Mike Pompeo merges Jerusalem embassy with outpost to Palestinians

President Trump’s administration is merging the two major diplomatic facilities in Jerusalem under the auspices of the newly relocated U.S. embassy, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday. “This decision is driven by our global efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our operations,” Pompeo said. “It does not signal a change of U.S. policy on Jerusalem, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip.” He stressed that point to counter the apparent symbolism of the merger, which combines the embassy and the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem. Through the decades in which the United States did not maintain an embassy in Jerusalem, in deference to the stalemated Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the consulate served as the point of contact between the U.S. government and Palestinian officials.

"They don't want to deal with the U.S. embassy to Israel as their channel,” Daniel Shapiro, who served as ambassador to Israel under former President Barack Obama, told CBS in June. "They want their voice to be heard directly in Washington.” Pompeo, perhaps seeking to maintain continuity through the change, will have the facility that currently functions as a consulate to continue to house the main U.S.-Palestinian diplomatic team in Jerusalem.

“We will continue to conduct a full range of reporting, outreach, and programming in the West Bank and Gaza as well as with Palestinians in Jerusalem through a new Palestinian Affairs Unit inside U.S. Embassy Jerusalem,” he said. “The administration is strongly committed to achieving a lasting and comprehensive peace that offers a brighter future to Israel and the Palestinians. We look forward to continued partnership and dialogue with the Palestinian people and, we hope in the future, with the Palestinian leadership.”

That announcement comes as Australian officials debate a proposal to follow Trump’s lead in moving their embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “We’re committed to a two-state solution, but frankly it hasn’t been going that well, not a lot of progress has been made, and you don’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Tuesday, according to the Times of Israel. But Pompeo stressed that the merger doesn’t preclude any negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians over their respective borders in a future two-state solution. “As the president proclaimed in December of last year, the United States continues to take no position on final status issues, including boundaries or borders,” he said. “The specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/mike-pompeo-merges-jerusalem-embassy-with-outpost-to-palestinians

Larry Kudlow: Trump will meet with Xi, but China doesn’t want a deal

Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Wednesday evening that President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet next month to discuss trade, but also downplayed the prospects for the talks on the grounds that China’s trade practices make them an unreliable negotiating partner. “You can’t operate in good faith knowing that you have to protect your own country with a country that steals your intellectual property rights – you can’t do that,” Kudlow said.

Kudlow, a longtime proponent of free trade, said that he believes that Xi doesn’t want a deal, and suggested that further escalation in the trade war was a likely outcome. “If they’re not going to move, we will take additional actions as the president has said,” the National Economic Council director said at a dinner hosted by the conservative American Spectator magazine on Capitol Hill.

The Trump-Xi meeting would take place at the Group of 20 meetings next month in Argentina. So far, officials from the two countries have spoken only sporadically as the two sides have ramped up retaliatory tariffs against each other. To day, the Trump administration has imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, with another $267 billion threatened, and set levies on metals from around the world intended to punish China. Although Kudlow long opposed tariffs in his roles as a commentator and business economist, he said that he fully agreed with the analysis that a confrontational approach to China is necessary, citing China’s persistent theft of U.S. businesses’ technology in particular. One attendee challenged Kudlow to correct Trump's apparent belief that trade deficits are inherently harmful, noting that a trade deficit always implies a corresponding capital account surplus, meaning money flowing into the U.S. Kudlow responded that the dispute with China is based on more than just trade balances, but also acknowledged the point. “Regarding the trade balances, and deficits on one side and capital on the other side, I can only say: One has tried…and I can also say to you I’m not the only one,” Kudlow said.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/larry-kudlow-trump-will-meet-with-xi-but-china-doesnt-want-a-deal

>>3520526

My believe is that they have much more to lose than the US does. Without the US, they have virtually nothing left, so they will kick and scream until they have closed every door once opened to them. At that point they will have to make a deal to survive. Would you like to play a game kek!

>>3520586 @ >>3520537

Sorry misfire!

>>3520596

BIS….did a dig on it last week..this is the secret Fed Reserve.

>>3520619

That is it.. Take a look at the players here.

>>3520647

Keep looking there are some old money changers here from our gov't and others.

Khashoggi Murder Suspect Dies In "Suspicious Car Accident"

A 31-year-old lieutenant in the Saudi Royal Air Force said to have participated in the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi died in a "suspicious car accident" in Riyadh, according to Turkish media. Mashal Saad al-Bostani was reportedly on a 15-man hit squad dispatched to Saudi Arabia's Istanbul Consulate in Turkey on October 2 during Khashoggi's visit, before the team quickly left the country, according to daily Yeni Şafak. Bostani's alleged role in the murder of the Saudi journalist are unclear, as are details of the traffic accident in Riyadh - prompting accusations of a cover up by those who orchestrated the Khashoggi hit. Meanwhile, a columnist for Turkey's Daily Hürriyet wrote on Thursday that Mohammad al Otaibi, Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consul-general, would be "the next execution."

Another suspect's photograph was released from security footage on October 18 by the newspaper Sabah, which reports that 47-year-old intelligence officer Maher Abdulaziz M. Mutreb, who previously served at Saudi Arabia's London embassy, "landed in Istanbul at 3:38 a.m. on Oct. 2 and went to his country’s Istanbul consulate at 9:55 a.m.," according to Hürriyet. Mutreb had travelled extensively with the crown prince, perhaps as a bodyguard according to an October 16 report in the New York Times.

Khashoggi, a US resident and Washington Post columnist who was critical of the Saudi government, reportedly took seven minutes to die adccording to the Middle East Eye and the Wall Street Journal. In perhaps the most gruesome details from the report, MEM reported that Dr. Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy, who was identified by the Times and other media outlets as an "autopsy expert" whose presence cuts against Saudis' suggestions that the killing wasn't premeditated, started cutting Khashoggi's body into pieces while the journalist was unconscious, but still breathing. Previously, Khashoggi had been knocked unconscious after being injected with a mysterious substance. Later, the NYT reported that the hit squad cut off Khashoggi's fingers while he was still conscious during an interrogation where he was also beaten and tortured before being dragged into another room where they finished butchering him. According to WSJ, voices on the tapes can be heard asking the Saudi consul to leave his office before the hit squad murdered Khashoggi. The consul, al-Otaibi, departed Turkey for Riyadh Tuesday afternoon after the Saudis, in a sudden reversal, denied Turkey's requests to search Otaibi's residence, saying his home was off limits to investigators.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-18/khashoggi-murder-suspect-dies-suspicious-car-accident

US Treasury Sec Steve Mnuchin Pulls Out Of Saudi Investment Summit

In a succinct tweet, just minutes after SecState Pompeo suggested President Trump give the Saudis more time to come up with an excuse for killing WaPo journalist Khashoggi, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has announced that he will pull out of the Saudi investment conference.. “Just met with @realDonaldTrump and @SecPompeo and we have decided, I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia,” A very sparse statement, with no indication of "why"…so much for President Trump's "innocent til proven guilty" comments…

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-18/steve-mnuchin-pulls-out-saudi-conference

>>3520832

Agreed Sadly!

Saudis Transfer $100 Million To US State Department As Khashoggi Crisis Deepens

Washington says funds for US efforts against Islamic State group were approved months ago but critics claim transfer's timing suspicious. When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew into Riyadh to discuss the disappearance and likely death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia transferred $100m to the State Department for US efforts against the Islamic State (IS) group, the New York Times reported late Tuesday.

While the funding was approved earlier in the summer, critics have viewed the timing of the transfer payment with suspicion. The US State Department envoy for the anti-IS coalition said in a statement on Wednesday that they “expected the contribution to be finalized in the fall time frame”. “The specific transfer of funds has been long in process and has nothing to do with other events or the secretary’s visit,” envoy Brett McGurk said.

The White House has not seemed alarmed amid a barrage of questions about Khashoggi's disappearance, what Saudi officials know about it and its close ties to Saudi rulers and the country's powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in particular. US President Donald Trump has called for people to give the Saudis the benefit of the doubt, stressing Washington's business and geopolitical interests in staying close to Riyadh. Trump tweeted that he spoke to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who "totally denied any knowledge of what took place" in Istanbul. Trump said MBS told him "that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter".

After Pompeo's meetings with the king and crown prince on Tuesday, Pompeo said Saudi Arabia has committed to conducting a full investigation. Asked whether they said Khashoggi was alive or dead, Pompeo said: "They didn't talk about any of the facts."

However, various members of the US Congress have been among those expressing outrage over what may have happened to the Washington Post columnist. "We need answers; we're not getting them," Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell told Middle East Eye on Wednesday. Leading members on the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee have also triggered the Magnitsky Act, a US human rights law that compels the president to order an investigation into possible abuses. The law gives Trump 120 days to issue a report on the findings and impose appropriate measures. Saudi officials have strongly denied any involvement in Khashoggi's disappearance and say that he left the consulate soon after arriving. However, they have not presented any evidence to corroborate their claim and say that video cameras at the consulate were not recording at the time.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-18/saudis-transfer-100-million-us-state-department-khashoggi-crisis-deepens

>>3521110

I agree