France gets tough with UK, demands BoJo sign up to EU rules in return for Brexit trade deal

France has warned the UK that they must agree to “dynamic alignment” on EU rules if they want a favorable post-Brexit trade deal with the bloc, in a move that could trigger tensions between the two countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron has told the European Commission that British PM Boris Johnson needs to agree to abide by EU rules for tax, state aid, the environment and social standards, the Telegraph reports.

Agreeing to dynamic alignment means Britain would change its laws to mirror Brussels’ rules, accordingly, over time, but without a say at the table over the drafting of those standards.

France wants dynamic alignment across the board,” one EU diplomat said.

Brussels is worried that the UK will begin ripping up EU regulations instead of maintaining a “level playing field” – resulting in an unfair competitive advantage for Britain.

The seemingly hardline position adopted by Paris may raise a few eyebrows in London, but they aren’t the only ones who are reportedly unsatisfied with Johnson’s opening offer of a “Canada-style” agreement. It’s thought that around 16 to 17 other EU nations are unhappy with the UK’s current safeguards.

The EU’s 2009 agreement with Canada is called the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The deal gets rid of most taxes on imports but tariffs remain on poultry, meat, and eggs. On standards there is not dynamic alignment, only “cooperation” between the two countries.

https://www.rt.com/uk/480322-france-boris-eu-rules-brexit/

Key Witness Told Mueller Team That Russia Collusion Evidence Found In Ukraine Was Fabricated

One of Robert Mueller’s pivotal trial witnesses told the special prosecutor’s team in spring 2018 that a key piece of Russia collusion evidence found in Ukraine known as the “black ledger” was fabricated, according to interviews and testimony.

The ledger document, which suddenly appeared in Kiev during the 2016 U.S. election, showed alleged cash payments from Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine to ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

“The ledger was completely made up,” cooperating witness and Manafort business partner Rick Gates told prosecutors and FBI agents, according to a written summary of an April 2018 special counsel’s interview.

In a brief interview with Just the News, Gates confirmed the information in the summary.

“The black ledger was a fabrication,” Gates said.

“It was never real, and this fact has since been proven true.”

Gates’ account is backed by several Ukrainian officials who stated in interviews dating to 2018 that the ledger was of suspicious origins and could not be corroborated.

If true, Gates’ account means the two key pieces of documentary evidence used by the media and FBI to drive the now-debunked Russia collusion narrative — the Steele dossier and the black ledger — were at best uncorroborated and at worst disinformation. His account also raises the possibility that someone fabricated the document in Ukraine in an effort to restart investigative efforts on Manafort’s consulting work or to meddle in the U.S. presidential election.

Much mystery has surrounded the black ledger, which was publicized by the New York Times and other U.S. news outlets in the summer of 2016 and forced Manafort out as one of Trump’s top campaign officials.

After gaining wide attention as purported evidence of Russian ties to the Trump campaign, the ledger was never introduced as evidence at Manafort’s 2018 trial or significantly analyzed in Mueller’s final 2019 report, which concluded that Trump did not collude with Russia to influence the 2016 election. No FBI 302 interview reports have been released either showing what the FBI concluded about the ledger.

Gates’ interview with the Mueller team now provides a potential clue as to why.

By April 2018, Gates had reached a plea deal to testify against Manafort in a criminal case that ultimately resulted in Manafort’s conviction on tax and illegal lobbying charges. As the day-to-day manager of Manafort’s political consulting and lobbying efforts for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Gates handled Manafort’s operations and was deeply familiar with when and how payments were made and from whom.

During a debriefing with Mueller’s team on April 10, 2018, Gates was asked about the August 2016 New York Times article that first alerted the public to the existence of the black ledger and eventually led to Manafort’s downfall.

“The article was completely false,” Gates is quoted as telling Mueller’s team in a written summary of the interview created by some of the attendees.

“As you now know there were no cash payments. The payments were wired. The ledger was completely made up.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/key-witness-told-mueller-team-russia-collusion-evidence-found-ukraine-was-fabricated

Angry Chinese Ambassador Slams US Senator For "Absolutely Crazy" Theory Coronavirus Is Biological Weapon

Shortly after Zero Hedge asked in the last week of January if the nVoC-2019 Coronavirus pandemic was not, as some early reports claimed, the product of a Wuhan seafood market, where people were allegedly eating infected bats (which we now know never happened) but instead a Chinese biological weapon that had escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (and one lab in particular), which in turn led to an immediate and permanent suspension of our account by the publisher also known as Twitter (and which should thus be subject to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act), none other than Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton echoed our concerns, tweeting that "China claimed—for almost two months—that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan seafood market. That is not the case. @TheLancet published a study demonstrating that of the original 40 cases, 14 of them had no contact with the seafood market, including Patient Zero."

Senator Cotton followed up this tweet with another, in which he effectively suggested that the coronavirus had in fact escaped from China's only level four biohazard superlab (located conveniently in Wuhan), stating that "we still don’t know where coronavirus originated. Could have been a market, a farm, a food processing company. I would note that Wuhan has China’s only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus."

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/angry-chinese-ambassador-slams-us-senator-absolutely-crazy-theory-coronavirus-biological

Israel and Iran in Dead Heat Weapons Race

Israel is developing a laser weapons defense system that may end up neutralizing most of her airborne security threats.

The Iron Beam, which utilizes both ground based and air based platforms for a launch, was reported recently by the Israeli government to be in development and potentially ready to be tested later this year.

And it may be not a moment too soon.

After President Trump backed out of the Iran nuclear deal, which had been signed by his predecessor President Obama, he chose to use sanctions as a method to force Iran into compliance. Iran responded by announcing that it was ramping up its nuclear development program. It is generally thought that Iran should have a working nuclear weapons capability within a year.

Trump reportedly considered the Iran deal to be flawed and to facilitate Iran’s nuclear development, which ended up taking place any way.

The Iron Beam, also reported to be possibly ready within the same time frame, would address the nuclear weapons threat. Iran has repeatedly threatened Israel with annihilation and recent aggressions between the US and Iran had commentators worried that we were heading for a direct confrontation.

In fact, rather than making Israel more secure, the US’s repeated meddling in the region has resulted in far more vulnerability for the Jewish state.

Unlike President Obama, Trump has been touted as a friend to Israel. However, his acts of “friendship” have repeatedly resulted in more conflict between Israel and her neighbors. Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem resulted in border clashes that left dozens dead. In a rather amazing act of revisionism, Trump recently denied that this violence took place. And his “Deal of the Century” peace plan has been roundly rejected by the Palestinians, who subsequently cut off diplomatic ties with the US and with Israel.

While the major media has continued to front the story that the US is a friend to Israel, the bald reality may be quite a bit different. While the US gives Israel over $3 billion a year in foreign aid, earmarked for purchasing weapons from the US, scrutiny of the reliability of some of these defensive weapons has resulted in concerns that the US is selling lemons to Israel.

The much touted Iron Dome may not work. David’s Sling, also a defensive weapons system, has been reported as also problematic. The final tier of Israel’s defense system, the Patriot missile, is junk.

The US’s complicity in Israel’s growing endangerment is cautiously being discussed by a number of commentators.

It appears that within one year, Israel’s race to construct an adequate defense system will bear fruit, or not. It appears that within the same time frame, Iran may finally be in a position to fulfill her promise to wipe Israel off the map. Either way, the US has been a silent partner in this unfolding saga.

https://www.activistpost.com/2020/02/israel-and-iran-in-dead-heat-weapons-race.html

Funding Secured For 1,000 Miles Of Border Wall, White House Officials Say

The Trump administration is shifting its border wall focus from procuring resources to breaking ground on new construction after securing funds for 1,000 miles of new wall along the southern border, White House officials tell the Daily Caller.

The fiscal year 2021 budget requests fewer funds for border wall construction than in previous years, but a senior White House official explained how the administration has “now shifted from securing funds to being able to build more wall.”

Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said in January he expects to meet President Donald Trump’s goal of erecting 450 miles of new border wall construction by the end of 2020, and the White House maintained that optimism Sunday.

“On the border, there’s great news to report,” the official told the Caller. “The president has kept his promise to secure the border. With funding available, the administration will build up to approximately 1,000 miles of border wall along the southwest border.”

“The 2021 budget request, which has increases for infrastructure, technology, and law enforcement personnel, is what’s required to gain operational control of the border.”

According to White House officials familiar with the fiscal year 2021 proposal, the budget request for Customs and Border Patrol jumped to $15.6 billion, up roughly 7 percent from last year’s enacted total. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also saw a significant budget bump, with a funding request just shy of $10 billion.

CBP border enforcement actions dropped for seven consecutive months to end 2019, a decrease of more than 70 percent from May’s high point, which prompted Trump to declare a humanitarian crisis at the border.

Officials added that the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security will provide $8.4 billion to wall construction.

The White House is set to unveil its full 2021 proposal this week, and acting Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought will appear at a congressional hearing on the request this Wednesday.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/02/09/trump-white-house-secures-funds-thousand-miles-border-wall/

Inside The Vatican – Beyond The Forbidden Veil | Full Documentary

Farage: ‘Growing’ Concern in Washington About Boris’s Huawei Decision

Nigel Farage said there is “growing” concern in Washington over Boris Johnson’s decision to allow Chinese telecom giant Huawei the rights to work on Britain’s 5G infrastructure.

Following a meeting in the Oval Office, the leader of the Brexit Party said that many Republican senators and congressmen have “genuine” fears that allowing Huawei access to British 5G networks could jeopardize the security relationship between the two nations.

Mr Farage told The Telegraph that President Donald Trump’s official message is that “the UK must do what’s right for the UK” but he noted that the feeling in Washington is firmly against the move.

“I have picked up from speaking to some senators and congressmen this week a level of concern that does not appear to be going away. It is a genuine security concern,” Farage said.

“We believe in UK sovereignty. It is our choice to make. But it is, I have to say, one I’m very, very worried about, as I have been all the way through”, he added.

The British government has claimed it will constrain the role that Huawei plays in developing its 5G network, saying that the Chinese tech giant will be excluded from the “core” of the network and will only make up 35 per cent of the “periphery”.

The decision by Prime Minister Boris Johnson has not only sparked a backlash in Washington. A group of senior Conservative Party members have written a letter to Number 10 to “rule out” Huawei from its 5G plans.

The letter, which was signed by former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Owen Paterson, David Davis, Damian Green, Tobias Ellwood, and Bob Seely called on Mr Johnson to “find a better solution”.

“We are seeking to identify a means by which we ensure that only trusted vendors are allowed as primary contractors into our critical national infrastructure” the letter said, per the BBC.

“Trusted vendors would be companies from countries that have fair market competition, rule of law, respect human rights, data privacy and non-coercive government agencies”, it continued.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith warned against trusting a company with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party, saying that there should be “zero” involvement from Huawei and adding that the situation is “simply not manageable to have an organisation like that inside your important network”.

“You have an organisation from a country that is an aggressor in terms of cyber warfare and a company that is clearly totally and utterly in the hands of the Chinese government who demand absolute obedience on these matters”, Sir Ian warned.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/09/farage-growing-concern-in-washington-about-bojos-huawei-decision/

Mexican Cops Re-Arrest Cartel Lord Following Judge’s Release

A feared cartel lord in Mexico City came close to walking out of prison after a federal judge ordered his release. The judge ruled his recent drug trafficking arrest was illegal in nature. However, Mexico City Police officers were waiting for him outside to re-arrest him on kidnapping charges.

Mexico City Police officers and prosecutors set up an operation on Saturday afternoon outside the Altiplano Federal Prison. Police arrested Oscar Andres “El Lunares” Flores, on a kidnapping charge as he walked out of the detention center. Flores is the current leader of the Union de Tepito, a drug cartel that controls all of the criminal activity in most parts of Mexico City.

A video shared by citizen journalists on social media captured the moment when a female officer reads the new charge against Flores and takes him into custody.

The new arrest came just hours after Mexican federal judge Beatriz Moguel ordered his release. The judge also order the release of two of his henchmen claiming that their arrest was illegal in nature.

The federal judge claimed there were numerous inconsistencies with the arrest reports filed by Mexican authorities and dismissed the case, Mexico’s La Silla Rota reported. Mexican authorities initially arrested Flores on January 31 during a law enforcement operation. Police transported him to Altiplano in connection with various ongoing investigations.

In October, Mexican authorities carried out a series of raids in the suburb of Tepito where they discovered various narco-tunnels, a witchcraft altar, a drug production kitchen, and multiple weapons — including a rocket launcher, Breitbart Texas reported. Flores was the main target behind those raids, however, he managed to escape before authorities arrived. At the time police officers arrested 31 individuals, however days later another judge in Mexico ordered the release of 27 of those and eventually, all the suspects walked out of prison. The arguments by Judge Felipe de Jesus Delgadillo Padierna were that authorities had fabricated the evidence against the various members of the Union de Tepito Cartel, Breitbart Texas reported at the time.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/02/09/watch-cops-in-mexico-re-arrest-cartel-lord-after-judge-releases-him/

The Rape of two Coreys: It looks Like Corey Feldmans’s 2 Coreys movie is finally going to be Released

https://governmentslaves.news/2020/02/09/the-rape-of-two-coreys-it-looks-like-corey-feldmanss-2-coreys-movie-is-finally-going-to-be-released/