You know I'm not surprised that Britain wants to leave the EU. It may not be them, probably the will of the United States. You see the E.U. would become the most powerful entity in the world second only to China, and the U.S. would be demoted to third or fourth. You see, Britain owes America billions of dollars after America bailed them out during their economic crisis when John Major was prime minister, so they may not have had a choice but to leave. Don't know how this one is going to play out coz' Scotland wants to stay with the EU. Troubled days are ahead.
The end of the Brexit
beginning is here. On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May
officially sent the European Union her country’s divorce papers, thus
beginning the formal process of unmooring the United Kingdom from the
European Union. Britain’s surprise decision to leave
the EU during a referendum in June, 2016 rattled the EU to its core.
After nearly seven decades of forging the continent’s institutional
unity, it finally showed signs of cracking. It has also presented both Brussels
and London with a sharp legal and political headache. The EU has over
40,000 EU regulations, 15,000 EU court verdicts, and 60,000
international standards that Britain will somehow have to entangle
itself from, on issues ranging from immigration to healthcare to
commerce to foreign policy to trade — one of the most important issues
given Britain’s reliance on the Eurozone market. And they’ll be negotiating against the
clock: Brussels and London have two years from Wednesday’s formal
notification to sort out their divorce based on the so-called exit
clause of the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon. If they don’t reach a final
agreement on Britain’s withdrawal terms, all EU rules will suddenly no
longer apply to Britain. This could pit the country in political and
financial uncertainty. Some British lawmakers fear
they won’t be able to meet the deadline. The EU can extend
negotiations, but only if all 27 members agree, which isn’t guaranteed.
(But don’t worry, chief Brexiteer Nigel Farage said he’d just leave Britain if the Brexit he orchestrated is a disaster, so at least he’ll be okay.) The UK’s ambassador to the EU, Tim
Barrow, had the distinctly awkward honors of handing May’s official
Brexit letter to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels
Wednesday:
May struck a “let’s still be friends” tone in the letter.
“We are leaving the European Union, but we are not leaving Europe — and
we want to remain committed partners and allies to our friends across
the continent,” she wrote. She followed the letter with a speech
before parliament, taking on a resolved tone to compensate for the sea
of uncertainty she’s mired in. “Today the government acts on the
democratic will of the British people,” May said in a speech to
Parliament after Barrow handed in her letter. “This is an historic
moment from which there can be no turning back. Britain is leaving the
European Union,” she said.
But while the United Kingdom breaks from the EU, it’s grappling to
keep its own kingdom united. On Tuesday, Scotland demanded a new
referendum on independence from London once the terms of Brexit became
clearer. The British government rejected Scotland’s bid. In Brussels, the initial shock of the June, 2016 Brexit referendum wore off well before Wednesday. As one Politico Europestory puts it: “the mood in the European capital has largely shifted to ‘don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’” But Tusk was clearly still hurt.
“There is no reason to pretend that this is a happy day, neither in
Brussels, nor in London. After all, most Europeans, including almost
half the British voters wish that we would stay together, not drift
apart. As for me I will not pretend that I am happy today,” he said. “What can I add? We already miss you,” he said.
Okay this is ridiculous; now London is waxing all pathetic over a 'terror' attack there over a man with a knife. You people are that fukin' cowardly and weak that a man with a knife requires armed police officers to come and murder him?!!? Were these cops men or maybe they should have sent women. It's a shame people died but the man was carrying knives!! You're trying to tell me that they are taking this seriously and killed the man? Just like in Ohio where a 'terrorist' with a butcher knife on campus was murdered by a cop and then they tried to call this murderous cop a hero. And this 'terrorist' didn't manage to kill anyone. But these insufferable cowards killed him, then tried to celebrate it as some great victory! Your weak asses are gonna get walked all over when real war comes!!! You're trying to tell me some well trained police cannot disarm a man with a knife without killing him?!!? Seems to me they're just looking for an excuse to murder somebody!!! I mean you're trying to create worldwide panic over these so-called 'terrorists' carrying knives and your police carry all kinds of guns and can't stop them without killing them. If you're that weak in a innocuous situation like this imagine if some well armed real terrorists attacked with real guns and numbers; it's obvious the police couldn't handle them. They'd probably run for their lives and hope some real men step up to save them! If someone confronts me with a knife and that's all they got pray for them not me. I thought the British people were tougher than that than to be losing their water over someon with a knife!
Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood told staff at a budget hotel:
“I’m off to London today” — just hours before his horror attack.
The 52-year-old, holed up near Brighton ahead of
Wednesday’s carnage, said the capital “isn’t like it used to be”,
workers said.
Masood’s comments emerged as a 75-year-old man became the fourth victim to die following the car and knife atrocity. BELGIUM TERROR SCARE: CHARGES FILED AGAINST ARMED TUNISIAN DRIVER
Cops swooped on the hotel after it was identified from a receipt found in the beast’s Hyundai motor.
He used the vehicle to mow down dozens of people on Westminster Bridge before he knifed a hero cop to death and was then himself fatally shot by an officer at Parliament. Jihadi Khalid Masood spent his final night at the budget hotel before killing four people in Westminster.
Masood put the finishing touches to his deadly plot in room 228 at the £59-a-night Preston Park Hotel in Brighton.
He shovelled down his last meal of a takeaway kebab on Tuesday night before checking out of his room on Wednesday morning. 2 FURTHER ARRESTS IN LONDON TERROR ATTACK
He then drove to London where he ploughed into pedestrians, killing three, and stabbed hero cop PC Keith Palmer to death.
The Sun watched as anti-terror detectives swooped on
the room on Wednesday night after finding his hotel bill in the hired
Hyundai he used as his battering ram.
Forensic officers swept the first-floor room for Masood’s fingerprints and DNA, stripping his sheets and taking the kettle.
They even prised the wall-mounted trouser press and toilet roll holder from the walls, as well as removing the telephone.
Yesterday police IT experts were trying to discover
which websites Masood had visited during his stays or if he contacted
accomplices through the hotel’s wifi.
Detectives also seized CCTV as it emerged Masood used his real name, ID and credit card to check in. LONDON TERROR ATTACK: KILLER IDENTIFIED AS 52-YEAR-OLD KHALID MASOOD
A source said he had coolly chatted to staff and guests hours before setting off, telling them he was “off to London today”.
It is thought Masood had spent a number of days over the last week at the hotel.
A source told The Sun: “No one knows why he came. He used a credit card with the name Masood to check in on Tuesday at 11.30am.
“Police traced him to the hotel because he got a
receipt and left it in the car. It was definitely the car he used in the
attack because that was parked in the car park when he stayed here. It
was a hire car.
“He was very English but mixed race with a big beard.
“He said he lived above a guitar shop in Birmingham
but he’s not originally from the Midlands and had a London accent. But
he said London wasn’t like what it used to be. Police told us later it
was definitely the Westminster attacker.”
The Sun can reveal Masood stayed at Preston Park on
Friday night, checking out the next morning, and then on Tuesday night
after asking for a cheap room.
A source said: “On both occasions he was asking for a
cheaper rate. You would have thought if you were hellbent on committing
a terror attack you’d chuck it all on a credit card and forget the
cost.”
Staff liked him so much they even wrote “nice man” on his computer booking.
Police are trying to trace his whereabouts between the two stays but he apparently said he had stayed in “London and Gatwick”.
The source added: “He said he’d been in London the
night before and possibly Gatwick then Brighton on the Tuesday night and
going off back to London.” London terror attack: The day after
Witnesses said he appeared “nice, polite and calm” and gushed about his Muslim wife.
He told staff he was worried about his parents who lived in Wales.
He told them he was sad his dad was suffering from cancer and his mum was struggling to cope at the family home.
He also bragged they had bought the house for £10,000 and that it was now worth £500,000.
After checking out on Wednesday, a cleaner found him back in his room dressed in his underwear.
A source said: “He’d taken two bags to his car and checked out.
“But when the cleaner came back he was apparently
back in his room wearing just his underwear. They were all shocked
because they thought he had left.
“Everyone says he was nice and polite and acted totally normal.”
Cops began searching the room on Wednesday evening and left clutching bags containing bedsheets and several boxes of evidence.
They closed the hotel’s 24-hour bar and restaurant to launch the investigation and took photos of the foyer and reception.
They searched the grounds and bins and left the hotel at 3.30am.
Detectives returned yesterday at 10.15am to take
statements from staff. They took a Russian interpreter to help question a
maid who dealt with the killer but does not speak English.
Cleaners yesterday left the door open to room 228,
revealing a double bed, desk with Goodmans TV, wardrobe and mirror and
en-suite toilet with shower.
Our photos show the kettle, telephone, toilet roll holder and trouser press had been removed.
The scruffy room faces the busy road and hotel car park.
A sign outside advertises rooms for as little as £40 a night.
Preston Park Hotel is 50 miles from Westminster and
it is unclear what he was doing there — but sources say he left the
hotel on Tuesday evening for several hours.
The hotel is an easy drive to the A23 and on to Gatwick and London.
It is ranked 41 out of 44 Brighton hotels by online travel bible TripAdvisor.
Only a handful of guests were booked at the hotel
this week, which has poor reviews and a rating of just 2.5 out of five
on the site.
One guest’s review read: “Stayed for one night only, very tired looking hotel in need of refurbishment.”
Another unhappy guest gave it one star out of five
and said: “On my second night my vehicle was robbed on site of about
£450 worth of my possessions.
“Hotel not sympathetic, reluctant initially to call police. Turns out there was no CCTV.”
Another added: “Television didn’t work, hair drier didn’t work and kettle didn’t work along with the socket which was not good.”
One said: “This hotel is a joke. Fittings falling off
walls, taps and showers not working. Wall tiles ripped or missing.”
Another complained: “Shower grubby, dusty floor, dribble of water, poor
excuse for a shower.”
And one said: “I stay in hotels most weeks and this has to be one of the worst I have stayed in.”
Now the arrogance of the white man is something to behold. Here a nation that has existed for well over a thosand years and has tomes of wisdom the white man has used for the few hundreds of years they've been an un-Godly world power gonna' tell people who practically invented government they don't know what they're doing! Now that's arrogance for you! Here it is a people who are the masters of disenfranchisement, government corruption, and satanic evil gonna try to preach to a nation that goes back farther than they ever will! You wanna talk about somebody's wrong, why did you kill all the people on the island of Tasmania? Not a single native Tasmanian (Black people) is alive today! Why are you still in Africa, destroying crops, stealing oil and diamonds, trying to build mercenary armies to start wars there? Why don't you talk about the white police in the U.S, murdering black children and not going to jail for it? As the Lord said you need to remove the log from your own eyes before you try to remove the speck from somebody else's eye!
As China becomes, again, the world's largest economy, it wants
the respect it enjoyed in centuries past. But it does not know how to
achieve or deserve it
MATTHEW BOULTON, James Watt’s partner in the development of the
steam engine and one of the 18th century’s greatest industrialists, was
in no doubt about the importance of Britain’s first embassy to the court
of the Chinese emperor. “I conceive”, he wrote to James Cobb, secretary
of the East India Company, “the present occasion to be the most
favourable that ever occurred for the introduction of our manufactures
into the most extensive market in the world.”
In light of this
great opportunity, he argued, George Macartney’s 1793 mission to Beijing
should take a “very extensive selection of specimens of all the
articles we make both for ornament and use.” By displaying such a
selection to the emperor, court and people, Macartney’s embassy would
learn what the Chinese wanted. Boulton’s Birmingham factories, along
with those of his friends in other industries, would then set about
producing those desiderata in unheard-of bulk, to everybody’s benefit.
That is not how things turned out. The emperor accepted Macartney’s gifts, and quite liked some of them—a model of the Royal Sovereign,
a first-rate man o’ war, seemed particularly to catch his fancy—but
understood the whole transaction as one of tribute, not trade. The court
saw a visit from the representatives of King George as something
similar in kind to the opportunities the emperor’s Ministry of Rituals
provided for envoys from Korea and Vietnam to express their respect and
devotion to the Ruler of All Under Heaven. (Dealings with the less
sophisticated foreigners from inner Asia were the responsibility of the
Office of Barbarian Affairs.)
The
emperor was thus having none of Macartney’s scandalous suggestion that
the Son of Heaven and King George should be perceived as equals. He
professed himself happy that Britain’s tribute, though admittedly
commonplace, should have come from supplicants so far away. But he did
not see it as the beginning of a new trading relationship: “We have
never valued ingenious articles, nor do we have the slightest need of
your country’s manufactures…Curios and the boasted ingenuity of their
devices I prize not.” Macartney’s request that more ports in China be
opened to trade (the East India Company was limited to Guangzhou, then
known as Canton) and that a warehouse be set up in Beijing itself was
flatly refused. China at that time did not reject the outside world, as
Japan did. It was engaged with barbarians on all fronts. It just failed
to see that they had very much to offer.
In retrospect, a more
active interest in extramural matters might have been advisable. China
was unaware that an economic, technological and cultural revolution was
taking place in Europe and being felt throughout the rest of the world.
The subsequent rise of colonialist capitalism would prove the greatest
challenge it would ever face. The Chinese empire Macartney visited had
been (a few periods of collapse and invasion notwithstanding) the
planet’s most populous political entity and richest economy for most of
two millennia. In the following two centuries all of that would be
reversed. China would be semi-colonised, humiliated, pauperised and torn
by civil war and revolution.
Now, though, the country has become
what Macartney was looking for: a relatively open market that very much
wants to trade. To appropriate Boulton, the past two decades have seen
the most favourable conditions that have ever occurred for the
introduction of China’s manufactures into the most extensive markets in
the world. That has brought China remarkable prosperity. In terms of
purchasing power it is poised to retake its place as the biggest economy
in the world. Still home to hundreds of millions mired in poverty, it
is also a 21st-century nation of Norman Foster airports and shining
solar farms. It has rolled a rover across the face of the moon, and it
hopes to send people to follow it.
Video
An embassy to China
And
now it is a nation that wants some things very much. In general, it
knows what these things are. At home its people want continued growth,
its leaders the stability that growth can buy. On the international
stage people and Communist Party want a new deference and the influence
that befits their nation’s stature. Thus China wants the current
dispensation to stay the same—it wants the conditions that have helped
it grow to endure—but at the same time it wants it turned into something
else.
Finessing this need for things to change yet stay the same
would be a tricky task in any circumstances. It is made harder by the
fact that China’s Leninist leadership is already managing a huge
contradiction between change and stasis at home as it tries to keep its
grip on a society which has transformed itself socially almost as fast
as it has grown economically. And it is made more dangerous by the fact
that China is steeped in a belligerent form of nationalism and ruled
over by men who respond to every perceived threat and slight with
disproportionate self-assertion.
The post-perestroika
collapse of the Soviet Union taught China’s leaders not just the dangers
of political reform but also a profound distrust of America: would it
undermine them next? Xi Jinping, the president, has since been spooked
by the chaos unleashed in the Arab spring. It seems he wants to try to
cleanse the party from within so it can continue to rule while refusing
any notions of political plurality or an independent judiciary. That
consolidation is influencing China’s foreign policy.
China is
building airstrips on disputed islands in the South China Sea, moving
oil rigs into disputed waters and redefining its airspace without any
clear programme for turning such assertion into the acknowledged status
it sees as its due. This troubles its neighbours, and it troubles
America. Put together China’s desire to re-establish itself (without
being fully clear about what that might entail) and America’s
determination not to let that desire disrupt its interests and those of
its allies (without being clear about how to respond) and you have the
sort of ill-defined rivalry that can be very dangerous indeed. Shi
Yinhong, of Renmin University in Beijing, one of China’s most eminent
foreign-policy commentators, says that, five years ago, he was sure that
China could rise peacefully, as it says it wants to. Now, he says, he
is not so sure.
WHEN China was first unified in 221BC, Rome was
fighting Carthage for dominion over the western Mediterranean. Rome
would go on to rise further and, famously, fall. China collapsed, too,
many times, but the model had been set that it must always reunite. By
the end of the Han dynasty in 220AD its rulers had institutionalised the
teachings of Confucius, which emphasised the value of social hierarchy
and personal morality, as the basis for government. By the Tang dynasty
in the 7th century—at about the time Muhammad returned to Mecca—China
was one of the wealthiest and most illustrious civilisations on Earth.
Its economic and military power dwarfed that of neighbouring peoples.
Its cultural riches and Confucian moral order made that pre-eminence
seem natural to all concerned. China was the model to emulate. Kyoto in
Japan is laid out like 8th-century Chang’an (modern day Xi’an). The
Koreans and Vietnamese adopted Chinese script. Confucian teaching
became, and remains, the philosophical foundation of many Asian
cultures. Just as it was right for the emperor to occupy the apex of
China’s hierarchy, so it was meet for China to sit atop the world’s.
Macartney
came to this paragon at the height of its Qing dynasty. In the middle
of the 18th century the emperor had brought Tibet and Turkestan into the
empire by means of intensive military campaigns and the genocidal
elimination of the Dzungars, taking it to its greatest historical
extent. Though everyday life for the peasants was grim, imperial life
was magnificent. But for all the wealth and despite—or perhaps because
of—his imperious dismissal, Macartney felt the state was not as
sempiternal as its rulers would have it. It was, he wrote, a “crazy,
first rate man o’ war”, able to overawe her neighbours “merely by her
bulk and appearance”. He sensed something of its fragility and the
problems to come. “She may drift sometime as a wreck and then be dashed
to pieces on the shore.”
The
structural reasons for China’s subsequent decline and the empire’s
demise have been much discussed. Some point to what Mark Elvin, a
historian, calls “the high-level equilibrium trap”; the country ran well
enough, with cheap labour and efficient administration, that supply and
demand could be easily matched in a way that left no incentive to
invest in technological improvement. Others note that Europe benefited
from competition and trade between states, which drove its capacity for
weaponry and its appetites for new markets. As Kenneth Pomeranz, an
American historian, has argued, access to cheap commodities from the
Americas was a factor in driving industrialisation in Britain and Europe
that China did not enjoy. So was the good luck of having coal deposits
close to Europe’s centres of industry; China’s coal and its factories
were separated by thousands of kilometres, a problem that remains trying
today.
It's interesting to see how a bunch of rabid dogs act. That trump and his team strongarming the rest of the members of the repugnican party to do what they've been planning to do even before donald j. chomp came along! Oh they are posturing and faking it hoping to pass the bill while Americans sleep at night and wake up to hear about this anti-American legislation that flies in the face of the Will of the People!! They are behind Chump but they wanna' act like they aren't! You ain't foolin' nobody but yourselves!
Trump demands support in do-or-die Friday vote on healthcare plan
U.S.
President Donald Trump warned House Republican lawmakers that he will
leave Obamacare in place and move on to tax reform if they do not get
behind new healthcare legislation and support it in a vote on Friday.It
was not clear late on Thursday evening that Trump and the Republican
leaders who crafted the bill had enough support to pass it, meaning they
now risk defeat in their first attempt at major legislation and may
fail to deliver on a key campaign pledge.
"We
have been promising the American people that we will repeal and replace
this broken law because it’s collapsing and it’s failing families, and
tomorrow we’re proceeding," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters after
an evening all-hands meeting. He ignored reporters who asked if he had
secured the votes to pass the bill.
Ryan
and leaders in the House of Representatives were forced to postpone a
vote on their healthcare bill, formally called the American Health Care
Act, earlier on Thursday, dealing Trump an embarrassing setback.
The
vote had been symbolically planned for the anniversary of former
Democratic President Barack Obama signing his namesake healthcare law,
the Affordable Care Act, in 2010. It was supposed to have been Trump's
first legislative victory.
Trump and his fellow Republicans had pledged to replace Obamacare, which they view as too intrusive and too expensive.
But,
after a week of calling Republican lawmakers and bringing them into the
Oval Office for meetings, Trump failed to close the deal with two
different factions within his party on time for the planned Thursday
vote.
Conservatives felt
the bill did not go far enough to repeal Obamacare and moderates felt
the plan could hurt their constituents. House Republican leaders had
signaled they were ready to work through the weekend to figure out a way
to reconcile their differences.
As
the healthcare drama unfolded on Capitol Hill, Trump played it cool,
taking a break from negotiations to hang out with some truckers,
climbing into the cab of a long-haul transport truck parked on the back
driveway of the White House, and blowing the horn a few times.
He
told reporters the vote would be close but he remained optimistic. "I
think we’re doing well. We’ll find out in about three hours," he said,
just as reports began to surface that the vote had been postponed.
By
evening, Trump sent his top lieutenants to a dramatic meeting on
Capitol Hill on Thursday night with an ultimatum: he was done talking.
According to Representative Chris Collins of New York, a top Trump ally,
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told House Republicans that
Trump wanted a vote.
"The president has said he wants a vote tomorrow, up or down," Collins said.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and
Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney arrive for a
meeting about the American Health Care Act on Capitol Hill in
Washington, D.C., U.S. March 23, 2017.
REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
"If
for any reason it is down, we are just going to move forward with
additional parts of his agenda" such as tax reform, Collins told
reporters after leaving the meeting.
However,
the vote has been seen by financial markets as a crucial test of
Trump's ability to work with Congress to deliver on his other
priorities, such as tax cuts and infrastructure spending.
Even
if their replacement plan does eventually get approval from the House,
the legislation faces a potentially tough fight in the
Republican-controlled Senate.
The
House and Senate had hoped to deliver a new healthcare bill to Trump by
April 8, when Congress is scheduled to begin a two-week spring break. GETTING TO YES? The Republicans have a
majority in the House but, because of united Democratic opposition, can
afford to lose only 21 Republican votes. By Thursday morning, NBC News
said that 30 Republicans had planned to vote "no" or were leaning that
way.
North
Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows, the chairman of the pivotal
conservative bloc known as the Freedom Caucus, said he and others were
struggling to support the plan.
"I
am desperately trying to get to ‘yes’ and I think the president knows
that. I told him that personally," Meadows said. However, after Thursday
night's meeting, he was still a 'no'.
Obamacare
aimed to boost the number of Americans with health insurance through
mandates on individuals and employers, and income-based subsidies. Some
20 million Americans gained insurance coverage through the law.
The
House replacement plan would rescind the taxes created by Obamacare,
repeal a penalty against people who do not buy coverage, slash funding
for the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled, and modify tax
subsidies that help individuals buy plans.
House
leaders agreed to four pages of last-minute amendments to the bill,
including allowing states to choose which "essential benefits" are
required in healthcare insurance plans, and keeping a 0.9 percent
surcharge on Medicare for high-income Americans for six years. It was
unclear whether that was enough.
Representative
Trent Franks, a Freedom Caucus member who had been “undeclared” on his
position on the bill, said he liked the changes. “It’s going in the
right direction,” Franks said outside the House.
The
amendments will give states more money for maternal health and mental
health, said Representative Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska moderate who
still has not said how he will vote. MARKETS WATCHING CLOSELY Uncertainty over the
healthcare bill rattled financial markets this week. The delay in the
house vote is likely to extend the ups and downs in the stocks of some
hospital groups and health insurers.
U.S.
stock markets rose steadily in recent months on optimism over a
pro-business Trump agenda but fell back sharply on Tuesday as investors
worried that failure to push through the healthcare bill could postpone
other business-friendly Trump priorities.
"Delay
on healthcare equates to delay on tax cuts. That is why the market
turned red when the news flow suggested they didn't have a deal," said
David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer at Cumberland
Advisors, a money management firm.
Others said it was too soon to panic.
"If
this thing gets materially delayed or if we get a 'no' vote, we're
going to see a horrific market reaction. But if they vote in the morning
and it passes, we'll have a hell of a rally," said Jake Dollarhide,
chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Graphic on Obamacare and Republican healthcare bill (tmsnrt.rs/2n0ZMKf)
Graphic on shifting positions in the U.S. Senate on Republican healthcare bill (tmsnrt.rs/2mUE4Xf)
Graphic on poll on Americans' views of the Republican healthcare bill ( tmsnrt.rs/2n7f3e4)
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan, David Lawder,
Amanda Becker, Eric Beech, Eric Walsh, Steve Holland, Jeff Mason,
Caroline Humer, Megan Davies, Emily Stephenson, Yasmeen Abutaleb,
Jennifer Ablan, Noel Randewich, Lewis Krauskopf, and Doina Chiacu;
Writing by Frances Kerry and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Michael Perry,
Bill Trott and Bill Rigby)
Britain says Russia is trying to undermine West by 'weaponising misinformation'
FILE PHOTO - Britain's Defence
Secretary Michael Fallon attends a press conference with U.S. Secretary
of Defence Ash Carter at the Foreign Office in London, December 15,
2016.
REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo
Russian President Vladimir Putin is
trying to undermine the West by spreading lies and attacking critical
infrastructure with hackers, Britain's defence minister said.British
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said on Thursday night that Kremlin
chief Putin had chosen to become a strategic competitor of the West
since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Fallon said the NATO military alliance should stand firm to deter Russia.
"We
see a country that in weaponising misinformation has created what we
might now see as the post-truth age," Fallon said. "Russia is clearly
testing NATO and the West. It is seeking to expand its sphere of
influence, destabilise countries and weaken the alliance."
"Part
of our response is for NATO and the West to do more to tackle the false
reality promoted through Soviet-style misinformation," he said.
"Whatever else we do on deterrence and dialogue we must counter Putin’s
Pravda with a faster truth."
The CIA has said that Russia intervened in the U.S. 2016 election to help President-elect Donald Trump win the White House.
But
in a speech peppered with Russian words, Fallon also urged cooperation
with Moscow and quoted Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov to express hope
that the relationship with Moscow could be improved.
"We hope that Russia changes tack," Fallon said.
"Russia
could again become the partner the West always wished for. We could
dare to hope that, to quote Bulgakov again, 'everything will turn out
right, the world is built like that'," he said.
(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
Now this bullshit about Russia having some influence over the Presidential elections here is nothing but a red herring; while people are busy looking at this fake story no one will investigate how the repugnican party really cheated. Trust me, Russia had nothing to do with it; the repugnicans aren't that dumb as they contrive to deprive Americans of healthcare using THEIR OWN TAX DOLLARS!!!! They want to give money to private businessmen who have spent millions to get out of paying their taxes to run the post office and social security but none of our own tax money to help us when we're sick. And to think, some of you fools out there actually voted for these dogs!!!
Now with Healthcare under siege, a nut in the white house, and rumours of war ever circulating around the news wants to focus on this cheater's damn jersey?!!? Let it be known surely as the Lord blesses me to be top dog, mr.brady will pay $100 million dollars in fines and never play again for cheating. He can have his shirt back for free.
Super Bowl 51 jersey has been found in possession of a member of the international media in Mexico
The NFL announced
that Tom Brady's Super Bowl 51 jersey has been found, in addition to
his Super Bowl 49 jersey, thanks to the help of the NFL security
department, FBI, Texas Rangers, and Houston Police Department.
According to the NFL's statement, the jerseys were found in possession of a credentialed member of the international media. The Statesman reports that the jersey was found in Mexico, thanks to the help of Mexican authorities.
You know according to the press Putin killed all these people. I can't say that I believe it all but they sure are determined to blame it on him. Now I have to say if I lived in a country where I knew the ruler in charge doesn't like criticism, I'd leave him alone. Just saying.
The Putin Critics Who Have Been Assassinated
Boris Nemtsov is the latest in a long line of opposition figures who have died under suspicious circumstances in recent years.
Image Caption:A number of Kremlin opponents have lost their lives in recent years
The murder of
opposition politician Boris Nemtsov close to the Kremlin makes him the
latest vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin to die violently
or in suspicious circumstances.
Image Caption:Mr Nemtsov was shot dead while walking with his girlfriend in Moscow
Mr Putin has pledged a full investigation into his death and said he will take personal charge of it.
Some
activists have accused Mr Putin of being responsible, while his
supporters have suggested Mr Nemtsov's murder may have been a
provocation aimed at tarnishing the president's image.
No suspects
have been arrested following the murder, considered the one of the most
shocking in a long list of suspected political assassinations during Mr
Putin's rule.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the deaths of these high-profile activists, politicians, journalists and lawyers. :: Alexander Litvinenko - 2006
Image Caption:An inquiry into Mr Litvinenko's death began earlier this year
Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in November 2006, almost
three weeks after drinking tea poisoned with radioactive polonium-210.
It
is understood he ingested the tea during a meeting with two fellow
former Russian spies, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, at the
Millennium Hotel in London's Grosvenor Square. Both deny any involvement
in his death and remain in Russia.
Before fleeing Russia and
being given British nationality, Litvinenko had accused Mr Putin of
corruption. He also blamed Mr Putin for a number of apartment block
bombings which helped start the Second Chechen War in 1999, the
popularity of which helped bring him to power. :: Anna Politkovskaya - 2006
Image Caption:Ms Politkovskaya was shot four times in a lift
The 48-year-old journalist, a prominent critic of Mr Vladimir Putin,
was gunned down at her Moscow apartment block on 7 October 2006, the
president's birthday. She was shot twice in the chest, once in the
shoulder, and once, at point blank range, in the head
Five men
were found guilty of the killing, including the gunman Rustam Makhmudov,
although it is not yet known who ordered the killing.
Ms
Politkovskaya specialised in uncovering state corruption and rights
abuses. She won international acclaim for her reports in
the Putin-critical newspaper Novaya Gazeta, about Russian abuses in
Chechnya, and for her book Putin's Russia. :: Sergei Magnitsky- 2009
Image Caption:Sergei Magnitsky died in custody before his trial
Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in police custody in November 2009 after
allegedly being denied medical treatment and brutally beaten.
He
had been instructed by British-American businessman William Browder to
investigate a multi-million tax fraud against the Russian state which Mr
Browder's businesses had become unwittingly involved in. But when
Magnitsky found evidence suggesting that police officials were behind
the fraud, he was arrested and charged with having carried it out
himself.
In July 2012 he was convicted - three years after his
death - of tax evasion. Mr Browder successfully lobbied the US
government to impose sanctions on those linked to Magnitsky's death. :: Natalia Estemirova - 2009
Image Caption:Natalia Estemirova had two bullet wounds to the head
The prominent human rights activist was found dead hours after being kidnapped on 15 July, 2009, in the Chechen capital, Grozny.
The 51-year-old had collected evidence of human rights abuses in Chechnya since the start of the second war there in 1999.
She also worked with the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006. :: Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova - 2009
Leading human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov was gunned down in broad daylight on 19 January, 2009.
Image Caption:Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova were both shot dead
Journalist Anastasia Baburova, 25, was shot dead after she tried to come to his assistance.
Mr
Markelov had just held a press conference to protest at the early
release of an army colonel who was jailed for the killing of a young
Chechen girl. He had also represented the murdered journalist Anna
Politkovskaya. :: Paul Klebnikov - 2004
Image Caption:Mr Klebnikov was the editor of Forbes Russia
Another investigative journalist, Paul Klebnikov, an American of
Russian descent, was killed outside his office in a drive-by shooting in
Moscow in 2004. He was the editor of Forbes Russia.
Mr Klebnikov had written about corruption in Russia and Forbes had published a list of Russia's richest people. :: Sergei Yushenkov - 2003
The co-chairman of the Liberal Russia movement was murdered outside his home in Moscow, on 17 April 2003.
According
to the Moscow Times, he was gunned down just hours after the Justice
Ministry officially registered his Liberal Russia movement as a party.
:: Boris Berezovsky - 2013
Image Caption:A coroner recorded an open verdict into Boris Berezovsky's death
Once one of the most powerful men in Russia, the self-made tycoon was
leader of the so-called "oligarchs" who wielded power during the
presidency of Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s.
But after falling out
with Mr Putin - who is said to have been handpicked by Berezovsky as
Yeltsin's successor - he fled and settled in Britain, where he became an
outspoken critic of the new president.
He was found dead at his
Berkshire home in March 2013 in an apparent suicide, although an inquest
into his death recorded an open verdict. SUSPECTED SHOW TRIALS
Alongside
the suspicious deaths, there have been a series of criminal cases
condemned as political "show trials" by critics of Mr Putin. Most
recently was the case of anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny.
The Kremlin denies any political motivation and insists the judiciary is independent. :: Alexei Navalny
Image Caption:Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg on trial
The 38-year-old lawyer and activist rose to prominence by exposing
political corruption in his blog before becoming a prominent speaker at
anti-Putin rallies. He coined the phrase "party of crooks and thieves"
to describe United Russia, Mr Putin's party.
He and his brother
Oleg were charged with defrauding several companies, including the
Russian subsidiary of the French cosmetics company Yves Rocher.
He
was convicted in December of fraud and given a three-and-a-half-year
suspended sentence. His brother Oleg was jailed for the same period. :: Sergei Udaltsov
Image Caption:Sergei Udaltsov at a Moscow court hearing
The leader of the Left Front political grouping, the 37-year-old has
described himself as a "Soviet patriot". He and his wife Anastasia have
been nicknamed "Russia's Revolutionary Couple".
After playing a
prominent role in anti-Putin protests, Mr Udaltsov was charged over a
demonstration held the day before Mr Putin's inauguration for his third
term as president in May 2012.
He was jailed for four and a half years for organising the protest, which had turned violent. :: Leonid Razvozzhaev
Image Caption:Leonid Razvozzhaev was on trial with Udaltsov
A Left Front colleague of Sergei Udaltsov, he faced the same charges
but fled Russia and tried to seek political asylum in neighbouring
Ukraine.
He claimed that while his application was being
considered, he was kidnapped, taken back to Russia, tortured and forced
to sign confessions which he subsequently disowned.
Russian authorities insisted that he had given himself up voluntarily.
He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. :: Mikhail Kosenko
Image Caption:Mikhail Kosenko was jailed for using violence against police
The political activist was convicted of using violence against police
officers during the same Bolotnaya Square protests that Sergei Udaltsov
and Leonid Razvozzhaev were jailed for organising.
Despite
testimony that he was a peaceful demonstrator, Mr Kosenko was sentenced
to indefinite psychiatric detention. He was released in July 2014.
Amnesty
International said: "Kosenko’s only 'crime' was publicly expressing his
beliefs. This is reminiscent of the Soviet-era tactics when the
authorities used psychiatric treatment to silence dissenting voices."
:: Greenpeace
Image Caption:Piracy charges against Greenpeace activists were downgraded to hooliganism
In September 2013, 30 Greenpeace activists, including six Britons,
were arrested for taking part in a protest at an Arctic oil
installation.
They were initially charged with piracy, which could
have carried a prison term of up to 15 years. The charge was downgraded
to hooliganism, which still could have carried a seven-year term,
before they were released after two months in detention.
At the
time Mr Putin said their treatment should serve as a lesson to others
and suggested unnamed foreign rivals could have been behind their
actions. :: Pussy Riot
Image Caption:Pussy Riot were also accused of hooliganism by prosecutors
The all-female punk group were jailed for two years for hooliganism
for performing an anti-Putin song in Moscow's main cathedral in March
2012.
They were freed in an amnesty initiated by Mr Putin in
December 2013 shortly before the Winter Olympics in the Russian city of
Sochi. :: Vladimir Yevtushenkov
Image Caption:Vladimir Yevtushenkov was one of Russia's richest men
One of Russia's richest men, the billionaire was placed under house
arrest in September on suspicion of money-laundering over his purchase
of a controlling stake in oil company Bashneft.
He was released from house arrest on 17 December and was praised in Mr Putin's annual press conference two days later.
However,
Kremlin critics say the case is part of a bid by the Russian government
to regain control of oil and gas assets sold off in the chaotic
privatisations of the 1990s.
The arrest has led to comparisons with the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. :: Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Image Caption:Mikhail Khodorkovsky made his fortune as the Soviet Union collapsed
Mr Khodorkovsky was one of the original "oligarchs" - the tycoons who
took advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s
to make their fortunes, before using their clout to effectively rule
Russia during the weak presidency of illness-plagued Boris Yeltsin.
In
2003 Mr Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges of fraud. He was jailed
for nine years and his oil company Yukos broken up by the state. He and
his business partner, Platon Lebedev, were put on trial again in 2010,
this time for embezzlement, and were jailed for another four years. Mr
Khodorkovsky was suddenly released in December 2013.
Both trials
were seen as politically-motivated and a signal from Mr Putin to the
rich and powerful to think twice before supporting opposition parties.
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