[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Posted by DanielS on Monday, 20 November 2017 13:44.
Vancouver Sun, “The most ‘Asian’ city outside Asia.”
What is the significance of Metro Vancouver becoming the most “Asian” city outside Asia? Forty-three per cent of Metro Vancouver residents have an Asian heritage, which is a much higher proportion than any other major city outside the continent of Asia.
Based on Statistic Canada reports, the number of those with Asian roots in Metro Vancouver will continue to grow at a faster rate than the non-Asian population.
Around the globe, the only major cities outside Asia that come close to Metro Vancouver for their portion of residents with Asian backgrounds are San Francisco (33 per cent Asian), London, England (21 per cent), Metro Toronto (35 per cent), Calgary (23 per cent) and Sydney, Australia.
Vancouver Sun, “Three million people snap up Canada’s 10-year visas.”
The global appetite for Canada’s new 10-year visas appears insatiable, especially in China.
More than three million people from countries with which Canada has long had travel restrictions have obtained the 10-year, multiple-entry visas since the program began in 2014.
With almost half the 10-year visas being handed out in Mainland China, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government this year opened seven new visa offices, the province of B.C., more than anywhere in Canada, has experienced a surge of visitors.
Immigration specialists say the 10-year visas are having multiple effects on Canada. They’ve markedly boosted tourism. And they’ve helped re-connect globally far-flung families for extended periods.
But they have also been vulnerable to abuse by rich trans-nationals with families in Canada who seek to avoid paying Canadian income taxes on their global income.
More than 1.4 million Mainland Chinese have gone through the vetting process to obtain Canada’s 10-year visa, which allows visits of up to six months at a time.
More than 716,000 people from India have also obtained multiple-entry visas, followed by 273,000 from Brazil and 140,000 from the Philippines.
The federal government says Mainland China visitors now spend $1 billion a year in Canada. Travel from that country has soared and China has become Canada’s third largest source of visitors after the U.S. and the U.K.
George Lee, a Burnaby immigration lawyer who was born in China, says Metro Vancouver hotels, retailers and restaurants are responding to the swelling stream of Chinese visitors by hiring more Mandarin-speaking employees and even making sure their staff “serve Coca-Cola warm,” the custom in China.
In addition, Lee said wealthy Mainland Chinese visitors are increasingly buying hotels, resorts and residential real estate in B.C., particularly in Metro Vancouver and on Vancouver Island.
“Vancouver has become a global village,” Lee said. “When we encounter a new trend … some, if not most, dislike it. They feel challenged and intimidated. But eventually people will get used to it.”
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 18 November 2017 06:56.
The UN General Assembly hall (illustrative). Photo: UN.
JNS.org – “In an unprecedented move, Israel on Tuesday co-sponsored a draft resolution against Syria that was submitted by Saudi Arabia at the United Nations Human Rights Council”, 15 Nov 2017:
The resolution, which was also backed by the US, France and Germany, passed with an overwhelming majority of 108 countries voting in favor, 17 voting against and 58 abstaining.
17 Nov 2017: Saudi FM, “Hezbollah Is a ‘First-Class Terrorist Organization.” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir described Hezbollah on Thursday as a “first-class terrorist organization” that should lay down its arms…
Although Israel has previously supported resolutions submitted by Saudi Arabia at the UN, it has never signed on as a co-sponsor.
In a statement delivered prior to the vote, Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the UN Abdallah Al-Mouallimi slammed the “the grave deterioration in the state of human rights in Syria.”
When the list of the resolution’s co-sponsors was read aloud, Syria’s UN envoy, Bashar al-Jaafari, mockingly congratulated Riyadh for Israel’s direct involvement, stating that it served as evidence of a secret Israeli-Saudi alliance. The Syrian ambassador also accused all of the resolution’s co-sponsors of supporting terrorism.
“The Assad regime, with full support from Iran, has been slaughtering its people mercilessly and with incomprehensible cruelty for years,” Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon responded. “Israel, which for years has been providing humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians hurt by these atrocities, stands together with the international community against this murderous regime.”
Israel’s co-sponsoring of the Saudi resolution came a week after the Israeli Foreign Ministry reportedly instructed its envoys to launch a global diplomatic campaign against Iran and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, and in support of Saudi Arabia and its allies.
Posted by DanielS on Friday, 17 November 2017 08:36.
Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as his son Donald Trump, Jr. speaks at a campaign rally at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia February 29, 2016 Reuters.
NPR, “Donald Trump Jr. Had Direct Contact With WikiLeaks During Campaign”, 14 Nov 2017:
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump Jr. was in direct contact with WikiLeaks at the same time the muckraking website was publishing hacked emails from Democratic officials that proved damaging to the Clinton campaign, according to several major publications.
Following the reports, Trump Jr. acknowledged the contact in a tweet detailing one exchange with the radical transparency organization.
The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, in articles published late Monday, said that then-candidate Donald Trump’s eldest son used the messaging feature on Twitter to communicate with WikiLeaks, which in turn alerted the campaign to the impending release of the hacked emails.
The publications report that the messages between Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks were among thousands of documents turned over to Congress as part of its ongoing investigation into claims that Russia interfered in the November election — a finding backed unanimously by U.S. intelligence agencies, which have said that the Kremlin aimed to aid Donald Trump’s campaign.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 14 November 2017 15:54.
Newsweek, “Evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion Already Exists, Watergate Prosecutors Say”, 14 Nov 2017:
There is definitive proof of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election — and it exists in the email inboxes of Jared Kushner, Stephen Miller, Hope Hicks and others.
That’s what several former Watergate prosecutors believe, telling Newsweek that evidence of collaboration between the Kremlin and the president’s top campaign aides could literally be at Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s fingertips. It just has to be uncovered.
“The key difference between this and Watergate is … at the time, you certainly didn’t have computers,” said Nick Ackerman, one of the prosecutors who probed the 1972 break-in at the Democratic party’s Watergate offices. “Rather than use burglars to break into the Democratic National headquarters, they used Russian hackers. ... The question is whether that was coordinated in any way with the Trump campaign. Their emails will answer that question, once the special counsel gets its hands on them.”
Kushner has reportedly turned over documents related to his campaign contacts with Russians to Mueller earlier this month, a voluntary move of cooperation between the White House senior adviser and the federal probe. Still, it remains unclear whether those documents include emails, as well as whether Kushner provided the entirety of his communications with Russians to the investigators. If he didn’t provide investigators the full details about his correspondences, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time the president’s son-in-law failed to disclose his Russian contacts (or his business interests, for that matter), having been forced to revise his government security clearance forms with at least 100 foreign contacts previously left off the list.
Even if he’s cooperating, Kushner may be lying about the campaign’s interactions with the Russians, and doing a terrible job of covering it up, according to Jill Wine-Banks, another former Watergate prosecutor. At issue is his response to the discovery of a June meeting in Trump Tower attended by Kushner, other Trump campaign officials and Russian operatives. The meeting was set up by Donald Trump Jr.; Kushner said he didn’t know what was going to be discussed and left early after being bored by the conversation.
“The data ... will make Kushner’s defense fall entirely apart,” Wine-Banks told Newsweek. “We know that statement was a total fabrication since the [Trump] campaign was looking for dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russians … I have faith the grand jury will get down to the bottom of what really happened in that meeting.”
Also at issue is the Trump campaign’s involvement with Cambridge Analytica, the controversial data mining operation with apparent ties to Russia, which Kushner boasted was “brought in” to steer the campaign to victory.
“As far as Russian collision, right now there are two aspects: one is, did they micro target Hillary Clinton voters to suppress the vote?” Ackerman said. “We know that there was a data mining process that was done by Kushner out of Texas and we know that the Russians were doing targeting with Facebook and Twitter. The question is trying to compare the data sets to see if there was coordination between those two things.
“Email evidence already shows that the purpose of the meeting on June 9 was to bring incriminating evidence, supposedly emails about Clinton, to the campaign, but we don’t know exactly what they did with that evidence after that meeting,” Ackerman continued.
Why is Donald Trump reacting to Vlaimir Putin the way he has?
Because, if this was all bull crap, and there was nothing the Putin had on Trump; he was not compromised by Russia or by Putin at all; if only for political purposes, and Trump’s not an imbecile, he’s not brilliant but he’s not an imbecile and he clearly is a political person - he likes to be liked… he would be attacking Vladimir Putin at every opportunity.
..especially on the issue of their meddling in the election. That would be just the natural inclination.
Now, not only is he not doing that, he’s done the opposite of that.
He has been complimentary of Putin at every opportunity. And there is no evidence that he has punished Putin at all, for Russia’s meddling, regardless of whether or not the Trump team colluded in that meddling.
And today, something even more startling than Trump’s prior ass-kissing of Putin and his unwillingness to address this issue directly, of meddling having occurred.
Trump is on his foreign trip, he met with Putin, and then he told the press, that Putin told him, that Russia had nothing to do with the meddling; that it was the democrats doing, supposedly Trump quoting Putin.
And then Trump went our of his way to bash, by name - by name - the former heads of several of our intelligence agencies - including James Comey, calling them hacks and liars!
And completely buying into the idea, that the persons telling him the truth are not the people working for our own intelligence agencies, including, by the way, people that are still working for our intelligence agencies, including every major member of Congress, anybody with any credibility on this issue, or our side, has said, it’s not even a question. Russia attempted to meddle in our elections.
8:03: It’s not even a question. Russia attempted to meddle in our elections. And Trump is publicly saying, “no, I don’t believe any of that because Vladimir Putin told me so.” Seriously?
If Barack Obama had ever had a meeting with Vladimir Putin after winning re-election ..remember that election he won where he got caught telling .the Russian official tell Vladimir “I’ll have more flexibility after the election?” Remember that whole thing which the media buried, and should have been a massive scandal, the conservative media went ape crap over that little thing, frankly only little in comparison, that was a bid deal to me at the time ...
Sean Hannity
Can you imagine if after winning the 2012 election, Obama had met with Putin, and all of our intelligence agencies were saying that yeah, Putin helped Obama win; and Obama then came out and bashed those intelligence agencies of The United States of America and said, “I believe Putin because he seems very sincere in what he’s telling me” ...can you imagine the reaction of the Republicans in Congress, can you imagine the so-called conservatives in media? ...Sean Hannity would be live 24/7 outside of the White house.
Instead from the conservative media there is silence. In fact, if anything, they’ll support Putin and Russia because Trump told us to. They’ll be the one’s we’re supposed to believe over our own intelligence agencies. By the way, not a couple of them, all of them - with unanimity and certitude.
The Hill, “Mueller investigating Flynn over alleged plan to turn cleric over to Turkey”, 10 Nov 2017:
Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into an alleged plot involving former national security adviser Michael Flynn to return a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. to Turkey, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
FBI agents have asked at least four people about a mid-December meeting in New York, in which Flynn and his son, Michael G. Flynn, allegedly spoke with representatives of the Turkish government about removing cleric Fethullah Gulen from the U.S. in exchange for as much as $15 million.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Gulen of orchestrating a failed 2016 coup and has urged the U.S. to extradite the cleric.
The December meeting was attended by former CIA Director James Woolsey, who has described the proposal to The Wall Street Journal as “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” Woolsey has said he attended at the request of an associate of Flynn and that he sought to notify then-Vice President Joe Biden through a mutual friend.
It’s not clear how extensive Mueller’s investigation into the alleged plan is. But that the special counsel is looking into the allegations adds to the breadth of the probe into Flynn, who has already come under scrutiny for work benefitting the Turkish government.
Mueller is conducting the criminal investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election, in particular whether members of President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russian representatives or operatives during the race.
But that probe has also expanded to include potential criminal activity not involving the campaign. Last week, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was charged with money laundering and tax evasion stretching back years.
The individuals that described the alleged plan to remove Gulen to The Wall Street Journal did not attend the meeting in which the topic was purportedly discussed and were not directly told of the plot by Flynn or his associates.
Flynn has become a central figure in Mueller’s investigation. He was forced to resign from his White House job in February — just 24 days into his tenure — after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in the months before Trump took office.
Since then, however, he has faced scrutiny for his lobbying work on behalf of Turkish interests and for not disclosing financial ties to Turkey and Russia.
Evelyn Farkas: Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia: 14:45: It drives me crazy when Former Director Comey says that the Russians are coming back. To your point, they never left. I mean they’re still here, they have all that information, they’re in our cyber- and in our information-sphere.
Ned Price: And its broader than just Wikileaks and the overt or semi overt organs of the Russian government. I think one thing we noticed even after the election; you take the sort of trending story in Alt-Right or so-called Alt-Right circles: [example] hashtag #Syriahoax started in Russia and somehow make their way to the United States and started trending in some of the same circles that are collectively known as the Alt-Right. And I think the linkage between the two is not something we fully understand; how something jumps across he Atlantic like that and tends to land with the same group of people after originating in pro-Russia circles.
Now we need a non-Jewish panel discussing Israeli and Jewish influence over the American electorate - lol.
..in fact, there are some questions toward the end that bear upon that -
Charlie D. from Duke Law: 52:00: Would it help if we broadened the discussion about all foreign nations who are trying to influence our campaigns?
Panel averts the question -
Ned Price: 52:19: I would start with the proposition that it’s natural for governments to have policy preferences. Clearly I would suspect lots of the NATO member countries were made uncomfortable listening to Donald Trump during the campaign speak of NATO being obsolete. I think that the issue is that in today’s environment there has been attempt at criminalization on policy preferences on the part of foreign capitals. But I think we have to remember is a far cry from a NATO country, you know, privately rooting for Hillary Clinton and a strategic adversary getting involved in our election with Active Measures, covert influence, social media, you name it.
Julia Ioffe: They weren’t probing and scanning our election infrastructure, yeah.
Audience Member: Have any of you considered the business role of the president and Russia; because he has, right now, no one will lend him money in New York City, no one will do business with him in New York City. He owes a great deal of money. Where does he get the money? There are a lot of rumors that he gets it from Russia. Have any of your explored any of that?
Julia Ioffe: 53:48: Both of his sons said that he (Trump) gets most of his money from them (Russia) ...and its not a crazy proposition either that if he’s doing real estate in New York and Florida ...and guess where (((Russians))) who want to park their money outside of Russia, guess where they want to buy real estate? - (((New York and Florida))).
Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as his son Donald Trump, Jr. speaks at a campaign rally at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia February 29, 2016 Reuters.
17 Nov 2017: Saudi FM, “Hezbollah Is a ‘First-Class Terrorist Organization.” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir described Hezbollah on Thursday as a “first-class terrorist organization” that should lay down its arms…
Sean Hannity
