Lebanon's information minister resigns amid violent protests after Beirut blast

Lebanon's Information Minister Manal Abdel Samad resigned as violent protests grow in response to an explosion in the port of Beirut that left more than 150 people dead. "I want to apologize to the Lebanese people, whose aspirations we were unable to fulfill due to the difficulty of the challenges facing us," Abdel Samad said in a Sunday statement. Abdel Samad is one of several government officials who resigned from their post following the blast. She is the second minister to resign from Prime Minister Hassan Diab's government in a week following Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti, who quit on Monday, according to Al Jazeera.

The explosion is believed to have been sparked by nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that was stored in a nearby port. The highly explosive chemicals arrived in 2013, but Lebanese officials took no swift action to disperse of the material since then. The explosion has left large swaths of Beirut in shambles and wounded at least 5,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of other residents were left homeless. Violent protests have escalated in recent days demanding accountability and resignations from public officials over the explosion. Protesters briefly named the Foreign Ministry the headquarters of their movement, setting up gallows and nooses with cardboard cutout images of top Lebanese officials with the message that they need to "resign or hang."

President Trump recently expressed support for the protests and called for Lebanon to conduct a "full and transparent investigation" into the Beirut blast. The United States also committed to send $17 million in disaster aid to Lebanon to help the country recover. National security adviser Robert O'Brien said the first wave of aid will provide food, water, and medical supplies to the people of Lebanon.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/lebanons-information-minister-resigns-amid-violent-protests-after-beirut-blast

Alex Azar on Taiwan: ‘Very Important Partner of United States’

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar told Breitbart News exclusively he views his trip to Taiwan as a message from the United States to the world that Taiwan is and has been a “very important partner” with the U.S. when it comes to global health security. Azar touched down in Taiwan on Sunday, marking the first trip from this high-ranking of a U.S. official since the United States shifted formal diplomatic recognition in the late 1970s under former Democrat President Jimmy Carter from Taiwan’s government, the Republic of China, to the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the mainland in Beijing.

“Taiwan has been a very important partner of the United States, but also of the world community as a model of transparent, collaborative, and cooperative approaches to public health throughout the last several years, but especially during the COVID-19 crisis,” Azar told Breitbart News on Friday afternoon, ahead of his trip. “It’s important that I go to reaffirm the partnership that the United States has with Taiwan in public health, but also to hold up Taiwan as a model to the types of behaviors that are important in the international community.” Azar’s visit to Taiwan comes amid the highest-ever tensions between the United States and Chinese Communist Party, as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the planet. It also comes as the United States slaps sanctions on Hong Kong’s Carrie Lam for being appeasing Chinese authorities in Beijing who have essentially taken over there—something that China’s leader Xi Jinping has long viewed as a goal for unifying Taiwan back into Chinese control. The history is complicated, but what happened is in the mid-20th century, as the Communists under Mao Zedong’s revolution rose to power in China, the old government—the Kuomintang—fell back to Taiwan where it established first a military dictatorship that would later become a democracy.

The Communist Party of China refuses to engage in formal diplomacy with any nation that formally engages in diplomacy with Taiwan. Since Carter changed U.S. formal diplomatic channels from Taiwan to China, the U.S. has established deep informal diplomatic ties between the two nations. Technically, neither country has an “embassy” in the other, instead just using formal government-backed nonprofits—the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) backed by the U.S., and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) backed by Taiwan here—to engage in relationship-building. Since the 1980s, Taiwan has been a democracy, and its current President Tsai Ing-wen has been particularly harsh on the Chinese Communist Party—and particularly close with the Trump administration. But, again, no formal such meeting like this—with a senior current cabinet-level U.S. official visiting Taiwan—has taken place since 1979, making Azar’s visit particularly important.

Taiwan and the United States have never been closer than during the Trump administration, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told Breitbart News during an interview at the end of a trip that Breitbart News took to Taiwan last year. Wu said the relationship’s strength was “unprecedented.” “Overall speaking, the warmth and the support coming from the Trump administration these days is unprecedented and we enjoy these kinds of relationships,” Wu said in the interview in the spring of 2019. “As a result, you can rest assured, Taiwan will continue to work with the United States on whatever kinds of issues Taiwan can make a contribution.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/09/exclusive-azar-taiwan-very-important-partner-united-states/

https://twitter.com/SecAzar/status/1292491989422751744

https://twitter.com/SecAzar/status/1290825492891865089

WATCH: Hundreds March Through West Hollywood During ‘Rescue America’ Rally

Hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump marched from West Hollywood to Beverly Hills on Saturday afternoon for a planned rally.

Maxine Waters: Trump’s Executive Orders ‘Extraordinarily Misleading,’ Constitutionality Questionable

Sunday on MSNBC, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said President Donald Trump’s executive orders addressing the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic were “extraordinarily misleading.” Waters said, “The president’s executive orders are questionable. First of all, it’s questionable whether or not he could do what he’s attempting to go constitutionality. But in addition to that, they’re extraordinarily misleading. I am so focused on rental assistance.” Water added, “The eviction moratorium is over. This president is playing politics with this issue.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/09/maxine-waters-trumps-executive-orders-extraordinarily-misleading-constitutionality-questionable/

>>10236415

Interesting number, kek

REVEALED: TikTok Founder’s 2018 Pledge To Promote ‘Socialist Core Values’ And Devotion To Chinese Communist Party

The founder and CEO of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, recently pledged to use his company to promote “socialist core values” and foster adherence to the Chinese Communist Party’s “ideology, political thinking, and deeds.” Zhang showed his fealty in a nearly 1,000-word essay after China’s State Administration of Radio and Television banned his first app for “improper” content, Posted to the Tencent-owned platform WeChat, the apology began with Zhang admitting his app offended his “socialist core values.” “In the past, we have placed too much emphasis on the role of technology, and failed to realize that socialist core values are the prerequisite to technology,” he stated. He noted the “deep-seated problems for the company” included “a weak understanding of the “four consciousness”, a lack of socialist core values, and a biased guidance of public opinion.”

“Four consciousness” is a term favored by President Xi Jinping, which, as explained by a high-level Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparatchik is to foster adherence to party “ideology, political thinking, and deeds”: “The fundamental principle of strengthening consciousness is to follow the ideology, political thinking and deeds of the CCP Central Committee, with Xi as general secretary.” While apologizing for “failing to live up to the guidance and expectations of the authorities,” the TikTok CEO, who has repeatedly insisted the app has no links to the CCP, admitted that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has received “a lot of guidance and help” from “the authorities.” “I blame myself for failing to live up to the guidance and expectations of the authorities. In the past few years, the authorities have given us a lot of guidance and help, but I failed to understand properly and to correct properly in the past that resulted in the repercussions today.”

This ByteDance-CCP relationship goes some way to explaining the Trump administration’s skepticism of TikTok, its data-mining, and its censorship. And as a solution to his company transgressing CCP diktats, Zhang pledges that future endeavors – such as TikTok – will “integrate the right values into technology and products.” To do so, his first pledge was to “strengthen party building” by “enhancing education of all the staff on the four consciousness, socialist core values, public opinion guidance, as well as laws and regulations” along with “further deepening cooperation with authoritative media, improving distribution of authoritative media content, and ensuring the effective dissemination of authoritative voices.” Zhang also promised to “set up an expert group on content supervision” with “National Party Congress representatives and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference members” in attendance. And these calls have been heeded by ByteDance: Neihan Duanzi’s successor Toutiao employs thousand-person legions to moderate its content, ensuring it adheres to party-peddled narratives. What’s more, the company grants priority to CCP members in their hiring process. For example, in a job posting for a “content review editor,” ByteDance declared “Communist Party members would be considered first” and described its ideal employee as someone who “loves reading news, cares about current affairs, and has good political sensitivity and judgment.”

https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusive/tiktok-socialist-values-founders/

http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/0303/c90000-9024163.html

https://medium.com/@pandaily/open-apology-from-ceo-of-toutiao-following-the-ban-of-neihan-duanzi-6381000939d0

>>10236497

Indeed..Israel is last!

>>10236620

Concur.. These words all flowered up all have the same meaning..Ownership and Control of populations everywhere.

>>10236618

Can we get some sauce on this?

>>10236618

Thanks Anon!

>>10236618

Have known people to have surgeries of this nature. Couple of them were done through the belly region, and have seen one done at the neck like this for repair on spinal cord at the back of the neck..

>>10236764

Maybe makeup?

>>10236803

Not talking about the wound Anon..Talking about the differences in her appearance in the 2 pics.. Ketchup…would ya!