2020-05-17: News Headlines

RT (2020-05-16). POLAND would gladly host American nukes if Germany refuses, US envoy claims, fanning 'Cuban missile crisis 2.0'. rt.com As the US ambassador to Germany — and acting spy chief — tried persuading Berlin to keep hosting US nuclear weapons, his colleague in Warsaw suggested Poland would be willing to take them instead, an act sure to provoke Moscow. | "If Germany wants to diminish nuclear capability and weaken NATO, perhaps Poland — which pays its fair share, understands the risks, and is on NATO's eastern flank — could house the capabilities here," Ambassador Georgette Mosbacher tweeted on Friday. | If Germany wants to diminish nuclear capability and weaken NATO, perhaps Poland – which pays its fair share, un…

ahtribune (2020-05-16). Obamagate Shows Biden Is Inadequate in Challenging Trump. ahtribune.com Former U.S. President Barack Obama is coming under increasing pressure, led by what President Donald Trump is calling "Obamagate." This comes as Mexico has requested to finally clarify the affair with the secret sale of American weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Mexico is asking for the case to be clarified after almost ten years. | In this secret operation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, weapons from the U.S. were sold to Mexican drug cartels. The U.S. claimed that about 2,000 automatic weapons were sold to Mexicans so that the Barack Obama administration could follow thei…

Prof Michel Chossudovsky (2020-05-16). Global Capitalism, "World Government" and the Corona Crisis. globalresearch.ca In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. | The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. (President Dwight D. Eisenhower …

en.mehrnews (2020-05-16). Al-Nujaba calls for condemnation of Saudis' insult to Shahid al-Muhandis. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, May 16 (MNA) — The spokesman of al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance has responded to the insult made by the Saudi MBC TV channel to the commander of the IPMF, Shahid Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis.

en.mehrnews (2020-05-16). Al-Nujaba calls on Iraqi emulation sources to condemn Saudis' insult to Shahid al-Muhandis. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, May 16 (MNA) — The spokesman of al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance has responded to the insult made by the Saudi MBC TV channel to the commander of the IPMF, Shahid Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis.

en.mehrnews (2020-05-16). Saudis react to economic squeeze. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, May 16 (MNA) — Saudi Arabia and the UAE introduced the five percent Value Added Tax (VAT) in January of 2018, a first for the Persian Gulf region which had long prided itself on its tax-free, cradle-to-grave welfare system. On the same day, Saudi Arabia announced a petrol price hike of 127 percent.

Conn Hallinan (2020-05-15). War and Plagues: Military Spending During a Pandemic. counterpunch.org Welcome to the world of the hypersonic weapons, devices that are not only superfluous, but which will almost certainly not work, They will, however, cost enormous amounts of money. At a time when countries across the globe are facing economic chaos, financial deficits and unemployment at Great Depression levels, arms manufacturers are set to cash in big.

Abdallah El Harif (2020-05-15). A universal appeal for humanity to end militarism and stop war. peoplesdispatch.org On March 15, 1950, the World Peace Council sent out the Stockholm Appeal, a short text that called for a ban on nuclear weapons and that would eventually be signed by almost 2 million people. The appeal was made up of three elegant sentences: | -We demand the outlawing of atomic weapons as instruments of intimidation and mass murder of peoples. We demand strict international control to enforce this measure. | -We believe that any government which first uses atomic weapons against any other country whatsoever will be committing a crime against humanity and should be dealt with as a war criminal. | -We call on a…

Brett Wilkins (2020-05-15). Veterans Exposed in Cold War Bioweapons Testing Still Awaiting Answers — and Help. counterpunch.org On May 12, 2000, the CBS Evening News first reported that over 1,000 American sailors were unwittingly exposed to chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents in the 1960s and early 1970s as part of secret military experiments to study the vulnerability of US Navy ships to germ warfare attacks. The Pentagon responded to the report

Gordon Duff (2020-05-15). Pandemic Exposes US as Only Bioweapons Superpower. thealtworld.com The pandemic of 2020 has exposed a gangrenous limb, the stench of which has only been hidden through and equally exposes gangrenous strangling of truth. | The US military currently runs biological laboratories, some funded through USAID, some tied to universities and other groups, across the US and around the world. | These laboratories are funded in the billions of dollars and are overtly tasked with developing vaccines to protect Americans, military and civilian as well, from potential bioweapon attacks. | Much of this research involves creating "chimera" viruses, mostly corona-based bat viruses, that manifest…

RT (2020-05-14). How dare you… use CHINESE drones!? US lawmakers 'grill' feds over spying on lockdown-violating Americans. rt.com A group of House Republicans has called on federal agencies to shed light on drones used by police across the country to surveil and enforce Covid-19 lockdowns, arguing that Chinese devices could compromise "sensitive US data." | The 14 GOP representatives, all on the House Judiciary Committee, penned

Lawrence Korb (2020-05-14). Pandemic Spending Will Force US Defense Budget Cuts—Some of Which Should Come From Nuclear Weapons Programs. globalresearch.ca Even supporters of increased US defense budgets expect that, because the US government will likely spend trillions of dollars trying to rescue the economy from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, military spending in the United States is likely …

Matthew Russell Lee (2020-05-14). Banking on the Nuclear Bomb Are Citi, Chase, BofA, Wells and Goldman Sachs. globalresearch.ca This article was originally published in 2018. | Among the top ten investors in nuclear weapons are banks which stand to benefit from the de-regulatory bill

Alan Macleod (2020-05-13). American Weapons Manufacturers Are Thriving Even as the US Economy Suffers. mintpressnews.com The economy has crashed. A nationwide pandemic that has (officially) claimed some 84,000 Americans has also resulted in an estimated

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers (2020-05-12). Pivot To Peace Must Replace US Pivot To War With China. dissidentvoice.org US and Chinese Fists and Weapons face-off (from the Financial Times) The Trump administration, in seeking to divert attention from its bungled response to the COVID-19 pandemic and mishandling of the economic collapse, is escalating the bipartisan anti-China policy, which has a long history. This increases the potential of military conflict and economic war between …

RT (2020-05-15). Jailing people who use Covid-19 as bioweapon would be 'discrimination.' So better lock up everyone instead? rt.com Accidentally spreading Covid-19 is wanting grandma dead, say opponents of ending lockdowns. Yet activists now worry that proposed laws to punish those who threaten to spread it deliberately would discriminate against minorities. | A Florida man spat and coughed on a police officer responding to a domestic violence call, and faces up to five years in prison on a federal charge of biological weapons hoax (he was negative for Covid-19). Another man in Texas, who falsely claimed on Facebook that he paid someone to spread the virus at local grocery stores, was charged with the same thing. A Michigan man who wiped h…