Turkish-Russian Negotiations On Idlib Finish With No Breakthrough. Airstrikes Pound Turkish Friends From Al-Qaeda In Idlib

The second round of the Russian-Turkish taks on the situation in the Syrian province of Idlib ended in Moscow on February 18. The Turkish delegation left Russia. The sides released no official statement on the talks’ outcome hinting that no breakthrough was achieved.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported the following on the agenda of the talks:

According to diplomatic sources, the Turkish delegation stressed the need to rapidly reduce the fighting and prevent further worsening of the humanitarian situation in the region.

Another point on the agenda include measures that could be taken in Idlib to ensure full implementation of the agreements reached under the Sochi memorandum.

A spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling party claimed that Ankara had officially informed Moscow about its policy in northwestern Syria and once again threatened Syria with a military agression. Turkey seeks to rescue its little al-Qaeda friends in Greater Idlib from the Syrian Army advance in order to attempt to limit the ability of the Syrian government to restore control of the country devastated by the years of war.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Forces conducted a new round of airstrikes on positions of al-Qaeda-linked groups across Idlib. It seems Turkish threats work not very well.

https://southfront.org/turkish-russian-negotiations-on-idlib-finish-with-no-breakthrough-airstrikes-pound-turkish-friends-from-al-qaeda-in-idlib/

Trump Administration Designates Five Chinese Media Companies as ‘Official Government Entities’

The Trump administration designated five Chinese media companies “official government entities” on Tuesday.

This means that the company and their employees must register U.S. with the State Department under the Foreign Missions Act.

“Entities designated as foreign missions must adhere to certain administrative requirements that also apply to foreign embassies and consulates in the United States,” according to State Department documents obtained by Fox News. “At this time, they must inform the State Department of their personnel rosters as well as their real estate holdings.”

The Hill reports that “the media outlets designated by the U.S. as “foreign missions” include Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily Distribution Corporation and Hai Tian Development USA. All are considered controlled by or mouthpieces for the government.”

On Saturday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper referred to China as a growing threat at an international security.

“The Chinese Communist Party is heading even faster and further in the wrong direction – more internal repression, more predatory economic practices, more heavy-handedness, and most concerning for me, a more aggressive military posture,” Esper said.

“While we often doubt the transparency and forthrightness of Beijing, when it comes to their security aims, we should take the Chinese government at its word. They have said that by 2035, the PRC intends to complete its military modernization, and, by 2049, it seeks to dominate Asia as the preeminent global military power,” he added.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/trump-administration-designates-five-chinese-media-companies-as-official-government-entities/

Tom Cotton on Coronavirus: Establishment Media ‘Spouting’ Chinese ‘Communist Party Line’

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) ripped establishment U.S. media outlets who have mischaracterized his comments on the origins of the coronavirus outbreak plaguing China and the world during an exclusive interview with Breitbart News this week.

Cotton, who this past weekend during an appearance on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox News Channel program Sunday Morning Futures laid out how Communist China has not been honest about the origins of the coronavirus, has been the subject of vicious attacks from establishment media in the U.S. as a result.

In particular, during the Bartiromo interview, Cotton specifically said there is not evidence to suggest that the coronavirus originated in a high-security biochemical lab the Chinese Communist Party government operates in Wuhan. But since the government’s original official story about the virus’s origin is collapsing under scrutiny, the senator argued that the question needs to be asked—and that that theory, along with several other more plausible virus origin theories than the Communists’ original and likely false claim that the virus originated in a food market, need to be pursued. Cotton argued that the Communists must allow internationally renowned independent western experts into China to investigate the matter.

“We don’t have evidence that this disease originated there but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving evidence on that question at all,” Cotton said in the Bartiromo interview.

Cotton has been aggressive in his criticism of Communist China on coronavirus, as he was in the Fox News interview and in this exclusive interview with Breitbart News. He was also the first U.S. senator to call for President Donald Trump’s administration to extend a temporary travel ban to China in order to protect Americans from the disease—which he did in another Breitbart News exclusive a few weeks ago.

In his interview with Breitbart News on Monday, Cotton—who is also launching a new effort to back conservative Republican veterans for Congress—called on China to allow western experts into Wuhan province in China to investigate coronavirus and its origins.

“Of course the Chinese Communist Party needs to be open and transparent, and they have not been from the beginning as they still refuse to be,” Cotton said. “Just in the past couple days, they released a so-called secret speech from Chairman Xi that he supposedly gave in early January to demonstrate how on top of matters he was blaming the local officials—an endemic problem to communist government. It was like a parody of historical revisionism, like old-school Marxist Leninists. What the Chinese Communist Party needs to do is open up to internationally recognized experts—not Iranian experts or even Russian ones, but European and American and Canadian and Japanese—where there’s no question of their credentials or their integrity and allow them into Wuhan, allow them into the food market, and allow them into the super laboratory in Wuhan so they can figure out exactly where this virus came from and we can glean lessons from that to develop effective diagnostic testing and vaccines.”

But perhaps more importantly than that, Cotton laid out how the establishment media—much of which has accused him of spreading conspiracy theories about the coronavirus—is “spouting” Chinese Communist Party propaganda.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/18/exclusive-tom-cotton-on-coronavirus-establishment-media-spouting-chinese-communist-party-line/

The UK’s National Health Service Can Refuse To Treat Homophobic Or Sexist Patients Under New Rules

The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) will refuse to treat patients who display discriminatory behavior such as sexism, homophobia, or racism toward staff beginning in April.

Amid warnings that an increased number of health service staff are facing abuse, the NHS will begin enforcing rules that allow hospitals to refuse service to patients seeking non-emergency care if they inflict discriminatory or harassing behaviors, the Telegraph reports.

Previously, patients could only be refused medical help if they were verbally aggressive or physically violent. Health Secretary Matt Hancock wrote to all NHS staff on Tuesday to announce the stronger measure. He also outlined a new joint agreement with police and the Crown Prosecution Service, the public agency responsible for conducting criminal prosecutions, that gives police more powers to investigate and prosecute cases where NHS staff are the targets of discriminatory behavior, Sky News reports.

“All assault and hate crimes against NHS staff must be investigated with care, compassion, diligence and commitment,” he said.

The new rules come shortly after a survey in 2019 that showed more than a quarter of NHS workers were bullied, harassed, or abused in one year. Of those who were discriminated against, half said it was linked to their ethnic background, and more than one in five faced discrimination based on their gender.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/02/18/nhs-refuse-service-homophobic-sexist-patients/

France Sees Average of 120 Knife Attacks Per Day

As violent crime continues to surge across France, it is estimated that as many as 120 knife attacks occur on average per day across the country.

The figures, which come from the National Observatory of Delinquency and Criminal Responses (ONDRP), claim that between 2015 and 2017 there were around 44,000 victims of knife crime each year, or an average of 120 per day.

On average, 118,000 people in France say they were victims of some sort of violent crime involving an attacker who they were not living with such as assaults in public areas, schools, nightclubs, and other venues, Le Figaro reports.

Knives are the most common weapons reported in violent crime cases, followed by 34 per cent who say they were attacked with a blunt object or rock, and around nine per cent who were attacked with a firearm.

In cases of fatal violence, the trend remains largely the same, with edged weapons seen in 34 per cent of cases, followed by firearms at 28 per cent.

Murders and attempted murders have seen a staggering increase in France in the last decade with 3,168 cases in 2018, compared to 1,767 in 2009.

“Violence is [spreading]. Law enforcement is no longer scary. Today, for nothing, for a look, it turns to fists. Pulling out a gun has become commonplace,” Frédéric Lagache of the police union Alliance Police Nationale said in September.

According to a senior Paris police official, stabbings were a common occurrence at makeshift migrant camps in the north of the city.

“There were many fights in the migrant camps, between Afghans, Eritreans and Somalis in particular, which ended with stabbings, in the north of Paris. The dismantling of these fixing points has been beneficial,” the official said.

The makeshift migrant camps had become so dangerous in recent years that the aid group Solidarité Migrants Wilson shut down their operations due to the threat posed to their workers in 2018.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/18/france-sees-average-120-knife-attacks-per-day/

Former Alstom Executives and Marubeni Executive Charged with Bribing Indonesian Officials

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-alstom-executives-and-marubeni-executive-charged-bribing-indonesian-officials

Radical Orthodox Group Threatens Yeshua Believing Jews In Israel

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