Macron offers tax cuts to yellow vests

Emmanuel Macron has pledged tax cuts but says the French would also have to work more as he outlined his response to months of anti-government protests.

Macron is under pressure to quell nearly six months of "yellow vest" demonstrations that have brought weekly havoc to cities nationwide.

A first salvo of measures offered last December and worth 10 billion euros ($A16 billion) failed to calm anger among low-income workers.

Macron, who has struggled to shake off the moniker "president of the rich" over his past as an investment banker, said he wanted a "significant" cut in income tax, which would be financed by closing loopholes some companies benefit from.

He said government spending would also be squeezed and the French would have to work longer hours.

SOURCE

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/macron-offers-tax-cuts-to-yellow-vests/news-story/f7e0d8e2646ffb4c42522279c781518d

Call me a pessimist but I don't think this is going to work. Macron may need to consider a new line of work. Politics isn't working out so good.

Trump approved payment of $2 million North Korea bill for care of Warmbier: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump approved payment of a $2 million bill presented by North Korea to cover its care of comatose American Otto Warmbier, a college student who died shortly after being returned home from 17 months in a North Korean prison, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The Post said an invoice was handed to State Department envoy Joseph Yun hours before Warmbier, 22, was flown out of Pyongyang in a coma on June 13, 2017. Warmbier died six days later.

The U.S. envoy, who was sent to retrieve Warmbier, signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions passed down from Trump, the Post reported, citing two unidentified people familiar with the situation.

“We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told Reuters.

Yun also told Reuters he could not comment on diplomatic exchanges. But in an interview with CNN on Thursday, he said he was given broad orders to secure Warmbier’s release and he understood the instructions came directly from Trump.

“Yes, my orders were completely: do whatever you can to get Otto back,” he told CNN. Yun said he understood that money had been exchanged in previous releases of U.S. prisoners and was justified as “hospital costs,” but he gave no further details.

Representatives for the State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

SOURCE

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northkorea-warmbier/trump-approved-payment-of-2-million-north-korea-bill-for-care-of-warmbier-report-idUSKCN1S124E?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

ANONS Thoughts?

ONE OF THE AREAS THAT DS/DIMS WILL TRY TO ATTACK POTUS 2020.

Long Articles but a good source of situational awareness for ANONS. You can see how the media is probing for all potential areas of perceived weakness.

Heroin production up, Orange man Bad.

How the US military's opium war in Afghanistan was lost

"The US has spent $1.5m (£1.15m) a day since 2001 fighting the opium war in Afghanistan. So why is business still booming?"

….The video of this attack, in which eight Afghan civilians were killed, was one of a series published online by the American military - vivid evidence of the progress of a year-long bombing campaign code-named "Iron Tempest".

The objective was to take out the heroin laboratories at the heart of the Taliban's $200m-a-year opium trade, and it was to involve some 200 similar strikes.

But, according to new research from the London School of Economics, Operation Iron Tempest was not what it seemed.

The study found that, despite excellent intelligence, the multi-million-dollar campaign was having a negligible effect on either the Taliban or the drug trafficking networks in Afghanistan.

FULL SOURCE WITH VIDEO IMBED

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47861444

The U.S. Sent Its Most Advanced Fighter Jets to Blow Up Cheap Opium Labs. Now It's Canceling the Program

After hundreds of airstrikes failed to curtail the Taliban’s $200 million-a-year opium trade, the U.S. military quietly ended a yearlong campaign that targeted drug labs and networks laced around the Afghan countryside.

The end of the operation, code-named Iron Tempest, comes as Trump Administration officials engage in direct peace talks with Taliban leaders that could end the 17-year-old war.

The U.S. military first began targeting Taliban narcotics facilities with airstrikes and Special Operations raids in November 2017 when opium production jumped to record highs in Afghanistan. At the time, U.S. commanders estimated the Taliban operated up to 500 drug labs, which helped fuel their nearly two-decade long insurgency.

Since then, U.S. and Afghan warplanes have launched more than 200 strikes aimed at disabling Taliban narcotics production, processing, trading and transportation networks. Yet the drug trade thrived. So, over time, the U.S. halted the number of air raids. Only two strikes took place over the last three months of 2018, which marked the end of the campaign, according to the latest Defense Department Inspector General’s report.

SOURCE

http://time.com/5534783/iron-tempest-afghanistan-opium/

>>6313584

https://youtu.be/nDoTPTP5pnA