https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1205250683731152901
Australia to Spend $715 Million Upgrading Port to Accommodate More US Navy Ships
Canberra is preparing to shell out $715 million to upgrade naval facilities in Australia’s Northern Territory to accommodate more US warships, according to a report by the US military-linked publication Stars and Stripes.
Stars and Stripes reported Thursday, citing comments made to them by Australian defense officials, that the Australian Department of Defense intended to spend $715 million to upgrade the naval base HMAS Coonawarra and the surrounding Larrakeyah Defense Precinct in the northwestern city of Darwin.
Then-Australian Minister for Defense Senator Marise Payne announced part of the deal last year: a $495 million plan to upgrade Larrakeyah’s infrastructure and add a second 250-meter-long wharf better able to accomodate landing helicopter docks (LHDs), a type of helicopter carrier that can also dispatch amphibious assault vehicles, Australian Defense Magazine reported.
Also included in the bill are associated refueling and other facilities as well as base infrastructure expansion. All the upgrades are expected to be complete by 2023, according to the Australian Department of Defense web page on the project.
Another $223 million is also set aside for maintenance and to support further growth over the next 25 years, according to the DoD. Stars and Stripes also noted that $88.65 million will go toward upgrading maintenance facilities at Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin.
However, the upgraded ports will benefit Australia’s naval forces, too, with Coonawarra able to berth six of the country’s 12 new Arafura-class patrol boats.
Sputnik reported earlier on the Pentagon’s plans to spend $8 billion over the next decade upgrading its own facilities in Northern Territory, which is the closest part of Australia to China, the South China Sea and the vulnerable sea lanes connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The US Marine Corps presence in the Northern Territory has steadily increased in recent years, reaching its peak planned strength of 2,500 this past summer. US troops use the dry and sparsely populated territory to test out maneuvers, including live firing of weaponry like HIMARS rockets.
Several US warships have called to port in the northern city in the last year, according to Stars and Stripes, including the guided-missile destroyer USS Stockdale, the anti-mine ship USS Patriot and submarine tender USS Emory S. Land.
Between the perceived unreliability of the US and the continuing rise of China, Australia has in recent years embarked on an ambitious military buildup that has included not only purchasing long-range spy drones from Washington, but also an unprecedented naval expansion and even weighing the question of acquiring nuclear weapons.
According to a 2017 plan laid out by the Department of Defense, Canberra has set aside $65.3 billion for warship construction and another $1 billion for shipyard upgrades; the plans include two LHDs, 12 new submarines and nine new frigates.
Binoy Kampmark, senior lecturer at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, told Sputnik that “Australia is being asked to perform a deputy policing role in the Asia-Pacific region, one it has traditionally performed for its US allies.”
https://sputniknews.com/asia/201912121077557845-australia-to-spend-715-million-upgrading-port-to-accommodate-more-us-navy-ships—report/
To Calm Markets, NY Fed Announces New Heads Of The Plunge Protection Team
Zoltan Pozsar "doomsday" report predicting that the Fed is about to lose control over short-term interest rates due to a reserve shortage, resulting in a repo market crisis, surging bond yields and a stock market crash, managed to do something few others have achieved: it caused a full-blown Fed panic.
The result was not only the earlier announcement that the NY Fed would inject over $500 billion in liquidity over the next month to avoid said repo crisis, which as we calculated would blow out the Fed's above $4.5 trillion to a new all time high…
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/calm-markets-ny-fed-announces-new-heads-plunge-protection-team
Shutdown Averted? Republicans And Democrats Reach $1.37 Trillion Deal "In Principle"
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/shutdown-averted-republicans-and-democrats-reach-137-trillion-deal-principle
Massive Leak of Data Reveals Money-Hiding Secrets of Superrich—and This Is 'Only the Beginning'
"It's hard to overstate how notorious and suspicious the firm is."
A massive trove of documents, data, and recorded phone calls showing how British company Formations House works to hide money for the superrich is being reported on by journalists all over the world, with the first stories dropping at midnight on Wednesday.
The reporting is being done under the name "29 Leaks," a reference to Formations House's original address at 29 Harley Street in London. The data was leaked to the group Distributed Denial of Secrets over the summer.
"It takes a concerted effort from a large number of people to make substantive headway on an investigation like this, in which a large amount of data needs to be quickly processed and examined," Claire Peters, executive director of the Pursuance Project, told Unicorn Riot on Tuesday.
Peters and Pursuance Project outreach director Annalise Burkhart led a team of reporters from around the world uncovering and detailing the information stored in the huge, roughly 100 GB-sized trove of data.
"Formations House was the perfect example of a 'one-stop shop' for creating legal entities that serve as fronts for fraudulent operations and money laundering," said Burkhart. "In only a matter of days, a client could purchase offshore companies bundled into packages touting minimal compliance requirements, tax-free operations, and anonymity for directors and shareholders."
"It's hard to overstate how notorious and suspicious the firm is," Boing Boing wrote of Formations House when the leak's existence became public in July.
According to Unicorn Riot, reporting from the data will have an international scope:
Formations House has been the subject of international scrutiny for years, and the #29Leaks documents have been under investigation for some time. It is expected that news stories in Central America, Africa and Europe will examine information drawn from this set of leaks. The use of Formations House-managed companies to move money around between offshore and private banking centers like Luxembourg and other parts of the world is among the main themes of this dataset. Other documents expected to be covered in detail show how the African nation of The Gambia is commonly used to create banks and insurance companies on paper for wealthy people in other continents, which Formations House and related parties package and facilitate.
On Tuesday The Times of London showed, via undercover reporting, how Formations House sets up shell companies for its clients.
https://data.ddosecrets.com/file/29Leaks/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/04/massive-leak-data-reveals-money-hiding-secrets-superrich-and-only-beginning?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=twitter
From "Locked & Loaded" To UN 'Unable' To Link Aramco Attacks To Iran: More War Lies Debunked
Based on the usual jingoistic rhetoric and threats out of Washington at the time of the Sept. 14 drone and missile strikes on Saudi Aramco facilities, it's clear the major incident which temporarily knocked out Saudi Arabia's ability to process oil brought the US and Iran to the brink of war.
It must be recalled that US administration officials had without a shred of evidence (in those early hours after the attack) dismissed the almost immediate Yemeni Houthi official military statements proudly owning up to the attack, instead, blaming Iran directly. It's possible that this event and others blamed on Tehran could still lead to a US and allied war on Iran. US and Saudi officials had subsequently claimed "confirmation" based on rocket debris that the Islamic Republic was indeed behind it. Remember too that Trump had stated days after that the US military was "locked and loaded".
But after an independent United Nations examination of weapons debris from the attack sites at facilities in Khurais and Abqaiq has failed to link the incident to Iran, this appears yet another case of US 'rush to war' lies debunked.
As US-funded official media wing RFERL has been forced to admit, there's no evidence the weapons were "of Iranian origin" and UN investigators remain unable to link the attacks to Iran:
The United Nations has so far been unable to confirm Iran’s involvement in drone and cruise missile attacks on two Saudi oil facilities in September, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.
In a report presented to the Security Council on December 10, Guterres wrote that UN investigators examined debris of weapons used in the attacks on the Saudi Aramco oil facilities.
The report summarizing the experts' initial findings said they were not able to "independently corroborate" that those weapons were "of Iranian origin."
US war drums had been beating steadily in the days following the attack, and the president had reportedly ordered 'war plans' to be drawn up by the Pentagon.
Trump had also tweeted that the US was "locked and loaded" but would await a response on the desired path forward from Saudi leadership.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/locked-loaded-un-unable-trace-aramco-attacks-iran
C_A/MOS asset Haftar
LNA’s Commander-in-Chief Announces “Decisive Battle” To Capture Libya’s Tripoli
The Libyan National Army (LNA) has launched a “decisive battle” to capture the country’s capital, Tripoli, Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Khalifa Hafta announced late on December 12.
“Thanks to our national army, we are recovering Libya from the clutches of terrorism and traitors … Today we announce a decisive battle and advance towards the heart of the capital, to break its chains and free its prisoners,” Haftar said in a televised speech to the Libyan people.
Tripoli’s city center and its outskirt is still under the control of the Government of National Accord (GNA) and its forces, which are being backed by Turkey and Qatar.
Last April, the LNA launched a large-scale military operation to reach the capital with support from the UAE and Egypt. Now, army troops are stationed only 5 km away from Tripoli’s southern districts.
No major clashes or airstrikes were reported near Tripoli following Haftar’s announcement. However, a ground assault on the city is expected to begin at any given moment.
The timing of Haftar’s decisive decision suggest that it could be related to the recent growth of tensions in the eastern Mediterranean.
The internationally-recognized GNA signed an agreement with Turkey earlier this month. This agreement allows Turkey to continue its expansion in the region and its controversial drilling activities. This resulted in a negative response from Egypt and Greece.
https://southfront.org/lnas-commander-in-chief-announces-decisive-battle-to-capture-libyas-tripoli/
Mossad Replaces CIA as Handler of Libyan Strongman Khalifa Haftar
Aug 12, 2017
https://galacticconnection.com/mossad-replaces-cia-as-handler-of-libyan-strongman-khalifa-haftar/
Mossad replaces CIA as Haftar's handler in Libya
https://www.sott.net/article/358876-Sibel-Edmonds-Mossad-replaces-CIA-as-Haftars-handler-in-Libya
Joe Biden Pledges to Obstruct U.S. Senate
Democrats are about to impeach President Trump for something Joe Biden is bragging about doing — obstructing congress.
One of the two articles of impeachment the U.S. House intends to pass is based on the invented crime of “Obstruction of Congress.”
This particular impeachment article reads in part:
In response, without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President Trump thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the “sole Power of Impeachment” vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.
This entire impeachment article is predicated on Trump defying congressional subpoenas, either for testimony or documents.
And of course it’s a ridiculous, made-up charge. The legislative branch does not hold subpoena power over the executive branch, and any disputes over subpoenas are supposed to be, and normally are, adjudicated by the judicial branch.
In other words, if Trump were to ignore a Supreme Court order to honor a subpoena, only then would he be in any legal jeopardy.
And so, as law professor Jonathan Turley pointed out during his own impeachment testimony, what this means is that impeaching a president for wanting to go to the courts to settle a subpoena issue is an abuse of power on the part of congress, not Trump.
Regardless, Democrats and the corporate media are both barreling ahead with this nonsense as though it’s legitimate and are prepared to turn a refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena into a crime worthy of impeachment, and yet…
The media and Democrats all cheer when Joe Biden says he will do the exact same thing Trump’s doing — defying a congressional subpoena — and not just any subpoena, a subpoena relating to impeachment.
When asked if he will comply with a congressional subpoena from the U.S. Senate to testify at Trump’s impeachment trial, Burisma Biden said, “No, I will not yield to what everybody is looking for here,” the former vice president said. “And that is to take the eye off the ball.”
Breitbart News has already explained the importance of Biden’s testimony:
The refusal comes as Senate Republicans have signaled it would be inappropriate for the impeachment proceedings, let alone a trial, to progress without the former vice president or his youngest son, Hunter, providing testimony. At the forefront of this push have been Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Ron Johnson (R-WI), who have opened investigations into Hunter Biden’s work overseas and if he benefited from connections to the Obama-era White House.
Graham and others are looking, in particular, into the younger Biden’s ties to Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company at the center of the impeachment inquiry.
“I believe that Hunter Biden’s association on [Burisma’s] board doesn’t pass the smell test,” Graham said last month when arguing the Bidens should testify. “If a Republican was in the same boat they would be eaten alive by the media.”
Biden is not only running for president, he is the current Democrat frontrunner. What’s more, Biden supports impeaching Trump — and yet here he is, stridently, arrogantly, and openly doing the exact same thing Trump is being impeached for — “obstructing congress.”
So… according to Democrats and the fake news media…
Donald Trump refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena is a constitutional crisis worthy of impeachment.
Slow Joe Biden refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena proves how feisty, youthful, and prepared to be president he is.
How do you like living in a system where Trump and his supporters are second class citizens?
Joe and Hunter Biden loot Ukraine — no problem!
Joe Biden threatens to withhold U.S. aid from Ukraine unless the country agrees to fire the prosecutor investigating Hunter’s shady company — no problem!
Trump asks Ukraine to look into all of this shady behavior — impeach!
Biden defies a congressional subpoena — no problem!
And so on…
Democrats sure got it good.
https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2019/12/12/nolte-joe-biden-pledges-to-obstruct-u-s-senate/