one example.
Pieters flew from his home in London to Prague and set up hidden cameras to capture the prank from a number of angles before Hopkins got there. Hopkins, who has previously echoed Nazi language by tweeting about the need for a “final solution” to the problem of terrorism, never seems to understand that the YouTuber’s banquet is a joke.
“We made Katie Hopkins fly 1,600 miles and accept a fake award and put the word ‘cunt’ behind her without her noticing,” Pieters says in the video. “You might wonder if this is a bit mean. For a moment I did too. But then she made her speech and told us what she really thought.”
The video delivers a rapid fire assault of Hopkins saying hateful things during her acceptance speech like, “If you call Mohammad in a school playground, 2,000 fucking kids come running and you don’t want any of them,” and “Epileptics are all weirdos. They’re up there with the Asians.”
Hopkins can also be heard repeatedly saying that Muslims are “raping their own mother” and she also mocks Arabic names, calling them “retards.” Hopkins can also be heard referring to 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg as an “autistic fucking wench.”
Interestingly, if you look closely at the video, Pieters shows one of Hopkins’ emails from when they were setting up the trip, which includes her suggestion that the fake group meet with Dominik Tarczynski, a member of Poland’s Law and Justice Party.
“He is more South African than many South Africans and I think an excellent contact for your group!,” Hopkins writes.
Who’s Tarczynski and why is he “more South African than many South Africans” in Hopkins’ estimation? He’s a far-right politician who says he doesn’t want Poland to be “taken over by Muslims, Buddhists, or someone else,” as he told Al Jazeera. Apparently, Hopkins believes that all white South Africans must be as racist as Tarczynski.
Full article: Source
On Wednesday, Russia’s government resigned. Dmitry Medvedev departed the political frontline, Vladimir Putin effectively confirmed he will leave the presidency at the end of his present term, and Mikhail Mishustin became the new Russian prime minister. As Van Morrison once crooned, there will be days like this.
And it’s only the 15th of January. A week after Russians observed Orthodox Christmas, and a fortnight since they celebrated New Year, it didn’t take long for real business to resume.
In the morning, Mishustin was so unknown outside of Russia that he didn’t even have an English language Wikipedia page. And his profile inside the country was minor, beyond the world of political and administrative wonks.
But there’s no doubt he’s an effective manager. As the head of the Russian tax service he’s been a tremendous success. Revenues have risen by around 20 percent under his watch despite only a 2 percent rise in the tax burden itself. Indeed, only last year the Financial Times dubbed him the “taxman of the future” for his role in rebuilding Russia’s tariff collection system into one of the most advanced and efficient in the world.
No mean feat in a country where tax avoidance was once, pretty much, a sort of national sport.
A native Muscovite, Mishustin, like Putin himself an avid hockey player, has been described as a “little known political figure in Russia… a bureaucrat, someone to get the job done.”
But the same sort of description could have been applied to Putin himself in 1999, and here were are, 21 years later.
Today, the president set out the roadmap for his exit from the Kremlin, more-or-less kicking off the build-up to the transition of power. He will step down in 2024, or perhaps even earlier, and he intends to dismantle the “hyper-Presidential” system which allowed him to wield so much control in office. This was introduced by Boris Yeltsin in 1993 with American support, after he had used tanks to fire on the Parliament.
Putin plans to give more powers to the latter body, with the prime minister, in particular, enjoying more authority. He also wants to bulk up the role of the State Council. Indeed, he will probably end up there himself after leaving office, in some sort of “elder statesman” role. The body will consist of heads of Russian regions and members of the Presidential Administration. It seems it will fulfill an advisory function.
To achieve these goals, Putin wants to reduce presidential powers and introduce a two-term limit. This would mean a maximum of 12 years in the Kremlin; he has already been there for 16. The broad vision is to have more checks and balances, with a weaker presidency and other branches of government strengthened.
Make no mistake, Putin’s goal is to preserve the system which he inherited from Yeltsin, and then tweaked. For all its faults, after a difficult birth it has given Russians the greatest freedom and prosperity they have ever known. Even if much work remains to be done on distributing economic gains more fairly.
Putin’s place in history would then be much the same as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in America, a unique four-term president who repaired the country after a financial & social catastrophe (in Russia’s case the Soviet collapse and the disastrous 1990s). This also fits with what insiders in Moscow frequently point out: Putin wants to be remembered well by history. A status enjoyed by relatively few Russian leaders.
One notable suggestion is that future presidents must have lived in Russia for 25 continuous years before taking office, and have never held a foreign passport or residency permit. This would bar a lot of the Western-leaning Moscow opposition from running. Not to mention a large swathe of Russian liberals, a great many of whom have lived abroad at some point. Interestingly, if this rule had existed in 2000 Vladimir Putin himself wouldn’t have been able to become Russia’s president. He lived in Germany from 1985-1990 (albeit on state duty).
The proposed changes will likely be made after public votes on them, to ensure broad consent. Even though they could be passed by the Duma. Rumors suggest it may be held in September.
Putin also addressed many domestic concerns in his speech today. He promised the increase of salaries for teachers and more childcare facilities, introduced free hot lunches for children in the initial four school years and extended child benefit by 48 months.
As for Medvedev, he hasn’t been cast aside. Instead, the former president has been moved to a semi-ceremonial, but still prestigious, role ending a twelve-year “tandem” where he governed Russia with Putin. It would be a mistake to write him off politically, but it would be surprising if he wields the same clout again.
As they shook hands, and Medvedev left the Kremlin for the final time as prime minister, Putin told him “not everything worked out, but it’s never the case that everything works out.”
Nevertheless, Putin will hope “everything works out” for the eventual power transition in Russia. A process that has now begun.
