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North Korea Responds to Trump’s Fire and Fury Threat
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
Heated rhetoric risks something much more serious. The problem lies in Washington, not Pyongyang.
Throughout its post-WW II history, the DPRK never attacked another country. In June 1950, it responded to repeated South Korean cross-border provocations.
Harry Truman’s devastating war followed - why Pyongyang genuinely fears US aggression now, doing what it thinks best to avoid it, the reason for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Without them, it would be defenseless. With them, it’s a regional power to be reckoned with.
UN Sides with Fascists in Venezuela
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
The UN is more an appendage of US foreign policy than a world body upholding its charter principles - far from it.
Former Jordanian UN envoy Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein is a member of its royal family, the nation hostile to democracy, notorious for human rights abuses, notably lack of free expression, political imprisonments and use of torture.
In September 2014, he succeeded US imperial tool Navi Pillay as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a dismal choice - serving his imperial master like his predecessor since taking office.
On August 8, he disgracefully accused Venezuelan security forces of street violence - orchestrated by Washington, not them, part of a diabolical CIA plot to replace Bolivarian social democracy with fascist tyranny.
New Illegal US Sanctions on Venezuela
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
US political and economic war on Venezuela continues, along with daily made-in-the-USA street violence.
It’s part of an ongoing color revolution attempt to topple its government, aiming to advance America’s imperium and gain control over the country’s vast oil reserves - along with destroying Bolivarian social democracy, a system neocons in Washington abhor.
On Wednesday, the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed illegal sanctions on six members of Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly, a constitutionally authorized body. Two other officials were targeted.
Imposition followed last week’s illegal sanctions on President Nicolas Maduro and earlier ones on other Venezuelan officials.
Democratic Demagogues and ‘The Better Deal’
James Petras
Introduction
After 6 months of blaming Russia for the Democratic Party’s Presidential election debacle, the Party stalwarts have finally realized that the American electorate is not listening.
Democratic Party investigators in Washington still hold hearings and the mass media are still scandal mongering, but the public is not rallying to their cause. Trump’s demagogy may have lost its appeal, while the Republican Administration purges and internecine squabbles have been met with a huge collective yawn by the public. The Democratic Party proves itself to be a weird sideshow for the vast majority of American voters…and for good reason.
Their perpetual (corrupt and senile) leaders are unwavering supporters of every indignity and economic hardship that the majority of worker families have suffered for the last three decades.
Democratic Party Senator Chuck ‘the Schmuck’ Schumer and Congresswomen Nancy ‘The Loser’ Pelosi have spent a collective sixty-five years in Congress. Their joint tenure marks a period of long decline in working class living standards and even worker life expectancy, while they have made possible the greatest concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1% plutocrats.
The Long Ordeal of One of Bahrain’s Leading Human Rights Activists
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
Nabeel Rajab is president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR).
For years, he’s been hounded, harassed, persecuted, beaten, and imprisoned for supporting fundamental human and civil right in a nation denying them to its citizens, the Al Khalifa monarchy ruling despotically, justice entirely absent.
He’s facing trial, automatic conviction, sentencing and likely imprisonment again for his heroic activism, not for any criminal activity he abhors.
He’s accused of publicly expressing views via Twitter considered harmful to regime interests. On August 8, a Bahraini kangaroo court postponed action on his case until September 11.
Democracy: What America Fears Most
Stephen Lendman
Throughout its history, America has been run by the people who own it - its privileged class for its own self-interest.
The nation’s first Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay explained US governance works this way. John Adams called America’s ruling class its “rich, well-born and able.”
Today, one party rule with two right wings runs things, each taking turns in charge, in lockstep on issues mattering most - notably supporting imperial wars, corporate empowerment, police state harshness against nonbelievers, and eliminating all sovereign independent states by color revolutions or naked aggression.
In Latin America, Venezuela is in the eye of the storm, US-waged economic and political war, along with months of street violence aiming for regime change - maybe by force if current methods fail, including imposition of sanctions, often prelude to something more sinister.
Its Bolivarian social democracy represents an unacceptable threat of a good example, perhaps to spread.
Polls: U.S. Is 'the Greatest Threat to Peace in the World Today'
Eric Zuesse
It has happened again: yet another international poll finds that the U.S. is viewed by peoples around the world to be the biggest threat to world peace.
But, to start, let’s summarize the first-ever poll that had been done on this, back in 2013, which was the only prior poll on this entire issue, and it was the best-performed such poll: "An end-of-the-year WIN/Gallup International survey found that people in 65 countries believe the United States is the greatest threat to world peace”, as the N.Y. Post reported on 5 January 2014.
On 30 December 2013, the BBC had reported of that poll: "This year, first [meaning here, ‘for’] the first time, Win/Gallup agreed to include three questions submitted by listeners to [BBC’s] Radio 4's Today programme.” And, one of those three listener-asked questions was phrased there by the BBC, as having been “Which country is the biggest threat to peace?” The way that WIN/Gallup International itself had actually asked this open-ended question, to 67,806 respondents from 65 countries, was: “Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?” #1, 24% of respondents, worldwide, volunteered that the U.S. was “the greatest threat.” #2 (the second-most-frequently volunteered ‘greatest threat’) was Pakistan, volunteered by 8%. #3 was China, with 6%. #s 4-7 were a four-way tie, at 5% each, for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, and North Korea. #s 8-10 were a three-way tie, at 4% each, for: India, Iraq, and Japan. #11 was Syria, with 3%. #12 was Russia, with 2%. #s 13-20 were a seven-way tie, at 1% each, for: Australia, Germany, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Korea, and UK.
Israel’s War on Al Jazeera
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
Owned and operated by the Qatari government, it functions much like Western media, featuring content the Al Thani monarchy wants aired.
It’s sympathy toward Palestinian suffering is why Israel wants it shut down. Earlier it considered declaring the news agency a hostile entity. Instead, it restricted its activities in the country.
It no longer renews visas for its staff or issues new ones. Its journalists are denied access to government briefings, limited access alone to political and military officials - only to spokespersons of the prime minister, foreign ministry and IDF. In August 2011, Al Jazeera (AJ) journalist Samer Allawi was arrested and detained for making contact with Hamas’ military wing.
Jerusalem is its headquarters in Israel, perhaps not much longer. According to Israeli communications director Ayoub Kara, “professional discussions” were initiated to draft legislation, shutting down the network.
72nd Anniversary of Hiroshima’s Gratuitous Mass Murder
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
War in the Pacific was won months before Franklin Roosevelt’s April 12, 1945 death.
He declined to accept the Japanese offer of surrender. So did Harry Truman when he became president.
War continued for months unnecessarily, countless more casualties inflicted, mainly Japanese civilians - notably from fire-bombing Toyko in March 1945, an estimated 100,000 perishing in the firestorm, many more injured, over a million left homeless.
Around the same time, five dozen other Japanese cities were fire-bombed. Most structures in the country were wooden and easily consumed.
The attacks amounting to war crimes achieved no strategic advantage. In early 1945, Japan offered to surrender. In February, Douglas McArthur sent Roosevelt a 40-page summary of its terms. They were nearly unconditional. The Japanese would accept an occupation, would cease hostilities, surrender its arms, remove all troops from occupied territories, submit to criminal war trials, and allow its industries to be regulated. In return, they asked only that their emperor be retained in an honorable capacity.
Roosevelt spurned the offer as did Truman. Hiroshima and Nagasaki followed on August 6 and 9 respectively.
Why China and Russia Agreed to Tough New Sanctions on North Korea
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
On Saturday, Security Council members imposed sanctions on North Korea for the seventh time since its first 2006 nuclear test.
New ones aim to deprive Pyongyang of around one-third of its export revenues, cutting them by about $1 billion.
They ban DPRK exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore, and seafood. They prohibit all new joint ventures, ban new investments in current ones, and prohibit sending more workers abroad for jobs. They tighten restrictions on technology to prevent Pyongyang from acquiring military related items. North Korean vessels caught violating SC resolutions will be banned from entering foreign ports.
Imposing sanctions is one thing, enforcing them another. North Korea is adept at exploiting loopholes in restrictions and minimizing them other ways.
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