EU Central Bank Chief Warns of 'Dramatic' Post-COVID Recession, Calls to Agree on Recovery Plan

Christine Lagarde has appealed to the bloc's members to accept a recovery plan as quickly as possible, despite it being a highly contentious issue throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

The head of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde warned EU members on Friday they were heading for "a dramatic fall" due to the sweeping coronavirus-induced lockdown, urging them to waste no more time and agree on a proposed stimulus plan, due to be finalised in July. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte responded, however, saying he doubted that the deadline would be met.

"It is uncertain whether it would be finalised then or whether we would need more sessions, and whether they should be during the summer or later," said Rutte, whose country is one of the so-called "frugal four" that are seeking to block the spending for the European countries that have suffered most throughout the COVID crunch.

Lagarde pointed out that the full detrimental effects of the crisis are yet to be felt in the bloc, which has of late seen multiple spats over the divisive stimulus effort and now has to restore public confidence buffeted by the rows.

Speaking during a video conference, she warned that Europe’s worst recession since World War II would see the region’s labour market crash, with unemployment rates going from 7.3% to 10%, Lagarde pointed out.

Calling on members to reach a common ground on the possible ways out of the recession, Lagarde told the summit that financial markets were relatively calm because of expectations that their further steps would show "the EU is back", Reuters reported, citing insiders.

"It’s a crisis without precedent that has had an enormous impact - economic, social and also on the viability of the EU", said a senior European diplomat, arguing that to show that "Europe protects", there is no way they "can take any longer on this", as delays would only complicate things and make them "more expensive".

https://sputniknews.com/business/202006191079665208-eu-central-bank-chief-warns-of-dramatic-post-covid-recession-calls-to-agree-on-recovery-plan/

In other words: we stole all the money and completely fucked over the people but now you should agree to let us off and to start over while you suffer and we continue to live large

Foreign Jihadists In Greater Idlib Stress Support To HTS In New Statement

Foreign Jihadists in the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib stressed their support for al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in a joint statement released on June 18.

In the joint statement, the jihadists praised HTS for “supporting the religion and serving Mujahedeen” as well as for “preserving security” and “implementing Shari’a [Islamic law].” The jihadists noted in their statement that the group is not faultless.

“Supporting Hay’at is not a claim to infallibility or immunity to mistakes, nor a favorite a faction or a bigotry to a tribe,” the statement reads.

The unusual statement was signed by many prominent terrorists, including leaders in HTS’ own ranks like Abu al-Harith al-Masri, as well as the following groups:

The Turkistan Islamic Party [Uyghur jihadists];

Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad [Uzbek jihadists];

Liwa al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar [Caucasian jihadists];

Sham al-Islam [Moroccan jihadists];

Jzazrawiat al-Hay’at [Saudi jihadists];

Tajiki Jamat [Tajiki jihadists];

Muhajree Ahl al-Sunnah Min Iran [Iranian jihadists];

Jamat al-Alban [Albanian jihadists];

Jamat al-Maldives [Maldivians jihadists].

The statement was clearly meant to support HTS which is being criticized by ‘more radical’ al-Qaeda-affiliated factions in Greater Idlib.

HTS is now involved in conflicts with both Horas al-Din and Ansar al-Din. Both groups and defectors from HTS formed a new operations room in Greater Idlib earlier this month. HTS apparently sees this as a threat.

https://southfront.org/foreign-jihadists-in-greater-idlib-stress-support-to-hts-in-new-statement/

With annexation looming, Canada’s UNSC upset is bad news for Israel, US

In the run-up to this week's elections, pro-Palestinian groups campaigned against Canada, specifically highlighting its strong ties to Israel.

Canada’s lost bid for a United Nations Security Council seat is bad news for Israel, particularly in light of pending plans to annex portions of the West Bank and the expected renewed Palestinian drive for UN membership.

Outside of the United States, Canada has been one of the staunchest friends Israel has at the United Nations. Like the United States, it holds that the UN’s treatment of Israel is biased. Canada has risen unequivocally to its defense, casting “no” votes almost as dependably and frequently as the United States.

It’s reputation as a friend of Israel is so strong that there is much speculation that it failed to obtain a UNSC seat, its second loss in ten years, specifically due to its pro-Israel stances.

In the run-up to this week's elections, pro-Palestinian groups campaigned against Canada, specifically highlighting its strong ties to Israel. The Canadian Foreign Policy Institute ran an online petition against Ottawa’s acquisition of the seat.

It stated, "since coming to power, the Trudeau government has voted against more than fifty UN resolutions upholding Palestinian rights backed by the overwhelming majority of member states… Should it win a seat on the UNSC, Ottawa has stated that it will act as an 'asset for Israel' on the Council.”

The campaign against its UNSC membership so concerned Canada, that its UN Mission in New York circulated a letter to UN member states published by the NGO Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), in which Ottawa defended its rejection of “one-sided” UN resolutions against Israel.

The Canadian Mission clarified that it supported a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and opposed any Israeli annexation efforts.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/with-annexation-looming-canadas-unsc-upset-is-bad-news-for-israel-us-632072

Newly-Formed Idlib Militant Coalition Carries Out First Attack On Syrian Army

On June 19, the newly-formed Fa Ithbatu militant coalition in Greater Idlib carried out its first attack on the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

According to several opposition sources, the terrorists destroyed a bulldozer of the SAA while it was building fortifications near the town of Tanjarah in the northwestern countryside of Hama. The bulldozer was targeted with an anti-tank guided missile.

In what appears to be a response to the attack, the SAA artillery pounded militnats’ positions around the town of Benin in southern Idlib.

The Fa Ithbatu coalition was formed on June 12 by Horas al-Din, Ansar al-Din, Ansar al-Islam, Liwa al-Muqatlin al-Ansar and Tansiqiyat al-Jihad. Fa Ithbatu succeeded the so-called wa-Harid al-Mu’minin coalition.

Horas al-Din, Ansar al-Din, Ansar al-Islam are affiliated with al-Qaeda. Liwa al-Muqatlin al-Ansar and Tansiqiyat al-Jihad, on the other side, were formed by defectors from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

The coalition was apparently established to sabotage the March 5 Russian-Turkish agreement as well as to challenge HTS’ authority in Greater Idlib.

https://southfront.org/newly-formed-idlib-militant-coalition-carries-out-first-attack-on-syrian-army/

Terrorist rebranding operations still flourishing

Bernard Kerik and Ken Blackwell: Democrats Have Failed the Black Community for Too Long

The Democrat Party has had decades to fulfill its promises to black Americans, but all it’s delivered is crime-ridden cities bereft of economic opportunity. It’s time to shake things up.

In recent weeks, Americans have watched radical leftist anarchists and Antifa thugs engage in extreme violence and murder that will haunt many people for the rest of their lives.

Fifteen innocent civilians and two police officers were shot and killed, hundreds of civilians were savagely and brutally beaten, and more than 700 police officers were injured nationwide. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property was destroyed as businesses and communities in more than 42 states were devastated by arson, looting, and mayhem that activists quickly followed with a call to defund the police.

The supposed justification for the rioting was the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, but in reality the rioters were just exploiting that cause for their own purposes.

Lost in all the savagery was the real life and memory of George Floyd.

With each passing day, both of us asked ourselves the same question: where are the governors and mayors of these cities who took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States and keep residents safe from harm? Instead of upholding law and order — also known as doing their jobs — they turned a blind eye to the violence while praising the demonstrations that the radicals were using as cover.

Is there truly systemic racism and brutality in our police departments? Are cops killing blacks at disproportionately higher rates than whites? One would have to think so based on the national outrage and calls for change by local, state, and federal political leaders and cultural elites. Surely, the 250 U.S. Fortune 100 corporations that have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter and other organizations to stop racial injustices must have real evidence of such widespread racial injustice? You would think so, but they don’t.

For clarity, we took a look at the Washington Post database that documents suspects shot and killed by the police. The database indicates that 1,003 people were shot and killed by the police in 2019. This occurred in a country of 328 million people, in a year during which police had approximately 30 million contacts with members of the public, and made approximately 10 million arrests — 600,000 of which were for violent crimes.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/19/exclusive-bernard-kerik-and-ken-blackwell-democrats-have-failed-the-black-community-for-too-long/

Susan Rice: Trump Administration ‘Has Been Racist to Its Core for the Last Three-and-a-Half Years’

Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” former Obama administration National Security Adviser Susan Rice commented on Mary Elizabeth Taylor resigning as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs because of President Donald Trump’s response to racial tensions in the country.

Mitchell said, “I want to ask you about this resignation. Unlike John Bolton, for instance, resigning, and making a lot of money, or Jim Mattis resigning and not explaining until later exactly why he was resigning, this was direct, it was personal, it names President Trump, it was specific.”

Rice said, “Well, I guess, Andrea, I would say better late than never. You know, to serve an administration which has been racist to its core for the last three-and-a-half years, from comparing the peaceful protesters at Charlottesville to white supremacists, call white supremacists very fine people, all the way through to the recent weeks where the administration has disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement, disparaged peaceful protesters, and made plain they prefer to stand by a Confederate legacy than a modern America, it’s been an administration whose record on race is just disgraceful. So while I respect the fact that belatedly this assistant secretary, Ms. Taylor, has recognized how unconscionable that is and decided she can no longer serve, what we’ve seen in recent days is not that different, frankly, than what we’ve seen over the course of the last three-and-a-half years.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/06/19/susan-rice-trump-administration-has-been-racist-to-its-core-for-the-last-three-and-a-half-years/

Pompeo demands Europe ditch trade with China and choose FREEDOM over TYRANNY (in favor of US)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scolded Europeans for not ditching China in favor of the US as a trading partner, claiming that any reliance on Beijing constitutes “abandoning who we are” and prizing “tyranny” over “freedom.”

The diplomat denied he was forcing Europe to choose between the US and China as allies, insisting in remarks made at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Friday that it was, in fact, the Chinese Communist Party imposing such a choice on them. At the same time, he denied the choice was really between the US and China at all, but “between freedom and tyranny.”

China, Pompeo insisted, was trying to convince the West to “throw away the progress we in the free world have made with NATO and other institutions…and adopt a new set of rules and norms to accommodate…Beijing.” This, he declared, was frankly unacceptable.

“There’s also no way to straddle these alternatives without abandoning who we are,” Pompeo proclaimed. “Democracies that are dependent upon authoritarians are not worthy of their name.”

Speaking of authoritarians, the American hailed the progress the US was making in pressuring its allies to shut China out of their economies, referring to the UK’s reversing course on including Huawei in its 5G networks and Sweden’s decision to shutter all Confucius Institutes, among other “victories.”

Pompeo accused China of “flagrantly attacking European sovereignty by buying up ports and critical infrastructure,” ordering allies to remove the “golden blinders of economic ties” – as if any country can afford to forsake beneficial economic relationships amid an unprecedented global depression – and recognize that Beijing was “saddling developing nations with debt and dependency.”

"While I do not believe for a moment that democracy is fragile, it does require careful stewardship and constant vigilance,” Pompeo affirmed, stating, without a trace of irony, “We’re winning.”

The Trump administration is scrambling to right the ship of state as massive protests over police brutality and near-record unemployment triggered by the coronavirus economic shutdown challenge its legitimacy at home. The administration’s vocal support for the demonstrators against Chinese rule in Hong Kong has been denounced as hypocritical in the face of the heavy-handed response to American protests, and China has vowed retaliation after President Donald Trump signed a law opening the door to sanctions over Beijing’s alleged oppression of Uighur Muslims.

https://www.rt.com/news/492399-pompeo-china-europe-sovereignty-fail/