tyb
Great memes, Anons.
vid for you!
play time over, time to go to work, ready or not!
Yes. Phelps definitely helped my work. I do not agree with some of his conclusions yet he did prompt me to read dozens of books.
Y heads rolling!
Disclaimer well understood, Patriot. kek
GM, Sam
We rockin out with our Krakens out!
India to get more eyes to monitor Chinese presence in IOR & SCS: Navy to get P8i Aircraft
By: Huma Siddiqui | November 16, 2020 3:40 PM
The configuration of the aircraft expected to arrive soon will be of the same configuration as the previous eight that are in service in the Indian Navy. Also, as reported by Financial Express Online earlier, there are plans of installing encrypted communications systems which have been delivered earlier.
Indian Navy is getting ready to receive one of the four P-8I Maritime Patrol Aircraft later this month. With an additional P-8I aircraft in its fleet, India’s surveillance, reconnaissance, and electronic jamming capabilities will get a boost in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Sources have confirmed to Financial Express Online, “As per the delivery schedule one out of the four aircraft are expected to arrive soon (before the month ends). And the balance three will arrive next year.”
The aircraft which was expected to come earlier was delayed due to the global pandemic COVID-19 and the lockdown.
The configuration of the aircraft expected to arrive soon will be of the same configuration as the previous eight that are in service in the Indian Navy. Also, as reported by Financial Express Online earlier, there are plans of installing encrypted communications systems which have been delivered earlier. After India and the US inked the Communications, Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), the installation of the encrypted communications systems on these P8i aircraft. These aircraft are coming from the Boeing Company.
MORE AT LINK:
https://www.financialexpress.com/defence/india-to-get-more-eyes-to-monitor-chinese-presence-in-ior-scs-navy-to-get-p8i-aircraft/2129490/
Chinese drone flying app includes 9-dash line, angering Vietnamese
DJI Fly drone flying app found to include China's 9-dash line in South China Sea
By Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
2020/11/16 17:54
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Vietnamese netizens were incensed last week after they discovered that a Chinese-made drone-flying app contained a map with the disputed nine-dash line over the South China Sea.
On Nov. 9, a member of an online group for Flycam drone users posted screenshots of a map from an app showing the nine-dash line, a boundary that Vietnam does not recognize. The app was identified as DJI Fly, which is made by SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd., popularly known as DJI.
The app can be used to operate aerial drones such as DJI Mini 2, Mavic Air 2, and Mavic Mini aircraft on both iOS and Android platforms. Hanoi Times cited a Vietnamese user identified as Quang Nobi as stating that it was the first time he had seen the contentious boundary markers appear on the app.
Another user, Hung Phong, wrote that the dashed line had suddenly appeared at some point within the last two to three days. Angered Vietnamese netizens quickly retaliated for the perceived political statement by giving the app one-star reviews in Vietnamese on the App Store and Google Play.
Users of the Facebook page for Flycam drones soon inundated the page with photos of one-star reviews for DJI. The nine-dash line displayed on the map not only encompasses vast swaths of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines, but also includes Taiwan as China's territory.
The app's latest version, DJI Fly 1.2, was released on Nov. 5 and has seen over one million downloads. As of March of this year, the Shenzhen-based company controlled 70 percent of the global drone market.
Over the course of the past year, several U.S. government agencies, such as the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Justice, banned the use of DJI drones on security grounds. As early as 2017, the U.S. Army first announced a ban on DJI drones and in 2018 extended the ban across the military, yet the Air Force purchased dozens of drones in November of this year, raising hackles in the Senate.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4054842
12th South China Sea International Conference opens
The 12th South China Sea International Conference, with the theme “Maintaining Peace and Cooperation through a Time of Turbulence”, kicked off on November 16 in both the in-person and online formats.
VNA Monday, November 16, 2020 16:37
Hanoi (VNA) - The 12th South China Sea International Conference, with the theme “Maintaining Peace and Cooperation through a Time of Turbulence”, kicked off on November 16 in both the in-person and online formats.
Jointly held by the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV), the Foundation for East Sea Studies (FESS), and the Vietnam Lawyers' Association, the two-day conference has attracted over 700 delegates, including nearly 60 prestigious experts from 30 nations, 12 ambassadors and representatives from over 20 foreign representative offices in Vietnam, and nearly 100 domestic and foreign journalists.
In his welcome remarks, member of the Party Central Committee and Deputy Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son said COVID-19 has created a lot of turbulence and revealed smouldering conflicts in societies, eroding trust between nations and affecting peace and stability.
The East Sea situation is an unpredictable challenge affecting peace, stability, and cooperation in the region, with problems such as unilaterally interpreting international law that does not conform to the international community’s common standards and interests, geopolitical competition, and militarisation in the East Sea.
Son stressed the need for parties to step up dialogue and win-win cooperation, seek peaceful solutions to differences and conflicts at sea on the basis of international law, and intensify cooperation to turn the East Sea into a sea of connectivity and cooperation instead of competition and confrontation.
It is essential to proactively prevent the risk of unwanted clashes at sea, promote cooperation for economic recovery and mutual development, work together to protect natural resources, and seek the peaceful settlement of overlapping claims in the East Sea in accordance with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982).
He proposed that countries continue promoting the central role of ASEAN in the regional security structure, supporting the ASEAN Vision on the Indo-Pacific Region, and creating favourable conditions for ASEAN and China to soon finish negotiations over a Code of Conduction in the East Sea (COC).
Parties involved should not conduct unilateral military and civil activities that could change the status quo in the East Sea, he added.
Acting President of the DAV Pham Lan Dung said this is the first time the conference has been organised in both the in-person and online formats, with a record number of speakers invited from around the world. Another new feature is a special discussion session for young leaders, who are encouraged to share their opinions on the East Sea issue./.
https://en.vietnamplus.vn/12th-south-china-sea-international-conference-opens/190518.vnp
Russia Could Cooperate With China In The Naval Field To Achieve Parity With The West – Part 1
The speech of the Russian president at Valdai discussion club contained interesting statements on the state and prospects of the check-and-balance system to prevent a large-scale armed standoff of superpowers. He spoke about military cooperation of Russia and China. In case they create a military union, each party will have to contribute to it, the Independent Military Review writes.
Naval News Staff 16 Nov 2020
TASS Russian news agency
Asked about the possibility of a military union between Russia and China, Putin said:
“it is possible to imagine everything. Our relationship has reached such a level of interaction and trust, that we do not need it, but theoretically it can be imagined. We jointly hold regular military exercises at sea and on the ground in China and the Russian Federation. We exchange best practice in military buildup. We have reached a high interaction level in military-technical cooperation, and it is likely the main thing. The talk is not only about exchange and acquisition of military products, but also technology transfer. There are very sensitive things and I am not going to speak about them in public, but our Chinese friends know them. There is no doubt that our cooperation with China increases the defense capability of the Chinese People’s Army. Both Russia and China are interested in it. Life will show how it all would develop,”
Vladimir Putin
If the military union is created, how Moscow and Beijing will contribute to it?
The picture is as follows in the naval cooperation: China is the world leader in shipbuilding and exceeded the United States in the number of warships — 350 against 293. The strength of navymen is comparable — each party has over 300 thousand men, but the Americans are ahead in the total displacement.
If the navies of US military allies in the world are considered, the total fleet is much stronger than the Chinese Navy. The collective West has many more heavy warships. The USA has 11 aircraft carriers, European NATO allies — 3, and China — 2. The supremacy in nuclear submarines is impressive: 80 (including 70 US subs) against Chinese 10. The US Navy operates over 90 cruisers and destroyers plus a dozen French and British ones against Chinese 33.
The gap is smaller if Chinese and Russian navies are taken together. The Russian Navy is twice weaker than the Chinese one in the number of navymen and warships, but has a bigger strike potential due to missile complexes. Together they make equal forces at sea, which is important to maintain strategic balance between the East and the West.
The Russian and Chinese navies are complementary. Nuclear submarines comprise the backbone of the Russian fleet, while the potential ally has a lot of surface warships of various classes. In case of close interaction, the East will have a better-balanced naval force of various classes.
he analysis of existing shipbuilding programs shows that new-concept aircraft carriers with electromagnetic catapults and nuclear power plants, as well as Type 055 cruisers and Type 052D destroyers armed with cruise missiles similar to US Tomahawk and Russian Kalibr will improve the quality of the Chinese Navy in the coming 20 years.
There is no breakthrough in nuclear submarines. In the past 15 years, Chinese shipyards built 12 nuclear submarines, including two multirole subs of Type 093 and four subs of upgraded Type 093A. Four SSBN of Type 094 became operational and the construction of another two is nearing completion. They are likely to become operational in the summer of 2021 and will replace the first generation of Chinese subs that served for over 40 years.
The Pentagon believes the construction of Type 096 with the same number of launchers (12) as in 094, but new JL-3 ballistic missiles with a bigger range will begin in the middle of the decade. There will be 12 Chinese SSBN by 2030 which is comparable to the Russian program to build project 955 and 955A submarines. Four subs have been built and the construction of another four is ongoing.
Part 2 of this analysis will be published soon.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2020/11/russia-could-cooperate-with-china-in-the-naval-field-to-achieve-parity-with-the-west-part-1/
Why China and a Bloc of Nations Led by Vietnam Just Met but Ignored Asia’s Biggest Maritime Dispute
By Ralph Jennings
November 16, 2020 03:53 AM
TAIPEI, TAIWAN - China and leaders from 10 Southeast Asian countries who held annual summits this month sidestepped a sticky maritime sovereignty question to focus on trade and COVID-19, signaling a tough year ahead for the rival nations, experts believe.
Apart from polite acknowledgements of the dispute, which engulfs about 90% of the South China Sea including prime fisheries and energy-exploration tracts, Beijing and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) barely touched on the issue at the 37th ASEAN Summit November 12-15.
More robust discussions focused on China’s international COVID-19 response and a long-awaited signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade deal. Those topics elevated everyone’s mood, analysts say, while no one had any new proposals for easing the maritime spat despite a volatile past year dominated by U.S. pushback over Chinese activity in the sea.
“Amidst this celebratory mood, I don’t think they would dampen that with something very harsh on the South China Sea,” said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and summit host Vietnam vie with the militarily stronger China in the sovereignty dispute.
Over the past decade of South China Sea incidents, China has angered Vietnam with an oil rig and survey ships, startled Malaysia with coast guard passages and inflamed the Philippines by taking over a disputed fishing-rich shoal. China alarmed all the claimants by using landfill to build and occupy disputed islets in the sea. Officials in Beijing cite historical usage records to back their claims.
Summit Host Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc noted the issue in passing during an ASEAN-China Summit, one in a series of breakout meetings.
MORE AT LINK:
https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/voa-news-china/why-china-and-bloc-nations-led-vietnam-just-met-ignored-asias
China’s ballistic missiles and uncertainty at sea
Hong Kong, November 16 (ANI):
On August 26, China fired two of its most capable conventional missiles – a DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) and DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) – into the South China Sea from bases in mainland China. Now, nearly three months later, a Chinese source is claiming that these missiles hit a moving ship target near the Paracel Islands.
Allegedly, the target was in disputed waters south of Hainan Island and north of the Paracel Islands. The exercise was presumably overseen by the PLA’s Southern Theater Command.
It is unclear why China took so long to make such a claim about hitting a mobile at-sea target, but it is surely related to bolstering a Chinese propaganda effect. The source of the claim was Wang Xiangsui, a former senior colonel of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), who now holds a professorial tenure at Beihang University in Beijing.
At the time of August’s missile firings, it was obvious to most that Beijing was sending “warning shots” via the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) against an ongoing American presence in international waters, amidst strategic friction between the two nations.
Indeed, a day earlier the US military had flown a U-2S Dragon Lady spy plane near a Chinese naval live-fire drill in the Bohai Sea off China’s northeast coast. The previous month, the US Navy (USN) had sailed two aircraft carrier strike groups (USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan) in the South China Sea “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific”.
Concerning the former, China had declared a no-fly zone in international airspace above the Bohai Sea, meaning its declaration had no legal merit. That is why the US said the flight was “within the accepted international rules and regulations governing aircraft flights”, and that the air force would “continue to fly and operate anywhere international law allows, at the time and tempo of our choosing”.
Wang, speaking in a closed meeting of the Moganshan Forum in Zhejiang in October, reportedly claimed, “So several days later [after the aircraft carrier manoeuvres], we launched the DF-21 and DF-26, and the missiles hit a vessel sailing south of the Paracel Islands.”
Wang added, “Shortly after that, an American military attache in Geneva complained and said it would lead to severe consequences if the missiles hit an American aircraft carrier. They see this as a show of force, but we are doing this because of their provocation.” He underscored, “This is a warning to the US, asking it not to take any military risks. Such actions mark the bottom line of Sino-US confrontation.”
Of course, Wang’s comments make a mockery of Wu Qian, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, who said at the time that the missile drills were not aimed at any particular country. However, he added, “China opposes and is not afraid of US provocation … We urge some US politicians to assess the reality objectively, stop provocation and pull Sino-US relations back to a normal track.”
Back in August, the US Department of Defense (DoD) said Beijing’s “actions, including missile tests, further destabilize the situation in the South China Sea”. Interestingly, an American RC-135S Cobra Ball spy plane flew from Okinawa into the South China Sea area at the time of this drill. The platform, able to collect imagery, telemetry and electronic intelligence on ballistic missiles, was presumably gathering data on the missile drill.
What about the missiles fired on August 26? The DF-26B was launched from Qinghai Province in northwest China (approximately 2,500 km away), and the DF-21D ASBM from eastern China in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province (a distance of 1,600 km).
The DF-21D “carrier killer” has a range of approximately 1,800km. The DF-26 IRBM, on the other hand, has a 4,000km range and it can carry either a nuclear or conventional warhead. The nomenclature of “DF-26B” is intriguing, as it is unknown what improvements this missile possesses over its predecessor.
MORE AT LINK:
https://www.zee5.com/zee5news/chinas-ballistic-missiles-and-uncertainty-at-sea/
Macron to walk diplomatic tightrope while hosting Trump ally Pompeo
Issued on: 16/11/2020 - 11:47
Modified: 16/11/2020 - 11:51
FRANCE 24
France’s Emmanuel Macron will be forced to walk a diplomatic tightrope on Monday when he hosts US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a staunch defender of President Donald Trump, while the French president simultaneously seeks to build relations with President-elect Joe Biden.
Pompeo arrived in Paris Saturday at the start of a seven-nation trip to US allies.
America’s top diplomat has been criticised for backing the president as he digs in over his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
“There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” a defiant Pompeo told reporters moments after announcing his trip last week.
World leaders, however, have shown no doubt about whom they see as the victor, with Macron one of the first to congratulate Biden and speak with him by telephone.
Pompeo has been critical of such overtures to Biden, telling Fox News that such calls to Biden were not objectionable if it was “just saying ‘hi’.”
“But make no mistake about it, we have one president, one secretary of state, one national security team at a time,” he said.
French presidential aides emphasised that it was Pompeo who sought the meeting with Macron and that it was granted “in full transparency with President-elect Joe Biden’s team.”
In a sign of the unease generated by his visit, no press conferences are planned after his meeting with Macron and a separate meeting with Pompeo’s French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian.
A senior State Department official, asked whether Pompeo would insist to allies that Trump will remain in power, said that the former CIA director has a “broad strategy” in pursuit of US interests and that “he remains the secretary of state”.
MORE AT LINK:
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20201116-france-s-macron-to-walk-diplomatic-tightrope-while-hosting-trump-ally-pompeo
Bahrain FM Heads to Israel to Meet Netanyahu, Pompeo
Monday, November 16, 2020 at 2:19 am | כ"ט חשון תשפ"
DUBAI (Reuters) -
Bahrain’s foreign minister will travel to Israel on Wednesday in Manama’s first official delegation there and is due to meet Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, diplomats said.
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates established formal ties with Israel in a U.S.-brokered deal signed at the White House on Sept. 15. Sudan has since said it would also formalize relations with Israel, a former foe.
Bahrain’s Abdullatif Al-Zayani’s trip to Israel will coincide with a visit there by Pompeo. They will hold a three-way meeting with Netanyahu, two diplomats briefed on the planning said.
An official in Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry told Reuters that Al-Zayani would hold talks on areas of cooperation broached during an Israeli delegation’s visit to Manama on Oct. 18.
https://hamodia.com/2020/11/16/bahrain-fm-heads-israel-meet-netanyahu-pompeo/
COVID-19 may have been in Italy as early as September 2019: study
By Jesse O’Neill
November 15, 2020 | 5:39pm
A new study has found that the coronavirus may have spread outside of China far earlier than previously thought.
A study by the National Cancer Institute said the deadly virus appears to have been circulating in Milan last September — five months before Italy’s first COVID-19 patient was detected, and three months before the outbreak was reported in Wuhan, China.
Italian researchers now report that 12 percent of 959 healthy volunteers enrolled in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 developed coronavirus antibodies long before Feb. 21, when the country’s first case was identified.
Giovanni Apolone, a co-author of the study, says four cases dated back to early October 2019, which meant the healthy volunteers would have been infected in September.
“This is the main finding: people with no symptoms not only were positive after the serological tests but had also antibodies able to kill the virus,” Apolone said.
“It means that the new coronavirus can circulate among the population for long and with a low rate of lethality not because it is disappearing but only to surge again,” he added.
In March, Italian researchers reported a higher-than-average number of cases of severe pneumonia and flu outside Milan in the last quarter of 2019 — an early sign that the virus could have been spreading well before the outbreak.
https://nypost.com/2020/11/15/covid-19-may-have-been-in-italy-as-early-as-september-2019/
Obama on ‘60 Minutes’ tells Trump to ‘put country first’ and concede election
By Kenneth Garger
November 15, 2020 | 11:50pm | Updated
Former President Barack Obama urged President Trump to put the country first and concede the election to Joe Biden during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night.
“My advice to President Trump is, if you want at this late stage in the game to be remembered as somebody who put country first, it’s time for you to do the same thing,” Obama said.
Obama provided a civics lesson in explaining his current advice for Trump.
“Well, a president is a public servant. They are temporary occupants of the office, by design,” he said. “And when your time is up then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego, and your own interests, and your own disappointments.”
Obama told CBS correspondent Scott Pelley that he feels Trump should have conceded to President-elect Joe Biden within the first two days after the election.
“When you look at the numbers objectively, Joe Biden will have won handily,” Obama said. “There is no scenario in which any of those states would turn the other way, and certainly not enough to reverse the outcome of the election.”
Without Georgia, Biden leads Trump in electoral votes by a count of 290 to 232, according to results from the Associated Press.
Other networks have already called Georgia for Biden, giving the former vice president 306 electoral votes.
https://nypost.com/2020/11/15/obama-on-60-minutes-tells-trump-to-put-country-first-concede/
Judges appear increasingly frustrated with Trump's legal claims about 2020 election
"Come on now," one judge said after hearing a Trump team claim.
ByMatthew Mosk,Olivia Rubin, andAlex Hosenball
November 16, 2020, 5:03 AM
The recent scene in Clark County, Nevada, has become increasingly common in courthouses around the country as President Donald Trump continues to push thinly supported allegations of election misconduct and fraud.
When Republican lawyers in Nevada complained their observers were not close enough if they could not hear everything poll workers were saying, U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon pushed back.
"At what point does this get ridiculous?" the exasperated judge, an appointee of President Barack Obama, asked before ruling against the Republicans.
In court hearings and opinions around the country, judges are voicing similar frustrations with the Trump campaign's legal filings to a degree rarely seen in venues where political rhetoric is generally unwelcome, experts and courthouse veterans said.
MORE: A look at 5 false or misleading Trump team claims of election fraud
"Judge after judge after judge has asked, in essence, 'Where is the beef?'" said Karl Racine, the attorney general for the District of Columbia and a frequent Trump critic, in a call with reporters Friday.
"We have seen numerous instances where affidavits have been filed … only to be immediately pulled back once tested in state and federal court," said Racine, whose own lawsuit against Trump in connection with the president’s Washington, D.C., hotel is on hold pending appeal. "I would not be surprised that if these baseless allegations continue, judges will begin to threaten and indeed issue sanctions."
MORE AT LINK:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/judges-increasingly-frustrated-trumps-legal-claims-2020-election/story?id=74211479
Trump Campaign Abandons Parts Of Election Lawsuit Filed In Pennsylvania
The lawsuit still aims to block Pennsylvania from certifying its votes for president-elect Joe Biden.
By Chris Hoffman November 16, 2020 at 5:12 am
PITTSBURGH (KDKA/AP) — President Trump’s legal team has abandoned parts of its lawsuit filed here in Pennsylvania over the election results.
The President’s campaign dropped the claim of hundreds of thousands of mail-in and absentee ballots being illegally processed without their team watching.
The lawsuit still aims to block Pennsylvania from certifying its votes for president-elect Joe Biden.
The campaign’s slimmed-down lawsuit, filed in federal court on Sunday, maintains its claim that Democratic voters were treated more favorably than Republican voters in fixing mail-in ballots that were going to be disqualified for a technicality.
The lawsuit claims Democrat-heavy counties violated the law by identifying those ballots, and alleges Republican-heavy counties followed the law properly.
The Associated Press says a lawyer for the Democratic National Committee isn’t sure how many voters were able to fix their ballot, but believes it’s minimal and below the margin of almost 70,000 votes that president-elect Biden leads President Trump by.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar asked the judge to dismiss the case.
The state is set to certify its election results on November 23rd.
https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/11/16/trump-campaign-lawsuit-pennsylvania-election/
Trump falsely claims he won the election; Twitter flags the tweet
UPDATED ON: NOVEMBER 16, 2020 / 5:34 AM / CBS/AP
President Trump falsely and flat-out claimed in an all-caps tweet late Sunday night that he won the election. The tweet was quickly flagged by Twitter, which said, "Official sources called this election differently."
The tweet culminated a day in which Mr. Trump worked to take back an apparent acknowledgement that Joe Biden had won the White House.
Mr. Trump's earlier comments had given some critics and supporters hope that the White House was ready to begin working on a transition with Mr. Biden's team. Not so fast, Mr. Trump would soon make clear.
Mr. Trump, without using Mr. Biden's name but referring to him, said "He won" as part of a tweet that made baseless claims about a "rigged" election. But as the president saw that his comments were being interpreted as his first public acknowledgment of a Biden victory, Mr. Trump quickly reversed course.
"He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA," Mr. Trump subsequently tweeted. "I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!"
There was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In fact, election officials from both political parties stated publicly that the election went well, and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities. Mr. Trump's campaign has tried to mount legal challenges across the country, but many of the lawsuits have been thrown out and none has included any evidence that the outcome might be reversed.
Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump by winning back a trio of battleground states: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and topped the 270 electoral vote threshold to clinch the presidency. Mr. Biden so far has 78.8 million votes, the most ever by a winning candidate, to Mr. Trump's 73.1 million, according to an Associated Press tally.
MORE:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-claims-he-won-election-twitter-flags-tweet/
ThanQ, Anon.
The thought first occurred to me almost 3 years ago yet I could not articulate it well at that time.
Back when many anons were still recoiling from the Knowledge that Alex Jones was not their Friend kek
The VATICAN CIA connection was well known outside of these halls yet that too was a tough sell here not long ago.
Many things have changed and the time seemed right for a second try.
Interesting observations.
Japan's foreign minister says Tokyo looks to deepen US ties
By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press
Nov. 16, 2020 Updated: Nov. 16, 2020 3:44 a.m.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Monday that Japan hopes to deepen its alliance with the United States under President-elect Joe Biden and do more to get its ally continuously committed to regional security and other key international issues.
Motegi, discussing Japanese diplomacy at the Japan National Press Club, said his country hopes to pursue cooperation with the Biden administration to achieve the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” or FOIP, vision of economic and security cooperation in the face of China's growing assertiveness.
With the U.S. increasingly focusing on how to rebuild its social divide and economy, Japan will have to take more of a share of the Japan-U.S. security alliance, Motegi said.
This would involve not just more spending for hosting the 50,000-plus American troops in Japan under the countries' bilateral pact, but would also mean an increase of Japan’s own military capability and spending, experts say.
At a time when the United States is largely focusing on internal politics, “How to secure the U.S. commitment to international security, climate change and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision is a major diplomatic challenge for Japan,” Motegi said.
Japan has been pursuing the FOIP with the U.S. and they have formed a four-way cooperation that also includes Australia and India. They are trying to bring in other countries in Southeast Asia and beyond that share concerns about China’s increasing assertiveness in the region.
Japan is opposed to any Chinese attempts to “unilaterally change the status quo” by force in the East and South China Seas and has promoted the FOIP concept with the United States to counter China's growing influence. Japan has its own territorial disputes with China over Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that Beijing also claims.
With the U.S.-China row expected to continue under the Biden administration, Japan, as a key economic partner and neighbor of China, also hopes to play a role in encouraging Beijing to play by international rules and act responsibly as a global giant, Motegi said.
Japan's new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, is carrying on the policy and is trying to get more countries to join.
Japan has also been setting up strategic defense partnerships with other Asia-Pacific nations such as Australia, as well as Europe.
Suga is to hold talks with visiting Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday to discuss stepping up bilateral defense cooperation and other regional issues at a time of the U.S. leadership transition.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Japan-s-foreign-minister-says-Tokyo-looks-to-15729877.php
Don't tease us like that, Anon! kek
Report: Belgian nursing homes failed patients amid pandemic
BY SAMUEL PETREQUIN ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOVEMBER 16, 2020 06:34 AM
Belgian authorities “abandoned” thousands of elderly people who died in nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic and did not seek hospital treatment for many who were infected, violating their human rights, Amnesty International said in an investigation published Monday.
One of the hardest-hit countries in Europe, Belgium has reported more than 531,000 confirmed virus cases and more than 14,400 deaths linked to the coronavirus. During the first wave of the pandemic last spring, the European nation of 11.5 million people recorded a majority of its COVID-19-related deaths in nursing homes.
Between March and October, Amnesty International said “a staggering" 61.3% of all COVID-19 deaths in Belgium took place in nursing homes. The group said authorities weren't quick enough in implementing measures to protect nursing home residents and staff during this period, failing to protect their human rights.
Amnesty International said one of the reasons so many people died in nursing homes is because infected residents weren't transferred to hospitals to receive treatment.
“The results of our investigation allow us to affirm that (care homes) and their residents were abandoned by our authorities until this tragedy was publicly denounced and the worst of the first phase of the pandemic was over,”
said Philippe Hensmans, the director of Amnesty International Belgium.
https://www.heraldsun.com/news/nation-world/world/article247211144.html
The Queen Mother of the West: an imperial Chinese conspiracy theory to rival QAnon
During an unstable period in the Western Han dynasty a bizarre mass movement emerged
Its scared and confused populace was comforted by an unlikely saviour. Sound familiar?
Wee Kek Koon
Published: 10:15am, 16 Nov, 2020
In the spring of 3BC, the once mighty Western Han dynasty was on the brink of collapse. The people, frightened by recent earthquakes and solar eclipses, faced imminent famine after a severe drought destroyed most of their crops. In the capital Changan, (present-day Xian), a succession of weak emperors and decades of brutal power contests between noble families was hastening the eventual demise of the Han imperial house, which would come 12 years later.
In the midst of this ominous uncertainty, a religious movement suddenly emerged in the east and, fuelled by word of mouth, gained thousands of followers within weeks. In the first three months of that year, people in the Guandong region (present-day Henan, Hebei, Shandong and parts of Inner Mongolia) abruptly left their homes and headed towards the capital on foot. In their hands they held sticks, which they passed to one another as they urgently trekked westwards.
Participants in this strange procession had been told they were carrying and passing on the sacred tokens of an ancient goddess, Queen Mother of the West, and by doing so they would become immortal. Like most rumours that result in mass hysteria, its provenance was untraceable, but its circulation by a nervous population, desperate to make sense of precarious times, gave the rumour a life of its own.
Thousands of people, with unkempt hair and unshod feet, made their way to Changan. Many travelled at night to avoid detection as they slipped through government gantry points and over city walls. By that summer, thousands of people had converged on the capital, where they organised street fairs and worshipped the Queen Mother of the West with song and dance. Some climbed onto rooftops at night with torches to pray to the goddess with drums and loud supplications. This went on until the autumn arrived and the movement ended as abruptly as it had begun.
Its sudden and unexplained genesis, subsequent spread and mass mobilisation, and its abrupt and unresolved conclusion shocked and confused the government and the rest of the country. In attempting to explain the incident, some blamed the homosexual relationship between the reigning Emperor Ai and his courtier Dong Xian for triggering the unrest. Others pointed to a mystic link between the Queen Mother of the West and the emperor’s grandmother, Grand Empress Dowager Fu, who was widely criticised for interfering in the affairs of state and promoting her male relations to positions of power.
These political explanations of what happened in those few months are spurious and not at all convincing. This social phenomenon could perhaps be better seen as a manifestation of human behaviour under duress. In times of chaos and anxiety, people seek explanations that make sense to them, however bizarre. The more they invest in these explanations, through unwavering belief and enthusiastic dissemination, the more control they feel they have over their circumstances.
Many people believed, 2,023 years ago, that a stick they carried and passed on to others in their westward journey guaranteed them immortality. Many more believe, in 2020, that a satanic cabal of paedophiles are secretly controlling the world, and their saviour is an obese, orange-coloured fool. Be it the Queen Mother of the West or QAnon, it is a crutch on which the scared and confused lean to reassure themselves and make the unstable and unpredictable world they live in seem less frightening.
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3109747/queen-mother-west-imperial-chinese-conspiracy
Well! Look who wants to play a game!
Wee Kek Koon - you cannot make this shit up, anons! kek!